FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Oct. 21, 1999
CONTACT: Lisa Lacher, (515) 271-3119
FERGUSON CONCERT TO FEATURE WOODWIND QUINTET
Windscape, a New York woodwind quintet that has been featured on Minnesota Public Radio's "St. Paul Sunday," will perform the Edwin Earle Ferguson Artist-In-Residence Concert on Saturday, Nov. 6, at Drake University.
The concert will start at 8 p.m. on the Jordan Stage in Sheslow Auditorium in Old Main, 26th Street and University Avenue. The program includes works by Igor Stavinsky, Kurt Weill, Paul Hindemith, Heitor Villa-Lobos and George Gershwin.
Earlier that day, the quintet will give a master class for Drake students. The master class, which is open to the public at no charge, will be held from 3 to 5 p.m. on the Jordan Stage in Sheslow Auditorium.
Windscape, created in 1994 by five leading instrumentalists, explores chamber music for woodwinds in dynamic and entertaining new ways. The musicians are Marya Martin, flute; Stephen Taylor, oboe; Alan R. Kay, clarinet; Frank Morelli, bassoon; and David Jolley, horn.
The quintet, which is the Ensemble-in-Residence at the Manhattan School of Music, has received positive reviews from coast to coast. The Miami Herald, for example, praised the ensemble's "breath-taking virtuosity" while the San Diego Daily Transcript lauded the quintet for performing "some of the best Mozart I have ever heard - exact, pure and elegant."
The concert is made possible by an endowment established by the late Edwin Earle Ferguson, who worked his way through Drake during the Great Depression by playing the piano at the Hotel Fort Des Moines, Younkers Tea Room and WHO Radio. He received his bachelor's degree from Drake in 1931 and his Drake law degree in 1934.
Tickets for the Windscape concert are $10 for adults and $5 for students with an I.D. Call the Drake Fine Arts Box Office at (515) 271-3841 for more information.