Faculty Select Series features former residents in ‘Gathering Light’

On Wednesday, Feb. 20 at 7:30 p.m. in the Green Center’s Thompson Recital Hall, DePauw University’s Faculty Select Series will present the Telos Trio in “Gathering Light,” a program of chamber music and spoken word, including pianist Willie La Favor, clarinetist Debbie Grohman, a 1985 graduate of the DePauw School of Music and flutist Rita George Simmons.

Courtesy photo

As winter days slowly lengthen into spring, the Telos Trio, Wednesday’s Faculty Select guest artists from the Hochstein School in New York, extend an invitation to celebrate the gathering light with them in a program of chamber music and spoken word designed to warm cold-weary spirits.

Featured on the Wednesday, Feb. 20 concert, at 7:30 p.m. in the Green Center’s Thompson Recital Hall will be music by Bach, Cavallini, Emmanuel, Debussy and del Aquila.

Local audiences may remember two of the guest ensemble’s members – clarinetist Debbie Grohman, a 1985 graduate of DePauw University, and pianist Willie La Favor, a staff accompanist for several years at the DePauw School of Music.

While a student at DePauw, Grohman also was an active member of the Greencastle Presbyterian Church. Since her undergraduate days, she has completed not only a Master’s degree in music at the New England Conservatory of Music, but also a Master’s of Divinity from the Christian Theological Seminary and became an ordained minister. Now married, La Favor, Grohman and their son Andrew reside in Rochester, N.Y.

“I am really looking forward to hearing this group,” DePauw music professor and the clarinetist’s former teacher Randy Salman says. “Debbie was an outstanding performer then and afterward at NEC in Boston. She has gone on to develop an extensive career as a performer and become pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Ontario Center, N.Y.

“This somewhat unusual combination of flute, clarinet, piano and spoken word on Wednesday should be of interest to all,” Salman noted of the program, which also will feature two multi-talented music students in junior Dana Hsu and senior Darby Hayes as narrators.

General admission to the Faculty Select Series is $5. Tickets for seniors, children and all students are free. For online purchases, visit depauw.edu/music.

To assist patrons in person, the venue’s box office also will be open 90 minutes prior to the performance in the Judson and Joyce Green Center for the Performing Arts, located at 605 S. College Ave. on the DePauw University campus.