FAC Instrumental Chamber Music

The Fine Arts Center Instrumental Chamber Music (ICM) 2009-2010 is a class devoted to the rehearsal and development of chamber ensembles and the performance of music written or arranged for them. It is open to accomplished, motivated, and mature musicians who can successfully contribute to the development of a chamber ensemble (or ensembles).

Each term, ICM members will be given a collection of chamber works with varying instrumentations. After studying and “trying out” these selections, members of the class select a program to rehearse and to prepare for public performance. With the assistance of Dr. Robinson, ICM members determine a rehearsal schedule and benchmarks (goals) that must be met in order to perform their concert successfully and with confidence.

ICM members will explore music for ensembles and combinations that will include woodwind trio (two flutes and oboe), percussion quartet, combinations of woodwinds/horn/percussion, Baroque concerti for solo or combined flutes, oboe, and/or horn with marimbas taking on the roll of the string section. Original works have been commissioned especially for the combined members of Instrumental Chamber Music 2009-2010. In the fall semester, the class will rehearse and then premier a new work by composer and Fine Arts Center alumnus Alex Wroten. Wroten’s work will be written for two flutes, four percussion, horn and/or keyboard, double bass, as well as non-standard instruments. (A double bass player from FAC’s Strings Chamber Music will augment our class ensemble.) ICM will prepare and perform a brand new composition by Fine Arts Center Composer-in-Residence Jon Jeffrey Grier in the spring semester.

Other works by Dr. Grier will be performed in 2009-2010, including his Cripple Creek Counterpoint (1992), a version of which can examined by clicking on this hyperlink. ICM members pictured include (clockwise) Zach Purdun (center front), John Belanger, McKenzie Chalak, Wesley Strasser, Amber Tepedino, Moses Andrews, Merritt Huff, and Robert Mullis.