Northwestern College to present recital featuring music by Max Reger

Northwestern College music faculty and students will present a recital featuring the diverse compositions of German composer Max Reger on Oct. 20.

Northwestern College music faculty and students will present a recital featuring the music of German composer Max Reger on Friday, Oct. 20, at 7:30 p.m. in Christ Chapel. The concert is free and open to the public.

Reger, who died in 1916 at the age of 43, was called “music’s last giant” by composer Paul Hindemith. “He wrote in a variety of styles and instruments and excelled in about every form of musical composition popular at the time but opera,” says Dr. Daniel Huey, assistant professor of music at Northwestern. “Unfortunately, many of his works are no longer in the standard repertoire, except for his organ pieces. I wanted to organize a recital featuring the variety of musical styles and instruments he composed for to highlight his compositional prowess.”

Huey says the recital will showcase the diversity of Reger’s compositions. “The audience will hear everything from the playfulness of his vocal music and the meditative nature of his flute and orchestra music to the agility of his small chamber work and the robust nature of his organ works.”

Northwestern’s Chamber Orchestra, directed by Dr. Juyeon Kang, professor of music, will perform Reger’s “Lyric Andante.” Organists MaryLou Wielenga, lecturer in music, and Huey will present “Introduction and Passacaglia in D minor” and the fugue movement of “Fantasie and Fugue in D minor, Op. 135b,” respectively.

Beth Huey, instructor in music, will perform two pieces on flute accompanied by her husband. Flutist Susan De Haan, lecturer in music, will be joined by violinist Lisa Miedema, lecturer in music, and violist Jennifer Frens, an adjunct faculty member at Dordt College, on the vivace movement of “Serenade in G, Op. 141a.”

Mezzo-soprano Cindy Moeller, lecturer in music, will sing a number of Reger pieces, accompanied by Dr. Angela Holt, assistant professor of music, and Daniel Huey.

Mackenzie Phillips, a senior who has won the Bogaard Strings Competitive Scholarship the last two years, will play a viola solo.