Seventh Annual Summer Chamber Music Festival to Begin Thursday

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KUAF/Fulbright Summer Chamber Music Festival welcomes new and returning artists for 2015 season

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The seventh annual KUAF/Fulbright Summer Chamber Music Festival will open with a concert at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 21, in the Fine Arts Center's Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall.

Stephen Gates and Er-Gene Kahng, professors in the University of Arkansas Department of Music, organize the festival in collaboration with KUAF 91.3 FM and the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. Gates and Kahng carefully select the program each spring to highlight the beauty of Northwest Arkansas and the talent of those in the area and beyond.

"Since our first concert in 2009, we have attracted full houses to virtually every concert," Gates said. "In some cases we have had standing room only, and in a few instances, less than that."

The 2015 festival will include three performances. In addition to the May 21 event, there will be performances at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 28, in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall and at 7 p.m. Friday, June 5, in the Great Hall at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville.

Selections for Thursday's concert include:

• Dissonance Quartet in C Major, KV 465 by Mozart
• Quartet no. 4, op. 18 by Beethoven
• Trout Quintet, D. 667, op. 114 by Schubert

Musicians are Er-Gene Kahng (violin), Ryan Cockerham (violin), Paulo Eskitch (viola), Stephen Gates (cello), Michael Montgomery (bass) and Tomoko Kashiwagi (piano).

Performances are free and open to the public thanks to support from the University of Arkansas, Fulbright College, the Department of Music and private donors. 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.

The full performance schedule, music clips and biographies of the performers and guest artists are available on the festival's website.

About the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences: Fulbright College is the largest and most academically diverse unit on campus with 19 departments and 43 academic programs and research centers. The college provides the core curriculum for all University of Arkansas students and is named for J. William Fulbright, former university president and longtime U.S. senator.

About the University of Arkansas: The University of Arkansas provides an internationally competitive education for undergraduate and graduate students in more than 200 academic programs. The university contributes new knowledge, economic development, basic and applied research, and creative activity while also providing service to academic and professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the University of Arkansas among only 2 percent of universities in America that have the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the University of Arkansas among its top American public research universities. Founded in 1871, the University of Arkansas comprises 10 colleges and schools and maintains a low student-to-faculty ratio of 19:1 that promotes personal attention and close mentoring.