Trans-Nebraska Players perform Nov. 4

The Trans-Nebraska Players will perform Nov. 4 in Westbrook Music Building Rm. 119.
The Trans-Nebraska Players will perform Nov. 4 in Westbrook Music Building Rm. 119.

The Trans-Nebraska Players, a quintet that includes Glenn Korff School of Music faculty members David Neely and Clark Potter, will perform Nov. 4 at 7:30 p.m. in Westbrook Music Building Rm. 119. The concert is free and open to the public.

Founded in 2008, the Trans-Nebraska Players includes Neely (violin), Potter (viola), as well as cello and flute professors from the University of Nebraska at Kearney (Franziska Brech and Noah Rogoff) and a piano professor from Chadron State University (James Margetts).

Their program is titled “Shakespeare Reimagined.” The concert will feature arrangements of orchestra music inspired by Shakespeare performed simultaneously with texts from those plays spoken in and around the music.

The ensemble will perform the program in Chadron on Oct. 31, Scottsbluff on Nov. 1 and Kearney on Nov. 3 before performing in Lincoln on Nov. 4. The Nov. 4 performance will also be live webcast. Visit https://music.unl.edu/webcasts the day of the performance for the link.

UNK Shakespeare scholar Marguerite Tassi has chosen the texts, and retired UNL Professor of Choral Activities Jim Hejduk will speak the texts, along with the music of the Trans-Nebraska Players.

The music will include:
• Arthur Sullivan’s “Bouree” and “Danse Grotesque” from “Masquerade Suite from The Merchant of Venice”
• Edward Elgar’s “Interludes I and II” from “Falstaff: Orchestral Study” (with texts from “The Merry Wives of Windsor” and “2 Henry IV”
• Henry Purcell’s “Chaconne” from “The Fairy Queen” (an adaptation of “Midsummer Night’s Dream”)
• Mendelssohn’s “Overture” and “Nocturne” from “Midsummer Night’s Dream”
• Korngold’s “Garden Scene” from “Much Ado About Nothing”
• Tchaikovsky’s “Love Theme” from “Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture”

“The plays of Shakespeare have inspired so much fabulous music for symphony orchestra, but the great bulk of that music has no words of The Bard,” Potter said. “This program aims to present a different twist by attempting a pairing of the two.”