Music department highlights Mozart sonatas, vocal works, Ugandan music

This week the Department of Music presents three concerts, all of which are free and open to the public.

Violinist Ellen Jewett returns to campus to perform Mozart violin sonatas with pianist Blaise Bryski on Friday, Nov. 10, at 8 p.m. in Barnes Hall. The program includes the Sonatas in E-flat Major, K. 302; in B-flat Major, K. 454; in G Major, K. 301; and in A Major, K. 526. Jewett has been heard many times on the Barnes Hall stage, both as a soloist and member of Ensemble X and with the Taliesin Trio.

Soprano Rebecca Marques, a junior majoring in music, presents a student voice recital Sunday, Nov. 12, at 8 p.m. in Barnes Hall. Assisted by pianist Anton Faradjian, she performs vocal works by Bach, Bellini, Wagner and Menotti, opening with two arias from cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach. Following three chansons by Duparc and Fauré, Marques and Faradjian present four arias of Vincenzo Bellini, the leading opera composer of the early 19th century. After intermission, Marques sings a song cycle of Wagner's, Fünf Gedichte von Mathilde Wesendonk, and they close with selections from two Menotti operas, The Medium and The Old Maid and the Thief.

Sponsored by the Einaudi Center for International Studies, the Institute for African Development and the Department of Music, Samite of Uganda will perform a solo concert, "The Power of Music," Wednesday, Nov. 15, at 8 p.m. in Barnes Hall.

Samite is a musician, composer and Windham Hill recording artist from Uganda who now makes his home in Ithaca. His concert will speak to the positive effect that music has on the physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of our lives, as well as the ability to bridge oceans and cultures. Samite left Uganda as a political refugee in 1982 and spent six months in a refugee camp in Kenya. Billboard magazine said, "Samite wraps his warm voice around melodies that seem to rise up off the Ugandan plateau caressed by kalimba and other traditional instruments."