FRI 30 JAN 2004
Returning UI graduate kicks off keyboard recital series
By Jon RossArgonaut Staff
The Lionel Hampton School of Music welcomes back graduate Peter Henderson on Friday night as the first guest artist in a new series of keyboard recitals.
Henderson, a 1994 UI graduate, has been living in Missouri and working as a freelance musician. The concert starts at 8 p.m. and costs $3 for students.
Every year the LHSOM features many guest artists from around the country. These artists fly in to Moscow to give a recital and then stay for a few days to give master classes and teach lessons. Concerts like Henderson’s help bring professional talent to UI and provide a way for students to learn from people making a living in the field.
This recital marks the return of a professional musician to the school that taught him the basics. Henderson can be viewed as a person that took his degree out into the real world and made it work. Many students believe that degrees in the arts are worthless and only for self-edification, but Henderson’s return underscores the importance of arts-based programs.
Henderson’s recital will feature lush, romantic works coupled with a sonata from the Contemporary period. The program features compositions by Claude Debussy, Fryderyk Chopin and Elliot Carter.
Debussy’s “Images, Book II” is a grouping of three solo piano pieces and, according to the New Grove Dictionary of Music, contains some of his most tonally confusing compositions. Debussy’s compositional goals “might be summarized as a lifelong quest to banish blatancy of musical expression,” New Grove states. This leads to a harmonic ambiguity that is best equated with a feeling of floating around just above the ground.
Carter’s “Piano Sonata” will plant floating listeners back on the Earth, because to understand this piece, the listener has to focus. Carter’s compositions favor spurts of musical dialogue mixed with a unique use of space. A former mathematician and winner of two Nobel Prizes for composition, he composes using vocabulary that seeped into musical circles at the beginning of the 20th century. The newer vocabulary makes his Sonata stand out, and the audience will really have to listen to catch the idea behind the piece.
Chopin’s “12 Etudes” are studies in virtuosity that address “one principal technical problem in each piece and crystallizing that problem in a single shape or figure,” New Grove states. The technical aspects of the “Etudes” range from explorations in legato phrasing to aerobic passages centering on the black keys of the piano.
Henderson received his doctorate from Indiana University and has won national recognition for his pianistic abilities. In 1996 he was given the grand prize in Matinee Musicale’s Young Artist Competition and has won teaching awards while giving lessons in Indiana. Henderson briefly returned to UI in 1999 to teach piano lessons and serve as a visiting assistant professor of piano.
Schedule for Eastside Cinemas
“The Big Bounce” — PG-13 (12:50) (2:55) 5, 7:05, 9:10 p.m.“You Got Served” — PG-13 (12:40) (2:50) 5, 7:10, 9:20 p.m.
“Mystic River” R (12:25) — (3:20) 6:15, 9:10 p.m.
“The Butterfly Effect” — R (noon) (2:25) 4:50, 7:15, 9:40 p.m.
“Master and Commander” — PG-13 (2:30) 9:30 p.m.
“Cheaper By The Dozen” — PG (12:20) 5:10, 7:20 p.m.
U4 Cinema Schedule
“Return of the King” — PG-13 (2:45) and 7 p.m.“Big Fish” — PG-13 (1), 4, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.
“Torque” — PG-13 (1), (4), 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.
“Along Came Polly” — PG-13 (1), 4, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.
Showtimes in ( ) are for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday only.
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