The MasterWorks String Trio will play a program featuring "great music and romance" at its Valentine's Day concert at Denison. Set for 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday (Feb. 14) in Burke Recital Hall, the concert will include music by Gordon Jacob, Ludwig van Beethoven and Ernst von Dohnanyi.

The concert opens with "Six Shakespearian Sketches" by Jacobs, an English composer and faculty member at the Royal College of Music. The sketches include "How Sweet the Moonlight Sleeps on Yonder Bank," "Grace in All Simplicity," and "Here a Dance of Clowns." The narrator will read snippets of Shakespeare to set the stage for each movement.

Beethoven's String Trio in G. major (Opus 9, No. 1) follows. One of three string trios that the German master wrote in his early period in Vienna, the four-movement work reflects the structure of Haydn's symphonies. The melodic first movement is followed by a lush E Major Adagio and the last movement ends with a flurry of exchanged motifs.

After intermission, the trio will be joined by an operatic tenor gone "barbershop" in some love songs. The program ends with Dohnanyi's Serenade in C Major, opus 10, Dohnanyi, one of Hungary's greatest musicians, helped keep the country's musical culture alive during the First World War. The short five-movement Serenade truly exemplifies Dohnanyi's vivid, lyrical Romantic language expressed in classical musical form.

The MasterWorks String Trio evolved at the summer MasterWorks Festival in Winona Lake, Ind., where violinist Mary Irwin, violist Ken Matsuda and cellist Cora Kuyvenhoven all serve as members of the festival faculty teaching high-level students from all over the world. Kuyvenhoven also is a member of the Denison faculty. They will be joined by guest artist Martin Spencer.

Irwin came to Columbus in 1986 to join the Columbus Symphony Orchestra. She retired from the orchestra to establish a teaching studio and is currently president of the Columbus Music Teachers Association. At the MasterWorks Festival, she serves as orchestra concertmaster and as a teacher. Irwin is a founding member of the Quattro Corde String Quartet and has performed solo recitals in Columbus, Texas, and England among other venues.

A native of Japan, Matsuda came to the United States in 1977 and earned both his bachelor's and master's degrees at Northern Illinois University. He was a member of the Grant Park and Grand Rapids Symphonies and the Buffalo Philharmonic before joining the Columbus Symphony Orchestra in 1987. An active chamber musician and previously on the adjunct faculty of Denison, he is the violist of the High Street Four String Quartet and the Canaletto Ensemble as well. Matsuda also has conducted the Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra of Columbus (1989 to 1996), and currently is conductor of the Ohio Wesleyan University Chamber Orchestra and director of the "Hanamizuki no Kai" Japanese Women's Chorus.

Kuyvenhoven is principal cellist for the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra in Columbus and also performs with the viola/cello duo "Avendo." She earned her A.R.C.T. licentiate at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Canada, a master of fine arts degree from the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee and a doctor of musical arts degree at the University of Iowa. She has performed, recorded and toured with the Toronto Symphony, and has been a soloist with the Welsh Hills, Plymouth, National Arts and Windsor Symphonies. Kuyvenhoven was active in the new music scene in Toronto and was continuo player for the Mississauga Choral Society there.

Spencer, who presently works as a voice pathologist in Columbus and is married to Kuyvenhoven, sang for 20 years with the Canadian Opera Company. He has performed Shakespeare at the Stratford (Ontario) Festival and now sings with his barbershop quartet, Rhymetime, in his "sparetime."

Calendar Listing:

CALENDAR LISTING: Denison University, Granville -- The MasterWorks String Trio presents a Valentine Day concert; 7:30 p.m., Tuesday (Feb. 14), Burke Recital Hall (240 West Broadway). Free and open to the public. Call 740-587-6220 to confirm information.

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.

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