The Center for the Arts at the College of Staten Island (CSI) announces the first classical music concert of its Spring 2012 season: a performance by Chamber Music Collective of The College of Staten Island. The Collective’s concert, entitled “Three, Four, Five…”, will take place in the Center for the Arts (Building 1P) Williamson Theater on Thursday, Mar. 29, at 7:30 pm. Tickets for this performance are $10 and can be reserved in person, by phone, by mail, and online through the CFA Box Office, 2800 Victory Boulevard, 1p-113, Staten Island. Hours: Monday-Friday, 9:00am to 4:00pm; Saturday, noon to 3:00pm; 718.982.ARTS (2787).
The Chamber Music Collective is comprised of the CSI Music Program’s performance faculty: David Wechsler, flute; Michael Morreale, trumpet; Olivier Fluchaire, violin; and Sylvia Kahan, pianist and artistic director of the Collective. Guest artists Lisa Kozenko (oboe), Maksim Shtrykov (clarinet), Atsuko Sato (bassoon), R. J. Kelley (horn), Michael Larmond (trombone), and Staten Island favorite Vinnie Ruggieri (jazz piano) will also join the ensemble.
The program will consist of Pierné’s Baroque-influenced Pastorale Variée, Op. 30, Brahms’s beloved Horn Trio, Op. 40, a group of Gershwin melodies arranged for trumpet and ensembles, and Karel Husa’s dazzling Sérénade for Wind Quintet and Piano.
The performance by the Chamber Music Collective of the College of Staten Island is a salute to Georgiana DiMauro, French horn player and founding director of the Staten Island Chamber Music Players, Inc. The SICMP retired in 2008 after 34 years of performance and educational outreach in performance venues and schools throughout the Borough. In 2011, at the suggestion of Mrs. Rose Volpe, Ms. DiMauro donated a significant portion of the SICMP’s collection of music scores for brass and woodwind ensembles to the Library of the College of Staten Island. More recently, Ms. DiMauro augmented her gift to include her own personal music library. The combined collection, given to CSI in honor of Dr. Edmond and Mrs. Volpe, contains more than 800 musical works, mostly in the classical genre, representing a gift in excess of $15,000. It is housed in the Special Collections of the CSI Library (Building 1L), and is available to all members of the College community.
Of the title “Three, Four, Five . . . “Sylvia Kahan says: “The title refers both to the enumeration of the hundreds of scores that Georgiana DiMauro’s gift has put at the disposal of the CSI Music community. It is the intention of the Chamber Music Collective to integrate this extraordinary score library into its concert programming. The Chamber Music Collective is inspired by the example of the Staten Island Chamber Music Collective, and hopes to provide the CSI community and the Borough of Staten Island with the high level of musical performances for which the SICMP was so justly renowned.”
