Eugene Rousseau, one of the most revered classical saxophonists in the world, will give a free recital at Ithaca College on Sunday, Feb. 18. Timothy Lovelace will collaborate on piano and Steven Mauk will assist on tenor saxophone. Beginning at 4 p.m. in the Hockett Family Recital Hall in the James J. Whalen Center for Music, the performance will include the “Rapsodie” by Debussy, a solo work by Frederick Fox, the sonata for alto saxophone and piano by Czech composer Jindrich Feld, and a trio by Jean-Baptiste Loeillet, which will feature Ithaca College professor Steven Mauk playing tenor saxophone.
In addition to his public performance, Rousseau will give a master class on Monday, Feb. 19, at 7 p.m. in the Hockett Family Recital Hall.
Rousseau is coming to campus thanks to a grant from the Robert G. Boehmler Community Foundation. Boehmler, who received a bachelor’s degree from the Ithaca College School of Music in 1938 and a master’s degree in 1961, was a musician and educator who established this foundation to support education in the communities in which he lived. A music teacher in the Palmyra-Macedon (New York) School District for many years, Boehmler died in 1998.
Since Rousseau’s Carnegie Hall debut in 1965, he has performed across America and in five continents and was among the first to give solo saxophone recitals in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, London and Amsterdam. A distinguished professor emeritus at Indiana University, he joined the faculty at the University of Minnesota in 2000. Through the years, he has served as guest professor and led saxophone master classes at music schools of renown including Hochschule für Musik in Vienna, the Paris Conservatory, and a yearly course at the Mozarteum in Salzburg.
His 1971 Deutsche Grammophon recording was the first complete disk of saxophone concertos with orchestra. In addition to several compact discs with piano, he has recorded with the Budapest Strings, the Winds of Indiana (Frederick Fennell, conductor) and the Haydn Trio of Vienna.
In 1969, he cofounded the World Saxophone Congress and has served as president of the North American Saxophone Alliance and Comité International du Saxophone.
