The Wister Quartet, a nationally renowned and Grammy-nominated chamber ensemble, will perform at MMI Preparatory School for the 16th consecutive year on Monday, April 1 at 7 p.m..
The concert is sponsored by Dr. James W. Feussner ’65 in memory of Elizabeth Feussner and The Sowers & Turri Music and Arts Fund of the Luzerne Foundation.
The performance is free and open to the public and will be held in the Athletics and Drama Complex on the MMI campus at 154 Centre St., Freeland. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
Wister Quartet principal members are violinists Nancy Bean and Davyd Booth, violist Pamela Fay, and cellist Lloyd Smith. Once again, this year, the Wister Quartet will perform with guitarist Allen Krantz, a critically acclaimed guitarist, composer, and chamber musician.
This year’s program is entitled “Music Paints Pictures” and includes pieces that will evoke visual images or memories, including Handel’s “Passacaglia,” Philadelphia Orchestra member Marcel Farago’s “Prayer,” Isaac Albéniz’s “Leyende,” and the program finale, Boccherini’s “La Ritirata di Madrid.”
The Wister Quartet will also perform two pieces – “A Celestial Reflection” and “A Walk Interrupted” – that were inspired by MMI seventh and eighth grade string students and arranged by Smith and Krantz, respectively.
Smith said, “Once again the string students of MMI have given us wonderful material for their compositions. This year, most of their musical ideas were presented on the keyboard or sung. “A Celestial Reflection” gives the feeling of a person sitting quietly thinking about the serious realities of life but gradually being reminded of a beautiful song-sung to us by eighth grader Annabel Dobash. The person’s thoughts take on a more celestial quality as beauty overcomes reality. This is something that music so often does for us, giving us a glimpse at a more wonderful environment than the real one we’re in from day to day, and giving us hope for better things to come, and perhaps ideas which will make those things come to pass.”
For “A Walk Interrupted,” Smith said Krantz’s arrangement begins from the same basic ideas but is a decidedly different piece.
“His starts out jauntily, with humor and rhythmic pulse, suggesting a carefree outing. Along the way, things become more complex and more serious, interrupting the carefree walk, but good humor returns and the
walker resumes in his or her originally happy frame of mind. Allen’s gift for putting striking rhythmic ideas into play and combining ideas to create a rich diversity of harmonic invention gives this piece a richness which will be engaging and enjoyable,” Smith said.
For more information or to arrange group accommodations to the concert, call MMI at 570-636-1108.
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