The Gustavus Adolphus College Department of Music presents a guest artist recital by the Minnesota Saxophone Quartet, Sunday, February 26. The Quartet, including Gustavus alumnus John Engebretson, will present this concert beginning at 3:30 p.m. in Jussi Björling Recital Hall on the Gustavus campus. This guest artist performance is free and open to the public.
The Minnesota Saxophone Quartet and members Karen Reinhardt Benson, John Engebretson, Dennis Lindsay and Nancy McMillan have appeared in concert throughout the region as an ensemble and in solo performance. The four are music educators who have studied with some of the most noted saxophonists of our day, including Daniel Deffayet, Frederick Hemke, and Jean-Marie Londeix. Engebretson, a 1991 graduate from Gustavus, has studied in Bordeaux, France and earned his Master of Music in saxophone performance at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He has performed throughout the United States both as a soloist and with several touring quartets, including a performance at the 2003 World Saxophone Congress in Minneapolis. A Presser Scholar at Gustavus, Engebretson is currently a member of the music faculty at Kennedy High School in Bloomington, Minnesota.
For this appearance, the Quartet has programmed a concert of works for saxophone by Isaac Albeniz, Pierre Max Dubois, Jean Rivier and Michael Torke. The program also includes a jazz composition Quartet #1 in Three Movements by Bob Mintzer, a 1987 work Four, for Tango arranged for saxophone quartet by Claude Voirpy and written by Astor Piazzolla. The quartet will conclude the concert with Euday Bowman’s 12th Street Rag, arranged by Jari A. Villanueva.
Sunday’s guest recital by the Minnesota Saxophone Quartet begins at 3:30 p.m. in Jussi Björling Recital Hall and is free and open to the public.