Winter Guitar Festival Concert to Feature Virtuoso David Tanenbaum

The highlight of the sixth annual Winter Guitar Festival --- an offering of expositions, master classes, and solo and ensemble recitals running the weekend of February 22 and 23 --- will be a concert by internationally renowned guitarist David Tanenbaum. The performance will be held at 8:15 p.m. on Saturday, February 22, in the Hockett Family Recital Hall. Tanenbaum will play American guitar music composed by Lou Harrison, John Anthony Lennon, Roberto Sierra, and Steve Reich as well as an inspirational piece written by the recitalist's father, Elias Tanenbaum, in commemoration of September 11, 2001.

David Tanenbaum is one of the most admired classical guitarists of his generation. Recognized internationally as an exceptional performing and recording artist, a charismatic educator, and a transcriber and editor of both taste and intelligence, he has performed throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, Asia, and the former Soviet Union. He has been a soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, and Vienna's ORF Symphony Orchestra. He is currently chair of the guitar department at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he received the outstanding professor award in 1995. While his range encompasses diverse styles, Tanenbaum is one of today's most eloquent proponents of new guitar repertoire.

Another highlight of the festival will be a Saturday chamber music concert of classical guitar and flute duos, beginning at 4:00 p.m. in the Hockett Family Recital Hall. Several Ithaca College School of Music faculty will perform. Coordinator of music admission Townsend Plant and lecturer Kelly Covert will play Mountain Songs by Robert Beaser. Pablo Cohen, assistant professor of classical guitar and coordinator of the festival, will perform music by Roberto Sierra and Ralph Towner with professor of flute Wendy Herbener Mehne. Mehne will also join James Piorkowski, a composer, arranger, and professor of music at the SUNY College at Fredonia School of Music, in a performance of Piorkowski's Freedom Flight. Guitarist Douglas Rubio and flutist Kenneth Andrews, both faculty members at the Crane School of Music, SUNY College at Potsdam, will round out the program with Joan Tower's Snow Dreams.

Tickets for the two concerts are available at the Clinton House ticket center and at Cornell University's Willard Straight Hall. For more information on advance sales, call locally at 273-4497 or from out of town at 800-284-8422. The evening performance by Tanenbaum is $18 ($12 for students and senior citizens). This includes a complimentary admission to the chamber music concert. Tickets for the chamber music concert only are $8, with no discounts.

For further information on the concerts and the guitar festival, contact the Ithaca College Division of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions at 274-3143 or visit the Winter Guitar Festival website.

The Ithaca College Winter Guitar Festival is made possible in part by a grant from the D'Addario Foundation for the Performing Arts, with support from J. D'Addario & Company, Inc., and D'Addario Strings.