Center Stage will be hosting several events the week of March 16 for students to attend.
The first event features the Ensemble Creo, who will be performing March 17 at 7:30 p.m. in Wattenbarger Auditorium at the Bryan Fine Arts Building.
According to the Center Stage Spring 2015 brochure, the “Ensemble Creo was founded in 2012 by young Korean musicians who had distinguished themselves with international careers.”
“We prepare solo, duo, trio and quartet repertoire including our own arrangement,” said Ryu Jiyeon, a member of the Ensemble Creo.
Ensemble Creo “seeks to cover many musical genres free from instrumentations, but because we are a piano trio with a guitarist, we sometimes have to arrange pieces for our group,” said Jiyeon. “I want my music to console people who have different kinds of sufferings and are tired of their life and cure their pains.”
The next two events take place on the same day.
Gat Thach will be coming to Tech to give a presentation on “Making the Move: Immigrant and Refugee Experiences in Middle Tennessee.” Thach is the founder of Nashville International Center for Empowerment (NICE) and is the current president and CEO.
According to the organization’s website, NICE “is a non-profit, community-based organization dedicated to empowering refugees and immigrants of Middle Tennessee through direct social services and educational programs.”
Thach will be giving his presentation March 19 at 6 p.m. in Roaden University Center’s Multipurpose Room.
The Cypress String Quartet will also be visiting Tech March 19; however, they will be playing at 7:30 p.m. in Wattenbarger Auditorium.
The quartet is made up of two violins, a viola and a cello. They are not composers, but “we frequently commission some of the greatest and most accomplished composers of our time to write for us,” said Jennifer Kloetzel, cellist for the quartet.
“It is very important to us that we seek out the great composers of our time; when people look back at this time in history, we want to make sure that there are plenty of works of art from this time period, a true legacy of our time,” said Kloetzel.
The quartet will be performing a piece during their time at Tech that a composer wrote specifically for them. The piece is a code or cipher of each of the members’ names throughout the piece.
The Cypress String Quartet has played in several “venues including Cal Performances, Kennedy Center, Library of Congress, Stanford Lively Arts, Krannert Center and Ravinia Festival,” according to the quartet’s website. The quartet also “has been praised by Gramophone for its ‘artistry of uncommon insight and cohesion,’ and its sound has been called ‘beautifully proportioned and powerful’ by The Washington Post.”
These events will be the week after Spring Break and will be free for students to attend.
The Cypress String Quartet will also be performing with the Bryan Symphony Orchestra March 22 at 3 p.m. Tickets are $10 for students.
