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Cal Poly Humboldt Recital Series: Garrick and Rex Woods

Fulkerson Recital Hall

The Department of Dance, Music, and Theatre at Cal Poly Humboldt presents “The Cal Poly Humboldt Recital Series: Garrick and Rex Woods.” The performance features father Rex Woods, piano, and Son Garrick Woods, cello. The program includes sonatas by Barber and Poulenc, Tchaikovsky’s Autumn Song, as well as an original composition by Garrick Woods. Join us Sunday, February 26th at 2:00 p.m. in Fulkerson Recital Hall, Cal Poly Humboldt. Concert tickets are $15 General, $5 Children, and $5 for Cal Poly Humboldt students with ID. Tickets may be purchased at the door or in advance at centerarts.humboldt.edu including tickets to our paid livestream ($7). From the “All Events” drop down menu select “School of Dance, Music, and Theatre” and select your event. At press time, the wearing of facemasks is not mandatory, but it is strongly encouraged.

Assistant Professor Garrick Woods teaches cello and bass at Cal Poly Humboldt and is also the director of the Humboldt Symphony. Garrick spoke about performing with his father, Rex. “My dad sat me at the piano from as early as 3 years old and taught me some of my earliest lessons in reading and playing music,” says Woods. “He was a piano professor at the University of Arizona and was always my accompanist and collaborator at every level of my musical development, so it’s often very easy to anticipate and read each other in a musical context. This is the first time we have performed together since covid. We are performing the Barber Sonata for Cello and Piano and the Poulenc Sonata for Cello and Piano. They are both powerfully emotional but in very different ways. The Barber is sad, dark, romantic and the Poulenc is playful, quirky, and grand. We’re also playing Tchaikovsky’s Autumn Song and an original composition that I wrote.”

Barber’s Cello Sonata was written in 1932 when the composer was still studying at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and Brahms looms large as an influence on its compositional style. Among its Brahmsian features are its high-serious tone and emotional intensity, its employment of cross-rhythms, and its luxuriant use of the rich low range of the keyboard. Among its modern features, however, are its frequent changes in meter and the angularity of many of its melodies.” —Vancouver Recital Society
“Francis Poulenc began sketching his Cello Sonata in 1940, but the work was considered complete until 1948. The premiere performance happened in Paris in May 1949, with Poulenc playing the piano and Pierre Fournier, to whom the piece is dedicated, playing the cello. Fournier helped Poulenc with some of the technical aspects of the sonata, as the composer was not as familiar with the cello as a solo instrument. Set into four movements the sonata adheres to the classical traditions of a sonata form first movement, a slow and lyrical second movement, an upbeat scherzo penultimate movement and then an exuberant finale. Francis Poulenc’s Cello Sonata was not the best-received work from critics at the time, with many saying it was fairly average. However, the dramatic twists and turns and the level of communication between the cello and piano makes it one thrilling piece of music.”—Alex Burns
“Tchaikovsky’s Autumn Song is set in a sultry D minor tonality. Quintessential Tchaikovsky in its melodic development, this slow movement is full of Romantic-era-inspired harmony and melodies that will capture your heart. Passing between the two hands seamlessly, the chief theme is based on a small kernel of music, that by the end of the piece is fully-flourished.”—Alex Burns

DATES/TIMES

WHERE

• Fulkerson Recital Hall

PRICE

• $15
• $5 Cal Poly Students with ID
• $5 Children