Music Department opens concert series: Fuller, Muir Quartet perform this week

By PATRICIA DONOVAN
News Services Editor

The Slee Resident Quartet Series also will open with the first of four concerts by the Amherst Saxophone Quartet.

All events will take place in Slee Concert Hall on the North Campus.

Back by popular demand, the Muir String Quartet will present all six concerts that comprise UB's annual Slee Beethoven String Quartet Cycle. The series will open at 8 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 11, with a program featuring Beethoven's Quartet No. 12 in E-flat Major, Op. 127; Quartet No. 1 in F Major, Op. 18, No. 1, and Quartet No. 9 in C Major, Op. 59, No. 3.

Founded in 1979, the Muir String Quartet was named for the great environmentalist John Muir. By 1981, the group, now comprised of violinists Peter Zazofsky and Wei-Pin Kuo, violist Steven Ansell and cellist Michael Reynolds, had won the Evian International String Quartet Competition and the Naumburg Chamber Music Award. It advanced quickly to become one of the world's premier string quartets

The remainder of the Slee Beethoven Cycle will be presented at 8 p.m. on Friday evenings in Slee Concert Hall as follows: Concert II, Nov. 1; Concert III, Nov. 22; Concert IV, Feb. 21; Concert V, April 4 and Concert VI, April 25.

Noted organist David Fuller, professor of music and director of the UB Organ Performance Program, will open the Slee Organ Recital Series at 5 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 13, with a presentation of one of the greatest organ works of the 19th century, The Ninety-Fourth Psalm by Julius Reubke. Ruebke was a German pianist, composer and pupil of Liszt who died at the age of 26. The program also will include Prelude and Fugue in E minor and short liturgical pieces by Vicenzo Petrali.

Fuller holds a doctorate from Harvard University and is a distinguished musicologist as well as curator of UB's magnificent Fiske organ. Highly regarded as both a concert and church organist, he also performs and teaches harpsichord performance in the UB music program.

The Organ Recital Series continues at 5 p.m. on Sundays throughout the year with concerts by Wolf Rübsam (Concert II: Nov. 3); Joseph Gabalski (Concert III: Feb. 2); Roland E. Martin (Concert IV: Feb. 23), Michael Burke (Concert V: March 9) and Patrick Barrett (Concert VI: April 20).

On Friday, Oct. 18, the Amherst Saxophone Quartet will open the 1996-97 Slee Resident Quartet Series with an evening of ragtime and jazz by Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Brubeck, Eubie Blake and other composers. The fun starts at 8 p.m.

The quartet-Salvadore Ando-lina, Russ Carere, Stephen Rosenthal and Harry Fackelman-celebrates its 20th season this year and since its founding has become one of the most active saxophone quartets in the world.

The ASQ will perform four concerts in this series: Concert II, Monday, Nov. 18; Concert III, Friday, Feb. 7, and Concert IV, Monday, April 7 (Music of the Baroque). All begin at 8 p.m.