SMU to host free cello recital Sunday

WINONA, Minn. — Saint Mary’s University will host a free cello recital by guest artist Kirsten Whitson at 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 2, in Figliulo Recital Hall, located in the Performance Center. This recital is unusual in that it will be performed without piano. Whitson plays regularly with the Minnesota Orchestra and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. The program includes Jean Louis Duport’s “Concert Etude #1”; Chinary Ung’s “Khse Buon”; Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Suite # 6 in D Major”; and Mark O'Connor’s, “Appalchia Waltz.”

Whitson also performs with the Milwaukee Symphony and the Grand Teton Festival Orchestra in Jackson, Wyo. Whitson maintains a private teaching studio in St. Paul and has taught at McPhail Center for the Arts, Indiana University, Carroll College and in a fishing village in Norway. She has performed throughout the U.S., Europe, Japan and Cuba with Minnesota Orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony and the Bergen Philharmonic. As a chamber musician she played with the Koan Quartet in Minneapolis from 2000-2003 and the Morini String Quartet in Milwaukee from 1994-1999.

She has a Bachelor of Music and an Artist Diploma from Indiana University where she was awarded a coveted Performer's Certificate. Her principal teachers were Fritz Magg, Wolfgang Laufer and Janos Starker. Whitson studied chamber music with Leonard Hokanson, Menahem Pressler and the Fine Arts Quartet. She was a recipient of a 2002 Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship to study improvisation and has collaborated in this field with dancers from the James Sewell Ballet. The exploration into improvisation led to her commissioning a cello and piano piece by McKnight-winning composer Carl Witt. It premiered in 2008.