Former Cascade Quartet member returns for concert

• TRANS-ATLANTIC WANDERINGS
• 7.30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 7
• First Congregational United Church of Christ, 2900 9th Ave. S.
• $10 suggested donation

Former Great Falls Symphony Cascade Quartet violinist Byron Wallis returns to Great Falls Thursday, Sept. 7, for a concert duet with internationally-known pianist Alfredo Oyaguez.

The evening of music, entitled “Trans-Atlantic Wanderings,” begins at 7:30 p.m. at the First Congregational United Church of Christ, 2900 9th Ave. S.

Wallis attended the Eastman School of Music and the University of California before moving to Great Falls in 2000 to perform with the symphony. In 2005, he moved to Paris, where he has made a living freelancing with French orchestras. He has performed at Carnegie Hall and the Library of Congress. Since 2011, he has taken up studies at a circus school outside of Paris, and now also performs as an accompanist for acrobats and tight-rope walkers.

After graduate studies at Yale and the University of California, Oyaguez moved back to his native Spain. He has performed in innumerable countries, including New Zealand, Macedonia and even Antarctica.

Wallis and Oyaguez open the concert with Johann Sebastian Bach's C major solo violin sonata with the rarely-heard piano accompaniment by Robert Schumann. In today's vogue of “authentic” performance practice, this version is sometimes frowned upon, but it offers an interesting variant of Bach's 18th-century masterpiece, clarifying the harmonic underpinnings with a nineteenth-century Romantic twist.

The next piece on the program gives a 20th-century take on chordal writing for violin with a soulful piano accompaniment. Arvo Part's “Fratres,” though technically virtuosic for the violin, uses a minimalistic harmonic language, with repeated progressions and limited melodic material. Like Bach, Part frequently composed religious music, and the hymn-like character of the thematic material in this piece has a mesmerizing beauty.

The second half begins with Johannes Brahms' first violin sonata in G major. It borrows motifs from the composer's song “Regenlied,” which calls on the rain to bring back dreams of childhood, and tenderness imbues the music.

Ending on a lighter note, the musicians turn to American composers George Gershwin and Aaron Copland, both of whom, like the violinist performing them, spent considerable amounts of time in France.

Jascha Heifetz arranged “An American in Paris” and “It Ain't Necessarily So” for violin and piano. After the sound of Parisian taxi horns in the first piece, listeners get a short blues representing homesickness. In the end, though the street noises and French atmosphere are triumphant. The second piece is a song taken from the opera “Porgy and Bess.” Whereas Gershwin sought inspiration from jazz, Copland found it in American folk music. “Ukelele Serenade” and “Hoe-Down” round out the program with down-to-earth vigor.

Admission to Trans-Atlantic Wanderings is free, although the artists suggest a $10 donation.

Reach Tribune Staff Writer Traci Rosenbaum at 791-1490. Follow her on Twitter @GFTrib_TRosenba.

THE ESSENTIALS

What: Wallis-Oyaguez Duo: Trans-Atlantic Wanderings

When: 7.30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 7

Where: First Congregational United Church of Christ, 2900 9th Ave. S.

Cost: $10 suggested donation