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David Hays (left), string area coordinator and graduate advisor from Missouri State University, Zsolt Eder (middle), professor of violin and viola, and Daniel Ketter (right), associate professor of department of music, perform different pieces in trios. They performed the piece by Ingrid Stolzel.
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Hays plays the violin in front of the audience. He has performed with the Minnesota Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony.
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Kurt Morrow, adjunct professor of music, plays bass and performs his solo piece. He played “Blues for Ray” by Arnie Egilson.
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Erinn Renyer (left), adjunct instructor of cello, and Ketter (right) ready to perform their selected piece. They performed chamber music pieces designed for two cellists to play together, named “Duets for Two Cellos” by Reinhold Gliere.
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Renyer plays the cello, featuring the Washburn string faculty. All the attendees cheered for her performance.
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Hays (left) and Debora Silva (right), senior music performance major, play the violin and share the stage. They played a string quartet in G major by composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
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Players share the stage and perform different pieces. They ended the concert by playing “Allegro Ma Non Troppo,” composed by Franz Schubert.
On Friday, April 18, the Washburn String Faculty performed inside the White Concert hall at 7 p.m. and the concert featured the Fetter String Quartet.
The special guests David Hays, string area coordinator and graduate advisor and Daniel Ketter, associate professor of department of music, from Missouri State University, were present at the concert and performed with the Washburn string faculty.
The concert started with the piece called String Quartet No. 1 in E flat Major, Op. by Felix Mendelssohn.
Ketter talked about the piece “Fides Spes” by Ingrid Stolzel and his connection with the composer and highlighted the themes of the poem.
“Ingrid Stolzel works at the Emerson campus. When I was in Kansas City growing up, she was the librarian,” Ketter said. “The piece ‘Fides Spes’ translates as hope. Ingrid took that title from a poem by Willa Cather. And there is a lot of imagery about the seasons, different kinds of sounds and about experience, time and beauty in nature, and thoughts about the future.”
Zsolt Eder, professor of violin and viola, discussed the concert, his inspiration to be a musician and shared challenging moments.
“This was a concert to feature our string students, and we had two guest faculty come from another university,” Eder said. “They did a workshop, where they taught our string students, and then we learned some music and put it together for the concert. My parents are actually musicians. And so I sort of grew up doing the family business and this sort of music has always been there, so I guess I made up my career. I think I was playing one of sort of the middle voices, middle instruments and it’s always a challenge for me to know how to fit into the music at any given moment, like how loud I should play, how quiet and just throw who I’m playing, sort of little duets with. And so it’s always a fun challenge.”
Erinn Renyer, cello professor, discussed the selection of pieces for performance, expressed a fondness for all the pieces performed and highlighted the growth of students.
“I connect with the audience through the music,” Renyer said. “Well, there are a variety of pieces tonight. The ‘Duets for Two Cellos’ is a piece that’s a little difficult to play, but definitely entertaining. And I think the program was all about bringing a lot of variety and showing different types of chamber music to audience members, and you had bass, which showed jazz, and you had trios and quintets and quartets, so it shows all different types of instrumentation, violas, basses.I think every semester is unique. Every semester is different. We always try to provide lots of opportunities for students, whether it’s chamber music, orchestra music, opera. We try to create a lot of outreach performances for students as well, and then we also help them work on their solo repertoire. So, that growth is important for them every semester.”
Savannah Workman, senior music performance major, discussed the evolving chemistry among singers and musicians and shared about the impact of music at Washburn University.
“The chemistry is overwhelming,” Workman said. “The chemistry between the players and their technique in order to achieve a high level of music playing. So when you are asked a question and you get a response, the music is a bit more than that. Going beyond question and answer gives a question, and then it offers another question. It teaches us how to be better musicians, to communicate better.”
Edited by Morgan Albrecht and Stuti Khadka.
