Cellist Jolyon Pegis

The 1891 Fredonia Opera House Performing Arts Center presents Cellist Jolyon Pegis in a special recital on Friday at 7:30 p.m. He will be joined by Pianist Robert Frankenberry in a program that features the music of Schumann, Debussy, Prokofiev and more.

Pegis may be familiar to Opera House audiences as one of the Bach & Beyond Baroque Music Festival musicians for several years, as well as for a previous Opera House concert with violinist Maria Schleuning.

Pegis, who currently lives in Texas, 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.

Pegis is currently 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.

Frankenberry enjoys a multi-faceted relationship with music as a singer, pianist, conductor, orchestrator, director, and occasional composer.

On stage, he has performed a wide range of roles including Mozart (Amadeus), John Adams (1776), Bacchus (Ariadne auf Naxos), the title roles in Don Carlo, The Tales of Hoffmann, Faust, and Willy Wonka, and Orson Welles in Daron Hagen’s film opera Orson Rehearsed. At the piano, he regularly performs works by living composers with such groups as Pittsburgh’s IonSound and AnimeBOP, New York City’s The Phoenix Players and PRISM Players, and multi-city entelechron and Chrysalis Duo.

He is currently Interim Concert and Communications Coordinator for the Department of Music at the University of Pittsburgh.

Tickets to the show are $20 (Adults), $18 (Adults), and $10 (Students) and can be purchased in person at the Opera House Box Office or by phone at 716-679-1891, Tuesday-Friday, 12-4:30 p.m. They can be purchased online anytime 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.