Southeastern NEWS
Southeastern Louisiana University
Public Information Office
SLU 880, Hammond, LA 70402
504/549-2341/fax 504-549-2061
Date: 3/28/96
Contact: Christina Chapple 95
Editors: Photo accompanies release
SLU ENCORE! SERIES CONTINUES WITH EVENSON RECITAL
HAMMOND -- Southeastern Louisiana University's spring music series, Encore!,
continues April 5 with a recital by award-winning pianist David Evenson, head of Southeastern's
music department.
Evenson's recital, which is free to the public, is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in the Pottle
Music Building Auditorium. He will perform part one of the complete works for solo piano by
French composer Maurice Ravel.
Evenson said he chose to perform a program by Ravel in honor of Louisiana's Francofete
celebration. "Ravel wrote some of the most difficult music ever written for piano," Evenson said.
"But I have always wanted to do it and Francofete provided the inspiration."
In the first half of his program, Evenson will perform "Menuet antique," "Jeux d'eau,"
"Prelude, a la maniere de Borodine," and "Le tombeau de Couperin." After intermission, he will
perform "Gaspard de la nuit" (Stranger of the Night), a particularly difficult work inspired by
French poet Aloysius Bertrand's "Three Poems for Piano." Southeastern voice professor Stephen
Rushing will read Bertrand's poetry as an accompaniment to Evenson's performance.
Evenson joined the Southeastern faculty in 1979 and was named music department head
in 1996. A native of Minneapolis, Minn., he received his bachelor and master of music degrees
from Indiana University and his doctorate at the University of Arizona. He also studied at the
Ecoles des Beaux Arts in Fontainbleau, France, where he received instruction from Robert
Casadesus and Nadia Boulanger.
In 1992, Evenson received Southeastern's prestigious President's Award for Excellence in
Artistic Activity. He has toured South America in a chamber music ensemble under the auspices
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EVENSON ENCORE 99 RECITAL Add One
of the United States Information Agency, performed in the Carnegie Recital Hall premiere of
Southeastern professor Stephen Suber's "The Descent" and appeared as a soloist with the
Wellesley Symphony Orchestra in Boston, Mass.
In 1996, Evenson and Suber traveled to the Czech Republic to record "Enchantments:
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra" with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by
Gerald Schwarz, music director of New York's "Mostly Mozart" Festival and the Seattle
Symphony Orchestra..
Upcoming Encore! events include the Merling Trio on April 6; the Southeastern Concert
Band, conducted by Frank Dubuy, on April 8 and the Southeastern Chamber Orchestra,
conducted by Yakov Voldman, on April 13.
The events are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in the Pottle Music Building Auditorium.
For more information and a Encore brochure, call the SLU Music Department, 549-2184.
- SLU -
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