March 15, 2005
Contact: Michele Abba
Cal Poly Music Department
(805) 756-2406
Cal Poly Bassoonist to Give Recital April 5
SAN LUIS OBISPO -- Cal Poly music faculty member and bassoonist Amber Ferenz, with guest performer Mark Menzies playing violin, viola and piano, will give a recital at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 5, in Room 218 of the Davidson Music Center on campus.
Works by John Steinmetz, Gabriel Fauré, Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Mikhail Glinka, Anatoli Liadov, and Béla Bartok will be featured.
Ferenz, who's in her second year teaching bassoon at Cal Poly, earned a bachelor's degree from the North Carolina School of the Arts and an M.F.A. degree in bassoon performance from the California Institute of the Arts. She studied with Julie Feves, Mark Popkin and George Goslee.
She recently performed Sofia Gubaidulina's Concerto for Bassoon and Low Strings at the Redcat CalArts Theatre in Los Angeles, and has performed with the Redlands Symphony, the San Bernardino Symphony and the California Philharmonic.
Menzies was recently described in a Los Angeles Times review as an "extraordinary musician" and a "riveting violinist." At 32, he has played concerts worldwide. As the first violinist of the New York-based Ensemble Sospeso, he performs regularly at Carnegie Hall and Columbia University's Miller Theater.
His first CD release as leader-soloist and artistic director of the London-based Salomon ensemble was nominated for a Grammy award. He is completing his dissertation for a Ph.D. in critical studies of music at UC San Diego and is chair of the Western Orchestral Instrument Studies Department at CalArts, where he also teaches violin, viola chamber music and 20th-century theory and analysis.
Admission to the recital is free. It is sponsored by the Cal Poly Music Department and College of Liberal Arts. For more information, call the Music Department at 756-2406.
# # #