EUGENE–Three concerts featuring stringed instrument players and a workshop and performance for high school vocalists will inaugurate the winter term concert season this week at the University of Oregon School of Music, 961 E. 18th Ave.

For more information, call the UO School of Music weekdays at (541) 346-5678. To confirm concert times and ticket information, call GuardLine from a Touch-Tone phone at 485-2000, ext. 2533, for a 24-hours-a-day taped message of the week’s events.

Violinist Fritz Gearhart will perform three sonatas by Beethoven in a Faculty Artist Series recital at 4 p.m. in Beall Concert Hall, 961 E. 18th Ave. Tickets, available at the door, are $7 general admission and $4 for students and senior citizens.

The recital is the second in a set of three recitals by Gearhart featuring the complete cycle of Beethoven violin sonatas. This set of sonatas includes the two most famous named sonatas of the collection–No. 9 in A Major, "Kreutzer" and No. 5 in F Major, "Spring"–as well as No. 4 in A Minor.

Gearhart joined the UO music faculty last year. He received his master’s degree from the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with Donald Weilerstein. His earlier performances as a member of the Chester String Quartet were widely acclaimed by the press and singled out as highlights of the 1989 String Quartet Congress. Gearhart has performed in major halls around the country, including two recent performances in Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, and has several compact discs to his credit.

Pianist Paul Tardif from East Carolina University will accompany Gearhart. Tardif and Gearhart recorded a compact disc for Koch Internation in 1994, titled "The American Violin." The CD contains the William Grant Still suite for violin and piano which Tardif and Gearhart will perform on Jan. 8 for the Oregon Festival of American Music in Eugene.

The Colorado String Quartet and cellist Rhonda Rider will give a Chamber Music Series concert at 8 p.m. in Beall Hall. Reserved-seat tickets range from $8 to $22 and are available in advance from the Hult Center at (541) 682-5000 or at the Erb Memorial Union Ticket Office at 346-4363. Student rush tickets will be sold at the door for $5 and $9.

The featured selections on the program are Haydn’s "Quartet No. 3 in G Minor," Katherine Hoover’s recent (1998) "Quartet, Op. 58" and Schubert’s "Quintet in C Major" with cellist Rhonda Rider joining the quartet. Rider, an acclaimed cellist with the Lydian Quartet, is the daughter of Wanda and Morrette Rider of Eugene. Morrette Rider was dean of the UO School of Music from 1974—1986.

Peter Bergquist, professor emeritus of music history, will give a free talk at 7:15 p.m. in Room 198 of the music school, offering insights and recorded examples of the concert repertoire.

The Colorado Quartet made history in 1983 by winning two of the music world’s highest honors in a 10-day period: the Naumburg Chamber Music Award and First Prize at the Banff International String Quartet Competition. Since that time the ensemble has been praised on four continents as one of the finest quartets of our time, cited for its musical integrity, impassioned playing and lyrical finesse.

Currently based in the New York City area, the Colorado Quartet appears regularly in major halls around the globe.

Last season, the quartet participated in Mostly Mozart’s Haydn retrospective in New York City, as well as in concerts in Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and Seattle. They have toured more than 20 countries, giving concerts at Carnegie Hall, in the Great Performers at Lincoln Center series, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and at festivals in Scandinavia and the Czech Republic as well as the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico.

The quartet also has been featured on radio and television worldwide, with numerous radio broadcasts in America, England and Canada, as well as television programs in The Netherlands, Norway, Puerto Rico, Peru and Mexico.

The Colorado Quartet is equally at home performing standard literature or newer works, and has premiered compositions by leading composers such as Ezra Laderman and Karel Husa, as well as composers of the younger generation. It has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lila Wallace/Reader’s Digest Fund and the Aaron Copland Fund for Music.

String quartets from the UO faculty and the Community Music Institute will give a children’s concert titled "Super Strings." The one-hour program begins at 10:30 a.m. in Beall Concert Hall. Tickets, available at the door, are $3 for adults, $2 for children and students, or $5 for a family ticket.

The program will introduce youngsters to the violin, viola and cello, and show how they play together in a quartet setting, including kid-friendly selections by Mozart, Brahms and other composers. The Oregon String Quartet, including violinists Kathryn Lucktenberg and Fritz Gearhart, violist Leslie Straka and cellist Steven Pologe, will lead the program. A young student quartet from the UO Community Music Institute, headed by Sylvie Spengler, also will perform.

The Children’s Concert Series, subtitled "Lively Music for Young Listeners," is designed to present children ages 3—12 with a variety of interesting listening experiences, and to expose them to a broad musical spectrum that they might not otherwise encounter.

The School of Music’s voice department will sponsor a one-day workshop for high school vocalists from 12:30 to 5:30 p.m. The free event is designed to expose talented singers to the various disciplines necessary for singing at the college and professional level. Those interested in the workshop should call Mark Beudert at 346-3780.

Participants will have master classes with UO voice and choral faculty members Mark Beudert, Ann Tedards, Richard Clark and Kathryn Olson. Students also will meet and work with members of the School of Music’s Oregon Opera Ensemble.

The workshop will conclude with a recital of choral and opera selections at 4:30 p.m. in Beall Hall. Featured singers will be UO graduate students in vocal performance, as well as selected singers from the workshop. Admission is free, and the public is invited.

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