Faculty musicians to perform at museum

Faculty members from the Cal Poly Humboldt Music Department will perform at 2 p.m. Feb. 24 at the Morris Graves Museum of Art, 636 F St., Eureka.

The program will contain musical pieces in a variety of styles, showcasing the wide range of talent of the Cal Poly Humboldt Music Department faculty. The performing artists will provide listeners with comprehensive views on all of the chamber music works.

The program will include music for oboe, trumpet, string and harpsichord performed by Virginia Ryder, Gil Cline, Cindy Moyer, Karen Davy, Garrick Woods and Greg Granoff. The percussion ensemble, with members MJ Fabian, Colby Beers, Jamison Maciel and Richard Rios, will perform “At the Lodge” by Randy Gloss.

The Vipisa Trio will entertain with a trio of violin, saxophone and piano by R. Weinhorst. The eclectic program will present Sonata No. 2 by J. Bologne, a French composer whose historical significance lies in his distinctive background as a biracial free man of color. His wonderful work for violin and piano will be performed by Cindy Moyer, violin, and Avery Alexander, piano.

Two songs by the iconic figure of the world of French music, H. Duparc, will charm the audience, performed by Annika Backstrom, soprano, and Daniela Mineva, piano. Mineva will present a solo piano work by the Russian/German composer S. Gubaidulina, known for her musical explorations of human spiritualism and transcendence.

Professor (emeritus) Gil Cline will be joined by current Cal Poly Humboldt's trumpet teacher Chris Cox, principal trumpet with the Eureka Symphony, for three works for The True Trumpet.

They'll serve up an 1857 suite of duos for two trumpets in different tones (or keys), on natural trumpets without valves. Composer Auguste Dauverné (17991874), the first trumpet professor at the Paris Conservatory, bridged trumpets old to new; here he writes charming French music of the 19th-century for one trumpet in the key of E, and another a fourth lower in the key of B. The richness of long, natural trumpets playing tones, as if from a rainbow of the harmonic series of nature, was soon after lost as trumpets in a new era became shorter (half the length) and added the mechanical contrivance of valves.

These pieces, and many others, are heard on a new Cal Poly Humboldt full audio CD, just released (“Yearbook” — a retrospective of a Trumpet Consort von Humboldt). In the spirit of explorer Alexander von Humboldt, and also that of the polytechnic philosophy, TCvH is focused on elements of physics as applied to one of the most basic yet misunderstood instruments.

Also on the program is a three-movement set of pieces from Telemann's major opus, the collection Tafelmusik or Musique de Table. The prolific Telemann in Tafelmusik constructed three major sections of music for strings and wind instruments of the era; here, oboe and (natural) trumpet. Their concise set of three movements are in the typical trumpet key of D major, which was associated with — and elicited — the affect (connotation) of celebration, optimism and triumph.

Listeners will hear a rare coiled natural trumpet, played by Cline, of the kind used by early 18th-century brass players in Telemann's circle. The melodies in this suite are a virtual threering circus also involving Ginny Ryder on oboe and Cindy Moyer on violin.

Audience members will have the opportunity to meet the performers after the concert

Admission is $5 for adults; $2 for seniors (age 65 and over), military veterans and students with ID; and free for children 17 and under, families with an EBT card and valid ID and museum members.