Two Concerts Mark Musical Milestones

A pair of celebrations will commemorate musical anniversaries this weekend.

Silver Anniversary Concert

Dr. Robert Cameron
Dr. Robert Cameron, chair of ensembles, professor of music and director of bands, is celebrating 25 years of service to the University.

The Wind Symphony and Symphony Band will perform a Silver Anniversary Concert on Friday, Nov. 5, dedicated to Dr. Robert C. Cameron. The concert, a commemoration of Cameron’s 25 years of service to the University, will take place at 8 p.m. in Oakland’s Carnegie Music Hall.

In his years at Duquesne, Cameron, who is chair of ensembles, professor of music and director of bands, has brought the wind band program national visibility, recruited internationally known artists for the faculty and brought to campus a lengthy list of Pulitzer Prize- and Emmy Award-winning composers for concerts featuring their works.

Guest conductors, all of them colleagues and former students of Cameron’s, will lead the Wind Symphony and Symphony Band for nine of the 10 works on the concert program. One of the pieces, Barbed Wire Philosophies, will be a world premiere. It was composed by Duquesne alumnus Dr. Brett Dietz, who also will conduct the work. Cameron will conduct the final number, Amazing Grace.

Bicentennials on the Bluff Finale

Bicentennials on the Bluff, a concert series celebrating the lives and works of Romantic composers Frederic Chopin and Robert Schumann on the 200th anniversary of their births, will conclude on Sunday, Nov. 7.

The final concert, Hidden Treasures, will take place at 3 p.m. in PNC Recital Hall. Two rarely heard works by the composers, each written for two pianos, are among the musical treasures on the program.

Faculty performers include David Allen Wehr, the Jack W. Geltz Distinguished Piano Chair and artistic director for the concert series, and adjunct professor and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PSO) member Zachary Smith on French horn. Guest artists include pianist Cynthia Raim, a winner of the Three Rivers National Piano Competition, and cellists Anne Martindale Williams and David Premo, both PSO members.

A 2:15 p.m. pre-concert multimedia event will focus on the musical legacy of German poet Heinrich Heine. Curated by Dr. Benjamin Binder, assistant professor of musicianship, Heine’s Legacy: Songs of Schumann and Marcel Tyberg will feature baritone Alexander Hurd and pianist Alison d’Amato. The two will perform famous settings of Heine’s poetry by Schumann alongside selections from the newly rediscovered 1926 song cycle of composer and Holocaust victim Marcel Tyberg.

A $10 donation is suggested for each event. For more information, call 412.396.6083.