McCray’s faculty performance will be his birthday celebration

Jeffrey McCray
Jeffrey McCray

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Glenn Korff School of Music Associate Professor of Bassoon Jeffrey McCray will have his faculty performance on Thursday, September 10 at 7:30 p.m. in Kimball Recital Hall.

“This recital is taking place on my birthday, so I’m playing whatever I want to play without any really cohesive logic behind the programming,” McCray said. “The program opens with two standards of the bassoon literature: the Teleman f minor sonata and the Parable for solo bassoon by Persichetti. It should be noted that 2015 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Vincent Persichetti, an important American composer and music educator.”

The program continues with the Nebraska premiere of Four Signs for bassoon and bassoon/contrabassoon by John Steinmetz. Karen Sandene, McCray’s colleague in the Lincoln Symphony, will be joining him on this piece. They were part of group of bassoonists that commissioned this piece from John Steinmetz.

Next is Bundles of Sticks for bassoon and percussion by Daniel McCarthy. Glenn Korff School of Music’s David Hall will be collaborating with McCray on the piece.

The final selections will be a series of Latin dances, performed by Bassoons Across Nebraska. Bassoons Across Nebraska is a bassoon quartet made up of members of the Lincoln Symphony and the Omaha Symphony: James Compton, principal bassoon, Omaha Symphony; Jeffrey McCray, principal bassoon, Lincoln Symphony; Karen Sandene, 2nd bassoon, Lincoln Symphony, and contrabassoon, Omaha Symphony; and Wenmin Zhang, assistant principal bassoon, Omaha Symphony.

This performance is free and open to the public. This performance will be live webcast: http://arts.unl.edu/music/webcasts