Music Series at Akin features return visit by Albers, Weiss

Music Series at Akin

Music Series at Akin features return visit by Albers, Weiss

Cellist Julie Albers and pianist Orion Weiss will return to Midwestern State University’s Music Series at Akin. The performance will begin at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 25, at Akin Auditorium. The event will close the ninth season of the series, which is sponsored by the Perkins-Prothro Foundation and Joe and Dale Prothro with the Lamar D. Fain College of Fine Arts at MSU.

Albers began playing the cello at age 4 and studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music. She has performed internationally as both a soloist and in chamber music festivals. She is principal cello of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Mary Jean and Charles Yates Cello Chair at the McDuffie Center for Strings at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. She recently completed a three-year residency with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Two. She is also active with the Albers String Trio and the Cortona Trio.

Albers’ debut album with Weiss includes works by Rachmaninoff, Beethoven, Schumann, Massenet, and Piatagorsky. She performs on a N.F. Vuillaume cello made in 1872.

Weiss has performed with major American orchestras including the Boston and Chicago symphonies and the Los Angeles and New York philharmonic orchestras. His honors include the Gilmore Young Artist Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Gina Bachauer Scholarship at the Juilliard School, and the Mieczyslaw Munz Scholarship. Weiss made his debut with the Cleveland Orchestra performing Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in February 1999. In March 1999, with less than 24 hours’ notice, Weiss stepped in to replace André Watts for a performance of Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

Their program will include movements from Beethoven’s “Sonata for Cello and Piano in D Major, Op. 102, No. 2” and Prokofiev’s “Sonata for Cello and Piano in C Major, Op. 119.” After an intermission, they will perform Brahms’ “Sonata No. 2 for Cello and Piano in F Major, Op. 99.”

The piano windtet Ensemble 4.1 will be the next guest of the Music Series at Akin on Oct. 20. Ensemble 4.1 features Thomas Hoppe, piano; Jörg Schneider, oboe; Alexander Glücksmann, clarinet; Fritz Pahlmann, horn; and Christoph Knitt, bassoon.

Weiss and Albers were guests of the Music Series at Akin in March 2015. The Akin Music Series began in 2012 with pianist Yefim Bronfman and has since featured musicians such as cellist Alisa Weilerstein, clarinetist Jon Manasse and pianists Inon Barnatan, Alessio Bax, Lucille Chung, Barry Douglas, and Jon Nakamatsu.

Tickets may be purchased by contacting the MSU Department of Music in the Fain Fine Arts Center at 940-397-4267 or visiting the Fine Arts tickets web page. General admission tickets are $25 for each performance. Tickets for senior citizens and military are $22.50.