Georgia Woodwind Quintet premieres composition by UGA faculty in spring performance

The Georgia Woodwind Quintet will perform the regional premiere of a work written by a UGA faculty member as part of their concert in Ramsey Concert Hall on Wednesday, Feb. 22, at 8 p.m.

The Hugh Hodgson School of Music’s resident faculty ensemble is made up of Angela Jones-Reus, flute; Jean Martin-Williams, horn; D. Ray McClellan, clarinet; Reid Messich, oboe; and Amy Pollard, bassoon.

The quintet’s program will contain works from a variety of styles, but the highlight of the performance brings together seven Hodgson School faculty members. Liza Stepanova, assistant professor of piano, joins the quintet for the regional premiere performance of “Seven Rants,” a sextet written by Peter Lane, assistant professor of composition.

“Seven Rants” was composed 2011, commissioned by the Composers Conference and Chamber Music Center at Wellesley College. The piece comprises seven short movements, or miniatures.

“The first and last movements are palindromes—the last is the same as the first, but backwards,” said Lane. “And the five inner movements are essentially tiny concertos for each of the instruments in the wind quintet, complete with their own short cadenza, or ‘rant,’ and in what I like to think of as an ‘argumentative’ musical style.”

Lane and the quintet hope to record the piece soon, to be included on a commercially released album of some of Lane’s chamber music compositions in 2018.

The program will also feature Debussy’s “Children’s Corner,” Carl Nielsen’s Quintet for Winds, and Paquito D’Rivera’s “Aires Tropicales”—a multicultural musical sampling of France, Denmark and Cuba, respectively.

This performance is presented admission-free, and those unable to attend can watch the concert live on the Hodgson School’s website: music.uga.edu/streaming.

The Georgia Woodwind Quintet, formed in 1967, regularly performs works that span the quintet repertoire, particularly championing new compositions. The group has sponsored seven Symposia for New Woodwind Quintet Music at the University of Georgia since its inception and recorded an album of winning compositions from those symposia.

Recent activities of the ensemble include performances at regional and national conferences and the recording of a new CD, “Chroma,” which was released this month by Mark Records.

The UGA Hugh Hodgson School of Music sponsors more than 350 performances each year. To view the performance calendar, subscribe to the weekly email concert listing, and to learn more about the School of Music, go to music.uga.edu.