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Departure Duo Concert
Nina Guo and Edward Kass
(click image above for full-size file)
7:30 p.m., Davidson Music Center, Room 218
Departure Duo is a “high-low duo” with Nina Guo, soprano, and Edward Kass, bass, which explores the possibilities for music at its extremes: flying chips of marble, shifting grayscale landscapes and sensual James Joyce settings, alongside the biting humor of Dorothy Parker.
The concert centerpiece will be the duo’s newest commission by Tomás Gueglio, a Chicago-based, Argentine composer, which draws inspiration from the heightened drama and radiophonic landscape of telenovelas.
Committed to performing and commissioning repertory for their instrumentation, Departure Duo has premiered dozens of new works resulting from in-depth collaborations, including commissions from Katherine Balch, Sarah Gibson and Mikhail Johnson. Guo and Kass have cataloged more than 170 pieces as part of their “30x’30” project with the goal of finding 30 hours of soprano and string bass repertory by 2030.
Departure Duo has sold out performances at Spoleto Festival USA (Charleston, South Carolina), with recent appearances at Constellation’s Frequency Series (Chicago, Illinois), Sequence at km28 (Berlin, Germany), and Yellow Barn (Putney, Vermont).
The duo has been in residence at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Brandeis University and UC Santa Barbara, with upcoming residencies at Stanford University and Northwestern University.
Free admission, parking permit required
W. Terrence Spiller: All-Chopin Piano Recital
Friday, April 25, 2025
7:30 p.m. Performing Arts Center Pavilion
Pianist and music Professor Emeritus W. Terrence Spiller will give a recital of works by Frédéric Chopin.
Spiller will cover a broad swath of Chopin’s works, including dances and a nocturne, and will conclude with his ground-breaking cycle of piano miniatures, “Preludes, Op. 28.”
The other works include “Tres Valses brillante,” Op. 34; “Berceuse in D-flat Major,” Op. 57; “Nocturne in F-sharp Minor,” Op. 48, No. 2; and “Polonaise in F-sharp Minor,” Op. 44.
Spiller stepped down from full-time teaching in the Music Department in March 2021, and fully retired from Cal Poly in 2023. From 2016-24 he presented recitals of Ludwig van Beethoven’s piano sonatas.
Tickets ($22 general, $12 students)
Cello Fest May 1-4
The Cal Poly Music Department will present its first-ever Cello Fest from Thursday through Sunday, May 1-4, with presentations and performances on campus, and at San Luis Obispo United Methodist Church and Temple Ner Shalom. Cal Poly faculty member and cellist Megan Chartier is organizing the events to highlight Cal Poly’s large studio of skilled student cellists. Highlights include a student concerto performance, a junior recital and the world premiere of a student composition by the Cal Poly Cello Ensemble. There will also be a faculty lecture-demonstration, a guest artist master class and a faculty recital.
Aaron Kline and Megan Chartier
'Between the Notes' Lecture-Demo
Thursday, May 1, 2025
11:10 a.m., Davidson Music Center, Room 218
Music Department faculty members Aaron Kline, composer, and Megan Chartier, cello, will discuss the composition and performance process for Kline’s "Sarabande in 7-8" for solo cello which will have its California premiere by Chartier on May 4. They will explore the unique difficulties of writing for solo cello, the flexibility of interpretation with a living composer and the evolution of a piece through the voices of multiple performers.
Free admission, parking permit required
Eric Sung
Eric Sung Cello Master Class
Thursday, May 1, 2025
7:30 p.m., Davidson Music Center, Room 218
Eric Sung is principal cellist for the San Francisco Ballet who will coach Cal Poly students on their performance.
Sung has also been a soloist with the San Francisco Philharmonic, Colburn Chamber Orchestra, Merced Symphony, Saratoga Symphony, Stanford University Summer Symphony, Contra Costa Chamber Orchestra, National Taiwan University of Education Orchestra, KAMSA Youth Orchestra and the Aspen Academy of Conducting Orchestra. He has participated in the New York String Seminar, Piatigorsky Seminar and has performed at the National Repertory Orchestra, Taos, Tanglewood, Mendocino, Scotia, Kent/Blossom, Sarasota, Aspen, Mozaic, National Orchestra Institute, Pacific, Verbier, Napa Valley and the Mainly Mozart Festivals as well as the Sun Valley Symphony.
