Do you like chamber music? And cookies? Then pencil this in on your calendar for Thursday evening.
Thursday, August 28, 2008, at 7 p.m.
First Baptist Church, 424 Wallace Avenue (corner 5th and Wallace), Coeur d’Alene
A Program of Romantic Music
Harp and Flute:
Damase – Sonate
Debussy – En Bateau
Doppler/Zamara – Casilda Fantasie
Harp and French Horn:
Ravel – Pavane
Berry – Moonlight in a Chamber
(World premier of this new piece by William Berry)
Musicians:
Leslie Stratton Norris, Harp
Rhonda Bradetich, Flute
Jennifer Scriggins Brummett, French Horn
The program is free.
(The music stands pictured at the top of this post were made by Mike “Mr. Standman” Norris.)
Sounds delightful. Can you tell us about the musicians?
Comment by Mama Bear — August 27, 2008 @ 7:35 am
Mama Bear,
Here’s the bios. Leslie was the director for our vocal ensemble at church. She teaches harp locally and has several free student recitals (adult and children) throughout the year. Mike makes handmade wooden music stands. His shop is next to their home on French Gulch Road.
Leslie Stratton Norris, Harpist
Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra Principal Harpist Leslie Stratton Norris is originally from Worthington, Ohio. Under the instruction of well-known teacher Alice Chalifoux, she earned a Bachelor of Music degree in Harp Performance from Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio.
Before moving to Los Angeles in 1982 to study Jazz and improvisation on the harp, Norris performed with the Ohio Chamber Orchestra, Cleveland Ballet, and the Cleveland Opera. In Los Angeles, she became very active in the recording industry, recording projects for movie and TV scores, albums, and MUZAK. In Los Angeles, she performed with the Pacific Symphony, Opera Pacifica, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and numerous smaller orchestras throughout the area.
In 1992, she moved to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho and has since enjoyed a solo career performing for chamber music associations, churches, and orchestras throughout the Pacific Northwest.
Her first recording, Hymns of Praise (1993) is a collaboration with Baritone Randel Wagner. Her other recordings include Heavenly Classics (1994 – favorite familiar classics, solo harp), O Holy Night (1995 – Christmas favorites, solo harp), Bouquet of Love Songs (1997 – most-requested love songs, solo harp), and Windows of Worship (1999 – a collection of hymns, spirituals, contemporary Christian, and children’s songs, which display her talent as both a classical and jazz harpist).
Norris continues to perform with the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra as well as performing as a soloist and is currently working on her next CD project of classical romantic harp solos.
Rhonda Bradetich, Flutist
Idaho native Rhonda Bradetich has won both the Northwest Young Artist Competition and the Spokane Music and Arts Festival Young Artist Competition. In 1990, she appeared as flute soloist with the Spokane Symphony Orchestra. She has received several grants from the Idaho Commission on the Arts including, in 1993, a Worksites Award for a residency in New York City and Washington, D.C. There she studied with prominent New York flutists and researched her program of Slavic music from Eastern Europe. In 1994 she was chosen to perform for the Idaho Governor’s Awards in the Arts, where she was a soloist with the North Idaho Symphony Orchestra in a performance of the “Carmen Fantasy” by Francois Borne.
Ms. Bradetich has toured throughout the Northwest and in Canada as a member of the Idaho State Touring Roster. She is currently a member of the Arts Northwest Touring Roster and BC On Tour. She gave many performances during a three week residence in Spoleto, Italy in the summer of 1994 and in Ravello, Italy in 2001. She has been featured on the PBS television programs “Palouse Performances” and KVCR from Redlands, California, and on KPBX, Spokane’s Public Radio. Ms. Bradetich has premiered several works by Northwest composers and has appeared in the Northwest Bach Festival and the Zephyr Chamber Music Series in Spokane. She is a member of the Sun Valley Summer Symphony and has performed with the Spokane Symphony, the Boise Philharmonic, and the North Idaho Symphony. Ms. Bradetich has appeared regularly in the Festival at Sandpoint’s Chamber Music Series where she studied with Pulitzer Prize-winner Gunther Schuller.
Her other teachers have been Richard Hahn at the University of Idaho and Keith Underwood of the Mannes School of Music in New York. She has also studied with Julius Baker and Sandra Church, former and assistant principal flutists with the New York Philharmonic.
Ms. Bradetich is very interested in educational programs and teaches many students both as faculty flutist at North Idaho College and privately in the Sandpoint area. She has also been a flute instructor for the Lionel Hampton School of Music Summer Program at the University of Idaho.
She has released her recording “Reflections”, with pianist Stefanie Kowalski and harpists Leslie Stratton Norris and Therese Wunrow, on the Goldenflute label.
Jennifer Scriggins Brummett, French Horn
Jennifer Scriggins Brummett received her Bachelor of Music degree from the Juilliard School and a Master of Music degree at Southern Methodist University. She has been Principal Horn of the Spokane Symphony since 2002 and a member of the Solstice Quintet since 2004. Prior to joining the Spokane Symphony, Jennifer played Assistant Horn in the Fort Worth Symphony 1996-2002 and subbed in the Dallas Symphony, including recordings of Prokoviev’s Scythian Suite, Shostakovich’s 7th Symphony and Mahler Symphonies 2, 3, and 6.
Jennifer has performed at the Tanglewood Institute, the Chautauqua Festival, the Waterloo Festival, the Spoleto USA Festival, the Music in the Mountains Festival (Durango 1991-2000), as Principal Horn of the Utah Opera Festival and performed with the Solstice Quintet at the Orcas Center in June of 2007. She is on faculty at Washington State University, Whitworth College and Gonzaga University. As a soloist, she has performed the Schumann Konzertstuck with the Florida West Coast Symphony, the Mozart Concerto No. 2 with the Spokane Symphony, the Saint-Saens Morceau de Concert with the St. Mark’s Orchestra in Dallas, the Britten Serenade with the Texas Chamber Orchestra, and many others. Ms. Brummett also played Principal Horn on Frank Sinatra’s Diamond Jubilee International Tour.
Comment by Bill — August 27, 2008 @ 7:52 am
I was showing my aunt from Minnesota around CDA, and we caught the last song. Thanks for posting this.. I’ve been wanting to catch more of the fine arts. I was reading an old issue of Chronicles Magazine, and in an article about the dangerousness of being a newshound or even an “activist”, these paragraphs really struck me:
“Whoever wishes to defend and preserve our disintegrating civilization ought to minimize his time spent with the news and devote the hours saved to reading poetry and literature; listening to the great composers and studying great works of art; filling his house with the finest furniture, china, silverware, and crystal he can afford; giving elegant dinners for his friends and other like-minded acquaintances- in short, refining himself as a work of high civilization and establishing his household as civilixation in miniature.
Better yet, he should set aside the propaganda, half-truths, and outright lies of which most of the news consists and turn his hand to painting a picture, composing a string quartet, writing a novel, and doing it without thought of fame, fortune, or influence. Good and honest work, like civilization itself, is its own reward, with effects that radiate, laike an act of charity, infinitely through the universe.”
Comment by Bjorn — August 29, 2008 @ 11:24 am
Bjorn,
Thank you. Too often the presentations like Leslie, Rhonda, and Jennifer did are underpublicized, so many people don’t know about them. I linked to Leslie’s husband’s webpage, and her performance schedules are usually there. Also, she teaches harp. I enjoy going to her students’ harp recitals to encourage the students to keep working and keep rehearsing. Even if they don’t become professional musicians, they won’t regret the hours of rehearsals, the tension of performing publicly, and the joy of the music.
Comment by Bill — August 29, 2008 @ 7:34 pm