Pair Will Perform Works By Dvorak

Pianist Glenn Jacobson and oboist David Dutton are working together on a compact disc, and the pair will be performing the new music Wednesday at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Spokane.

The recording will feature the some of the music Czech composer Antonin Dvorak wrote during the time he spent in the United States.

Dvorak was brought to this country in the 1890s to head the National Conservatory in New York. It was hoped that he would help found an American school and style of composition. The “New World” Symphony and “American” String Quartet are his most famous contributions to this genre.

For this disc, Jacobson and Dutton are culling some of Dvorak’s chamber and solo piano music from his American years: the Romantic Pieces Op. 75, the Op. 100 Sonatina, and selections from the “Gypsy Songs” and the “Songs in Folk Style.”

Wednesday’s concert will be at 7:30 at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 4340 W. Fort Wright Drive. The concert is free, although donations will be accepted.

Jacobson is a native of Spokane who graduated from Rogers High School and went on to study at the Oberlin Conservatory. He lives in New York, where he is on the piano faculty of Princeton and Long Island universities.

He is a highly acclaimed chamber musician, having appeared with such luminaries as Jan de Gaetani, Leslie Guinn and Edward Mattos, toured in Europe, Eastern Europe and South America, and recorded for CRI, Desto and VoxTurnabout.

A founding member of the New York Camerata nearly 20 years ago, Jacobson has toured the United States and Canada with that ensemble, premiering works by such composers as George Crumb, John Harbison and Richard Rodney Bennett.

Dutton is well-known locally as an artistic director and performer for Allegro, Baroque and Beyond and as producer and conductor for the annual Royal Fireworks Concert, among his other activities. He has previously produced three compact discs featuring works for oboe.