Young prize winner to perform at the Barn

Bassoonist Stephanie Corwin joins a lineup of familiar faces for the season finale concerts this week at Chamber Music at the Barn.

by Chris Shull, THE WICHITA EAGLE

In the lineup of popular players to be featured this week at the season
finale concerts at Chamber Music at the Barn, it is the unknown among them
that might generate the biggest buzz.

Bassoonist Stephanie Corwin will perform a concerto for bassoon by Antonio
Vivaldi at the concerts this week.

Corwin was the first-prize winner in the first-ever Meg Quigley Vivaldi
Competition held in Austin, Texas, in June. The competition is open to young
women bassoonists from North and South America. It was founded by Nicolasa
Kuster, bassoon teacher at Wichita State University and principal in the
Wichita Symphony.

As far as the other performers on the bill this week at the Barn, Wichita
audiences are familiar with violinist David Perry, who will play Prokofiev's
Sonata for Two Violins with Isabella Lippi. He was concertmaster of the
Wichita Symphony from 1991 to 1995 and is now first violinist with the Pro
Arte Quartet in Madison, Wis., and a frequent performer with the
oft-recorded Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in New York City. He comes to the
Barn often.

Suzanne Tirk has not been in Wichita long -- she took over the clarinet
studio at Wichita State last August -- but has already established herself
as an adept soloist and a sensitive chamber musician. Tirk is featured
playing the Clarinet Quintet in B minor by Johannes Brahms, a mainstay piece
for her instrument.

The other players on stage at the Barn beginning Wednesday need little
introduction -- violist Catherine Consiglio is artistic director of Chamber
Music at the Barn and principal violist with the Wichita Symphony; Mark
Foley is everywhere -- in clubs and concert halls -- on his bass, and is
principal with the Wichita Symphony; and Tom Grubb, playing the harpsichord,
is one of the finest accompanists in Wichita and is co-director of the
Plymouth Chamber Series.

But all ears will be on Corwin, who will use the prestige and the
performances generated by her showing at the Meg Quigley Vivaldi Competition
to continue her march toward a career in classical music. That's why Kuster
founded the competition.

"My commitment is empowering young women," Kuster said.

The competition is named after Meg Quigley, a California philanthropist who
supported women's issues and institutions, and Vivaldi, the Italian Baroque
composer of "The Four Seasons" who ran a music school for orphaned girls in
Venice for much of his career.

It will continue every two years at the same time as the International
Double Reed Society conference in cities around the world.

Finalists to the Meg Quigley Vivaldi Competition -- this year there were
five -- will have their expenses paid to the double reed conference, where
they can attend recitals and seminars and network with bassoonists and
oboists from around the globe.

This year, judges for the competition included some of the finest
bassoonists around, and its required music included a piece commissioned
from a female composer, "Dreaming in Colours" by HyeKyung Lee.

Another required piece for the first competition was the A minor concerto by
Vivaldi, the work Corwin will reprise this week at Chamber Music at the
Barn.

"Stephanie performed with such polish; it was like velvet," Kuster said.
"She was poised and so mature in her playing. The communication with her
pianist was just incredible."

A nuanced performance with her accompanist was exactly what Corwin was
after.

"I wanted to approach it not so much as a solo competition, but I wanted to
keep in mind working with my pianist and making it a chamber music
collaboration," Corwin said.

She said the Vivaldi concerto -- he wrote 38 concertos for bassoon, most to
be played by the girls in the orphanage -- is a perfect fit for the
instrument.

"He had such a talent for bringing out the technical aspects of the bassoon
as well as creating very emotional and lyrical effects at the same time,"
Corwin said. "And the contrast between the two is perfectly balanced."

Corwin just turned 24 and is headed for doctoral studies at State University
of New York-Stony Brook. Besides the opportunity to perform this week at
Chamber Music at the Barn, she received $9,000 for her first-place finish at
the Meg Quigley Vivaldi Competition. (Second-place winner Lou Paquin, from
Montreal, received $6,000; third-place winner Katherine Evans, a WSU student
from Towanda, received $3,000.)

"I'm going to buy a profiler, which is a very expensive machine for making
reeds," Corwin said.

IF YOU GO

CHAMBER MUSIC AT THE BARN

What: Classical concert featuring music by Vivaldi, Prokofiev and Brahms
played by Stephanie Corwin, bassoon; David Perry, violin; Suzanne Tirk,
clarinet; others

Where: The Barn at Prairie Pines, 4055 N. Tyler Road

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday-Friday. Dinner at 6:30.

How much: Admission is $20 for barn seating; $12 for garden seating. Dinner
is $12, reservations required.

For more information, click on www.cmatb.org or call 264-4662.

Nicolasa Kuster
Assistant Professor, Wichita State University School of Music
Principal Bassoon, Wichita Symphony Orchestra
Bassoonist, Lieurance Woodwind Quintet
http://www.wsubassoons.org
http://www.wsubassoons.blogspot.com

Founder and Co-Director, The Meg Quigley Vivaldi Competition
www.MQVC.org

1845 Fairmount, DFAC 53
Wichita, KS 67260-0053
316-978-6586 studio
316-978-3625 fax