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Edberg to give final concert with DePauw Chamber Players
The DePauw Chamber Players — pianist May Phang, violinist Tarn Travers and cellist Eric Edberg — will be joined by violist Nicole Brockmann on April 26 at 7:30 p.m. for an evening of chamber music featuring Franz Schubert’s magnificent “Piano Trio in B-Flat Major” and Gabriel Fauré’s lushly romantic “Piano Quartet in G Minor.”
Thursday’s concert, in the Green Center’s Thompson Recital Hall, marks the final performance with the ensemble’s longtime cellist, School of Music faculty member Eric Edberg, who will be retiring at the end of the 2017-18 academic term after 30 years at DePauw.
“It’s been a great privilege to make music with these particular colleagues and, of course, their predecessors Claude Cymerman and Dan Rizner,” said Edberg, the Cassel Grubb University Professor of Music.
Edberg first arrived at DePauw in 1988 and began playing the same year with Cymerman and Rizner in an earlier iteration of the ensemble known then as The Aeolian Trio. The name changed soon after to The DePauw Trio.
When Phang began performing regularly as the pianist in the fall of 2005, the group’s name changed to the DePauw Chamber Players.
Never ones to shy from a challenge, the ensemble will open Thursday’s program with the Schubert “B-flat Major Trio,” considered one of the composer’s greatest works and a cornerstone of the piano trio repertoire.
“The three of us have never played it together before,” Edberg shared, “and when we asked ourselves what we’d like to play, this came to mind.
“We love playing with our colleague Nicole Brockmann and wanted something that would make a good contrast with Schubert. Rather than another Viennese composer, like Schumann or Brahms, we decided to go with one of the two piano quartets by the great French composer Gabriel Fauré. As the G Minor is a lushly romantic and deeply engaging work, they make a great combination.”
With a note of reassurance, the cellist added, “while I’m retiring from full-time teaching, I’m not retiring from making music. I look forward to playing with everyone many more times in the Greencastle Summer Music Festival.”
General admission tickets to Faculty Select Series concerts are $10; tickets for seniors, children and all students are free thanks to season sponsors Judson and Joyce Green.
For more information or to obtain tickets online, visit music.depauw.edu. Tickets may also be purchased in person at the Green Center’s box office from noon to 4 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and beginning 90 minutes prior to the performance.