He was a member of the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra and was assistant principal of the Hong Kong Philharmonic. Sung has served as acting/guest principal of the Sydney Symphony and the National Arts Centre Orchestra and has performed extensively with the San Francisco Opera Orchestra as well as the Los Angeles Philharmonic and San Francisco Symphony.
Free admission, parking permit required
Emiko Wong
Emiko Wong Junior Cello Recital
Friday, May 2, 2025
7:30 p.m., Davidson Music Center, Room 218
Titled "Tides of Memory" music major Emiko Wong will perform a junior recital with Music Department faculty member and pianist Janet Joichi.
Work to be performed:
- "Pampeana No. 2" by Alberto Ginastera
- "Fantasiestücke," Op. 73 by Robert Schumann
- "Orbit" by Philip Glass
- "Cello Sonata in C Minor," Op. 6 by Samuel Barber
Wong is principal cellist of the Cal Poly Symphony, and recently performed the Schumann Cello Concerto with the group as a Cal Poly Solo Competition winner. She has been accepted to participate in the prestigious Brevard Music Center Summer Institute in North Carolina this summer.
Free admission
Cal Poly Cello Ensemble
Cello Ensemble Concert: Cello Romanza
Saturday, May 3, 2025
2 p.m., San Luis Obispo United Methodist Church
Cal Poly’s Cello Ensemble will present its first full-length concert with a wide variety of genres and composers. Sarah Chang, a senior chemistry major and music minor, will perform the Elgar Cello Concerto with cello accompaniment; and Noah Bettelheim, a first-year music major will lead the ensemble in the world premiere of his work “Tiris,” which was commissioned for this concert. The ensemble’s 12 students are from a variety of majors.
- "William Tell Overture" by Gioachino Rossini
- "Cello Sonata in E Minor," Mvt. 1 by Johannes Brahms
- "Tiris" by music major Noah Bettelheim (world premiere)
- "Cello Concerto," Mvt. 1 by Edward Elgar (Sarah Chang, soloist)
- "Por Una Cabeza" by Carlos Gardel
- "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga (arranged by Bettelheim)
- "Misty "by Erroll Garner
- "Elegie" by Josef Werner
- "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen
Free admission
Megan Chartier
Megan Chartier Faculty Cello Recital: ‘In Search of Light’
Sunday, May 4, 2025
2 p.m., Temple Ner Shalom
Music Department faculty member Megan Chartier will present an expressive solo cello program with works by Aaron Kline, Ernst Bloch, Rudolf Matz and Max Reger. The South Florida Classical Review described Chartier as “unafraid to display gutsy abandon.” She has been principal cellist of Opera San Luis Obispo since 2021, and is a member of Ensemble for These Times, a contemporary chamber ensemble based in San Francisco.
Free admission
Tyler J. Borden and Mari Kawamura: ‘Morton Feldman, Patterns in a Chromatic Field’
Sunday, May 11, 2025
6 p.m., Davidson Music Center, Room 218
Cellist Tyler J. Borden and pianist Mari Kawamura will present Morton Feldman's massive, 80-minute "Patterns in a Chromatic Field."
Feldman, an American composer and major figure in 20th-century classical music, wrote the piece in the last decade of his life (1977-87). It's known for long durations and unpredictable repetition. Microtonal shadings ring against the equal tempered piano, creating complex rhythmic constellations that drift slowly through the air.
“Feldman drew inspiration from philosophy, visual art, as well as from his musical peers. These influences manifested most clearly in his approach to notation, which often deliberately engages ambiguity in its manner of operation,” said Borden and Kawamura. “We will highlight different ways that this ambiguity catalyzes performer interpretation and invites contemplation on the nature of the listener’s perception.”
Borden is based in Brooklyn, New York. Hailed for his “technically polished playing” (Jan Jezioro, Artvoice) as well as his “astounding performances of superlatively difficult modernist solo works” (Edge of the Center), he is dedicated to the performance of modern and experimental music.
Kawamura is a concert pianist who is drawn to music which utilizes the entirety of the piano as an expressive device, equally enjoying music which showcases its tremendous agility, and its ability to produce spacious resonances.
Free admission