WW ffi w trM#MiM' 'l:iitl llitit.,t Arizona State University School of Music FACULTY ARTIST RBCITAL SERIES The Kobayash i lGray Duo LAURA KOBAYASHI VIOLIN SUSAI{ KEITH GRAY PIANO RECITAL HALL Tuesday, November L3,200L . 7:30 p.m. PROGRAM Program notes for Inndscapes of the Mind II American composer Marga Richter (b.1926) studied composition with William Bergsma and Vincent Persichetti and piano with Rosalyn Tureck at The Juilliard School. Over the course of her career, she has received numerous comissions. Frequently, Richter has focused her works on inspirations from visual experiences and nature. Inndscapes of the Mind 11for violin and piano (1971) is inspired by two paintings of Georgia O'Keeffe, Pelvis l and Sky Above Clouds II. The Pelvis series emerged from O'Keefe's fascination with a cow pelvis bone held up to the sky. The round, empfy, smooth, white bone is posed on a field of unchanging blue. The enormous Sfty Above Clouds series recreates the endless space as seen by O'Keefe from an airplane window. Orderly rows of small, white oval clouds covering a blue sky, extend to the distant, hazy, pink glow of the horizon. Richter discovered these paintings in a 1968 edition of Life magazine and immediately began writing the l-andscapes series, a set of three works. She indicates in her preface to Landscapes II that the works "...convey the spaciousness and serenity of the O'Keefe paintings, contrasted with inner turbulence, urgency and ultimate isolation." Richter's palette contains both close and widely spaced dissonant intervals in a variefy of harmonic and melodic pafferns. Tranquility gives way to turbulence as the work builds from long sections of quiet, static single notes into several types of florid patterns above a steady pulse, and finally into wild, complex, combinations of figures. Sonata in D, Op. 12, No. 1 (1797-1198) I. II. ru. Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) Allegro con brio Tema con Variazioni: Andante con moto Rondo Landscapes of the Mind II (1971) Marga Richter (b.1926) **There will be a l]-minute intermission** Sonata in E-flat Major, Op. 18 (1887) I. il. ru. Richard Strauss (1864-t949) Allegro, ma non troppo Improvisation: Andantecantabile Finale: Andante--Allegro ****{<********** In respect for the performers and those audience members around you, please turn all beepers, cell phones, watches to their silent mode. Thank you. Performance Events Staff Manager Paul W. Estes Performance Events Staff Andrey Astaiza, Rebecca Bell William Cushing, Erin Dow Stephanie Henschel, Marko Kutlesic Jihyun Lee, Elizabeth Maben Katie Ann McCarty, Kelli McConnehey James Parkinson, Greg Striemer Jessica Wood ATzONaSTRrEUNTvERSITY Collrer oF FrNE ARTs School of Music Main Campus, P.O. Box 870405,'Tcrnpt', AZ 85287-0405 480-965 -33 7 1' lr.rvw. asu. eclu,/ cfa,/music Ihe l{obafrasht / Gay Drc Violinist Laura Kobayashi and pianist Susan Keith Gray are enthusiastically praised for their blending of brilliant technique, beautifully expressive musicianship, impeccable ensemble and stimulating programming. As winners of the USIA Artistic Ambassador auditions, the Duo toured South America and the West Indies and in 1995 received second prize in the Contemporary Record Society's National Competition for Performing Arlists. They frequently tour throughout the United States performing standard works as well as compositions by women composers. The Duo's debut compact disc recording-BOLDLY EXPRESSIVE! Music by Women-is on the Albany Records label. The disc features four premier recordings including Grande Sonate, Op. 8 by 19'l' century French composer Marie Grandval, which the Duo edited for Hildegard Publishing Company. Laura Kobayashi performs extensively as a soloist and chamber musician and has participated in music festivals throughout the United States. A former member of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, she has taught at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the University of Georgia, the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and the Brevard Music Center. Currently she is a member of the faculty at West Virginia University and performs with the West Virginia Piano Quartet. Kobayashi has studied violin with Dorothy Delay, Andrew Jennings, Paul Kantor and Denes Zsigmondy and has performed in the masterclasses of Nathan Milstein, Ruggiero Ricci, Arthur Grumiaux, and Gyorgy Pauk. Chamber music studies have been with members of the Juilliard, Tokyo and American String Quartets as well as with collaborative pianists, Robert McDonald and Samuel Sanders. Kobayashi earned degrees from The Juilliard School and Yale University and the Doctor of Musical Arts from The University of Michigan. Susan Keith Gray is frequently heard as a collaborative pianist. Artists with whom she has performed include cellists Wendy Warner and Anthony Elliott, flutists Leone Buyse and Torkil Bye, clarinetists Richard Hawkins and Theodore Oien, and singers Bruce Rameker, Earl Coleman, Patricia Prunty, Carla Connors and Nicole Philibosian. For three surnmers, Gray served on the Instrumental Accompanying Faculty at the Music Academy of the West. As a member of the University of South Dakota Rawlins Piano Trio, she has recorded two compact discs of American piano trios on the Albany Records label, and has twice performed the complete cycle of Beethoven piano trios. Other recordings include The Unknown Flower: Song Cycles by American Women Composers with soprano Charsie Randolph Sawyer, and song cycles of AfricanAmerican composers for public radio and compact disc. Gray holds degrees from Converse College and the University of illinois, and the DMA from the University of Michigan. She has studied piano with George Lucktenberg, Ian Hobson, Theodore Lettvin, and Louis Nagel, collaborative piano with Martin Katz and Eckart Sellheim, fortepiano with Penelope Crawford and harpsichord with Edward Parmentier.