Everything Nac

Drs. Christina Guenther and Ron Petti in the School of Music at Stephen F. Austin State University will present the program “Composers of Our Time: Music for Flute and Piano” when they perform in a recital at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 20, in Cole Concert Hall on the SFA campus.

Guenther, professor of flute at SFA, and Petti, professor and director of collaborative piano, will perform works by Dan Welcher, Matthew Durrant, Valerie Coleman, Scott Stephen Hansen and Daron Hagen. “This recital features works of all living composers,” Guenther said.

The program opens with “All the Words to All the Songs” by Welcher, who was a long-time composition professor at the University of Texas at Austin, which is where Guenther met him. “He has composed in many different genres and gifted me some of his flute works,” she said. “I have always found ‘All the Words to All the Songs’ to be a very special piece – meaningful and powerful; the audience will recognize one of Elvis Presley’s best-known songs quoted in this piece. I think it is a really nice opener to our program.”

Durrant’s Sonata for Flute and Piano is a piece in three movements that “is a showpiece for both players,” Guenther said. “This will be the world premiere performance, and I love that it shows the human connections that can be made via social media (where Guenther first connected with the composer) among all the negativity we hear about today.”

Coleman’s “Fanmi Imèn,” Poem for Flute and Piano will also be performed. “Ron and I had the pleasure of meeting Valerie a few years ago at a flute conference,” Guenther said. “Her successes as an African-American woman composer are paving the way for future generations. A lot of her music is connected to her own heritage, and the message of this piece, like many of her works, is very powerful.”

Coleman wrote: “‘Fanmi Imèn’ is Haitian Creole for Maya Angelou’s famous work, ‘Human Family.’ Both the musical and literary poems acknowledge differences within mankind, either due to ethnicity, background or geography, but Angelou’s poetic refrain: ‘we are more alike, my friends, than we are unlike,’ reaffirms our humanity as a reminder of unity.”

Hansen graduated from SFA with a Master of Music degree in composition last year. His “52 Blue” is a piece with which Guenther and Petti were involved early on, reading through the piece for Hansen as he was finalizing it, and subsequently presenting it (virtually) at the Houston Flute Club this past March. “For me, it is always special to work directly with composers,” Guenther said, “and it has always been important to me to promote living and up-and-coming composers.”

Guenther describes Hagen as “one of the United States’ greatest living composers.” Active in his craft, his works are performed all over the world. “We had the honor of hosting him as a guest artist at SFA in the spring of 2020 when Ron was presenting his annual concert with the voice faculty that this time featured songs of Daron Hagen.” She added that when Hagen was told his Sonata No. 2 for Flute and Piano would be on the program, he said, “It’s really hard.”

“Challenge accepted! It is such a fun piece to play, and we think it is an excellent closer to a beautiful, diverse and powerful program,” Guenther said.

Tickets are $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and $3 for students and youth. To purchase tickets, call the SFA Fine Arts Box Office at (936) 468-6407 or visit finearts.sfasu.edu. For additional information, contact the SFA School of Music at (936) 468-4602.

Dr. Minhae Lee, assistant professor of piano at Stephen F. Austin State University, will collaborate with Dr. Jeong-Eun Lee, visiting assistant professor of music at Indiana University, to present a recital at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 18, in Cole Concert Hall on the SFA campus.

The program will feature “El Salón México” by Aaron Copland, arranged for two pianos by Leonard Bernstein; Two Piano Sonata in D major, K. 448 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; Paganini Variation for Two Pianos by Witold Lutoslawski; and Suite No. 1 in C minor, Op. 17 by Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Minhae Lee joined the faculty of the School of Music at SFA in 2021. Equally at home as both a solo pianist and collaborative pianist, she has held a staff position as collaborative pianist at the Jeju International Brass Competition, the Manhattan School of Music, the Manhattan in the Mountains Summer Festival, Michigan State University, Central Michigan State University and the Aspen Music Festival and School as a full scholarship pianist. Before joining SFA, Lee was named as the only Collaborative Piano Fellow at the Yale School of Music in 2020 where she played for numerous master classes and recitals and worked closely with renowned musicians and pedagogues. She was a winner of the North Shore Musicians Club Competition in Chicago, the Honors Concerto Competition at Michigan State University, the NTD International Piano Competition, the Golden Classical Music Awards International Competition, the TBC Daegu Broadcasting Competition and the Daejin University Piano Competition. As an active chamber musician and strong supporter of new music, she has premiered numerous works for piano and varied chamber music ensembles. Recently, she was a prize winner in the Barbara Wagner Chamber Music Competition as a member of the Lumi Trio (clarinet, violin and piano).

Jeong-Eun Lee is a postdoctoral resident scholar and visiting assistant professor of music in chamber and collaborative music at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Dedicated to performing a wide range of solo and chamber repertoire, she previously held collaborative pianist positions at the State University of New York – Geneseo and Riverside City College in California. Since her orchestral debut with the Skagit Valley Symphony, Lee has appeared as a soloist with orchestras around the United States, including the Seattle Symphony, Eastman School Symphony Orchestra and Eastern Music Festival Orchestra. She has performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and Benaroya Hall in Seattle, Washington, as well as in the Czech Republic, Italy and the Netherlands. In addition to a concerto performance with the Riverside City College Symphony Orchestra, recent engagements include chamber concerts in the United States and South Korea. She will present a master class for Minhae Lee’s piano students while visiting the SFA campus.

Tickets are $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and $3 for students and youth. To purchase tickets, call the SFA Fine Arts Box Office at (936) 468-6407 or visit finearts.sfasu.edu. For additional information, contact the SFA School of Music at (936) 468-4602.