Program Change for Next Month’s Morrison Artist Series Recital

The sixth concert in the annual Morrison Artists Series, presented by the College of Liberal and Creative Arts at San Francisco State University (SFSU), was originally planned for the San Francisco debut of the Van Kuijk Quartet, currently on the BBC New Generation Artists roster. Unfortunately, at the beginning of this month, Richard Festinger, Artistic Director of the series, was informed that this string quartet had cancelled their Spring 2017 tour of the United States. Fortunately, Festinger has found an ensemble to fill in for that date; and he did not have to look any further than San Francisco itself.

Next month’s Morrison recital will now present the Delphi Trio, whose members are violinist Liana Bérubé, cellist Michelle Kwon, and pianist Jeffrey LaDeur. They formed their group while they were studying together in the Chamber Music Program at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. They have performed at a variety of major venues in San Francisco, including a residency in the Old First Concerts series at Old First Church. For their performances they have developed a repertoire that balances recent (including commissioned) compositions with more familiar selections from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The program for next month has been organized around one of those commissions, William Bolcom’s first substantial piano trio, which he wrote for Delphi in 2014. This significant contribution to 21st-century chamber music will be coupled with Toru Takemitsu’s “Between Tides,” a piano trio that he composed in 1993. These two recent works will be framed by more traditional offerings. The program will begin with the second of Ludwig van Beethoven’s three Opus 1 piano trios, one of the composer’s earliest efforts supported by Karl Alois, Prince Lichnowsky, at whose house all three trios were first performed in 1793. The concluding selection will be Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 49 trio in D minor.

This concert will begin at 8 p.m. on Friday, April 7, in the McKenna Theatre in the Creative Arts Building at SFSU, a short walk from the SFSU Muni stop at the corner of 19th Avenue and Holloway Avenue. Tickets are free but advance registration is highly desirable. Reservations may be made through the event page for this concert. As usual, Festinger will give a pre-concert talk at 7 p.m.; and the four musicians will give a collective Master Class at 2 p.m. on the day of the concert. This two-hour session will take place in Knuth Hall, also in the Creative Arts Building, and will be open to the general public at no charge and with no requirements for tickets.