Noted oboist visits Bradley

The Bradley University Music Department will welcome noted oboist and ethnomusicologist Brenda Schumann-Post to campus for two days of events on March 9 and 10. The center piece of her visit will be a recital on Wednesday, March 9, at 7:30 p.m. in the Dingeldine Music Center, located at 1417 W. Barker Avenue. Admission is free and open to the public.

The recital will feature a wide variety of works including works by Bozza, Jacob and Telemann. The featured work on the first half of the program will be an original composition entitled Fantasie on Themes from Star Trek. This work was premiered at a recent Star Trek convention and was received with enthusiasm. For the second half of the recital Ms. Post will collaborate with the Bradley Percussion Ensemble for a series of improvisations inspired by rhythms from a variety of world cultures. She will be assisted in the recital by Bradley oboist S. Blake Duncan, Percussion Ensemble director Peggy Bonner and pianist Andrea Molina.

Other events included in Schumann-Post's visit are:

A lecture entitled Mpingo's Fruit on March 9 at 3 p.m. in Dingeldine Music Center
Schumann-Post will discuss the harvesting of African hardwood used to make oboes, clarinets, bagpipes, Irish flutes and other instruments and the political, environmental and sociological dimensions and implications of this harvesting.

An improvisation workshop for classically trained musicians of all instruments will be offered at 9:30 a.m. on March 10 in Dingeldine Music Center. Bring an instrument.

Committed to enriching the ways that people think about the oboe, Schuman-Post has built a career on versatility, performing in just about every conceivable venue, making the oboe and its music accessible to almost any audience. She travels worldwide, presenting recitals and lecture-performances including "Oboes Of The World" about what the sound of the oboe means to humanity, and "Mpingo's Fruit" about the harvesting of African Blackwood (grenadilla) in Mozambique and Tanzania.

A daring improviser, she also teaches "free improvisation" classes for all instrumentalists. Her innovative "Oboe Of The World CD is acclaimed as "groundbreaking" and Jazz Now magazine calls her an "oboe advocate." In the summer of 2003, Schuman-Post took a chance - entered and won Creation Entertainment's Star Trek Idol Talent Search by composing and playing a "Fantasy On Themes From Star Trek" for solo oboe. She has since been a featured performer at several science fiction and Star Trek conventions. she is also a freelance orchestral and chamber musician, and teaches privately in the San Francisco Bay Area.

For more information, contact the Bradley Music Department at 677-2595.