Scott Eddlemon with his collection of “instruments” to be used in the playful “Labware Leggiero” at Saturday night’s Isotone concert at Pellissippi State. (Submitted photo)
The Isotone concert on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Clayton Performing Arts Center at Pellissippi State Community College will offer an assortment of instruments, talents and music in honor of a great Russian physicist and human rights activist.
The instruments range from the school’s new Steinway concert grand piano to a violin to glass beakers, flasks, and test tubes. Remember, isotone is both a music and physics term.
The talents include Japanese world-class pianist and East Tennessee newcomer Emi Kagawa, composer Andrew Sauerwein of Belhaven University in Jackson, Miss., and violinist and former concertmaster Susan Eddlemon and her husband Scott Eddlemon, principal percussionist with the Oak Ridge Symphony Orchestra and founder of the Oak Ridge Civic Music Association’s Isotone Concerts.
Sauerwein’s commissioned composition “Sakharoviana” is a tribute to Andrei Sakharov, Soviet nuclear physicist, dissident, and human rights advocate. He designed the Soviet Union’s hydrogen bomb and won the Nobel Peace Prize.
This original work will be performed by pianist Kagawa and the Eddlemons on violin and percussion instruments.
Eddlemon is also a composer. He will perform his “Labware Leggiero,” using various glass beakers, flasks, and test tubes.
“This brief little piece adds a light-hearted complement to the concert music celebrating the life of physicist Sakharov,” Eddlemon said.
Tribute will also be paid to Sakharov through a performance of Sergei Prokofiev’s “Violin Sonata #1 in F Minor.” Kagawa and violinist Sue Eddlemon will play this great Russian masterpiece. Kagawa and Eddlemon will also perform two etudes by Russian composer and pianist Alexander Scriabin.
The concert will open with another work of physics interest, J. S. Bach’s “Prelude and Fugue in D Major” from the “Well-Tempered Clavier.” Kagawa will perform this baroque work.
The Isotone concert is co-sponsored by the American Museum of Science and Energy, where previous Isotone concerts have been held (except for the one in New York City in 2011).
Tickets may be purchased at the door at a cost of $25 per adult and $12 per student. This is a bonus concert for Chamber Music Series subscribers. For program notes on the concert, visit the ORCMA website at www.orcma.org.
Leave a Reply