Cellist Jolyon Pegis & Violinist Maria Schleuning

The 1891 Fredonia Opera House Performing Arts Center presents An Evening of Cello and Violin, with Cellist Jolyon Pegis and Violinist Maria Schleuning, on Friday at 7:30 p.m. Included on the program is the world premiere of a piano trio version of Partners, A Double Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra by noted composer David Amram. Amram will be in attendance at the concert.

Cellist Jolyon Pegis hails from Rochester. He is the winner of the Artists International Awards in New York, and subsequently made his New York debut at Carnegie Recital Hall. He since has appeared as a recitalist and chamber musician across the country.

A champion of new music, he has worked with composers such as Gunther Schuller, Lukas Foss, Eric Heckard, and Don Freund. He was a member of the Arcadia Trio in residence at the Yellow Barn Chamber Music Festival and has also been featured at the Roycroft Chamber Music Festival and the Anchorage Festival of the Arts. A frequent soloist with orchestras, he has appeared multiple times with the San Antonio, Virginia, Dallas, West Virginia and Chautauqua Symphonies.

He is currently an Associate Principal Cellist with the Dallas Symphony as well as Principal Cello of the Chautauqua Symphony and a member of the Grammy-nominated contemporary music ensemble Voices of Change.

Violinist Maria Schleuning has been a member of Voices of Change since 1996 and its Artistic Director since 2009. A vocal advocate of new music, she has worked with many of the leading composers of our day, including the legendary Witold Lutoslawski, George Crumb, Aaron Jay Kernis, John Corigliano, Sam Adler, Sebastian Currier, Bright Sheng, Augusta Read Thomas and Pierre Jalbert.

She has premiered many new works; among them, the world premiere of Dream Catcher (2009) a solo violin work written especially for her by Augusta Read Thomas, and Partners (2018) a double concerto by David Amram, written for her and Pegis, a the piano trio version of which is being premiered at the Opera House.

An active chamber musician, Schleuning has performed in venues such as New York’s Alice Tully Hall, Weill Hall, Merkin Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, and the Museum of Modern Art, as well as at numerous festivals throughout the United States and Europe. She has recorded with Continuum modern music ensemble in NYC, as well as with Voices of Change and the Walden Piano Quartet.

Schleuning currently is Principal Second Violin of Classical Tahoe, where she was a guest concertmaster in 2014.

A member of the Dallas Symphony since 1994, she has been a featured soloist there on multiple occasions, most recently in 2021.

Performing with Pegis and Schleuning on Amram’s Partners is Pianist Russell Miller. A retired coach and teacher of vocal repertoire at Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester since 1995, he has performed throughout the United States and abroad as soloist and chamber musician, including concert tours to Korea and Hong Kong with Tenor Robert White and to Alaska and the former Soviet Union with Cellist Stephen Kates.

With violist Donald McInnes, he has recorded works of Hindemith and Loeffler on the Kleos Classics label. Notable collaborations include recitals with Pegis, Ronald Leonard, Lynn Blakeslee and Zvi Zeitlin, as well as with numerous singers. For 12 years, he was the musical director for the vocal quartet “SATB,” which performed a wide variety of repertoire from classical chamber pieces to Broadway.

Miller has served as pianist and harpsichordist for several professional opera companies including the Florentine Opera of Milwaukee, Mercury Opera of Rochester and for Eastman Opera Theatre.

Tickets to this performance are $18, $16 (Opera House Members) and $10 (Students) and may be purchased in

person at the Opera House Box Office or by phone at 716-679-1891, Tuesday through Friday, noon to 4:30 p.m. They also may be purchased anytime online at www.fredopera.org.

The 1891 Fredonia Opera House Performing Arts Center is a member-supported not-for-profit performing arts center with a mission to “present the performing arts for the benefit of our community and region … providing access to artistic diversity … and high quality programming at an affordable price.” It is located in Village Hall in downtown Fredonia. For a complete schedule of events, visit www.fredopera.org.