Feb. 2nd Chamber Music Series Concert to Feature Variety of Works

Long-time Chico State piano professor Robert Bowman will be the featured performer during the upcoming Chamber Music Series recital, Schubert & Mozart, Saturday, Feb. 2 at 7:30 p.m. in the Rowland-Taylor Recital Hall.

Bowman has been a piano teacher for 33 years at CSU, Chico. He has played extensively throughout the U.S., Germany, and Austria. In addition he has also helped with judging at the Northern Nevada Music Teachers Association festival in Reno, Nevada, and the U.S. Open Piano Competition in Oakland, California.

Schubert & Mozart will shine a spotlight on Bowman’s extensive piano-playing talents. Works will include Mozart’s “Sonata in G Major,” Muczinsky’s “Trio,” and Schubert’s “Trio in E-Flat Major.” “Trio in E-Flat Major,” which also includes violin and cello, will be the concert’s featured piece because of its four extensive symphonic movements.

The many different moods evoked by “Trio in E-Flat Major” will be complemented by Bowman’s colorist approach to the piano; he uses a variety of techniques for striking the keys.  

Schubert included in his work a number of styles and influences — everything from a Swedish folk song to an Austrian country-dance. In an effort to keep the piece unique, Schubert brought back the theme from the second movement for the finale, a technique later embraced by Romantic composers.

Violinist Dan Flanagan, concertmaster for the Sacramento Philharmonic, and cellist Burke Schuchmann, one of the West Coast’s best-known chamber music musicians, will join Bowman to bring out the richness of Schubert’s piece.

Flanagan will also join Bowman for Mozart’s “Sonata in G Major for violin” and piano. This sonata symbolized a large departure from his years of struggling for musical acceptance in Munich, Mannheim, and Paris.

As a classical composer, Mozart raised up instrumental music as an art form using his most famous sonatas that he wrote in Vienna near the end of his life.  “Sonata in G Major” features both slow and fast sections in a minor key followed by some simple and charming variations.

Following in Hungarian composer Bella Bartok’s footsteps, Muczinsksy’s “Trio” represents a very different sound from the other two pieces performed during the concert. “Trio” uses a robust rhythmic style invigorated with light folk-based movements.

Chico State music professor Russell Burnham will join Schuchmann and Bowman on clarinet for Muczinsky’s lively “Trio.”

Bowman is the current director of the CSU, Chico Chamber Music Series and principal clarinetist with the North State Symphony. He teaches a variety of courses at CSU, Chico, from undergraduate studio to graduate-level Philosophy of Music and Gestural Rhythm.

Advance tickets, at $15 adults, $13 senior citizens, and $6 students/children, are available at the University Box office, 898-6333. Add $2 for tickets purchased at the door. For disability-related accommodations, please call 898-4325.

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— Hillary Feeney