KINGSTON, R.I. – October 15, 2010 – After a nod to Halloween with its “Dracula’s Party” event on October 30, the Department of Music at the University of Rhode Island will offer two more conventional concerts on Halloween itself, Sunday October 31.
Music lovers who want to treat themselves before all the real trick-or-treating begins can catch the concert by the URI Symphonic Wind and Percussion Ensembles at 3 p.m. Others who might want to escape from all the Halloween frenzy can enjoy an evening of classical guitar solo and ensemble performances by URI’s guitar studio and faculty guitarist John Dennewitz, with special guest, URI alumni guitarist Daniel Hartington, at 7:30 p.m. Both concerts take place in the URI Fine Arts Center Concert Hall, 105 Upper College Road, Kingston. Admission for the 3 p.m. concert is $10.00 general public, $5.00 students with ID, with tickets available at the box office starting 45 minutes before the concert. The “Guitar Night” concert at 7:30 p.m. is free.
The URI Music Department’s select group of wind and percussion instrumentalists, directed by Gene J. Pollart and Ronald Stabile, will perform a varied program of wind band and percussion works. The Percussion Ensemble will open the concert with the Michael Jackson hit, Thriller, and Power Struggle by Nathan Daughtery. The Symphonic Wind Ensemble, which consists of the most outstanding wind and percussion players at the university, will perform two suites for Wind Ensemble, Ron Nelson’s Medieval Suite and Gustav Holstís’s Second Suite For Military Band, as well as the first and fifth movements from Johan DeMeij’s Lord Of The Rings symphony, which depict Gandalf and the Hobbits, respectively, based on the popular trilogy of novels.
The “Guitar Night” concert will include works by Bach, Granados, Purcell, Morley, Telemann, and York.
A Guest Artist/Teacher on the URI faculty team, John Dennewitz has been performing and teaching classical guitar since the early 1990’s. He has performed throughout New England as both soloist and chamber musician, and in Europe with the Providence Mandolin Orchestra. He is also the founder and director of Masters of Tomorrow, a Newport-based professional concert and student recital series that showcases both well-known artists and aspiring students. He holds a Master of Music from the New England Conservatory of Music where he studied with world-renowned classical guitarist Eliot Fisk. He also holds a Bachelors of Music degree from Rhode Island College. In addition to teaching at URI, Dennewitz is the classical guitar instructor at the Community College of Rhode Island, and maintains a private teaching studio.
Daniel Hartington, who holds a Master’s Degree in Guitar Performance from URI and Bachelor’s Degrees in both Guitar Performance and Jazz Studies, has performed solo classical guitar recitals throughout Connecticut and Rhode Island and also has performed with popular music/jazz groups in Rhode Island and Southern Massachusetts. A member of the Connecticut Classical Guitar Society, he is the Guitar Instructor at Miss Porter’s School in Farmington, and is also a faculty member of the Hartt School Community Division of the University of Hartford, a comprehensive community arts school originally established in 1920.
The URI Fine Arts Center is handicap accessible. Parking is available in the lot behind the building off Bills Road. For more information, contact the Music Department office at 874-2431, or check the website: www.uri.edu/artsci/mus/.