MACON – Internationally renowned violinist Robert McDuffie will perform in concert Wednesday, Feb. 18, at 7:30 p.m. in Neva Langley Fickling Hall of the McCorkle Music Building, 1329 Adams St., on Mercer’s Macon campus.
The program will include a variety of music styles and periods and will also showcase the Center’s outstanding string students. McDuffie will perform several solo pieces for violin, as well as collaborate with Director of the McDuffie Center Amy Schwartz Moretti and students to perform pieces by Bach, Stravinsky, Vivaldi and others. The concert will culminate with McDuffie and the Center Orchestra performing the last movement of Mendelssohn’s Octet in E flat major, Op. 20. The orchestra is composed of 11 string students from the Center, along with critically acclaimed violinist Moretti, who serves as the concertmaster.
Tickets are required for concert admission and are $25 for the general public or free with a Mercer ID. Public and free tickets are available through Mercer Ticket Sales at (478) 301-5470. To purchase tickets online, visit TheGrandMacon.com.
For more information about the concert or the McDuffie Center, contact the Townsend School of Music at (478) 301-2748.
A native of Macon, Robert McDuffie is a Distinguished University Professor of Music at Mercer. McDuffie has appeared as soloist with most of the major orchestras of the world, including the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics, the Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta, Houston, Utah, St. Louis, Montreal, and Toronto Symphonies, the Philadelphia, Cleveland, Minnesota Orchestras, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the North German Radio Orchestra, the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala, Santa Cecilia Orchestra of Rome, Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Mexico, and all of the major orchestras of Australia.
Recent appearances abroad have been at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, in France with the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquetaine, at the Philharmonie in Cologne with the Bochum Symphoniker, in Seoul with the KBS Symphony, in Taipei with the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, in Hamburg with the Hamburg Symphony followed by a 22-city U.S. tour, and with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. He returns to Rome each June as the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of “The Rome Chamber Music Festival.” The Mayor of Rome has recently awarded McDuffie the prestigious “Premio Simpatia” in honor of his contribution to the cultural life of that city. For more information, visit www.romechamberfestival.org.
Besides celebrating the fifth anniversary of the Rome Chamber Music Festival last summer, McDuffie returned to the Aspen Music Festival, took part in the Brevard Music Festival, the Amelia Island Festival, played the Tchaikovsky Concerto with the Atlanta Symphony in Encore Park and performed with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Mineria in Mexico City.
His 2008-2009 season is highlighted by performances of Miklos Rozsa’s Concerto and Leonard Bernstein’s Serenade with the Jerusalem Symphony in Israel and on a 16-city U.S. tour. Future engagements include the premiere of “The American Four Seasons,” a new work by Philip Glass written for McDuffie – the North American premiere with the Toronto Symphony, the European premiere with the London Philharmonic, the festival premiere in Aspen. He will tour Europe, North America, and Asia, pairing it with the Vivaldi Four Seasons. He will record both works for Telarc.
McDuffie is a Grammy-nominated artist whose acclaimed Telarc and EMI recordings include the violin concertos of Mendelssohn, Bruch, Adams, Glass, Barber, Rozsa, Bernstein, William Schuman, and Viennese favorites. He plays a 1735 Guarneri del Gesu violin, known as the “Ladenburg”. He has been profiled on NBC’s “Today”, “CBS Sunday Morning”, PBS’s “Charlie Rose”, A&E’s “Breakfast with the Arts”, and in “The New York Times” and “The Wall Street Journal.”
He lives in New York with his wife and two children.
About the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings
The Robert McDuffie Center for Strings, a special institute within Mercer’s Townsend School of Music on the Macon campus, is a highly selective program that prepares string students for success in the real world. Students study with some of the nation’s renowned string musicians, receiving music instruction of conservatory quality, while earning an academically well-rounded education from a comprehensive, nationally recognized university. For more information, visit www.mercer.edu/mcduffie.
About Townsend School of Music
Mercer University’s Townsend School of Music and the Townsend-McAfee Institute for Graduate Studies in Church Music offer undergraduate and graduate professional music studies in a comprehensive university environment. The School is nationally recognized for its outstanding faculty, award-winning students, performance ensembles and state-of-the-art facilities. It is also home to the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings. Mercer University is an accredited institutional member of the National Association of Schools of Music. For more information, visit music.mercer.edu.
About Mercer University
Founded in 1833, Mercer University is a dynamic and comprehensive center of undergraduate, graduate and professional education. The University has approximately 7,700 students; 11 schools and colleges – liberal arts, law, pharmacy, medicine, business, engineering, education, theology, music, nursing and continuing and professional studies; major campuses in Macon, Atlanta and Savannah; three regional academic centers across the state; a university press; two teaching hospitals — Memorial Health University Medical Center and the Medical Center of Central Georgia; educational partnerships with Warner Robins Air Logistics Center in Warner Robins and Piedmont Healthcare in Atlanta; an engineering research center in Warner Robins; a performing arts center in Macon; and a NCAA Division I athletic program. For more information, visit www.mercer.edu.
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