Summer Music Festival Continues With Guest Pianist and Violist

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Sheng-Yuan Kuan and Paulo Eskitch.

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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The fourth annual KUAF/Fulbright Summer Chamber Music Festival continues its season on Thursday, June 21, with the fifth of six programs. Program V features works by Saint-Saëns and Schumann. The free concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall. A reception will follow.

The Chamber Music Festival will feature guest artists as well as faculty from the University of Arkansas department of music in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. Performances will include a variety of chamber music using diverse instrumental groups from many musical eras.

Program V will showcase guest artists Sheng-Yuan Kuan, piano, and Paulo Eskitch, viola. Alongside University of Arkansas faculty, the pair will perform “Septet for Trumpet, Piano, and Strings” by Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) and “Piano Quartet in E-flat, Op. 47” by Robert Schumann (1810-1856).

A committed educator and performer, Eskitch is currently an adjunct instructor of violin, viola and chamber music at Tulsa Community College and adjunct instructor of viola at the University of Tulsa. Eskitch has held positions with the Tulsa Philharmonic, Tulsa Opera Orchestra, Wichita Grand Opera and Opera in the Ozarks. He has performed in many venues in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri.

Sheng-Yuan Kuan is currently a candidate of the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the Peabody Institute of Music in Baltimore. She has been the recipient of multiple awards, including Best Female Pianist at the 13th Beethoven Piano Competition in Vienna in 2009. She has performed in principle venues in Austria, Taiwan and the United States.

The Summer Chamber Music Festival concerts are held at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday evenings through June 28. The concerts are all free and open to the public and each will be followed by a reception.

Free parking is available in the Stadium Drive Parking Facility, where parking is free after 5 p.m. Entrance to the parking facility is on Stadium Drive, and the facility’s elevator will take patrons to street level directly across from the Fine Arts Center. Music previews of all six programs may be found at http://www.fulbrightsummermusic.uark.edu/index.php.

Interviews with festival artists air on the Thursday editions “Of Note with Katy Henricksen,” at 11 a.m. on KUAF 91.3 FM. Many artists also appear on “Ozarks at Large” which airs weekdays at noon and 7 p.m.