Jennifer Gunn and Fareed Haque
Fareed Haque, professor of guitar in the NIU School of Music, will perform a classical guitar recital at 8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 21, in the Boutell Memorial Concert Hall of the Music Building.
Haque will be joined by Chicago Symphony Orhcestra flutist and piccoloist Jennifer M. Gunn. They will perform works by Villa-Lobos, Marcello, Bartok, Kennen and others.
Gunn was appointed to the position of piccolo of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra by Daniel Barenboim in June 2005. Since joining the CSO, she also has been involved in the orchestra’s MusicNOW contemporary music series and is a coach for the Civic Orchestra. Gunn and has been a regular guest artist with the Chicago Chamber Musicians and Chicago’s Music of the Baroque Orchestra.
Prior to joining the CSO, she was the assistant principal flute of the Louisville Orchestra (KY) for the 2004-2005 season and principal flute of the Fort Wayne Philharmonic (IN) from 2001 to 2004. She has also performed with various other orchestras including the Pittsburgh and Cincinnati symphony orchestras.
Gunn made her debut as soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in May 2008 playing Vivaldi’s Concerto in C Major, RV 443. In April 2007, she was featured as a soloist playing Shirish Korde’s Nesting Cranes on the MusicNOW series. While a member of the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, Jennifer was a featured soloist on multiple occasions; she also has won several competitions including the National Flute Association’s Piccolo Artist Competition in 2004.
A native of Selinsgrove, Pa., she holds a bachelor of music degree from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, where she studied with Robert Langevin and Rhian Kenny. Her other teachers have included George Pope and Mary Kay Ferguson. She is currently on the faculty of the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University.
Born in 1963 to a Pakistani father and a Chilean mother, extensive travels, especially long stays in Spain, France, Iran, Pakistan and Chile, exposed Haque to different music from a very early age. This natural eclecticism has become the hallmark of his music.
The 1981 recipient of the University of North Texas’s jazz guitar scholarship, Haque spent a year studying with renowned jazz guitarist and pedagogue Jack Peterson. His growing interest in the classical guitar led him to transfer to Northwestern University, where he completed his studies in classical guitar under David Buch, John Holmquist and Anne Waller. He joined the NIU School of Music in 1989 as a professor of jazz and classical guitar studies.
As a classical guitarist, he has performed as soloist and accompanist with Nigel Kennedy, Robert Conant, Edgar Meyer, members of the Vermeer Quartet and many symphony orchestras in the U.S. and abroad. He was named the 2009 “Best World Guitarist” by Guitar Player Magazine. He is an active transcriber of baroque as well as South American music and has had numerous modern works dedicated to him.
The concert is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Lynn Slater at lslater@niu.edu or (815) 753-1546.
