An eventful week for strings in the TTU School of Music. This week is filled with performances from students, faculty, and guest artists. We have guest artists from the Permian Basin and all the way from London!

One of our guest artists from London, Madeleine Mitchell, taught a violin masterclass on Wednesday, January 25 at 3:15 in the Senate Room of the Student Union Building. This is Ms. Mitchell's second time in the TTU SOM. She first came to Lubbock, performing in a recital here in 2017. In the masterclass, Ms. Mitchell taught informative and inspiring approaches for both performers and the audience. Four students in the violin students of Dr. John Haspel Gilbert and Professor Annie Chalex-Boyle were selected to perform in this masterclass. Bravo to these students and their performances:

• Nilschmid Jimenez (DMA): The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams
• Adan Flores (Undergraduate): Elegie by Henri Vieuxtemps
• Jascha Gonzalez (DMA): Serenade after Plato's Symposium, mvt. 5 Socrates: Alcibiades by Leonard Bernstein
• Evgeny Zvonnikov (DMA): Faust Fantasie, Op. 20 by Leonard Bernstein

If you missed the masterclass, Madeleine Mitchell will be performing on Friday, January 27 at 8 PM in the Kent R. Hance Chapel.

To add more onto our eventful week for strings, we are inviting back the Cassatt String Quartet for a performance on Sunday, January 29 at 2 PM in Kent R. Hance Chapel. In the Fall 2022, the Cassatt String Quartet provided a masterclass for selected string chamber groups in the TTU SOM. In their recital this Sunday, Cassatt String Quartet will be performing works by W.A. Mozart, Dorothy Rudd Moore, and Giovanni Bottesini.

We would like to invite you to meet these guest artists at the upcoming events. These performances are open to the public. We hope you can come and enjoy the performances.

Photo Credit: Rama Knight

MADELEINE MITCHELL

Madeleine Mitchell has been described by The Times (London) as “one of Britain's liveliest musical forces (and) foremost violinists.” Her performances in some 50 countries as soloist and chamber musician in a wide repertoire are frequently broadcast for television and radio including the BBC Proms, ABC (Australia)., Bayerischer Rundfunk, S4C and Italian TV when she won the Palma d'Oro, praised both for her vibrant lyrical intensity and pioneering creativity. She won a Royal Philharmonic Society Enterprise Award in 2022 for her creative project linking art and music in film.

She has represented the UK in recitals, at the festival UKinNY at the Lincoln Center and for the Queen's Jubilee in Rome – her “Century of British Music” hosted by the British Ambassador. Recent engagements have included Elgar Violin Concerto in Russia, recitals in Singapore, Wigmore and Barbican Halls London, BBC Radio 3, Schoenberg Center Vienna, Moscow, Dartington International Summer Festival, judging the Western International Strings Competition in China and major tours of the USA.

Mitchell's acclaimed discography for which she has been nominated for a Grammy and BBC Music Awards, includes In Sunlight: Pieces for Madeleine Mitchell by MacMillan, Nyman and other well-known UK composers, FiddleSticks – Lou Harrison Violin Concerto with Percussion Orchestra and new companion pieces (which she performed in Symphony Hall International Series) : the popular Violin Songs – Classic FM's featured CD, British Treasures –early 20th century romantic violin sonatas, two albums for Naxos of music by Alwyn and Howard Blake (with the composer as pianist). Hummel violin sonatas, Bridge chamber music and the widely recommended Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time with Joanna MacGregor. Madeleine's Linn recording of MacMillan Motet with solo violin and choir was BBC Music's CD of the Month.

A highly creative personality, Madeline Mitchell devised the Red Violin Festival under Lord Menuhin's patronage, the first international, eclectic celebration of the fiddle across the arts, held throughout Cardiff for which she was shortlisted for European Women of Achievement and Creative Briton Awards www.redvioin.co.uk. She will be directing the Red Violin next throughout Leeds in October 2023 during their European City of Culture. At the start of her career Madeleine was the violinist/violist in Sir Peter Maxwell Davies's seminal group, The Fires of London.

Madeleine Mitchell won the Tagore Gold Medal as Foundation Scholar at the Royal College of Music where she is a Professor. As Fulbright/ITT Fellow she was awarded a master's degree in New York studying with Dorothy DeLay, Donald Weilerstein and Sylvia Rosenberg at the Eastman and Julliard schools. She gives master classes worldwide and is on the faculty of the Orfeo International Music Festival in the Italian Alps and the international LMFL courses. Madeline plays on an 1839 Rocca violin made in Turin. She was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2000.

Photo Credit: Dario Acosta

CASSATT STRING QUARTET

Hailed for its “mighty rapport and relentless commitment,” the Cassatt String Quartet has performed to critical acclaim across the world since its founding in 1985, with appearances at Alice Tully Hall, Weill Recital Hall, Tanglewood Music Center, the Kennedy Center, Theatre des Champs-Elysees, Ceentro National de las Artes, Maeda Hall, and Beijing's Central Conservatory. The group's discography includes over forty recordings, spanning the Koch, Naxos, New World, Point, CRI, Tzadik, and Albany labels – including three discs that have been named by Alex Ross to his “10 Best Classical Recordings” feature in The New Yorker Magazine.

Named for the Impressionist painter Mary Cassatt, the quartet consists of violinists Muneko Otani and Jennifer Leshnower; violist Rosemary Nells; and cellist Gwen Krosnick.

The Cassatt Quartet's appearance is partially funded by Cassatt in the Basin, a music education program in West Texas sponsored by the Rea Charitable Trust, The Helen Greathouse Charitable Trust, The Permian Basin Youth Chaverim and The Permian Basin Area Foundation.