Southeastern Musical Arts Series to Present September 28 Concert
Press Release Date: 09-21-2006
Southeastern Oklahoma State University’s Musical Arts Series, in conjunction with the Red River Arts Council, will present Piffaro, The Renaissance Band, in concert Thursday, September 28.
The concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Fine Arts Recital Hall. Pifarro will also perform in the Durant Public Schools.
The concert is funded in part by grants from the Oklahoma Arts Council and the Mid–America Arts Alliance with support from the National Endowment for the Arts. Local sponsors include Mr. and Mrs. Bill Dodd and Mrs. Marla St. John.
All of the Musical Arts series concerts are offered with no admission charge and the public is invited and encouraged to attend.
Piffaro, founded in 1980, performs music of the late Medieval and Renaissance periods on a large and varied collection of early wind instruments, plucked strings and percussion. Modeled after the official civic, chapel and court bands that were the premier professional ensembles from the 14th into the early 17th centuries, Piffaro presents music both sacred and secular that entertained royalty, adorned the mass and decorated state occasions on a daily basis.
The ensemble has also pursued the instruments and the vital music of the peasantry and of rustic life. Most Piffaro concerts combine the two milieu to dramatic effect. Under the direction of Joan Kimball and Robert Wiemken, the band produces its own concert series with four to five programs per year.
Excerpts from these programs are regularly broadcast nationwide on National Public Radio’s Performance Today.
Piffaro tours extensively worldwide and has made many performances in the United States, represented by MCM Artists.
The ensemble performs throughout the year for elementary, middle and high school students and also holds master classes and workshops for college students and adult amateurs. Piffaro was honored with Early Music America’s annual “Early Music Brings History Alive” award in 2003.
Members of the ensemble are Rotem Gilbert, Grant Herreid, Greg Ingles, Joan Kimble, Christa Patton, Robert Wiemken and Tom Zajac.
Gilbert is a native of Haifa, Israel, who performs on the recorder and double reeds. Herreid, originally a trumpet player from Portland, Ore., is now a musician/director/teacher. He performs frequently on winds, strings and voice. Ingles is a professor of trombone at Hofstra University and a freelance sackbut player. Kimbell, co–director and a founding member of Piffaro, teaches bagpipe, recorder and double reeds and is on the music faculty of the Philadelphia School.
Patton is a classically–trained oboist who now performs on a variety of Renaissance and Baroque wind and string instruments. As a Baroque harpist, she has performed in New York City, Toronto and Seattle. Wiemken was a French hornist for many years before turning to early music and period instrument performance, focusing on the recorders and double–reed instruments of the late Medieval through the Baroque periods, most notably the Renaissance shawm and dulcian, or curtal, and the Baroque bassoon. He is currently co–director of Piffaro.
Zajac teaches recorder and early–music workshops throughout the United States and directs the early–music ensembles at Wellesley College near his home in Boston. He is a founding member of the New York–based musical/theatrical group, Ex Umbris.
