PULASKI – The Lake Effect Trio, a group comprised of three Symphoria musicians, will open the 2017-18 season of the LaVeck Concert Series on October 7 with a 7:30 p.m. concert in Pulaski.
The trio – pianist Rob Auler, cellist Heidi Hoffman and violinist Sonya Williams – will perform three unique works by Clara Schumann, Johannes Brahms and Astor Piazzola.
LaVeck concerts are held at the Pulaski Congregational Church, 27 Lake St.
The Lake Effect Trio met as musicians who perform with Symphoria and Auler and Williams teamed up to present “The Lark Ascending” by Vaughn Williams at a LaVeck concert last fall.
“We had so much fun and the concert was so popular that Sonya and I are thrilled to be able to perform at LaVeck again with Heidi Hoffman joining us,” Auler said.
Violinist Williams is assistant concertmaster of Symphoria and a 10-year veteran of the Syracuse Symphony, as well as the Buffalo Philharmonic and the Rochester Chamber Orchestra.
She earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s in music performance from the Rochester’s famed Eastman School of Music.
Hoffman made her debut as a cello soloist at age 17 with the Seattle Symphony.
She went on to study at the Eastman School of Music, SUNY Stony Brook and the Tanglewood Music Center and has playing under such famous conductors as Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa.
She has performed with such diverse groups as the American Symphony, Jupiter Symphony, Pacific Northwest Ballet and the rock band Heart.
Auler, professor of piano at SUNY Oswego, performs internationally as a soloist and has received rave reviews from the New York Times, The Charlotte Observer, the Cincinnati News-Record and The Post-Standard.
He has a doctorate in music from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and was recently named chair of the SUNY Oswego music department. He is the 2016 winner of SUNY Oswego’s President’s Award for Scholarly and Creative Activity.
He described Saturday’s LaVeck program as an opportunity to hear great music from three very different composers.
The main event will be Classical master Johannes Brahms’ Piano Trio in B Major, a “large-scale piece” with four movements that Brahms wrote at age 21 and reworked at age 56.
They’ll also perform only known chamber music Trio written by female 1800s German composer Clara Schumann, as well as Argentine composer Astor Piazzola’s famed Le Grand Tango, a single-movement piece that combines traditional tango rhythms and jazz-inspired syncopation.
Auler founded LaVeck Concerts in 2008 to bring world-class Classical music to Northern Oswego County with startup donations in memory of beloved Pulaski music teacher Rhea LaVeck.
LaVeck Concerts continues to present five Classical concerts a year with grants from the Richard S. Shineman Foundation, the Central New York Community Foundation and CNY Arts, as well as individual donations.
Next Up:
After Saturday’s concert, the next LaVeck Concert will be a solo concert by South African pianist Tinus Botha at 7:30 p.m. November 11.
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