Don’t miss the last Musical Rendez-vous of the season! FEU resident musicians and Harriet Hale Woolley scholars are organizing a special concert for the Fête de la Cité.
The Program
Johann Sebastian Bach
Suite in C major for solo cello (excerpts)
Ren Martin-Doike, viola
Steven Bryant
Hummingbird for saxophone and electronics
Alyssa Hoffert, saxophone
Maurice Ravel
Ma Mere d’Oye, transcription for piano and soprano saxophone
II. Petit Poucet
III. Laideronette, impératrice des pagodes
V. Le jardin féerique
Wilson Poffenberger, soprano saxophone & John Kamfonas, piano
René Char
“Against a Dry House” from La Nuit Perdu (excerpts)
Christopher Gellert, narrator, John Kamfonas, piano & Wilson Poffenberger, Saxophone
Atar Arad
12 Caprices for viola solo (excerpts)
Ren Martin-Doike, viola
The Artists
Originally from Honolulu, violist Ren Martin-Doike is an innovative performer on a mission to captivate audiences worldwide, both on the streets and in the concert hall. She has toured and performed throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia as a soloist and as a member of the Curtis Symphony and Chamber Orchestras, the Benny Rietveld Jazz Quintet, and the Indiana University Violin Virtuosi. An alumna of the Curtis Institute of Music, Ren currently studies in Paris, where she is pursuing her Master’s Studies at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique. She was a Harriet Hale Woolley Scholar for the academic year 2015-2016.
Christopher Alexander Gellert’s poems have appeared in Belleville Park Pages and FORTH Magazine. Since September, he has been collecting testimonies from readers across France on the accompaniment of literature in their lives. As reading is as once both intimate and shared, he asks readers to tell their stories in their homes over a meal he cooks, in thanks for their voices. Each meal will be a chapter in a book he is writing. This autumn, an exhibition of photos and audio recordings will launch a series of reading workshops here at la Fondation de États-Unis and Paris 7.
Concert saxophonist, avid chamber musician, and versatile music educator, Alyssa Hoffert has performed extensively throughout the United States and Europe. She holds an MM in Saxophone Performance from the Hartt School and a B.S in Music Education cum laude from Case Western Reserve University/the Cleveland Institute of Music. Hoffert is currently studying saxophone at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Boulogne-Billancourt in Paris under the tutelage of Jean-Michel Goury. She is also a Conn-Selmer endorsed artist and performs on Selmer (Paris) saxophones and mouthpieces.
Embracing his penchant for improvisation alongside his passion for the classical and contemporary repertoire, the pianist John Kamfonas has given performances around the world, from Italy to India, Beijing to New York, which have been described as possessing “a grandeur that lifted the music into the sublime…and a delicacy that took one’s breath away.” He was Harriet Hale Wooley scholar in 2015-2016. John is currently a musician in residence at the Fondation des Etats-Unis and is pursuing a graduate diploma at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris under the guidance of Marian Rybicki and Jean Fassina.
Wilson Poffenberger is a saxophonist and educator based out of the United States. A strong advocate for new music, Wilson has premiered new works for the saxophone in both the United States and Europe. Wilson is pursuing the Cycle D’Orientation Professionnelle at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Boulogne-Billancourt under the tutelage of Jean-Michel Goury. Free admission, subject to availability.