What: Violin Master Class with guest artist Harvey Thurmer
When: Friday, March 6, 10 a.m.
Where: Juliet J. Rosch Recital Hall
Notes: Free and open to the community
Fredonia, N.Y. — The SUNY Fredonia School of Music will present a violin master class featuring guest artist Harvey Thurmer on Friday, March 6 at 10 a.m. in Rosch Recital Hall Thurmer will work with current string students, and interested community members are invited to observe.
Mr. Thurmer enjoys a varied career as a soloist, concertmaster, chamber musician and pedagogue. A native of Tennessee, his studies included work with mentors Dorothy DeLay and Louis Krasner at the New England Conservatory, and Sandor Vegh at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria.
After finishing his studies in Austria, he performed extensively as a chamber musician in Europe, with appearances at the Salzburg Festival, the Cheltenham Festival in England, London’s Wigmore Hall, Zurich TonHalle, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Paris Salle Gavaeu, and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. As a member of the Franz Schubert Quartet of Vienna, he held teaching positions at the Graz Musickhochschule and the Royal College of Music in Manchester England. He has taught at the Lappland Festival in Sweden, the Lake District Summer Music Festival in England, and the Summer Academy in Graz, Austria. He has collaborated with artists such as cellist David Soyer of the Guarneri quartet, pianists Jorg Demus and Cyprien Katsaris, and clarinetists Peter Schmiedl of the Vienna Philharmonic, and Alois Brandhoffer. Mr. Thurmer continues to perform annually as concertmaster of the Echternach Festival Chamber Orchestra in Luxemburg. As a member of the Oxford String Quartet he has performed and taught most recently in Seoul, South Korea and Nagasaki, Japan.
As a soloist Mr. Thurmer toured with the Salzburg Philharmonie in South America performing in Santiago, Chile, Lima, Peru, and Buenos Aires Argentina, as well as in Salzburg and Vienna, Austria. In this country he has appeared in recital and as soloist in Tennessee, Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, and Florida, and Washington D.C.
Since his return to the US in 1989, Mr. Thurmer completed a doctorate in performance and pedagogy while an assistant to violinist Thomas Moore at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. He continued his involvement with chamber music as a member of the Gables Quartet of Miami, the DaVinci Quartet in Denver and the Oxford String Quartet, the resident quartet at Miami University of Ohio. Mr. Thurmer is actively involved in the promotion and recording of new music. He has worked with composers Gyorgy Kurtag, Bright Sheng, Chen Yi and Michael Colgrass. His recording of Kurtag’s “Kafka Fragmente” with soprano Audrey Luna, available on the Ars Moderno label, represents the first recording of this monumental work by American artists. He currently is an Associate Professor of Violin at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio and concertmaster of the Richmond Symphony Orchestra in Richmond, Indiana.
