The UVA Department of Music presents the UVA Viola Ensemble with special guest composer, Eric Guinivan on Saturday, March 28th at 8 pm in Brooks Hall. This event is supported by the Eleanor Shea Music Trust. The concert is free and open to the public.
Under the direction of Associate Professor of Viola, Ayn Balija, the recital features an all-viola quartet performing a wide selection of works from arrangements of famous pieces to premieres for the ensemble. Eric Guinivan, an Associate Professor at James Madison University and internationally recognized composer will be featured. In a collaborative experience, the students and composer work alongside each other to bring a new piece to life. Throughout the process, Eric Guinivan and members of the ensemble exchange ideas, experiment with musical material, and make creative decisions together. This partnership fostered an environment where performers gained firsthand experience in interpreting a composer's intentions, offering feedback, and shaping the final piece. The result is a unique composition that reflects the input and artistry of everyone involved, emphasizing both creative teamwork and the importance of communication in contemporary music-making.
Program:
Brahms: Hungarian Dance No. 5, arr. for 4 violas
Church: Presomnial Ponderings
Coleridge-Taylor: Eight Negro Melodies
Elgar: Nimrod
Gammie: Lullaby of Viola-Land
Grieg: Hall of the Mountain King
Guinivan: Viola Quartet
Kimber: Viola Fight Song
Ott: fox & hounds
Luke Benfer is a second-year as a math major within the college of arts and sciences. He greatly enjoys all aspects of classical music, and while he often mentions that romantic composers are overrepresented, his favorite composer is Chopin. Luke regularly changes his mind about his favorite piece, but at the moment, he would pick Shostakovich's Piano Trio No. 1 or Bach’s Violin Sonata No. 2.
Will Wo is a third-year biology major on the pre-med track. He has played the piano for nine years and the violin for one year but quickly fell in love with the C string and the deeper, richer sound of the viola. He has been a part of the Charlottesville Symphony and a string quartet here at UVA. He likes listening to Beethoven and Rachmaninoff, and his favorite piece to play is Barber Adagio for Strings.
Penelope Smith is a third-year aerospace engineering major with a minor in applied mathematics. She has been playing the viola for 10 years but her first year playing in an ensemble at UVA. Her love of the rich tone of the viola leads to a preference of playing slower, lyrical pieces but she also enjoys faster untraditional pieces. Some of her favorite composers are Ravel, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, and Mendelssohn and her favorite piece to perform is Mendelssohn's 10th Symphony.
Coco Ahn is a second-year Politics and Economics student at the University of Virginia. Sharing music has been a central part of her life ever since she started violin at five years old, and her passion only deepened when she began viola in middle school. She quickly fell in love with its tone and placement in the orchestra. In college, she has been lucky to continue music as a violist in the Charlottesville Symphony, a student of Professor Balija's, and a classical music host at WTJU radio. Her favorite composers are Chopin and Rachmaninoff, and her favorite piece might be Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto or Mozart’s Requiem.
Eric Guinivan
Eric Guinivan’s music is characterized by propulsive rhythmic layers, slowly shifting harmonic fields, shimmering orchestration, and a strong sense of drive. His works have received notable honors from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, BMI, ASCAP, the Theodore Presser Foundation, and Meet the Composer. Eric has received commissions from Chamber Music America, the Fromm Foundation, New York Youth Symphony, the International Horn Society, Lake Union Civic Orchestra, Staunton Music Festival, the Lotte Lehmann Foundation, and the Society of Composers, Inc., among others. His output includes works for orchestra, wind ensemble, percussion, brass band, chamber orchestra, film, and a wide variety of chamber ensembles and solo instruments.
Also active as a percussionist, Eric was a founding member of the GRAMMY-nominated Los Angeles Percussion Quartet and has performed with orchestras and chamber ensembles across the country. Eric made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2011 performing as soloist with the New York Youth Symphony in the premiere of his work Meditation and Awakening for percussion and orchestra. The New York Times subsequently described the work as "engaging," praising its "shimmering colors" and "frenetic energy."
Eric received Bachelor of Music Degrees in composition and percussion performance from Indiana University and holds Masters and Doctoral degrees in composition from the University of Southern California. Eric joined the faculty of the James Madison University School of Music in 2013 and is currently Professor of Composition.
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