Guest artist Kevin Lawrence, violin, will present “An American Program” at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 10 in Westbrook Recital Hall room 119. The concert is free and open to the public.
The concert will also be live webcast. He will be joined on the program by Glenn Korff School of Music faculty members Tom Larson, Hans Sturm and Paul Barnes.
His program includes “Solitude” by Lawrence Dillon and “On the Wings of Dawn” by Judith Shatin, in which Lawrence will perform unaccompanied. His program will also include “F&S,” “Now and Then,” “Johans” and “Orphan Folk Music” composed by his birth mother, Joan Wildman. He will be joined by Larson and Sturm on these works.
“Kevin is one of the preeminent interpreters of 20th century violin music. In addition to the other major compositions, he will perform works composed by his recently discovered birth mother, Joan Wildman,” Sturm said. “A celebrated avant-garde jazz composer and pianist, Joan primarily worked in a jazz piano trio format, and I was her bassist for more than 25 years. This set of works will be especially exciting for Kevin—both because he will be experiencing a little of Joan’s ebullient personality through her music and because they were written as vehicles for improvisation. The recital will be his first time improvising in a concert.”
His program concludes with William Grant Still’s “Suite for Violin and Piano.” He will be joined by Barnes, the Marguerite Scribante Professor of Piano.
“I’m thrilled to be collaborating with my longtime friend,” Barnes said. “Kevin and I have been performing together for decades, most recently in a performance of the Philip Glass Annunciation Piano Quintet at Kevin’s chamber music festival in Vermont. It will be a joy to give my first performance of William Grant Still’s Suite for Violin and Piano.”
Lawrence is chair of the string department at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. He has performed throughout the U.S. and Europe.
His release of the complete violin works of the American composer Arthur Foote was heard on the Ken Burns series “Not for Ourselves Alone” broadcast on PBS. His second CD of American violin sonatas was recently released by New World.
He received his musical education at The Juilliard School and taught for 14 summers at the Meadowmount School in Westport, New York. After serving as the dean and then artistic director of the Killington Music Festival, Lawrence founded Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival in Vermont in 2004.
