The Allegheny Trio Performs at SU on Wednesday, September 24

SALISBURY, MD---The Allegheny Trio performs a concert of chamber music masterworks 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, September 24, in the Great Hall of Salisbury University’s Holloway Hall.

The program includes Schubert’s Piano Trio in B flat major, Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Cello, Kodaly’s Sonata for Cello and Piano, op. 4 and the virtuosic showpiece Passacaglia, composed by Johann Halvorsen based on a theme by Handel. Kara Dahl Russell, WSCL 89.5 FM music director, introduces the pieces.

Written in 1827, Schubert’s Piano Trio set a new standard for the genre and influenced composers of the piano trio for the remainder of the 19th century. Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Cello, completed in 1922, is one of only a handful of great works written for that combination. Dedicated to the memory of Debussy, it marked a turning point in Ravel’s development as a composer, with its lean texture and emphasis on melody.

Comprised of cellist Jeffrey Schoyen, violinist Sachiho Murasugi and pianist Ernest Baretta, the trio is named for the Allegheny River, which flows through the Pittsburgh area where the musicians originally played together. They reunited as a trio upon moving to the Eastern Shore.

Conductor and music director of the Salisbury Symphony Orchestra (SSO) 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 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. Holding a D.M.A. from Ohio State University, she is concertmaster for the SSO.

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.

Sponsored by the Department of Music, admission is free and the public is invited. For more information call 410-543-6385 or visit the SU website at www.salisbury.edu.