Guitarist Manuel Barrueco and the string quartet Cuarteto Latinoamericano will give this year’s performance in the annual Shirley and Chas Hockett Chamber Music Concert Series at Ithaca College. The program includes works by tango composer Astor Piazzolla and the world premiere of “Boliviana” by Miguel de Aguila.
The free concert will take place on Friday, April 17, at 8:15 p.m. in Ford Hall in the James J. Whalen Center for Music. Named after two longtime educators, the series honors the Hocketts' love of music and devotion to Ithaca College and its School of Music.
Hockett Chamber Music Concert Series
Manuel Barrueco is dedicated to bringing the guitar to the main musical centers of the world. During three decades of concertizing, he has performed across the United States from the New World Symphony in Miami to the Seattle Symphony, and from the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic to New York's Lincoln Center. He has appeared with many leading orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Boston Symphony under the direction of Seiji Ozawa, as well as in the American premiere of Toru Takemitsu's "To the Edge of Dream."
Cuarteto Latinoamericano, formed in 1982, is known worldwide as the leading proponent of Latin American music for string quartet. This award-winning ensemble from Mexico consists of violist Javier Montiel and the three Bitrán brothers -- violinists Saúl and Arón and cellist Alvaro. The Cuarteto has recorded most of the Latin American repertoire for string quartet, and the sixth volume of their Villa-Lobos 17-quartet cycle, recorded for Dorian, was nominated for a Grammy award in 2002 in the field of best chamber music recording.
The first performance in the Shirley and Chas Hockett Chamber Music Concert Series was given by the Bach Aria Group on October 25, 2000, the anniversary of the day Shirley and Chas Hockett first met in a mathematics course at the University of Michigan. Chas, who passed away in November 2000, enjoyed a distinguished academic career at Cornell University, from which he retired in 1982 as the Goldwin Smith Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Linguistics. Chas also had a passion for music, which he shared with his wife, Shirley, professor emerita of mathematics at Ithaca College, and their five children. He wrote a number of works, including an opera, Dona Rosita, which was performed by the Ithaca Opera Association in the early 1970s. After retiring from Cornell, Chas Hockett devoted himself to composing solo and chamber music.
Whereas Chas began performing in early childhood, Shirley did not play an instrument until she was 57, when she began studying the clarinet. Within a year she was performing publicly as a member of the Ithaca Concert Band alongside Chas, who played the bass clarinet. Both were active with the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra (CCO), and Shirley, who was the president of the board of directors from 1979 to 1984, continues to serve on the CCO board as director emerita.
The Hocketts' sustained support for the School of Music led Ithaca College to establish the chamber music series, for which Shirley has provided a permanent endowment. The Shirley and Chas Hockett Library of Ensemble Music in the Whalen Center was named in their honor in 1999. In April 2002 a second venue in the Whalen Center, the Hockett Family Recital Hall, was dedicated as a memorial to the Hocketts’ love of music and their loyalty to the college and the School of Music.
https://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/article.php/20090414113556345