January 18, 2002

AMES PIANO QUARTET TO PERFORM AT CHAMBER MUSIC SERIES CONCERT FEB. 1

The Ames Piano Quartet will perform as part of the 2001-02 Boise Chamber Music Series at 8 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 1, in the Morrison Center Recital Hall. Tickets for the concert are $15 regular admission and $10 for students and seniors, available by calling 426-1216. The ensemble will also conduct a chamber music master class at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 2, also in the Recital Hall. The class is free and open to everyone.

Established in 1976, the Ames Piano Quartet is a permanent piano quartet, one of only a handful in the chamber music field. In residence at Iowa State University, members of the Ames Piano Quartet include Mahlon Darlington, violinist; Jonathan Sturm, violist; George Work, cellist; and William David, pianist.

One of the pieces on the program, �Dark Rosaleen � Rhapsody on an Air by James Joyce,� is a new work for piano and strings by American composer Lee Hoiby. The title refers to Hoiby�s use of a melody created in 1902 by James Joyce as an "air" for James Clarence Mangan�s poem, �Dark Rosaleen.� Hoiby heard the melody from Joyce�s long-time friend, John Francis Bryne, the father of Hoiby�s school roommate. Bryne asked Hoiby to write the melody on paper in the 1950s, and Hoiby finally decided to make use of the melody, which he describes as haunting, in this piano quartet. �As the music unfolded, I found myself thinking of earlier times, of legends, and of those Dublin boys filling the darkened little room off the Aula Maxima . . . The piece, then, is a kind of romantic-programmatic work in the Liszt/Brahms tradition,� Hoiby said of the process

The program will also feature Gabriel Faure�s �Quartet in C minor� and British composer William Walton�s �Quartet of 1919.�

The Ames Piano Quartet has been awarded numerous grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. The group has released seven compact discs, and its most recent CD features two rarely-heard Russian piano quartets by Paul Juon and Sergei Taneyev. Fanfare magazine hailed its CD of the Dvorak quartets as �one of the best chamber music recordings of the century.�

The concert is presented by the Boise Chamber Music Society and the Boise State music department. For additional information call 426-1216.

Contact:
Jeanne Belfy
Music department
426-1216

Media Contact:
Patricia Pyke
communications and marketing
426-1987