MTSU’s Stones River Chamber Players will open their 2016-17 season by presenting classical performances for trios at a free public concert, “Music for Three,” set for Monday, Oct. 17.

Click on the graphic above to listen to streaming audio performances by the Stones River Chamber Players.

The ensemble members, all of whom teach in MTSU’s School of Music, will perform at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 17 in Hinton Music Hall inside MTSU’s Wright Music Building.

The concert, titled “Music for Three,” will feature two contrasting trios.

North Carolina composer Dan Locklair wrote the first piece, “In the Almost Evening,” in 1982 for clarinet, soprano and piano.

Dr. Arunesh Nadgir, coordinator of keyboard studies at MTSU and co-director of SRCP, said Locklair used three poems written by Joy Kogawa for his musical work, which will be performed by clarinetist Todd Waldecker, soprano Christine Isley-Farmer and pianist Adam Clark.

“Locklair writes that while divided into three sections, it was conceived as a one-movement work and describes feelings of loneliness, rejection, and beauty,” said Nadgir.

Clark, SRCP co-director and a professor of piano and MTSU, added that Locklair’s work “is a beautiful and profound combination of music and poetry. The voice, clarinet, and piano blend wonderfully to create a sense of peacefulness and tranquility. There is also a dance-like section for voice and clarinet in the middle of the work that offers a nice contrast to the outer sections.”

The second trio on the program is “one of the great masterpieces of the Romantic period, and one of the most beloved chamber works in the chamber music repertoire,” said Nadgir.

Violinist Andrea Dawson, cellist Christine Kim and pianist Eunbyol Ko will perform Felix Mendelssohn’s “brilliant and fiery” “Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 49.”

“Mendelssohn was described by fellow composer Robert Schumann as ‘the Mozart of the 19th century’ in a review of the D Minor piano trio,” Dawson said. “Schumann’s comment is apt for the piece, with its balance between classical clarity of form and phrasing and romantic lyricism and passion.”

You can listen to streaming audio performances by the Stones River Chamber Players at www.mtsu.edu/music/srcp.php. For details on more MTSU School of Music performances, call 615-898-2493 or visit the School of Music’s Concert Calendar online.

— Gina E. Fann (gina.fann@mtsu.edu)