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Professor Emeritus Robert Bonham organizes past, present faculty members for a ‘Potpourri of Chamber Music’

Photo of Robert Bonham
Dr. Robert Bonham

The Division of Fine Arts at Maryville College will present “A Potpourri of Chamber Music” at 7:30 p.m. March 5 in the Harold And Jean Lambert Recital Hall of the Clayton Center for the Arts, located on the MC campus.

The performance, organized by Dr. Robert Bonham, MC professor emeritus, will feature collaborations between current and former Division of Fine Arts faculty members. 

While at the College, Bonham taught piano and classes that ranged from world music and art history to experiential courses focused on enhancing creativity and wellness. He was a recipient of the Outstanding Teacher Award, as well as a founding member of the faculty of the Keyboard Wellness Seminar and the classical ensemble Trillium, which performs regularly at the College.

Other performers on the March 5 program include:

• Nathalie Simper, adjunct instructor of flute at MC and owner of East Tennessee’s Simper Music Studio, as well as a veteran of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra and the Oak Ridge Symphony Orchestra;

• Shelby Shankland, a former adjunct instructor of flute at the College as well as the principal flutist for the Oak Ridge Symphony and a former student at the San Francisco Conservatory;

• Meredith Simpson, an adjunct instructor of horn at MC and a member of the Black Oak Brass Quintet, who will play the French horn;

• Bassoonist Zach Millwood, lecturer at the University of Tennessee School of Music and adjunct instructor of bassoon at MC, as well as former acting principal bassoon player with the Knoxville Symphony and a performer with other orchestras throughout the region; and

• Cellist Alicia Randisi-Hooker, Bonham’s Trillium bandmate who has performed throughout the United States and Europe and is a passionate advocate for music education.

“Historically, chamber music was shared informally by friends in the intimacy of their homes,” Bonham said. “It is intended that this program will recreate something of that atmosphere.”

The program, Bonham added, will feature solos, duets and trios performing both familiar and rarely heard works by composers such as Robert Schumann, Carl Maria von Weber, Ian Clarke, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Marko Tajcevic and Ignaz Lachner.

Admission is free, and the concert is open to the public. As a reminder, masks are required within the Clayton Center for the Arts.

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.”