The Ames Town & Gown Chamber Music Association will present the Klasinc & Loncar Guitar Duo on Saturday, March 7, 2009, in the Ames City Auditorium at 515 Clark Avenue.
CONCERT PROGRAM
The duo’s Ames performance will include works by George Frederic Handel, Niccolo Paganini, Franz Schubert, Isaac Albeniz, Maximo Diego Pujol, Celso Machado, and George Gershwin, as well as folk music and original compositions.
OUTREACH PROGRAM at AMES PUBLIC LIBRARY
SATURDAY MARCH 7, 10 AM.
"Two as One". In this event, the Klasinc & Loncar Guitar Duo will explain how a duo works together, what are some of the challenges of playing music together, as well as the rewards; how they use their individual qualities to best present their music; and how they communicate the music with each other and with the audience. They will then perform a few selected pieces to demonstrate some of the highlights of the topic. The program is open to all and admission is free. This event is co-sponsored by Town & Gown and the Ames Public Library, with support from an Iowa Commission for the Arts (COTA) mini-grant.
This husband and wife team present unique programs displaying the many styles of classical guitar,as well as works representative of their native Croatian and other Mediterranean folk styles. Trained in Europe and the United States, they have concertized for over 20 years, performing across this country and in and Europe. They were winners of the Best Guitar Duo prize at the International Guitar Competition Toyoko Yamashita in Berlin. Of their performance at the 2007 Guitar Foundation of America convention, a critic for Soundboard wrote " . . . they were stunning. . . . The program was varied and interesting . . . and the playing and ensemble were as good as the programming."
Natasa Klasinc and Miroslav Loncar formed their duo at the University of Graz, in Austria, where both studied classical guitar with Marga Bauml and Martin Myslivecek. Having received their doctor of musical arts degrees at the University of Southern Mississippi, they now teach in northern Virginia.
Their concert programs blend baroque, classical and romantic compositions with Miroslav Loncar’s original works, transcriptions, and arrangements of Croatian and other Mediterranean folk styles and music of the Viennese tradition.
According to a recent review in Soundboard Magazine, the publication of the Guitar Foundation of America, the duo’s performances are “. . .stunning. . .varied and interesting. . .the playing and ensemble as good as the programming.”
Klasinc & Loncar have released two recordings: Images, featuring music for two guitars, and Conspirito, which consists mostly of Loncar’s transcriptions for two guitars and cello. Miroslav Loncar’s solo album, From Foreign Lands, features some of the most well known works written for solo guitar. CDs will be available for purchase after the concert.
Tickets to the concert are $25 and are available at the door, at Rieman Music (327 Main Street, Ames), at the Community Center desk at Ames City Hall (515 Clark; 239-5350) and in the office of the Iowa State University Department of Music. They may also be ordered through the Ames Town & Gown website. Tickets are free to students, K-12, and to college and university a students (with IDs).
The concert is presented by the Town & Gown Chamber Music Association in cooperation with the ISU Department of Music and with financial support from COTA, the many Ames Town & Gown season ticket holders, and individual and business donors. Free student tickets are made possible by a grant from Target.