Grand Rapids quartet to kick off Arts at Noon winter concert schedule

The 2018-19 Arts at Noon concert series at Grand Valley continues this winter with multiple free performances by renowned musicians from around the world.

The winter schedule includes seven performances beginning January 16 with Grand Rapids’ own Perugino Quartet.

All Arts at Noon concerts are free and open to the public, begin at noon, and take place in the Cook-DeWitt Center on the Allendale Campus. For more information, visit the Arts at Noon website.

Below is a full schedule of winter Arts at Noon concerts:

January 16 – Perugino Quartet
Named after Renaissance artist Pietro Perugino of Grand Rapids’ sister city Perugia, Italy, The Perugino String Quartet is comprised of Grand Rapids Symphony members including, violinists Eric Tanner and Christopher Martin, violinist Barbara Corbato and cellist Stacey Bosman Tanner. Together, the quartet performs classics of the string quartet repertoire, as well as a variety of new chamber works. The Perugino String Quartet centers its appearances around Michigan, having performed at many arts-based series and events, such as the Chamber Music Festival of Saugatuck, Art Reach of Mid Michigan and Muskegon's Feeding the Soul of the City concert series.

January 23 – GVSU Faculty Recital
This recital will feature performances by two Grand Valley music faculty members: Pablo Mahave-Veglia, professor of cello and director of the Early Music Ensemble, and Sookkyung Cho, assistant professor of piano. Mahave-Veglia is a cellist and teacher whose repertoire ranges from early baroque performed on period instruments to his ongoing interest in researching, performing and recording the work of contemporary Latin-American composers.

Before taking her position as an assistant professor of piano at Grand Valley, Cho served on the piano faculty at New England Conservatory Preparatory School and Continuing Education in Boston. She was also adjunct faculty in theory at Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University and served as a Teaching Fellow in the piano minor and music theory departments at The Juilliard School. She received a bachelor’s degree in music and doctorate of musical arts from The Juilliard School, and a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University.

January 30 – “Sizwe Banzi is Dead”
To help celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Grand Valley Shakespeare Festival, a theater troupe from Nassau in the Bahamas will visit the university to perform “Sizwe Banzi is Dead” — one of the most critically acclaimed productions presented in the Bahamas. The production confronts the struggles faced by people of color during the apartheid era of South Africa. Questions about identity and human worth are explored through the lens of a man getting his picture taken in a photography studio. First performed at the 2014 Shakespeare in Paradise Theatre Festival, this production will reunite the director and his original cast members for multiple performances at Grand Valley. This Arts at Noon performance will include a sample of the production. Performances of the full show will take place January 31 and February 1 at 7:30 p.m. and February 2 at 2 p.m. in the Linn Maxwell Keller Black Box Theatre, located in the Thomas J. and Marcia J. Haas Center for Performing Arts.

February 20 – Folias Duo
Husband and wife duo Andrew Bergeron (guitar) and Carmen Maret (flute) are performers, composers, educators and entrepreneurs based in Grand Rapids who are known for their exciting performances as the Folias Duo. Together, they have a unique approach to developing new compositions for flute and guitar, expertise in arrangements of Argentine tango and a passion for South American folk, jazz and world music.

February 27 – GVSU Brass Quintet
The GVSU Brass Quintet is comprised of Grand Valley music faculty members, including Alex Wilson (trumpet), Richard Britsch (horn), Mark Williams (trombone), Paul Carlson (tuba) and visiting performer Paul Hardaker (trumpet). Each year, the quintet also performs multiple outreach concerts and facilitates master classes and coaching sessions at high schools throughout Michigan.

March 27 – Cello Fest!
Cello Fest! is an annual event hosted at Grand Valley by Pablo Mahave-Veglia. The event brings together professional cellists of regional, national and international acclaim in a collaborative setting that includes lectures, classes and concerts. The 2019 Cello Fest! will involve an Arts at Noon concert featuring all guest artists, which includes West Michigan Symphony principal cellist Alicia Gregorian Sawyers, Forest Hills Public Schools district string specialist Anne Thompson, Grand Rapids Symphony member Andrew Plaisier, and University of Nevada – Las Vegas professor Andrew Smith.

April 10 – Sightlines Percussion Duo
Greg Secor, part-time faculty at Grand Valley, will team up with alumnus Joshua Dreyer to perform an array of unique works for percussion instruments. Secor currently teaches courses in music literature and directs the percussion ensembles and steel band at Grand Valley and Hope College. He is also a member of the percussion section of the Kalamazoo Symphony, performs regularly with the Grand Rapids Symphony, and is an active steeldrum performer with the Grand Rapids-based Pangea Steeldrum Band.

Dreyer actively performs around West Michigan with ensembles including the Grand Rapids Symphony, Opera Grand Rapids, Battle Creek Symphony, Grand Rapids Civic Theatre, Ensemble Montage, and many other jazz and chamber groups. While at Grand Valley, Dreyer was a member of the award-winning New Music Ensemble.