Dr. Richard Prior, Coordinator

Chamber Ensembles | Percussion Ensemble

Chamber Ensembles

The Emory University Chamber Music Program provides many rich opportunities for students to perform music in small, intimate settings such as trios, quartets and other instrumental combinations. The program supports an average of ten groups per semester that generally include string quartets, piano trios, the Emory woodwind quintet and the Emory brass quintet. Other combinations in the recent past have included a Tango group (violin, guitar, piano and bandeleon) in addition to a variety of eclectic instrumental mixes.

The Friends of Music at Emory supports funding for two chamber ensembles that subsequently carry the honorary title of a “Friends of Music” ensemble. In previous years, this has been the Friends of Music Honors String Quartet; the funding now supports one string and one wind group.

Each ensemble performs a representative selection of their repertoire at the end of semester Chamber Music Concert. This public concert is part of the Emory Student Ensembles concert series and is held in the Emerson Concert Hall of the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts. In addition to the public performance, each ensemble performs at least one other time at an on or off-campus venue. Some groups are pre-selected to participate in reading sessions of student compositions.

Coaching Process

Each ensemble receives 10 coachings from an assigned Emory Artist Affiliate or other appropriate faculty member. Ensembles meet on a weekly basis; if a student has a recurrent schedule conflict, he or she will need to be rotated out of the ensemble in favor of a student who can be a consistent member of the group.  Students are directly responsible to their coaches who establish and supervise coaching sessions. As coordinator of the program, Dr. Richard Prior facilitates the assigning of coaches, the booking of rehearsal spaces, concert hall performance logistics and associated publicity, and the loaning and purchase of music.

Performance Opportunities

Each ensemble performs a representative selection of their repertoire at the end of semester Chamber Music Concert. This public concert is part of the Emory Student Ensembles concert series and is held in the Emerson Concert Hall of the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts. In addition to the public performance, each ensemble performs at least one other time at an on or off-campus venue. Some groups are also pre-selected to participate in a reading session of student.

Chamber Music is a credit-bearing class; students are enrolled by the Department of Music for MUS300P pending a successful audition and ensemble assignment.

Repertoire from 2005-2006

STRING QUARTETS
Tchaikovsky: String Quartet No. 1, Op. 11
Beethoven: Opus 18, No. 3
Haydn: Opus 3, No. 3
Haydn: Opus 33, No. 3
Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 8

WOODWIND QUINTET
Fine: Partita for woodwind quintet       
Arnold: Three Shanties for Wind Quintet
Nielsen: Woodwind Quintet

BRASS QUINTET
Adson: Two Ayres for Cornetts and Sagbuts
Cheetham: Scherzo

SAXOPHONE QUARTET
JeanJean: Quatour pour Saxophones

EMORY CLASSICAL INDIAN ENSEMBLE
Compositions based on Raga Kirwani
& Raga Bhupali by Kakali Bandyopadhyay
    
MIXED ENSEMBLES
Beethoven: Serenade in D major, Op. 25
Mozart: Oboe Quartet
Mozart: Clarinet Quintet
Khatchaturian: Clarinet Trio in G Minor

Students interested in the Emory Chamber Music Program should contact Dr. Richard Prior for information regarding auditions and ensemble assignments.

Dr. Richard Prior
Schwartz Center for Performing Arts, 310
1700 N. Decatur Road
Emory University
Atlanta GA 30322