UW Symphony’s ‘Deux Pianos, Deux’ Concert Nov. 30

UW Department of Music pianists Theresa Bogard and Chi-Chen Wu will perform during the UW Symphony Orchestra’s “Season of Joy” concert Thursday, Nov. 30, at 7:30 p.m. in the Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts concert hall. (UW Photo)

The University of Wyoming Symphony Orchestra’s “Season of Joy” continues with “Deux Pianos, Deux” Thursday, Nov. 30, at 7:30 p.m. in the Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts concert hall.

“The concert highlights works from or about France -- and, with the help of French fur trappers a couple centuries ago, works about Wyoming also fit this theme,” says Michael Griffith, UW director of orchestral activities.

Tickets cost $10 for the public, $7 for senior citizens and $6 for students. Tickets are available at the Performing Arts box office and the Wyoming Union information desk, by calling (307) 766-6666 or going online at www.uwyo.edu/finearts.

The concert will feature UW Department of Music faculty pianists Theresa Bogard and Chi-Chen Wu.

Mozart’s “Paris Symphony” will open the concert, a work Mozart wrote especially for Parisian taste, Griffith says. Later in the concert will be the solo work by the two pianists on “Concerto for Two Pianos” by Francis Poulenc.

“Written a century and a half after Mozart was there, it still appeals to French popular tastes and, though it’s more modern, it actually sounds like Mozart in spots,” Griffith says. “It also sounds like Danny Elfman’s music for the film ‘Beetlejuice’ in spots.”

Two Wyoming-related pieces also are on the program. First is music from UW composer Anne Guzzo, who wrote the soundtrack of Wyoming Public Television’s “Wyoming Voices” in 2005. Following will be “Shiloh Ranch” by Steve Reisteter, commissioned by the Wyoming Arts Council for its 50th anniversary earlier this month.

The performance will close with one of the most popular pieces in the French repertoire, “Bacchanale” from Camille Saint-Saéns’ opera “Samson et Dalila.”

Among the features of the concert is Wu and Bogard on Poulenc’s piece.

Wu, an assistant UW music professor, has been a recitalist, chamber musician and concerto soloist in the United States, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, Taiwan and China. She has performed in the Aspen Music Festival and the Boston Early Music Festival Fringe concert series.

Her performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio’s Simply Grand Concert Series, and she has received awards from the Global Music Awards. She was named in the Top 10 “Best Classical Recordings of 2015” on The Big City, New York, which included the New York Philharmonic.

Bogard, a UW music professor, is an active performer in historical performance practice, contemporary music, chamber music and music of women composers. She has performed in the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Austria, the Netherlands, Italy, Mexico, Bolivia, Brazil, Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, China, Taiwan and Singapore.

She is featured on a recording of solo piano works by Louise Talma. Sought after as a collaborative pianist, Bogard can be heard on two recordings for saxophone and piano with UW saxophonist Scott Turpen, and also on a disc of flute and piano music by eastern European composers with UW flutist Nicole Riner.

For more information, call Griffith at (307) 766-3069 or email symph@uwyo.edu.