KUAF/Fulbright Summer Chamber Music Festival Changes Venues for an Evening of Sextets

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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The fifth annual KUAF/Fulbright Summer Chamber Music Festival continues its season at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, June 6, with the fourth of six concerts. The performance will feature sextets by Schönberg and Brahms with two violins, two violas and two cellos. The performance will be held in the Parish Hall at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Fayetteville, and a reception will follow.

Music professors Stephen Gates and Er-Gene Kahng have been organizing the festival in collaboration with KUAF and the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences since 2009. Performances include a variety of chamber music using diverse instrumental groups from many musical eras.

The fourth concert will feature faculty members Kahng (violin), Gates (cello) and Paulo Eskitch (viola) and guest artists David Gerstein (cello), Geoffrey Robinson (violin) and Andrew Thompson (viola) playing "Verklärte Nacht" (Transfigured Night) for String Sextet, op. 4 by Arnold Schönberg (1874-1951) and String Sextet no. 2 in G major. op. 36 by Johannes Brahms (1833-1897).

"The sextet composition of two violins, two  violas and two cellos offers the possibility of all string ranges—high, medium and low—to be in equal partnership," said Kahng. "Schönberg and Brahms chose to explore the heights of Romanticism and  the extremes of lushness in their sonorities."

Gerstein serves as the principal cellist of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra as well as cellist of the Quapaw String Quartet, which performs regularly at the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock and schools around the state. He is a devoted performer of chamber and contemporary music and has played concerts all over the world, including Carnegie Hall and the Great Wall of China.

Robinson is associate conductor of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, performs as a violinist in the orchestra's River Rhapsodies chamber series and directs educational outreach to schoolchildren throughout the state. In addition to conducting and performing, he also writes and produces and was a founding member of the Chelsea Symphony.

Thompson plays many instruments and is interested in various genres. In addition to classical music, he also enjoys Japanese rock and avant-garde rock.

The six-week series will continue with concerts every Thursday at 7:30 p.m. until June 20. While this week's concert is in a different location, the June 13 and 20 concerts will return to the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall.

Performances are free and open to the public thanks to support from the university, Fulbright College and private donors. Seats may be reserved in advance through Fulbright College. Contributions for the KUAF/Fulbright Summer Chamber Music Festival may be made online or by contacting the Fulbright College development office at 479.575.3712 or Fulbright@uark.edu. Musical previews and other details for each concert are available on the KUAF/Fulbright Summer Chamber Music Festival website.