VSU Hosts Viola Day, Internationally Noted Artist Performs Friday

VALDOSTA -- Open to violists of all ages and ability levels, Valdosta State University will host its second annual Viola Day on Friday, Sept. 21.

Viola Day will kick off at 11 a.m. with violist Daniel Sweaney and pianist Megan Gale, guest artists, holding an open dress rehearsal in the Fine Arts Building’s Whitehead Auditorium. The duo will conduct classes for area violists throughout the afternoon; a viola choir will perform at 5 p.m.

Viola Day will culminate with Sweaney, accompanied by Gale, in concert at 7:30 p.m. The pair will perform Robert Schumann’s “Adagio and Allegro for Viola and Piano, Op. 70”; Ernest Bloch’s “Suite for Viola and Piano”; Benjamin Britten’s “Lachrymae: Reflections on a Song of Dowland for Viola and Piano”; and Paul Hindemith’s “Sonata for Solo Viola, Op. 25, No. 1.”

The concert is free and open to the public.

Whitehead Auditorium is located on the first floor of VSU’s Fine Arts Building, on the corner of Brookwood Drive and Oak Street.

Sweaney teaches viola at the University of Alabama School of Music, the Rocky Ridge Music Center, and the North American Viola Institute at the Orford Arts Centre. The award-winning, world-traveling violist began his musical studies at the age of 11; he has studied viola in the United States and Europe, at the Interlochen Arts Academy, The Cleveland Institute of Music, Rice University, the University of Colorado, and the Universität Mozarteum in Salzburg, Germany. He made his New York debut in 1999 at the Mostly Mozart Festival in Avery Fisher Hall. Strings Magazine has described him as “… extremely talented and highly trained … poised and accomplished ….”

Born in Tokyo, Japan, Gale grew up and studied piano and composition on Whidbey Island in Washington. She teaches at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music. She earned performance degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and the University of Soutehrn California and has won fellowships to study at the Brevard Music Center, the Aspen Music Festival and School, and the Music Academy of the West.

Contact Lauren Burns, lecturer in viola and director and master teacher of the South Georgia String Project, at eburns@valdosta.edu or (229) 219-1269 to learn more.

On the Web:
www.valdosta.edu/music