118 STONES RIVER CHAMBER PLAYERS OPEN SEASON WITH MOTHER GOOSE SUITE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Oct. 11, 2006
CONTACT: Tim Musselman, 615-898-2493

Free & Open Concert on Oct. 23 Serves as Tennessee Debut of ‘Short Stories’

(MURFREESBORO)—The Stones River Chamber Players, an ensemble in residence at Middle Tennessee State University, will open the group’s 2006-2007 season with a program titled “Story Time” at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 23 in the Hinton Music Hall of the Wright Music Building on the MTSU campus.
“All of the works have literary connections,” said Dr. Lynn Rice-See, professor of piano and co-director of the group.
The ensemble will perform Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast and The Empress of the Pagodas from the Mother Goose Suite by Maurice Ravel; Three Petrarch Sonnets by Franz Liszt and Short Stories by Andrew Zohn in the opening half of the recital. The second half of the program will feature Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns.
Dr. William Yelverton, MTSU professor of guitar, commissioned Short Stories by Zohn through an MTSU Faculty Development Grant. Yelverton will perform the piece, along with faculty members Todd Waldecker (clarinet) and Deanna Hahn-Little (flute), during the Oct. 23 concert, which will mark the Tennessee premiere of the work.
“(These) 10 short pieces are full of good humor and run the gamut of moods,” Yelverton said. “Some are comical, others austere, and some... just plain odd,” he added.
Other faculty performers for this concert will include pianists Jerry Perkins and Raymond Bills performing the Ravel suite (which is for one piano, four hands) and Stephen Smith (tenor) and Lynn Rice-See (piano) performing the Liszt work. John McDaniel, dean of MTSU’s College of Liberal Arts, will narrate the text by poet Ogden Nash in the Saint-Saëns work.
“The Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals is a perennial favorite of children and adults, particularly when the Ogden Nash poetry is included,” remarked Rice-See. “The chamber version to be performed is the first version of the work, followed later by its full orchestral version.”
In addition to their concert series at MTSU, the group’s members tour regularly throughout the southeastern United States and have received enthusiastic reviews for its two recent European tours. They also perform frequently on Live from Studio C, which is produced by Nashville Public Radio.
Subsequent concerts for the 2006-2007 season include “Two, Four, Six, Eight” at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 29 and “Brass, Beezer, Beethoven: Not the Usual Three B’s” at 7:30 p.m. March 26.
The Oct. 23 concert is free and open to the public.
For more information, call the Robert W. McLean School of Music at (615) 898-2469.