Duo Cantabile to perform Rachmaninoff and more Wednesday

Duo Cantabile

The Greencastle Summer Music Festival continues Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at Gobin United Memorial Methodist Church with Duo Cantabile, made up of cellist Simona Barbu and her husband, pianist Nariaki Sugiura, a former Greencastle resident who was a collaborative pianist and part-time faculty member at the DePauw School of Music earlier in his career.

Their program includes transcriptions of songs by Rachmaninoff, a new work by American composer Bruce Stark, arrangements of tangos by Astor Piazzolla and much more. Audience members are encouraged to join the performers in going out for drinks or dinner after the concert at The Fluttering Duck at the Inn at DePauw, which serves until 10 p.m.

There is no admission charge. The festival’s programs are funded by individual donors, a grant from the Putnam County Convention and Visitors Bureau and an endowment through the Putnam County Community Foundation.

“We’re really excited to be bringing so many performers in from out of town this summer,” said Eric Edberg, DePauw emeritus professor and founding artistic/executive director of the festival. “We’ve developed so many musical friends over the years, and the pandemic restricted things so much. Simona and Nariaki are amazing artists, and I am really excited to experience their music-making once again.”

For those who cannot attend in person, the program will be live-streamed on the festival’s Facebook page at facebook.com/greencastlesummermusic.

Duo Cantabile was formed in 2012 by Barbu and Sugiura, music professors at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. The duo travels extensively and gives performances, clinics, lectures and master classes at prestigious institutions around the world, including the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Mannheim in Germany, the Kodály Institute in Hungary, the Xinghai Conservatory of Music in China, the National Taipei University of the Arts in Taiwan, the University of Antioquia in Columbia and the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

The duo has also participated in different performance series, including the North Dakota Museum of Art Concert Series, the Greencastle Summer Music Festival and the Masterworks Music Festival in Ohio. 

Barbu began her musical studies at seven and gained public attention as a member of the leading string quartet of the Conservatory of Timișoara in her native Romania, where she made her solo debut in Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme with the conservatory’s symphonic orchestra. Ever since, she has traveled to Asia, South America, Europe and the United States as a soloist, chamber musician, clinician and orchestra musician She has collaborated with world-class musicians such as Emilio Colón, Edward Auer, Émile Naoumoff, Lydia Artymiw and Milton Masciadri.

Barbu has been an active orchestral musician, performing with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, South Dakota Symphony Orchestra and the Fargo Moorhead Symphony Orchestra, as well as serving as principal with the Eroica Ensemble in Memphis, Tenn., the Starkville Symphony Orchestra in Mississippi and the Greater Grand Forks Symphony Orchestra in North Dakota.

Sugiura has performed solo recitals and concerto engagements in the U.S., Europe, South America and Asia at prestigious concert halls, including Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Shenzhen Symphony Hall in China, Kioi Hall in Japan, the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Hungary, the Daejeon Culture & Arts Center in South Korea and the Teatru Manoel in Malta.

Sugiura has appeared as a soloist with the Greater Grand Forks Symphony Orchestra, the Bismarck-Mandan Symphony Orchestra, the University of Antioquia Symphony Orchestra, the concert band of the Affiliated High School of Peking University and many others. His arrangements for chamber ensembles and piano ensembles have been frequently performed.

The Greencastle Summer Music Festival’s full schedule can be found at www.greencastlemusic.org.