Chamber Music Festival Features Grieg, Schubert, Dvorak in Second Concert

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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The KUAF/ Fulbright Summer Chamber Music Festival continues its sixth season at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 22, with the second of four concerts. The performance, including String Quartet no. 1 in G minor, op. 2” by Edvard Grieg, Quartettsatz in C minor, d. 703 by Franz Shubert and Sextet in A major, op. 48 by Antonin Dvorak, will be held in the Fine Arts Building’s Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall.

The concert will feature faculty members Paulo Eskitch (viola), Stephen Gates (cello), Er-Gene Kahng (violin), Tomoko Kashiwagi (piano) and guest artists David Gerstein (cello), Andrew Irvin (violin) and Ryan Mooney (violin).

In addition to serving as an adjunct professor at the University of Arkansas, Eskitch is also an adjunct instructor of viola, violin and chamber music at Tulsa Community College, and an adjunct instructor of viola at the University of Tulsa. He has held positions with the Tulsa Philharmonic, Tulsa Opera Orchestra, Wichita Grand Opera and Opera in the Ozarks. He is the founding member of Trio Alesky and has performed in many venues in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Missouri.

Gates, professor of music, co-founded the Summer Chamber Music Festival. He has attended international master with Pierre Fournier and Andre Navarra. He is a member of the Fulbright Trio, performs as a guest artist with the Music Festival of Arkansas and is a founding member of the Ozark Chamber Players.

Kahng, associate professor of violin, co-founded the festival with Gates. She is a member of the Fulbright Trio, College Music Society and American String Teachers Association. She is active in the Bay View Music Festival in Petoskey, Mich., where she serves as second violinist in a string quartet and as a member of the violin faculty.

Kashiwaga, instructor of piano and collaborative piano, performs regularly with double bass soloist DaXun Zhang nationally and internationally. She has also been the official pianist at the International Society of Bassists Conventions as well as Music teachers National Association competitions.

Gerstein is currently the principal cellist of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra and cellist for the Quapaw String Quartet. He participated in the prestigious New York String Orchestra and was a founding member of the Cape Cod Ensemble.

Irvin is a co-concertmaster of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra and performs with the Camino Trio. He has served as concertmaster, leader and soloist of orchestra “Air de Cour,” in Rochester, New York. He was principal violinist in European festival orchestra, Heidelberg Scholossfestspiele and in the Arizona Opera Orchestra.

Mooney teaches the violin and viola at the Community School of the Arts at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway. He has attended such music festivals as Roundtop and Tanglewood where he performed with the Mark Morris Dance Troup at Jacob’s Pillow. He was also a fellow of the Carnegie Hall exchange program where he performed with his quartet in Carnegie Hall and on a Central Asian tour.

The four-week concert series will continue with concerts on Thursday, May 29, in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall and Friday, June 6, at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville.

Performances are free and open to the public thanks to support from the University of Arkansas, the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences and private donors. Musical previews and other details for each concert are available on the KUAF/ Fulbright Summer Chamber Music Festival website.