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Tarleton's Langdon Center and Music at Acton present Chopin Music Festival

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 10, 2010

 
GRANBURY, TEXAS - A Chopin Festival, to be presented by Tarleton State University’s Langdon Center and Music at Acton, will be held at the Acton United Methodist Church February 27, 28 and March 1, 2010. This event, commemorating the 200th anniversary of Frédéric Chopin’s birth, promises to be one of the most exciting classical music events in our area this year.

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849), more than any other composer, is identified with the piano.  Often called the “poet of the piano,” he embodies the soul of this magnificent instrument.  He is the only composer of any era to have consistently achieved a quality of expressive lyricism, yet with a matched mastery of color, texture, melody, stately nobility of character, fiery passion, intimate tenderness and dazzling brilliance.  The legendary Polish pianist, Arthur Rubenstein said, “Chopin was a genius of universal appeal… His music is the universal language of human communication.”  It is therefore most fitting that Chopin’s 200th birthday should mark a continuing link with this composer’s eloquent musical poetry and the future traditions in music.

The Festival includes performances by three Curtis Institute of Music alumni, Wendy Morton, Darrell Rosenbluth and Leslie Spotz. The final night of the festival will showcase the young, talented piano majors from Tarleton and several alumni. 

Each concert will feature a unique program of Chopin’s repertoire.

Morton and Rosenbluth are scheduled to open the festival with performances of the Introduction to the Polonaise brillante Op. 3 for piano and cello and four movements of the Sonata Op. 65 for piano and cello. Rosenbluth will also present three solo pieces during the Saturday evening event which begins at 7:00 p.m.

Darrell Rosenbluth is a concertizing pianist of solo and ensemble music. Based in New York City since 1983, Rosenbluth sits on the boards of The Leschetizky Association and the Curtis Institute of Music Alumni Association as well as that of Yale School of Music. He is the staff critic at The New York Concert Review, Inc. Rosenbluth’s writings on music are published in international journals, liner notes for historical CDs, and as Prefaces to college texts on acoustics. Rosenbluth serves on the performing and coaching faculties of the chamber music festivals of Summertrios, Bryn Mawr College, Colgate University, Lehigh University, and Wilson College. 

Wendy Morton is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and a founding member of the Carpe Diem String Quartet. She has performed with the Santa Fe Opera orchestra, Honolulu Symphony, Pennsylvania Ballet and Opera Orchestras, the Symphony Orchestra of the Curtis Institute of Music, Inverness Festival Orchestra, Harvard Chamber Orchestra, Spoleto Festival Orchestra, and the Brandenburg Ensemble. She has served on the faculties of Ohio Wesleyan and Capital Universities. Morton served as the Assistant Principal cellist with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra and is currently the Principal cellist of the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra.

A Chopin Festival artistic director Leslie Spotz will perform a solo recital on Sunday, February 28 at 3:00 p.m. Spotz will perform a rousing six selection program among which will be Sonata in B minor, Op. 58 and Scherzo in E major, No. 4, Op. 54. 

Spotz enjoys an international solo career that has included performances at the Tchaikovsky Hall of Moscow University, the South Bank Center of London, Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the famed Academy of Music in Philadelphia, her highly acclaimed tours of Germany and her performance at the inaugural opening of Philadelphia’s new performance venue, the Kimmel Center. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music where she studied with Mieczyslaw Horszowski alongside Mr. Rosenbluth, Spotz is a lifetime member of the Leschetizky Association and has been honored with an invitational performance at New York City’s Tenri Hall this season. She will perform her Chopin program also in Philadelphia. She is presently assistant professor of piano at Tarleton State University. 

Known for his jazz piano work, Tarleton and University of North Texas alumnus Joshua Bradford will put on his classical hat and join fellow Tarleton alumni Charles Fry and Joni Clay during the Monday, March 1 concert which begins at 7:00 p.m. Current Tarleton piano students also will add their talents to the line up for the final performance of the festival.

Festival and individual concert tickets are on sale through Tarleton’s Langdon Center at 308 East Pearl Street in Granbury or at Acton United Methodist on Fall Creek Highway in Acton, Texas. For more information call 817.279.1164 or e-mail langdoncenter@sbcglobal.net.

Celebrate the Holidays with Tarleton’s Langdon Center


December 16, 2009

Tarleton State University’s beautiful Dora Lee Langdon Cultural and Educational Center near historic downtown Granbury, is bustling with activity preparing for the annual Holiday Open House and Gallery Night.

Through December 18, the Langdon Center features the artwork of Paluxy artist, Vickie Guthrie. Titled, “Roads Traveled,” the work features a compilation of oil, pastel and watercolor paintings of scenes and locales visited by the artist on numerous trips around the state and to Europe. Viewing hours are weekdays 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. in the A.P. Gordon House.

The Langdon Center Gordon House will keep the doors open late Friday, December 18 to share Christmas splendor and warmth with a Holiday Open House & Gallery Night from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. The community is welcome to the famous open house celebration featuring lively music, chatter and Christmas refreshments.

“The open house is always a public event,” Horak said. “It is especially meant to celebrate those who have given so much to the Langdon Center throughout the year and to unveil our special Partners for Enrichment recognition piece.”

The Langdon Center is located one block off the Granbury Square at 308 East Pearl Street. The center can be reached at (817) 279-1164 or via email at langdoncenter@sbcglobal.net.


The Granbury Saxophone Quartet performs a benefit concert for Tarleton State University’s Dora Lee Langdon Cultural & Educational Center on Saturday, November 14 at 7:30 p.m.

