Music Series at Akin returns for 13th season
Midwestern State University’s Music Series at Akin will open its 13th season with the Nakamatsu Trio. The trio includes returning guest Jon Nakamatsu on piano, violinist Jennifer Frautschi, and cellist Bion Tsang. They will perform at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 10, in Akin Auditorium at MSU Texas.
The trio is a new grouping of musicians who are prolific performers on their own. Nakamatsu, a Music Series at Akin guest in the fall of 2014 with clarinetist Jon Manasse, saw his career take off after winning a gold medal at the 10th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 1997, making him the first American to win the award since 1981. Critiqued as an alluring and elegant artist, he has appeared throughout North America, Europe, and the Far East. Nakamatsu has worked with conductors such as James Conlon, Marek Janowski and Stanislaw Skrowaczewski. He remains active with chamber collaborations, orchestra performances, and solo recitals.
Frautschi has twice been nominated for Grammy awards and is artist-in-residence at Stony Brook University in Long Island, New York. She is equally at home with classic or contemporary repertoires, and her recent seasons have featured performances and recordings of works ranging from Robert Schumann and Lili Boulanger to Barbara White and Arnold Schoenberg. She has also had the privilege of premiering several new works composed for her by prominent living composers. Frautschi has performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the Boston Philharmonic, among many other concerto appearances.
Tsang also has been Grammy-nominated. He is the division head of strings at the Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music at The University of Texas at Austin. He has appeared as a soloist with orchestras around the world. In chamber music, he has collaborated with many artists, including cellist Yo-Yo Ma. He was recipient of the Texas Exes Teaching Award after just his first
year of service and soon after was named “Instrumentalist of the Year” by the Austin Critics Table. He has also served as visiting professor at Indiana University in Bloomington.
In his spare time, Bion helps his family run the Paul J. Tsang Foundation, a nonprofit organization named in honor of Bion's father and formed to help facilitate educational or career opportunities for promising students and professionals in the arts and sciences.
Nakamatsu will begin the program with Chopin’s Fantasy in F Minor. He will be joined by Frautschi and Tsang for Dvorak’s Slavic folk song-inspired “Dumky” Piano Trio in E Minor and Tchaikovsky’s Trio in A Minor, “À la mémoire d’un grand artiste” — a tribute to the Russian pianist and conductor Nikolai Rubenstein.
The next guests of the Music Series at Akin will be Curtis on Tour, a septet of winds and strings from the Curtis Institute of Music. The Curtis Institute offers merit-based full-tuition scholarships to musically gifted students. It will celebrate its 100-year anniversary next year. Curtis alumni have gone on to receive Pulitzer Prizes, Guggenheim Fellowships, and Avery Fisher Awards, and perform with symphonies and musical establishments around the world. Curtis on Tour is the Nina von Maltzahn Global Touring Initiative of the Curtis Institute of Music.
The concert is sponsored by the Perkins-Prothro Foundation and Mrs. Dale Prothro with the Lamar D. Fain College of Fine Arts at MSU. The series debuted in spring 2012 and since has since hosted many notable classical musicians.
Tickets may be purchased by contacting the MSU Music Department at 940-397-4267, or visiting msufineartstickets.com. Mail cash or check payments to Music Series at Akin, MSU Department of Music, 3410 Taft Blvd., Wichita Falls, Texas 76308. General admission tickets are $25 for each performance or $40 for season tickets. Tickets for senior citizens and military are $23 for each or $36 for season tickets. Tickets for MSU faculty and staff are $15 or $24 for season tickets.