Valparaiso, IN – Duo Sequenza will present “South Shore Suite” by Jorge Muñiz, as an Audience-Interactive Concert Experience at the Indiana Dunes State Park Nature Center Auditorium on Sunday, September 3 at 3:00 pm Central time. This all-new musical adventure is free to the public as an Arts in the Parks and Historic Places event, through the financial support of the Indiana Arts Commission and the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. Sign language interpretation will be provided.
Composed in honor of Indiana’s Bicentennial, “South Shore Suite” is a series of short pieces portraying a journey across Northwest Indiana on the South Shore Rail Line. Each of these serves as a “musical postcard” set amidst the region’s unique geography and evoking the colorful legends of historical personalities. Included are Princess Mishawaka, Lake Michigan, Mount Baldy, Diana of the Dunes, and John Dillinger’s Run. A musical Prologue (South Bend) and Epilogue (Chicago) represent the terminal points of our nation’s last surviving interurban electric commuter railroad.
The September 3 program is a bold musical project designed to be both family and sensory friendly. As an artistic event of exploration and discovery, lively creative interplay with the artists and composer will deepen the participants’ understanding and appreciation of contemporary classical music. The core question to be addressed is “Sound is all around us…but what exactly makes it music?”
Duo Sequenza was founded in 1988 by Valparaiso resident Debra Silvert, flutist, and Chesterton native Paul Bowman, classical guitarist. The first five years of their collaboration kept them busy touring their chamber music throughout the U.S. and into 11 Asian and European countries. They were honored to win a European Debut concert at the Palais de l’Athenee in Geneva, for which only 30 artists were selected from a pool of more than 1300. The Duo went their separate ways while Silvert home-schooled her four children and Bowman continued his solo career in Europe. In 2015, they returned to the concert stage as Duo Sequenza, once again specializing in chamber music works by living American composers, many of which were dedicated to them. Duo Sequenza’s dynamic performances have received enthusiastic ovations from audiences and acclaim from critics. Silvert, hailed as “a gem of a flutist,” and Paul Bowman, “among the best guitarists in the world,” are committed to developing new audiences for contemporary classical music while promoting the work of living composers.
Maestro Jorge Muñiz, Associate Professor of Music at IUSB and winner of the First Grand Prize of the European Young Composers Competition, as well as several other international awards, composed “South Shore Suite” for Duo Sequenza, who premiered it in January 2017 at the Memorial Opera House in Valparaiso, IN, where the duo is the Chamber Music Ensemble in Residence. The event on August 6 at Potato Creek State Park will be the World Premiere of the “Interactive Concert Experience” version of the piece. Muñiz, Silvert, and Bowman have continued their collaboration with the goal of developing a larger, more diverse audience for fine art music, believing that chamber music, especially that written for flute and guitar, is uniquely engaging to new listeners.
“We didn’t plan for ‘South Shore Suite’ to become the basis of an Interactive Concert Experience, but the work finished up to be so perfectly suited for such a project,” said Debra Silvert. “Classical music suffers from an image of being elitist, stuffy, and boring when it’s really anything but! We are so excited to be presenting a program that has the potential to create brand-new contemporary classical music fans!”
