Violinist Gentry to Open Recital Season Aug. 21

Violinist Sarah Gentry of the School of Music will present the semester's first faculty recital at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 21, in Kemp Recital Hall in the Centennial East building.  Admission is free and open to the public.

Gentry, an associate professor in Music, will be joined by guest pianists Paul Borg and Tuyen Tonnu, both Music faculty members.  The recital is part of the Charles W. Bolen Faculty Recital Series, established in honor of the dean emeritus of the College of Fine Arts.

Gentry's program will begin with Beethoven's Sonata in A minor, opus 30, No. 3, with Borg playing piano.  The three sonatas of Opus 30 were dedicated to Tsar Alexander I of Russia and written in 1802, at a time when Beethoven was increasingly depressed by ill health.

Borg also will perform with Gentry playing Arvo Pärt's Fratres for Violin and Piano.  Pärt was born in Estonia in 1935, five years before his country came under Soviet domination, He was educated at the conservatory in Tallinn. During the 1960s, Pärt studied early choral music and ancient liturgical chants, unleashing in him a deep mystical strain.  Later, he produced a growing body of music with liturgical connections.  Pärt has returned many times to Fratres (the Latin title means "brethren"), creating more than a half dozen versions since 1977.  This version for violin and piano was arranged for Gidon and Elena Kremer, the dedicatees, for performance at the 1980 Salzburg Festival.

Gentry's next piece, Prokofiev's Five Melodies for Violin and Piano, Op. 35b, will be performed along with pianist Tuyen Tonnu.  Each of the Five Melodies reveals a different character through the music as well as  highlighting the player's technical skills. The melancholy expressiveness of the violin theme in the first movement changes to a cantabile line in the second movement that is reminiscent of Fauré. The contrasting third movement features aggressive violin attack in the highest register but ends quietly. The leaping theme of the fourth movement resembles a dance, and the finale features both a lyrical theme and  a much more ironic melody.

Tonnu also will join in Gentry's performance of Debussy's Sonata in G Minor.  This piece presents a superb balance of sweetness, fire, humor and nostalgia. It is imbued with deep melancholy that also embodies other characteristic traits that make Debussy's work distinguishable from others: a sense of fantasy, freedom and affective depth.  The Sonata was written at the end of the composer's life and is one of the finest examples of Debussy's compositional and artistic dexterity.

The program will close with Gentry and Borg playing Polonaise Brilliante in A Major, Op. 21, by Henryk Wieniawski.  Wieniawski began his career as a virtuoso in earnest in 1851, spending three years in Russia giving concerts and writing music for his own use.  He served on the staff of the St. Petersburg Conservatory for 12 years and then was appointed at the Brussels Conservatory, where he taught until 1877.  As a violinist, Wieniawski was admired for his rich, warm tone, glowing temperament and perfect technique.  His own compositions for violin are Romantic in style and were intended to display his virtuosity

The next faculty recital will be presented by cellist Adrianna LaRosa Ransom at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 28, in Kemp Recital Hall.  It too will be free of admission.