Syracuse University Setnor School of Music launches a celebration of Brahms Oct. 22

Syracuse University Setnor School of Music launches a celebration of Brahms Oct. 22October 17, 2002Judy Holmesjlholmes@syr.edu

Syracuse University’s Rose, Jules R. and Stanford S. Setnor School of Music will launch a community-wide celebration of Johannes Brahms with a gala concert at 8 p.m. Oct. 22 in the Setnor Auditorium in SU’s Crouse College. The concert is free and open to the public. A reception under Winged Victory in the Crouse College main corridor will follow the performance

A special concert preview will be held at noon on Oct. 21 at Borders Books and Music in the Carousel Center. The preview will feature the New York City-based Cassatt Quartet, SU’s quartet-in-residence. The Cassatt Quartet is co-presenting the festival with the Setnor School of Music in the College of Visual and Performing Arts and the Department of Fine Arts in The College of Arts and Sciences.

The Oct. 22 gala concert will also feature a 7 p.m. pre-concert talk, “Brahms and His World,” presented by Stephen Meyer, assistant professor of music history and culture in the Department of Fine Arts.

“The Setnor School of Music is an unusual community where the lines between faculty and students are often blurred as we study and practice our art,” says Joseph Downing, director of the Setnor School of Music. “This opening gala concert is a perfect example where internationally known artists, like the Cassatt Quartet, share the stage with the University Orchestra, composed primarily of music majors, and the SU Women’s Choir, composed of students from across the University. The pre-concert lecture by Dr. Meyer gives us an historic context to experience the music of Brahms which brings us all together.”

Other evening highlights include performances by the Cassatt String Quartet, who will feature Brahms’ “String Sextet in B-flat Major, op. 18;” the SU Women’s Choir performing “Ave Maria, op. 12” and “Four Songs for Women’s Chorus, Two Horns and Harp, op. 17” accompanied by University Organist Christopher Marks, harpist Ursula Kwasnicka of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, and graduate music education students Jaclyn Shea and Esther Switznbaum on the French horn; and the Syracuse University Symphony Orchestra under the direction of James Tapia performing “Academic Festival Overture, op. 80” and “Variations on a theme of Haydn, op. 56a.”

The Brahms Festival will continue throughout the 2002-03 academic year with concerts, community seminars, the Brown Bag Lunch Series at Borders Books and Music-which are all free and open to the public-and semester-length, interdisciplinary course offerings for SU students during both the fall and spring semesters.

For more information about the festival and a schedule of upcoming events, contact the Setnor School of Music at 443-2191.