‘Year of the American Composer’ to continue April 12 with faculty soprano and cellist

‘Year of the American Composer’ to continue April 12 with faculty soprano and cellistApril 06, 2005Jaime Winne Alvarez jlwinne@syr.edu

To celebrate the “Year of the American Composer,” the Rose, Jules R. and Stanford S. Setnor School of Music in Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts will present a recital by two SU faculty members, soprano Eileen Strempel and cellist Gregory Wood, April 12 at 8 p.m. The concert, in the Rose and Jules R. Setnor Auditorium located in Crouse College, is free and open to the public. Parking is available in the Irving Garage.

The program will feature works by J.S. Bach, Elisendra Fabregas, Samuel Barber and Charles Griffes. Strempel and Wood will perform together and be accompanied by SU professor and pianist Wei Yi Yang and Canadian pianist Sylvie Beaudette, assistant professor at the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music and lyric diction instructor at the Universite de Sherbrooke, Quebec.

The Associated Press has hailed Strempel, assistant professor in the Department of Fine Arts in The College of Arts and Sciences and assistant to the dean of VPA, as “a magnificent coloratura” and “a lyrical soprano.” She has performed in venues around the world and is the recipient of numerous prestigious prizes and awards. An alumna of Jerome Hine’s Opera Music Theater International, the Eastman School of Music and Indiana University, Strempel regularly performs with the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra and can be heard on her 2003 compact disc “love lies bleeding,” a recording of songs by composer Libby Larsen, and on her first disc, “With All My Soul,” released in 2000 with pianist Beaudette. Strempel and Beaudette have been performing together since 1998.

Wood, affiliate artist in orchestral studies and strings in VPA, is assistant principal cellist with the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra. He is an alumnus of the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, where he studied under Lynn Harrell, Jack Kirstein and Zara Nelsova, and the State University of New York at Oswego. He is currently completing work toward a master’s degree in music education at SU. He has performed at festivals and with symphonies throughout the United States, is an active local recitalist and member of the Syracuse Symphony’s Baroque Ensemble. In 2002, he performed with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra in New York City for an appearance on “Good Morning America.”