GRANBURY, TX - The concert is set Tarleton’s Langdon Center Concert Hall at the corner of East Bridge and Brazos Streets in Granbury.

Ted Dolan, Earl Haberkamp, Hainds Laird and David Talmage make up the Granbury Saxophone Quartet.
“This ensemble is playing music literature that rarely gets played,” states lead alto saxophonist Ted Dolan.

“We’re playing music performed by the New York Sax Quartet and the Paris Saxophone Quartet – a full range of genres.”

Included the evenings diverse program are such tunes as Amazing Grace, an arrangement by Paul R. Coats which opens with a solo statement by each of the quartet voices resolving into a funeral dirge. Poor Butterfly is a nice jazzy take on the popular song inspired by Puccini's opera "Madame Butterfly".

The Albinoni Adagio is a wonderful piece of early baroque music that uses tension and release throughout and is very challenging for the quartet to perform.

Milonga de mis Amores is an authentic Argentine tango by Pedro Laurenzi and offers a nice contrast in the program to one of the quartet's favorites, Lennie Neihaus’ arrangement of Polkadots and Moonbeams originally written for the famous Hollywood Saxophone Quartet.

No quartet program is complete without a Scott Joplin rag, and the quartet performs two: a fine arrangement of Maple Leaf Rag and Pan Am Rag, a piano rag for the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo in 1901.

Ted Dolan originally hails from Chicago, received his Bachelors in Music Education from Northwestern University. His day time jobs were in the retail music business, but Ted made time to free-lance with such great bandleaders as Tex Beneke, Les Elgart and Stan Kenton.

Earl Haberkamp joined the American Federation of Musicians at age 16. He’s played everything from Big Band to Medieval and Renaissance early music and received a BS in Music Education from Bowling Green University and an MS in Music Education from SMU.

Hainds Laird received his Music Education degree from the University of Houston. He went on to receive his Masters in Theology from Dallas Theological Seminary and a Doctorate of Ministry from Denver Seminary.

David Talmage retired from directing bands after 32 years. He studied music at North Texas State University where he was a member of the Lab Band and later at Sul Russ State University.

All are members of the saxophone section of the Langdon Center Big Band.

The exceptionally wonderful and acoustically live Langdon Center Concert Hall is a perfect setting for this quartet that likes to rehears as much as they like to perform.

“It’s great to be able to enjoy preparing for a rehearsal and then have the opportunity to perform,” states Haberkamp. “I’m playing more now than in I have in thirty years.”

Talmage adds, “Quartet rehearsals improve my reading skills and technique tremendously.”

The Partners for Enrichment Society will host a reception in Tarleton’s Langdon Center Historic A.P. Gordon House prior to the concert in conjunction with the opening of the Vickie Guthrie Art Exhibit, “Roads Traveled” from 4pm to 7pm. For more information and to secure reservations, please contact Tarleton’s Langdon Center staff at 817-279-1164 or e-mail langdoncenter@sbcglobal.net.

Paluxy artist, Vickie Guthrie, exhibits “Roads Traveled” at Tarleton’s Langdon Center in Granbury

GRANBURY, TEXAS — Artist Vickie Guthrie takes you along the roads she has traveled in the newest art exhibition at Tarleton State University’s Dora Lee Langdon Cultural & Educational Center. Her multi-media recreations depict scenes she has viewed along diverse road trips in and around Hood and Somervell Counties in her native Texas, as well as France, Italy, and Spain.

“Roads Traveled: the Art of Vickie Guthrie” opens November 13 and runs through December 18 in the A.P. Gordon House at Tarleton’s Langdon Center in Granbury’s Historic District.

Guthrie’s art adventures were first evidenced when as a child she broke open a brand new box of crayons, and at once she selected the pink and green crayons, placing them side by side.

“I remember feeling a stirring sense of wonder at the beauty of the two colors together,” states the artist. “I was completely unaware that I had instinctively chosen two of Mother Nature’s true complimentary colors from that box. An artist was awakened.”

Constantly honing her artistic skills, Guthrie has studied with numerous noted oil artists. These include John Pototschnik, Kaye Franklin, Betty Carr, and Cecy Turner. While recently participating in a plein air workshop with pastel artist Dina Gregory, her love of pastels was reignited. To further her art education, she attends selected workshops. Vickie finds it valuable to study works of such contemporary artists Daniel Greene, Albert Handell, and Kevin McPherson. She gleans worthy information and perspective visiting museums to view masterworks both locally and when abroad.

Guthrie’s painting objective is simple:

“I hope the viewer will see my work as an invitation to leave today’s hectic world behind and enter with me into a world of peaceful tranquility that I have attempted to create. If for but one brief moment, to be provided a mental resting place in my work,” says the artist.

Vickie selects subject matter that appeals to her with a subtle beauty that she can translate to canvas.

Retired in 2000 from a fulfilling career in sales and marketing, Guthrie now values the time she is able to spend focusing on her art. Her studio is perched at the tip top of the Hill Country near Paluxy, Texas. Vickie contributes to her community as the Postmaster Relief person for Paluxy. She and husband George have three children and delight in their eight grandchildren.  

The show hours for “Roads Traveled: the Art of Vickie Guthrie” are Monday through Friday, 9am to 6pm and Saturdays 10am to 2pm. Tarleton’s Langdon Center Gordon House is located at 308 East Pearl Street in Granbury.

Visitors over the Thanksgiving holiday may set an appointment for viewing by calling 817.279.1164. For more information on this and other events at Tarleton’s Langdon Center visit www.tarleton.edu/langdoncenter.