(PRINCETON, NJ) -- The Westminster Conservatory at Nassau noontime recital series continues on Thursday, March 15 at 12:15pm with a presentation of music for clarinet and piano. The performers, Kenneth Ellison, clarinet, and Ena Bronstein Barton, piano, are members of the Westminster Conservatory teaching faculty. The recital will take place in the Niles Chapel of Nassau Presbyterian Church, 61 Nassau Street in Princeton and is open to the public free of charge.
The program includes Francis Poulenc's Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, Giuseppe Tartini's Concertino for Clarinet and Piano in an arrangement by Gordon Jacob, and Arabesque by Germaine Tailleferre.
Clarinetist Kenneth Ellison has performed internationally with many ensembles, including the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, the Riverside Symphonia, the Greenville Symphony, and the American Fine Arts Festival. He has played under such conductors as Andrea Quinn, John Rutter, Frederick Fennell and Rossen Milanov, in venues such as Avery Fisher Hall, Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, NJPAC, and the Liszt School of Music. He performs regularly with the Chelsea Opera Company, New Jersey Arts Collective, the Danzon Trio, Tripleplay Winds, and is a founding member of trio@play. His recorded work includes the soundtrack of the documentary Bad Hair Life, as well as Grammy nominee Laurie Altman’s CD On Course. Mr. Ellison teaches clarinet and saxophone at Westminster Conservatory and is an Artist-in-Residence at the Joshua Tree School. He has been awarded degrees in music from Furman University and Arizona State University.
Born in Santiago, Chile, pianist Ena Bronstein Barton began her career in South America, touring her native continent. After winning a national piano competition she traveled to New York to study with Claudio Arrau and Rafael de Silva. Her New York debut at Town Hall was received with critical acclaim. Since then, Ms. Barton’s career has taken her across the United States, back to South America, to Europe, the Near and Far East, Australia and New Zealand. Among her engagements abroad was an extended tour of Israel and Europe, highlighted by performances as soloist with orchestras in Jerusalem, Luxembourg and Rome.
Ms. Barton has received many honors throughout her career, including an invitation to attend the Casals Festival, a Martha Baird Rockefeller Grant that resulted in a solo recital at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, and the 1996 Distinguished Artists Piano Award by Artists International. Her chamber music performances have included appearances with violinist Jaime Laredo and the Guarneri Quartet. Her piano partnership with pianist Phyllis Alpert Lehrer spans over twenty five years.
On April 19 Westminster Conservatory at Nassau will present duo pianists Larissa Korkina and Esma Pasic-Filipovic.
This program is made possible in part by the Mercer County Cultural and Heritage Commission through funding from the Mercer County Board of Chosen Freeholders and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.
