Pianist Ruthanne Schempf to perform at SUNY

NEW PALTZ — The Department of Music at SUNY New Paltz will present pianist Ruthanne Schempf in concert on Tuesday, October 12, 1999. The concert is performed in McKenna Theatre at 8:00 p.m. and tickets are $5. Ms. Schempf will perform Sonate in Bb Major, D.960 (1828) by Franz Schubert and Gaspard de la Nuit (1909) by Maurice Ravel.

In music history, Franz Schubert (1797-1828) is known as the composer of more than 600 Lieder or Art Songs. In Sonate in Bb Major, the piano demonstrates its kinship with the voice and narrative poetry of song. The almost spiritual profundity of the first and second movements is abandoned for youth and vitality in the 3rd and 4th. Unfortunately for posterity, the Bb sonata was Schubert’s last. He died at age 31 and did not live to see it published.

Of the two major composers associated with French musical Impressionism, Maurice Ravel (187501937) was more classically oriented the Claude Debussy. The inspiration for Gaspard de la Nuit was a book of prose poems of the same title written by Aloysius Bertrand. The imagery, similar to that of Edgar Allen Poe, was ideally suited to Ravel’s colorful, evocative style and suggested various compositional and performance challenges.

Ruthanne Schempf is on the faculties of both SUNY New Paltz and Marist College. She completed a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the Manhattan School of Music where she studied with Marc Silverman. Ms. Schempf has been the pianist for the West Point Cadet Glee Club since 1984, performing on a regular basis throughout the United States.

Tickets to the recital are $5 general admission and $4 for senior citizens. They are available at the door, one-hour prior to the performance. For information call 257-3904.