: Northwestern University Newscenter

The Wacker Consort, a quartet of outstanding string bassists from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, will collaborate with Northwestern University School of Music faculty and students for an evening of quartet combinations.

By Judy Moore

EVANSTON, Ill. --- The Wacker Consort, a quartet of outstanding string bassists from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, will collaborate with Northwestern University School of Music faculty and students for an evening of quartet combinations.

They will perform during “QuadroPhonia: A Feast of Fours” at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 4, in Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, 50 Arts Circle Drive, on the University's Evanston campus.

The “QuadroPhonia” concert is part of Northwestern University School of Music's “QuadroMania: A Festival of Fours” that begins March 28 and continues through April 7. The spring 2007 music festival will feature compelling combinations of fours that showcase some of today's brightest talent, from classical to cutting-edge.

Daniel Armstrong, assistant principal bass in the Milwaukee Symphony; Michael Hovnanian, artist faculty member, Roosevelt University Music Conservatory; Robert Kassinger, DePaul University double bass professor and traveling jazz musician; and Stephen Lester, chairman of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) membership committee and 29-year member of the CSO, comprise the Wacker Consort.

Wacker Consort members will be joined on stage by members of Northwestern's School of Music faculty, including clarinetists J. Lawrie Bloom and Steven Cohen, trumpeters Barbara Butler and Charles Geyer, horn player Gail Williams, trombonists Michael Mulcahy and Randall Hawes and tuba player Rex Martin, as well as their most accomplished students.

The ensemble's program includes Scheidt's Canzon, Farkas' “Ancient Hungarian Dances,” Piazzolla's “Histoire du Tango” and Mozart's Variations on “Ah, Vous Dirais-Je, Maman.” Also on the program is Rossini's “Fanfare de chasse,” Lo Presti's Suite for Eight Horns, Plog's Music for Brass Octet, Tchaikovsky's Overture Miniature and “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” (from the “Nutcracker Suite”); Barnby's “Sweet and Low,” Offenbach's Grand Galop (from “Orpheus in the Underworld”) and Schuller's “Quartet for Double Basses.”

Tickets for “QuadroPhonia” are $8.50 for the general public; $7 for senior citizens and Northwestern faculty and staff; and $4 for students with IDs.

To order tickets or for more information, call the Pick-Staiger ticket office at (847) 467-4000 or visit <www.pickstaiger.com>.