Trillium and Friends to present spring concert March 7

Jan. 6, 2020

The Maryville College Division of Fine Arts will present Trillium and Friends on Sat., March 7, 2020 at 7:30 p.m. in the Clayton Center for the Arts’ Harold and Jean Lambert Recital Hall on the Maryville College campus. The concert is free and open to the public, and a reception will follow the performance. 

This program will be a collaboration with Laura Atkinson ’05, a mezzo-soprano and Maryville College alumna. She received her master’s degree from the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale University, where she was awarded the Margot Fassler Award for Excellence in Performance of Sacred Music. As a Fulbright Scholar, she also studied at the Hochschule für Musik in Leipzig, Germany. Subsequently, she found a home on both the concert and opera stage in the U.S. and Europe, singing with numerous orchestras, professional choirs and German opera houses. Alex Ross of The New Yorker praised her “refined, restrained” singing.

The program will open with Mozart’s “Trio in G, K. 564” and close with Arensky’s “Trio in D Minor.”

Atkinson will sing “A Letter to My Daughter” from Daughters. The song, composed by Lori Laitman, focuses on a mother-daughter relationship filtered through the lens of time. Described by Fanfare Magazine as “one of the most talented and intriguing of living composers,” Laitman has composed multiple operas and choral works, and over 250 songs, setting texts by classical and contemporary poets (including those who perished in the Holocaust). Her music is widely performed, internationally and throughout the United States, and has generated substantial critical acclaim. The Journal of Singing wrote: “It is difficult to think of anyone before the public today who equals her exceptional gifts for embracing a poetic text and giving it new and deeper life through music.”

Atkinson will also sing the two songs from Brahms’ “Op. 91,” accompanied by viola and piano.

Trillium, a piano trio that is now in its sixth year, has enjoyed playing for enthusiastic audiences from Maryland to North Dakota, Virginia and North Carolina, in addition to numerous performances in Blount, Knox and Anderson counties.

Alison Maerker Garner, violinist, has performed throughout the United States and South America. She teaches using a variety of modalities (Suzuki, Kodaly and Dalcroze) and has been published in a variety of journals. Her book series, Musical Minds, introduces students to music in the context of all the arts.

Alicia Randisi-Hooker, cellist, has performed throughout the United States and Europe. Her students have won prizes, scholarships and competitions both nationally and internationally. Believing that music can educate the whole child, enriching whole lifetimes, she also spends countless hours in community outreach to advocate for music education and chamber music performance.

Robert Bonham, pianist, is a professor emeritus at Maryville College and a recipient of the Maryville College Outstanding Teacher Award. He presents a variety of workshops nationally to enhance wellness and performance, and he also enjoys leading groups to explore India or sail on a catamaran on the Greek seas.

Shelley Armer, violist, is an avid chamber, orchestral and new music performer and teacher based in Knoxville, Tenn. She received a bachelor of music from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music in viola performance and a master of music degree in viola performance from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she was the teaching assistant for Hillary Herndon.

Maryville College is a nationally-ranked institution of higher learning and one of America’s oldest colleges. For more than 200 years we’ve educated students to be giving citizens and gifted leaders, to study everything, so that they are prepared for anything — to address any problem, engage with any audience and launch successful careers right away. Located in Maryville, Tennessee, between the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the city of Knoxville, Maryville College offers nearly 1,200  students from around the world both the beauty of a rural setting and the advantages of an urban center, as well as more than 60 majors, seven pre-professional programs and career preparation from their first day on campus to their last. Today, our 10,000 alumni are living life strong of mind and brave of heart and are prepared, in the words of our Presbyterian founder, to “do good on the largest possible scale.”