Alumni Artists Series Presents the Chicago Chamber Musicians

Gail Williams, a 1973 graduate of the School of Music and a founding member of the Chicago Chamber Musicians, will perform with five fellow members of that ensemble in a free concert on Thursday, February 7. The final performance in this year’s Alumni Artists Series, the concert will begin at 8:15 p.m. in Ford Hall.

Williams, the French horn player for the Chicago Chamber Musicians, will be joined by clarinetist Larry Combs, violinists Joseph Genualdi and Jasmine Lin, violist Rami Solomonow, and cellist Christopher Costanza. They will perform Brahms’s Quintet in B Minor for Clarinet and Strings, Mozart’s Quintet in E-flat for Horn and Strings, and Beethoven’s String Quartet no. 10. In addition to the public performance, the group will hold master classes and coaching sessions for music students on February 6 and 7.

After graduating from Ithaca, Williams received a master’s degree from Northwestern University before going on to perform with the Chicago Lyric Opera Orchestra. She joined the Chicago Symphony horn section in 1979 and was appointed associate principal horn in 1984, a position she held until August 1998.

In addition to the Chicago Chamber Musicians, Williams performs with the Summit Brass, an ensemble composed of musicians from the New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Saint Louis symphonies as well as chamber soloists. She is currently on the faculty of Northwestern University.

In 1986 she helped form the Chicago Chamber Musicians with the goal of building a base for the study and performance of chamber music. The ensemble’s touring program has since gained international exposure, with appearances on National Public Radio and Chicago’s fine arts radio station, and with performances and short-term residencies across the United States, Japan, and Europe. In recent years the number of ensemble artists has grown to 15, the cadre of guest artists numbers over 150, and the group’s repertoire includes more than 400 works. More information on the group is available at www.chicagochambermusic.org.

The Alumni Artists Series brings to campus ensembles that are under professional management and have Ithaca College alumni as founding members. The first performance in this series was given last fall by the Concord Ensemble with tenor Pablo Corá ’95.

More information on concerts at Ithaca College can be found at www.ithaca.edu/concerts.