Duo Pegasus featured at free recital on UW-Green Bay campus

GREEN BAY — On Monday, April 20, the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay Music department presents Duo Pegasus, a guest duet featuring Scott Wright on clarinet and Linda Halloin on piano.

The free recital is scheduled for 7:30 p.m., in Fort Howard Hall inside the Weidner Center for the Performing Arts on campus, 2420 Nicolet Drive.

Duo Pegasus will perform four songs covering a range of styles and eras.

The program opens with a boisterous piece called “Fantasie Italienne,” by French composer Marc Delmas. The introduction conjures up the sunny warmth of the Mediterranean region.

The second piece is a Sonata for clarinet and piano by German composer Sigfrid Karg-Elert, written about 1920. This two-movement sonata combines the romantic style with tantalizingly modern harmonies. It features virtuosity with abrupt changes of mood and much good humor.

A Scottish composer, Jennifer Barker, wrote the third selection, “The Enchanted Glen.” This whimsical and dreamy piece, in the words of the composer, evokes “pictures and tales of fairies, goblins, castles and magical landscapes in the mind.”

A fourth piece, the “Sonata for Clarinet and Piano” by English composer Mike Mower, was commissioned by Duo Pegasus and the University of Kentucky in 2006. This kinky and unusual piece has three movements, all in a jazz/modern classical style.

Duo Pegasus first started in 1998 in Green Bay. It has since received national and international acclaim, performing throughout the United States and abroad in many recitals, concerts, and educational settings.
In addition to performing, Duo Pegasus embraces an educational mission with frequent offerings of masterclasses, clinics, and presentations to students of all ages.

Wright is an associate professor of clarinet at the University of Kentucky. Prior to his appointment at UK in 2002, he served as the professor of clarinet and assistant director of bands at the UW-Green Bay. Wright returns to Green Bay in the summers as an instructor for the UW-Green Bay summer music camps. His Doctor of Musical Arts degree in clarinet performance is from Arizona State University.

Wright has numerous performance credits with national and international orchestras and has recorded with Arlo Guthrie. He toured China in 2006 as a guest of the Beijing Conservatory of Music.

Halloin received a Bachelor of Music degree at UW-Green Bay with a major in piano and a minor in French horn. She won both a graduate fellowship and a teaching assistantship while earning a Master of Music degree in piano performance at UW-Milwaukee. Halloin was on the staff of Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University and has previously taught twentieth century music, music theory and piano at UW-Green Bay.

Halloin has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in many recitals throughout the Midwest and in Germany, Poland, and Ukraine. She has been described by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel as “a dynamo of expressive energy, commanding a full range of technical and musical capabilities.”

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