Allegheny Ensemble Returns to SU February 8

SALISBURY, MD---The Allegheny Ensemble—cellist Jeffrey Schoyen, violinist Sachiho Murasugi and pianist Ernest Barretta—returns to Salisbury University, performing 4 p.m. Sunday, February 8, in the Great Hall of Holloway Hall.  

Named for the Allegheny River which flows through the Pittsburgh area where they originally played together, the Allegheny Ensemble’s three members reunited as a trio upon moving to the Eastern Shore.

Conductor 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 and Spain, and received 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.

Murasugi, his wife, has performed extensively as a professional orchestral and chamber musician. She has been concertmaster of the Sorg Opera Orchestra in Ohio and the Filarmonic del Bajio in Mexico. She also has been a member of the West Virginia Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic and Springfield Symphony. She received the National Endowment for the Arts Rural Residency Grant in chamber music and performed a recital at Museo del Prado in Madrid that was broadcast on Radio Nacional de Espana.

A successful soloist and chamber musician, Barretta has performed extensively throughout the U.S. and Canada. A member of the piano faculty at Julliard 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.  

Sponsored by the Office of Cultural Affairs, the performance is free and the public is invited.  For more information call 410-543-6271.