EUGENE–The guest artist vocal recital and three-day percussion festival scheduled this week will launch the spring concert season at the University of Oregon School of Music, 961 E. 18th Ave.

For more information, call the music school 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.

Baritone Kevin Helppie and pianist Diane Baxter, music faculty members at Western Oregon University in Monmouth, will perform French and German art songs at 8 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.

Selections on the program include a set of German lieder by Brahms, Mahler, Schubert and Clara Schumann; the cantata "Dalla guerra amorosa" by Handel; "Chansons Gaillardes" by Poulenc; "Flight for Heaven" by Ned Rorem; and a set of three songs by John Duke.

Helppie maintains an active performing career, including recitals, oratorios, operas and popular music concerts. As a soloist, he has sung with the Nashville Symphony, Jacksonville (Fla.) Symphony, Seattle Philharmonic, Bay Chorus of Houston, Louisville Bach Society, Detroit Concert Choir, Northwest Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra Seattle, Seattle Opera, Seattle Choral Company, Choir of the Sound, City Cantabile Choir, Festival Chorale Oregon, Mount Angel Abbey and Seattle Pro Musica.

Helppie sang the role of Chief Seattle in the West Coast premiere of the oratorio "The Earth is Our Mother" with the Dave Brubeck Jazz Quintet. He performed at the College Band Director’s National Convention in Boulder, Colo., in a concert of Charles Ives songs arranged for solo voice and wind ensemble.

Helppie was the baritone soloist in the world premiere of "Songs of Kabir," an oratorio by William Hawley. His operatic repertoire encompasses more than 20 roles, including the title characters in "The Marriage of Figaro," "Falstaff" and "Don Pasquale."

Helppie has received fellowships to perform with such renowned groups as the Robert Shaw Festival Singers in their tour of France and in their historic performances for the centennial of Carnegie Hall. Helppie also was granted an artist fellowship to perform with the Bach Aria Group in New York. He has been heard on the National Public Radio in the recital series and has performed a multi-media recital called "America in Song" numerous times under grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Texas Arts Commission.

Prior to joining the WOU faculty, Helppie also taught at Austin Peay State University, Sam Houston State University and Skagit Valley College. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Western Washington University, a Master of Music degree from Indiana University and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Washington.

Baxter has performed extensively in the United States, Canada and Japan. She is principal keyboard artist for the Yaquina Orchestra and the Bloch Music Festival, served for 12 years as principal keyboard artist for the Cascade Festival of Music, and is a founding member of SoundMoves.

Baxter’s musical approach in both solo and shared performance is influenced by poetry, literature and world folk music. Her research among the Ainu of Hokkaido, Japan, has contributed to her commitment to the process in which listener and player become active co-creators in musical performance.

Baxter’s Doctor of Musical Arts degree in piano performance and music history is from the University of Oregon, and her Master of Music degree in piano performance is from Boston University. As a professor of music at Western Oregon University, she teaches "Women in Dance and Music," world music, accompanying and studio piano.

The UO School of Music, in conjunction with the Oregon chapter of the Percussive Arts Society, will host the 16th annual Northwest Percussion Festival, featuring three days of workshops and performances at the Music Building, 961 E. 18th Ave. A complete schedule of the free concert events will be available at Beall Concert Hall beginning at 3 p.m. Friday, April 6, or by clicking "Calendar of Events" on the music school’s web site at <http://music1.uoregon.edu>.

Two ticketed concerts will feature headliner guest artists.

On Friday, April 6, virtuoso Leigh Howard Stevens will give a classical marimba recital in Beall Hall. Concert time is 8:30 p.m. Tickets, available at the door, are $7 general admission and $4 for students and senior citizens.

The program will feature works by Joseph Schwantner, Jacob Druckman and J. S. Bach, as well as by Stevens himself. Hailed by Time magazine as "the world’s greatest classical marimbist," Stevens is professor of marimba at the Royal Academy of Music, London.

His wide repertoire ranges from Renaissance music to original marimba works written by contemporary composers expressly for him. Much of this unaccompanied literature was considered technically and musically impossible for one player to perform until Stevens developed a new system of four-mallet technique. His "one-handed rolls," his complete mastery of mallet independence, his numerous textural sustaining techniques and his use of birch-handle mallets have now become synonymous with contemporary marimba playing. His revolutionary approach is being adopted by percussionists and marimbists worldwide.

UO Professor Charles Dowd will open the Friday concert with "Concerto for Percussion" by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Joseph Schwantner, performing with the Oregon Wind Ensemble.

On Saturday, April 7, classical gives way to jazz, as the internationally renowned duo Double Image performs, featuring vibraphonist David Friedman from Berlin and New York recording artist Dave Samuels, former mallet soloist with the fusion band Spyro Gyra. Concert time is 8:30 p.m. in Beall Hall. Tickets, available at the door, are $7 general admission and $4 for students and senior citizens.

Double Image will perform original jazz compositions and contemporary improvisations, including selections from their many recordings–"Sunset Glow" "Nyack" and others.

Friedman and Samuels have been performing together since 1974, when they first created the unique combination of vibraphone and marimba. Their recordings have received critical acclaim, and their performances have been described as "spellbinding."

Friedman, internationally renowned vibraphonist, marimbist, composer and jazz educator, has performed and recorded with Leonard Bernstein, Luciano Berio, Bobby McFerrin, Wayne Shorter and Yoko Ono.

Samuels has established himself as the top mallet player of his generation. He is recognized for both his fresh new sound and creative approach to both the vibraphone and marimba. Samuels has demonstrated his versatility and gained worldwide recognition by performing and recording with a broad scope of artists, ranging from Gerry Mulligan, Oscar Peterson, Chet Baker, Stan Getz, Carla Bley and Pat Metheny, to the Yellowjackets, Bruce Hornsby, Frank Zappa, The Fantasy Band and Spyro Gyra.

Opening the Saturday evening concert is UO tabla instructor Douglas Scheuerell, who has dedicated himself to the Indian percussion instrument for the past 20 years. Scheuerell is a tabla disciple of Pandit Swapan Cahudhuri and has also studied with Padmabhushan Jnan Prakash Ghosh.

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Fourteen collegiate percussion ensembles from the western states will give free performances of avant-garde classical percussion music during the weekend. Included are award-winning groups from Boise State University, San Jose State University and the University of Oregon.

Other ensembles scheduled to perform are from Seattle Pacific, Eastern Washington, Southern Oregon, Oregon State, Humboldt State, Lewis and Clark, Portland State, California State-Sacramento and Central Washington.

Also appearing during the three-day festival will be Anthony J. Cirone, a San Francisco Symphony virtuoso performer and composer; Martin J. Zyskowski, the Spokane Symphony’s principal timpanist; and the festival’s master of ceremonies Ian Turnbull, a director of the Lawton, Okla.-based Percussive Arts Society from London, Ontario, Canada.

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