Clarinetist and Quartet to Give Hockett Chamber Music Concert

Legendary clarinetist Richard Stoltzman will join with the American String Quartet for the third performance in the Shirley and Chas Hockett Chamber Music Concert Series at Ithaca College. Named after two longtime educators, the series honors the Hocketts' love of music and devotion to Ithaca College and its School of Music. The free concert, which will present works by Mendelssohn, Françaix, Hindemith, Reger, and Mozart, will take place on Wednesday, October 2, at 8:15 pm in Ford Hall in the James J. Whalen Center for Music.

Stoltzman's virtuosity, musicianship, and sheer personal magnetism have made him one of today's most sought-after concert artists. As a soloist with over a hundred orchestras, as a captivating recitalist and chamber music performer, as an innovative jazz artist, and as a prolific recording artist, Stoltzman has defied categorization. He has done for the clarinet what Jean-Pierre Rampal and James Galway have done for the flute, winning two Grammy Awards along the way. His most recent CD --- he has performed on nearly 50 recordings --- is Lutoslawski: Dance Preludes; Nielsen: Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra on BMG/RCA Red Seal.

Praised as "the finest quartet based in New York" by Strad magazine, the American String Quartet holds a position of rare esteem in the world of chamber music. On annual tours throughout Europe and North America, the quartet has won critical acclaim for its performances of the complete quartets of Beethoven, Schubert, Schoenberg, Bartók, and Mozart --- and for its collaborations with a host of distinguished artists.

Formed in 1974, when its original members were students at the Juilliard School, the American String Quartet won both the Coleman competition and the Naumburg award that same year. Resident quartet at the Aspen Music Festival since 1974 and the Manhattan School of Music since 1984, among other prestigious schools, it is the only group performing today to have recorded the complete Mozart quartets. The sixth and final volume was recently reissued on MusicMasters/Musical Heritage. The current members of the quartet are violinists Peter Winograd and Laurie Carney, violist Daniel Avshalomov, and cellist Margo Tatgenhorst.

The first performance in the Shirley and Chas Hockett Chamber Music Concert Series was given by the Bach Aria Group on October 25, 2000, the anniversary of the day Shirley and Chas Hockett first met, in a mathematics course at the University of Michigan. Chas, who passed away in November 2000, enjoyed a distinguished academic career at Cornell University, from which he retired in 1982 as the Goldwin Smith Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Linguistics. He also had a passion for music, which he shared with his wife, Shirley, professor emerita of mathematics at Ithaca College, and with their five children.

The Hocketts' sustained support for the School of Music led Ithaca College to establish the chamber music series, for which Shirley has provided a permanent endowment. Last year's series performers were the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio.

For more information, see the Hockett Series website.