ARKADELPHIA, Ark.—Ouachita Baptist University’s Division of Music will host a flute and percussion recital featuring faculty members Dr. Ryan C. Lewis and Kristin Grant. The Jan. 28 recital will be held in Mabee Fine Arts Center’s McBeth Recital Hall at 7:30 p.m.; it is free of charge and open to the public.
“Kristin Grant and I did a flute-percussion duo piece a few years ago and enjoyed the experience and music so much that we decided to program an entire concert of flute and percussion music,” said Lewis, assistant professor of music.
The concert will include movements from Cindy McTee’s “Stepping Out” and T?ru Takemitsu’s “Toward the Sea” as well as Georg Philipp Telemenn’s “Sonata No. 1” and Philip Parker’s “Beneath the Canopy.” These works will feature flute, alto flute, bass flute and piccolo with marimba, vibraphone, multiple percussion and drums from around the world.
The Telemann piece “is a terrific example of duo music from the European Baroque period … and Takemitsu’s work focuses on mankind’s constant pull to and fascination with the sea and water,” Lewis said. “Parker’s ‘Beneath the Canopy’ guides us through a jungle or rainforest, complete with the sounds of rain and rivers, birds flirting in the branches and a python moving in for the kill.”
At Ouachita, Lewis teaches music history courses, applied percussion and percussion techniques and directs the steel drum ensemble, percussion ensemble and the marching band drum line. He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in percussion performance from the University of South Carolina, a Master of Music degree in percussion performance from Florida State University and a Bachelor of Instrumental Music Education degree from Furman University.
Lewis previously served on the music faculties of Claflin University, the University of South Carolina and Florida State University, where he directed the steel drum ensemble. He is a member of the international Percussive Arts Society, the College Music Society and is an artist-educator for Innovative Percussion sticks and mallets.
Lewis performs frequently as a timpanist-percussionist and has performed under the direction of maestros Keith Lockhart, Leonard Slatkin and David Zinman and with the symphonic and opera orchestras of the Aspen Music Festival, the Rome Festival of Italy, the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, the South Carolina Philharmonic Orchestra and many other professional orchestras. As a soloist, Lewis has presented performances at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention and College Music Society National Convention.
Also an assistant professor of music at Ouachita, Kristin Grant teaches music theory, applied flute lessons and directs the Ouachita Flute Choir. She received her Master of Music degree in flute performance from the University of North Texas and a Bachelor of Music degree in flute performance from the University of Arizona. Before coming to Ouachita, she taught flute and music theory at East Central University in Ada, Okla., where she served as a member of the music faculty.
Grant is a member of the Pine Bluff Symphony Orchestra, the National Flute Society, the Arkansas School Band and Orchestra Association, Mid-South Flute Society, Texas Flute Society and the College Music Society. She often performs as a soloist and chamber musician, and as a featured artist for “Classical Arkansas,” her performances have aired on radio station KUAR 91.5.
For more information, contact OBU’s School of Fine Arts at (870) 245-5129.
