Schoyen, Barretta Perform 'Complete Works for Cello and Piano by Beethoven'

SALISBURY, MD---Cellist Jeffrey Schoyen and pianist Ernest Barretta perform “Complete Works for Cello and Piano by Beethoven” during a two-part series Wednesdays, October 3 and November 28, at Salisbury University.

Performances are 7 p.m. in the Great Hall of Holloway Hall.

In October, the duo performs Beethoven’s second, third and fourth sonatas, along with a set of variations on Mozart’s “Ein Madchen oder Weibchen” (“A Girl or a Little Wife” from Die Zauberflote (The Magic Flute).

Selections scheduled for November include Beethoven’s first and last sonatas — “the first being relatively upbeat and light, while the last marks a change to his very cerebral last-style period,” said Schoyen — as well as variations on Handel’s “Judas Maccabeus” and Mozart’s “Bei Mannern.”

Conductor and music director of the Salisbury Symphony Orchestra and the Salisbury Youth Orchestra, Schoyen teaches cello and bass at SU. He has given concerts throughout the United States, Germany, Mexico, Spain and Ecuador, and was the recipient of a Frank Huntington Beebe Grant to study in London with William Pleeth. He is also a Tanglewood Gustav Golden Award recipient. Schoyen honed his cello skills at the New England Conservatory of Music and Carnegie Mellon University, before earning his D.M.A. at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

A successful soloist and chamber musician, Barretta has performed extensively throughout the U.S. and Canada. A member of the piano faculty at Juilliard School of Music, he recently appeared at the Seoul Music Festival and Academy in South Korea. A collaborative artist, he has played with such internationally recognized musicians as baritone Christopher Robertson and trumpeter Terry Everson. He studied at Oberlin Conservatory and earned a D.M.A. from Peabody Conservatory.

Both are members of the Allegheny Ensemble, which performs regularly at SU and other venues in the region.

Sponsored by the Music, Theatre and Dance Department, admission is free and the public is invited. For more information call 410-548-5588 or visit the SU website.