Spring 2009 Spencer Memorial Concert Series

JAMES PIANO QUARTET
Jan. 18, 3 p.m.: Martha Washington Inn Ballroom, $10. The James Piano Quartet includes Sweet Briar College faculty members Nicolas Ross, piano; Joseph Nigro, viola; Jana Ross, violin; and University of Tennessee faculty member Wesley Baldwin on cello. Their concerts frequently include quartets by Taneyev, Walton, Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler, as well as more famous quartets by Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Schumann.

MICHAEL JACOBS
Feb. 8, 3 p.m.: Martha Washington Inn Ballroom, $10. Michael Jacobs’ award-winning music is a blend of Native American and American roots music that fuses contemporary and traditional sounds filled with powerful imagery. Jacob’s music career began as a Nashville songwriter and guitarist, but his artistic rebirth eventually brought him to share music that reflects his Cherokee heritage to address human issues of peace, justice, suffering, the environment, relationships and wholeness. His debut CD, “Sacred Nation,” received the Native American Music Award for Best Independent Recording.

SCOTT AINSLIE
March 1, 3 p.m.: Martha Washington Inn Ballroom, $10. Scott Ainslie reflects the African and American roots, history and soul of the blues in his concerts through the music, stories and legends of the great blues performers. Besides playing the guitar and fiddle, Ainslie also plays traditional African instruments such as the gourd banjo and the diddley bo. Ainslie has recorded three solo CDs and is the world authority on Robert Johnson, perhaps the greatest bluesman who ever lived. He is the author of “Robert Johnson/At the Crossroads,” transcriptions of the recordings of Johnson with complete annotated lyrics and historical notes. Ainslie is a former artist-in-residence at Virginia Highlands Community College.

HANDEL CELEBRATION
April 5, 3 p.m.: Memorial Chapel, Emory & Henry College, $10. The Emory & Henry Festival and Concert Choirs and Festival Orchestra will honor the 250th anniversary of George Friedrich Handel with a performance of his oratorio “Alexander’s Feast.” The libretto of the work was adapted from a poem by John Dryden, an ode for the feast of St. Cecilia, which is subtitled “The Pow’r of Musick.” The performance will feature student soloists and rousing choruses. The famous lyric to St. Cecilia (who was the patroness of music) was composed in 1697, when Dryden was 66, and has remained one of the greatest odes ever written in the English language. Handel’s setting of the poem was first performed in 1736. 

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