Musical March Includes Masterworks

Westmont music department provides a range of musical performances in the month of March, all free, unless otherwise noted. For more information, please contact the music department at (805) 565-6040.

The Choral Masterworks Concert, featuring an hour-long piece composed by Steve Butler, is Sunday, March 6, at 3 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church, 21 E. Constance Avenue. General admission is $10, students are free. Butler’s composition, “St. Nicholas the Wonderworker,” includes text from ancient hymns and prayers honoring Saint Nicholas.

“The Christian hymns are beautiful expressions of prayer and a means of entry into the timeless and eternal peace of Jesus Christ in the heavenly kingdom,” Butler says.

The piece requires a large orchestra, organ, full choir, children’s choir and four soloists. The soloists are Nichole Dechaine (soprano), Danielle Marcelle Bond (mezzo soprano), Grey Brothers (tenor) and Emil Cristescu (baritone).

Wendy Case and Mary Vanhoozer will be hosting violin and piano masterclasses in the music building rehearsal room and Deane Chapel respectively on Sunday, March 13, at 3 p.m. Case is a violin faculty member at Brooklyn College’s Preparatory Department and has served on the faculty at the Flint Institute of Music, the Cleveland Music Settlement, and North Shore Suzuki School. Vanhoozer, a pianist from Scotland, has performed in the U.S., Switzerland, Scotland and France.

The Brahm’s Ghost Trio, featuring violinist Wendy Case, cellist Robert Nicholson and pianist Mary Vanhoozer, perform numbers by Joseph Haydn and Johannes Brahms on Sunday, March 13, at 7 p.m. in Deane Chapel. The trio will perform “Piano Trio No. 16 in D major” by Joseph Haydn, “Piano trio in B major Op. 8” by Johannes Brahms and a new commission, “That Crazed Girl Improvising,” by Josh Rodriguez, composer-in-residence.