Moores School of Music faculty members moved from the classroom to the stage as they performed violin selections Tuesday night at the Moores Opera House.
Professors Andrzej Grabiec and Kirsten Yon skillfully held the audience’s attention during their duets at the faculty recital titled “Two’s Company, Too.”
“The way that the depth of the sound quality was carried through the ensemble, I thought was very impressive,” said violin performance sophomore Nora Henschen.
Grabiec had his Carnegie Hall debut in 1984 and was a concertmaster for the Polish National Radio and Television Symphony.
Grabiec is also a prize winner from the Wieniawski and Thibaud International Competitions.
Yon, another Carnegie Hall performer, toured with the Botticelli String Quartet.
She will release a debut recording this year by Centaur Records, featuring Ravel and Kodály duos with cellist Jeffrey Lastrapes.
Although a successful musician, Yon’s students praise her for teaching abilities.
“I actually came to hear my teacher,” said music performance junior Desiree Sanchez. “She’s a fabulous teacher, but she’s also a fabulous performer.”
Sanchez said the whole recital has almost “no comparison” to others she has attended.
Both artists captivated the audience as they played pieces from 18th-century Leclair to contemporary Bacewicz.
Henchen called the performance a gift to the audience.
“No note is a selfish note,” Henchen said. “They’re both up there playing together in such close unity of sound. That’s something I really marvel at and appreciate.”
The concert started out with Jean-Marie Leclair’s “Sonata No. 2 in A Major,” then transitioned to an entertaining ensemble of Georg Phllip Telemann’s “Gulliver Suite.”
This piece was based on Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels,” and was described by Yon as “joke perceived by the eye rather than the ear.”
She said the piece had large notes interchanged with tiny ones, that compared to Gulliver and the small Laputans.
Soon, Charles de Bériot’s Duo Concertante for Two Violins ― a crowd favorite ― was performed.
Much to the audience’s delight, Grabiec and Yon performed two pieces by Hungarian composer Béla Bartók as an encore, or “bon bon” treat as Grabiec called it.
Although the attendees for these recitals are School of Music students, they encourage a campus-wide turnout.
“It’s really nice, being able to go to other recitals,” said music education junior Maria Aleman. “It’s good to expand your horizon of music.”
