Back from Florence for Sunday Music in the Garden Room

Back from Florence for Sunday Music in the Garden Room
By Janet Kirkconnell

In the past, Acadia had a fall convocation, with all the trappings. The remnant of this is what is called Homecoming Weekend, when alumni are welcomed back to campus, this year from October 12 to 14. Football is often the drawing card of this weekend, but since the K.C. Irving Environmental Science Centre was erected on University Avenue, and the Steinway grand piano set in place, a Sunday concert has become a tradition, if possible with alumni artists performing.

Two Acadia School of Music graduates will give the recital this year, Warwick Lister, violin, and Jennifer King, piano. Warwick Lister, a student of Janis Kalejs at Acadia, is coming all the way back from Florence, Italy, for this. A good part of his life has been spent in Florence, following a stint with the Concertgebouw orchestra in Amsterdam, as a violinist in the orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, and as a recitalist and chamber musician. At present, he is the first violinist of the Musica Ricercata String Quartet, and recitalist in Florence. He is also a distinguished scholar and exponent of Giovanni Battista Viotti (1755-1824). Oxford University Press published his definitive biography of Viotti in 2009.

Pianist Jennifer King is much in demand as a collaborative pianist, and as a soloist, teacher, and adjudicator. At present she teaches at the Maritime Conservatory of Music in Halifax, and at home. She has given many concerts in Nova Scotia and P.E.I., and most recently, collaborated with Gillian Smith, violin, and Hillary Brown, cello, in a highly acclaimed piano trio concert at the Conservatory.

In their Sunday Music in the Garden Room concert, Lister and King will be offering a beautiful program of Viotti, Schubert, Elgar, and Brahms. The concert begins at 2pm Sunday, October 14. Admittance is free.

For more detailed information: artsacadia.acadiau.ca