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Mathias Tacke to play with NIU Philharmonic

November 15, 2010
Mathias Tacke

Mathias Tacke

The NIU Philharmonic, under the direction of Lucia Matos, will perform its final concert of the semester at 8 p.m. Monday, Nov. 22, in the Boutell Memorial Concert Hall.

On the program: Carl Nielsen’s “Aladdin Suite, FS 89,” Jean Sibelius’s “Symphony No. 7 in C Major, Op. 105” and, with NIU violin faculty member Mathias Tacke, Sibelius’ “Serenades for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 69.”

Tacke, professor of violin and former second violinist of the Vermeer Quartet, is originally from Bremen, Germany. He studied with Ernst Mayer-Schierning in Detmold, with Emanuel Hurwitz and David Takeno in London, and with Sandor Vegh in Cornwall. He won first prize in the Jugend Musiziert national competition, and graduated with honors from Nordwestdeutsche Musikakademie, where he was later appointed to the faculty.

From 1983 to 1992, Tacke was a member of the Ensemble Modern, one of the most important professional groups specializing in 20th century music. In this capacity he gave countless premieres of works by most of today’s leading composers, including Frank Zappa. He has made numerous recordings for such labels as Sony, ECM, Harmonia Mundi and Teldec.

Lucia Matos

Lucia Matos

Brazilian-born conductor Matos is also music director of the NIU Opera Workshop. She has appeared with numerous orchestras in the United States and abroad, and her first commercially distributed CD, with the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, was released in 2007 by Cala Records. Also intensively involved with opera, Matos has conducted several productions at Opera Illinois and was a semi-finalist at the 2007 Bela Bartok International Opera Conducting Competition.

Matos studied conducting with Henrique Gregori at the Universidade Estadual de Campinas and, after graduating, was assistant conductor for two professional orchestras in Brazil (Sinfonica Municipal de Campinas and Orquestra da UNICAMP). In 1998, she was awarded a fellowship to continue her studies in the United States. She received a Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Iowa, studying with William LaRue Jones. From 2003 to 2008, Lucia Matos was the orchestra director at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

The concert is free and open to the public. The NIU Music Building, 300 Lucinda Ave., is accessible to all. For those unable to attend, this concert also will be live-streamed.

For more information, contact Lynn Slater at (815) 753-1546 or lslater@niu.edu