The West Virginia University Piano Quartet will perform its first concert of the season, Monday, Oct. 7, at the Creative Arts Center.

The program begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Bloch Learning and Performance Hall (200A) and will feature music faculty members, including pianist James Miltenberger, violinist Mikylah Myers-McTeer, violist Andrea Houde and cellist William Skidmore.

There is no admission charge for this program, and the public is invited to attend.

The program features two works: Quartet for Piano and Strings, Op. 114 (2010) by Lowell Liebermann (b. 1961), and, following intermission, “Quartet in E-Flat Major, KV 493” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

According to Professor Skidmore, Lowell Liebermann is one of the truly outstanding and highly recognized composers of our time.

“He has won several major awards for his compositions, and he has been commissioned by several of the major recording artists such as Sir James Galway, the New York Philharmonic and Philadelphia orchestras, to write works for them,” he said. “His music is known for being very accessible, if not somewhat traditional, yet technically demanding and very idiomatic to the instruments.”

Mozart received a commission to write three piano quartets, rather late in his life. However, the first one, in G Minor, (which the WVU Piano Quartet has performed several times) was deemed much too difficult to play and the publisher backed out of the contract.

“Mozart went ahead and composed the E-flat quartet anyway, and in many ways it is much more imaginative and difficult than the first,” Skidmore said. “Unlike many such works of the time that mostly had the string instruments playing much of what the piano played, this work gives much more independence and equality to all of the instruments.”

For more information about the concert, contact the WVU College of Creative Arts at (304) 293-4359.

-WVU-

cl/10/04/13

CONTACT: Charlene Lattea, College of Creative Arts
304-293-4359, Charlene.Lattea@mail.wvu.edu

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