SEPTEMBER 10, 1998-vol30n3:Cassatt String Quartet will open Music's concert season

VOLUME 30, NUMBER 3 THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1998

Cassatt String Quartet will open Music's concert season

Opening night for the Department of Music's 1998-99 concert season on Sept. 11 promises to be an exciting beginning-the Cassatt String Quartet will perform its inaugural concert as the Slee Quartet in Residence.

The award-winning Cassatt, hailed as one of America's outstanding young ensembles, includes Muneko Otani, violin; Jennifer Leshnower, violin; Michiko Oshima, viola, and Kelley Mikkelsen, cello.

Their performance, part of the Slee/Visiting Artist Series, will be at 8 p.m. in Slee Concert Hall. Tickets will be $12, $9 and $5.

The program will include Mozart's Quartet in D. Major, K.575; Joan Tower's Night Fields and Ravel's Quartet in F. Major.

During the season, as UB's ambassadors for chamber music, the Cassatt will present the entire Slee-Beethoven String Quartet Cycle, four chamber music concerts, two concerts as principal players with the Slee Sinfonietta and perform a variety of educational/outreach services in the Western New York community.

On Sept. 15, the Slee Sinfonietta will open its series of four concerts under the leadership of music director Magnus Martensson. The opening program at 8 p.m. in Slee Concert Hall will consist of Arnold Schoenberg's arrangement of one of Gustav Mahler's magnificent song cycles, Das Lied von der Erde (Songs of the Earth), which will feature two of Buffalo's favorite vocalists, tenor Gary Burgess and mezzo-soprano Melissa Thorburn. Tickets will be $12, $9 and $5.

A pre-concert lecture will be presented at 7:15 p.m. by Christopher H. Gibbs, assistant professor of music, exploring the relationship between composers of the so-called "Second Viennese School"-Schoenberg, Anton Webern and Alban Berg-and the composer they most admired: Gustav Mahler.

The Department of Music will present a program of chamber music at 8 p.m. on Sept. 25 in Slee Concert Hall, Concert I of the Organ Recital Series, with organist Roland E. Martin performing on the Fisk pipe organ. Professor Emeritus David Fuller will give the pre-concert lecture at 7:15 p.m. on the history and background of the Fisk organ. A post-concert treat featuring an "organ crawl," an inside tour of the Fisk, will be available to organ-series subscribers. Tickets will be $5.