PEACH WEEKENDER

Arthur Greene to close out piano series at UT

The new music ensemble Latitude 49 performs at 7 p.m. April 3 at UT. For more information, call 419-530-2448.

The University of Toledo has plenty of music planned in the next few weeks, headlined by the final event in the Dorothy MacKenzie Price Piano Series on April 5-6 in the Center for Performing Arts Recital Hall.

Coming to campus is Arthur Greene, a renowned performer and teacher, for a 10 a.m. master class April 5 and a solo recital at 3 p.m. April 6. Both events are free. Greene will focus on Beethoven, performing the final three piano sonatas: No. 30 in E, No. 31 in A flat, and No. 32 in C minor. Considered the most complex and demanding of the classical composer’s 32 piano sonatas, they are rarely performed in such a cluster.

A New York City native, Greene studied at Juilliard and has won the William Kapell and Gina Bachauer international piano competitions. He has performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra and symphonies in San Francisco, Washington, Europe, and Asia. For the U.S. Information Agency he was an Artistic Ambassador to Serbia, Kosovo, and Bosnia.

Since 1990 Greene has been on the University of Michigan faculty, where he won an award for excellence in studio teaching and has presented recital series covering the works of Chopin.

As a prelude this weekend, the UT Concert Chorale and Da Capo will perform at 3 p.m. Sunday in First United Methodist Church of Perrysburg, 200 W. Second St. Stephen Hodge, choral director at UT, will conduct a varied program of spirituals, classical works, and contemporary songs, including The Best of All Possible Worlds from Leonard Bernstein’s opera, Candide.

Also on the program will be excerpts from Gian Carlo Menotti’s opera, The Old Maid and the Thief, recently presented by the UT Opera Ensemble.

Leland Tetz, church music director, notes that this is UT’s debut in the season, now in its fourth year. “We're very excited to host UT,” he added. Admission is free.

But wait; there’s more.

Next week the annual UT Festival of New Music will present a series of concerts highlighting contemporary music. This year’s 37th happening and several new works to be performed are dedicated to the memory of the late Bernard Sanchez, professor emeritus of music, former music department chairman, and community advocate for music.

Music by faculty and students will be featured in the opener at 7 p.m. Tuesday. Lee Heritage, faculty composer, said he learned of the Sanchez death while composing his new piece, To The West Wind. “I was deeply saddened, and gradually realized that the second movement of my woodwind quintet was taking shape as an elegy to our great friend.”

Toledo Symphony musicians Joel Tse, Michele Tosser Smith, Georg Klaas, Sandra Clark, and Gareth Thomas will play the Heritage work. David Jex, faculty, also has a piece on the program, Tribute in Brass, to be performed by Jex, Alan Taplin, Dan Harris, and David Kosmyna. (The late Bernie Sanchez was an extraordinary trumpeter.)

The second concert, at 7 p.m. Wednesday, will feature the Black Swamp Blues Society Challengers, a funk/​fusion quartet, plus electronic works by Christina Eck, Stephen Mariasy, and David Mariasy. Cecilia Johnson, violinist, will solo in the senior Mariasy piece, Requiem for Violin and Digital Orchestra.

Closing this year’s festival at 7 p.m. April 3 will be the new music ensemble Latitude 49, a mixed chamber ensemble based in Michigan that focuses on new sounds played on traditional instruments — winds, strings, percussion — in original combinations. Named for the 49th Parallel which divides the United States and Canada, the group comprises musicians from both countries. For more information, call 419-530-2448.

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The Adrian Symphony Orchestra is set for its next concert, titled Heart’s Jewel, at 8 p.m. Saturday in Dawson Auditorium on the Adrian College campus. Music director John Thomas Dodson will conduct works by Mendelssohn, Wagner's Siegfried Idyll, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1. Australian violinist Adele Anthony will join the orchestra for Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor. “This concert offers music of great tenderness, bravura, humor, power, and charm," says Dodson.

Tickets are $12-$29 at www.adriansymphony.org or 517-264-3121. A preconcert lecture by Dodson starts at 7 p.m. in the hall.

● More choral music is in store when the Perrysburg Symphony Chorale performs two concerts the first weekend in April. Stepping into the conductor’s role to replace Wayne Anthony, who has relocated to Boston, will be Bowling Green State University graduate student Angelica Dunsavage.

A program spanning periods from the Renaissance to modern times is planned for performances at 2 p.m. April 5 in Way Public Library, 101 E. Indiana Ave., and 2 p.m. April 6 in St. Timothy's Episcopal Church, 871 E. Boundary St. Tickets are $5-$10 at the door for the library concert. Admission is free at the St. Timothy’s event.

● Dunsavage will be in the solo spotlight during her master’s degree recital, 7 p.m. April 4 at First Presbyterian Church, 126 S. Church St., Bowling Green. The program will focus on requiems by Schutz, Daley, and Mendelssohn, with participation including choirs from BGSU. Admission is free.

● Jazz Week at BGSU will wrap up with a free concert by various vocal jazz ensembles at 8 p.m. Friday in Kobacker Hall of the Moore Musical Arts Center. Faculty hornist Andrew Pelletier will perform a solo recital at 10:30 a.m. Saturday in First Presbyterian Church, also a free event. A chance to hear tomorrow's star singers is offered in final rounds of the Conrad Art Song Competition, at 8 p.m. Saturday in Donnell Theatre in the Wolfe Center for the Arts, another free concert. A second chance, this time to listen to an accomplished and popular singer, the baritone Dean Southern, will happen at 8 p.m. Sunday in Bryan Recital Hall in Moore. Moore’s presentation will focus on the work of Austrian composer Hugo Wolfe and include singing and lecture. This, too, is free.

On Monday at 8 p.m. guest artist Joachin Reinhuber, the pianist, will perform in a free public recital in Bryan. Winners of the aforementioned Conrad competition will show off their winning pipes and style in a free 7:30 p.m. recital in the Wildwood Preserve Metropark’s elegant Manor House. German violinist Christoph Schickedanze, with Japanese pianist Chiharu Linuma, will perform at 8 p.m. the same evening in the Conrad Choral Room (Wolfe), a free performance.

● Troubador Joe Crookston will perform at 4 p.m. April 6 in the Fayette Opera House, 105 E. Main St., Fayette. Tickets $10-$12; tickets for a benefit dinner preceding the concert are $15. Information: 419-237-3111.

● Toledo Ballet will present its latest Michael Lang production, From Heart to Quill, a choreographic invention inspired by composers from Beethoven to Bernstein. Two shows at 7:30 p.m. are set for April 4 and 5 in the Valentine Theatre. Tickets are $17-$37 at www.valentinetheatre.com or 419-242-2787.

Send News of Music items to svallongo@theblade.com two weeks before the event.