The Denison art department will host the final gallery event for the school year with a musical concert and art lecture titled "Lute Duets!" featuring lute players Ronn McFarlane and Kenneth Bé at 7 p.m., Saturday (May 1) in the Burke Hall Art Gallery. Admission is free and open to the public.

Duets for the lute go back to the earliest printed music for the lute (1507) and were conceived in a variety of ways. This concert will feature a number of styles of lute duets, from the simple chordal accompaniments to treble-ground duets popular in Italy and England and the Baroque style of equal lute duets.

McFarlane, one of the most outstanding lutenists performing today, is largely responsible for bringing the transcendent charm and timeless quality of the lute into the musical mainstream and making it accessible to a wider audience. He has numerous recordings on the Dorian label, including six solo recordings, four lute song recordings with Julianne Baird, soprano, and Frederick Urrey, tenor, nine CDs with the Baltimore Consort and three ballad recordings with Custer LaRue and members of the Baltimore Consort. Most recently, McFarlane has been engaged in composing new music for the lute, building on the tradition of the lutenist/composers of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This new music will be the focus of his next solo CD.

As both a paintings conservator for The Cleveland Museum of Art and lute player for several decades, Bé has had a longstanding interest in relationships between music and music-making of the Renaissance and Baroque periods and the visual arts. This year he is also directing the Lute Festival 2004 of the Lute Society of America to be held on the campus of Case Western Reserve University during June, which will include classes, lectures, and concerts presented by an internationally gathered faculty.

About Denison:

Denison University, founded in 1831, is an independent, residential liberal arts institution located in Granville, Ohio. A highly selective college enrolling 2,100 full-time undergraduate students from all 50 states and dozens of foreign countries, Denison is a place where innovative faculty and motivated students collaborate in rigorous scholarship, civic engagement and the cultivation of independent thinking.

For press inquiries:

Name

Barbara Stambaugh

Position Title

Director, Media Relations

Primary Email

stambaughb@denison.edu

Business Phone

(740) 587-8575