Enjoy the talents of Robert Hall, professor emeritus of music at Laurentian University, in concerts on three successive evenings this week.
The presentations have been entitled “The Amazing Colours of Black and White!”
Hall, who taught for 25 years at Laurentian’s department of music, is returning to Sudbury to present three presentations featuring the piano, utilizing the Yamaha C7 Grand at St. Andrew’s Place. Hall was also Director of Music at St. Andrew’s for 25 years.
For the past year, he has been Director of Music at St. Matthew’s Anglican Church in the Glebe in Ottawa, where he plays the four-manual organ and directs the 35 member choir.
The programs will be presented on three successive nights, Wednesday to Friday, Oct. 11-13, with each show beginning at 7:30 p.m.
The opening night is a presentation of the 1925 silent movie The Freshman, starring Harold Lloyd. Hall has frequently presented silent movies at St. Andrew’s where he improvises the
accompaniment in a style similar to what would have been done 100 years ago.
Thursday night will feature hymns played in a contemporary piano style with occasional vocal contributions. Some of the arrangers include Musselman, Hayes and Schram, all of whom have become very popular in their contemporary piano settings of traditional hymns. Hymn lovers will recognize such newly-styled favourites as Jesus Loves Me and Amazing Grace.
On Friday evening, Hall will be joined by Dr. Charlene Biggs. Their piano duo was well known to audiences at the yearly Sudbury Piano Grande concerts as well as other occasions such as a tour they made to McMaster, York and WLU concert series.
The Biggs-Hall Duo will present a concert of French piano duets by Debussy, Ravel, Bizet and Fauré.
All four of the suites presented were originally written for piano duet but were so popular that they were transcribed for orchestra and are now better known to audiences in their orchestral form – particularly the Ravel Mother Goose Suite.
Tickets are free admission or a free will offering.
