DPU Chamber Players, Brockmann to perform Wednesday

Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Cellist Eric Edberg will be joined by members of the DePauw Chamber Players, alongn with violist Nicole Brockmann, in a Faculty Select concert at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 3 in Thompson Recital Hall. (Courtesy photo)

The DePauw Chamber Players, along with faculty violist Nicole Brockmann, will present a short concert on the Faculty Select series at 7:30 p.m. this Wednesday, Dec. 3.

Titled "Disorientation and Warmth: The Conflicted Musical Worlds of Mauricio Kagel and Robert Schumann," the concert will be staged in Thompson Recital Hall of the Green Center for Performing Arts.

The DePauw Chamber Players -- May Phang (piano), Erica Dicker (violin) and Eric Edberg (cello) -- will open with a selection from Kagel's theatrical third piano trio, completed in 2007. Works by the German-Argentine composer have been performed and made known by recent Green Guest Artist Trio Globo.

"The Kagel is so complex a friend of mine said, 'It's like doing a Sudoku and sharing the results with the audience,'" cellist Eric Edberg said.

"We will be playing only the second movement of the trio so that we can also do a short explanation for the audience of what to listen for, including the motives and the extended technique the string players use," Edberg added. "We'll use a lot of special effects, and we'll show people where all the wonderfulness is in the weirdness."

Following the trio, Brockmann will join the ensemble for a performance of Schumann's exquisite "Piano Quartet in E-flat Major."

The quartet, composed in 1842 during Schumann's "chamber music period," shows the signs of a mature composer whose intimate works can be compared with that of Mozart and Beethoven.

Regarding Schumann's chamber music, scholar John Daverio says, "These works engage listeners (as they had the composer) in an imaginative dialogue with the tradition from which Schumann inherited the special problems and concerns he addressed in the Chamber Music Year."

The Wednesday night concert also marks DePauw violin professor Erica Dicker's first performance with the longstanding ensemble.

General admission to the Faculty Select Series is $5. Tickets for seniors, children and all students are free thanks to season sponsors Judson and Joyce Green. To ensure that any person wishing to attend a performance is able to do so, a pay-what-you-can option is available, online and on request.

To obtain tickets, persons may visit www.depauw.edu/music/tickets or the GCPA box office (658-4827).

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