Quattro Mani & Friends to close Guest Artist concert series

Heather Hall

Heather Hall

Quattro Mani and Friends will help close the Guest Artist Series season when the Brookings Chamber of Music Society presents the final performance on March 24.

The concert will be held at South Dakota State University at 4 p.m. in Peterson Recital Hall, Lincoln Music Center.

John Colson has helped to organize the series for the past 22 years and looks forward to the performance.

“The percussion edition will be fascinating for the audience. Visually, it’s going to be a very interesting concert,” he said.

The percussionists in this concert will perform on more than 50 percussion instruments. On top of that, the program that they play in Brookings will also perform in New York City’s Carnegie Recital Hall in June.

A pre-concert lecture will also be taking place at 3:15 p.m. in the Schultz Reception Room to meet the artists.

“The artists that are going to perform talk about their music and the pieces they are going to perform,” Colson said.

The admission to the pre-concert lecture is free and the admission to the concert is by season ticket. Single tickets are $15 for adults and $7 for students and will be available at the door.

Pianists Susan Grace and Alice Rybak of the group both share a special interest in repertoire for two pianos and the collaboration involved in the performance.

Grace has preformed with the SDSU Civic Symphony and both have played as a duo on the Mozart Double Piano Concerto with the orchestra.

During this concert, John Kinzie, principal percussionist of the Colorado Symphony, and David Colson, formerly with the Toledo Symphony and the Houston Symphony Orchestra, will join Quattro Mani for the pieces “Sonata for the Two Pianos” and “Percussion,” and “Music for a Summer Evening.”

“They’re going to do two pieces by themselves and two pieces with two percussionists,” Colson said.

This ensemble’s latest CD was nominated “Best Chamber Music CD of the Year” (International Critics Award) and received the highest rating by ClassicsToday.com and Repertoire (France).

For next year, Colson and others are anticipating the opening of the Performing Arts Center in November so that the concerts in the series can be held there in the future.