Melissa Straus, double bass, will present a faculty recital at Hope College on Tuesday, March 7, at 7:30 p.m. in the John and Dede Howard Recital Hall of the Jack H. Miller Center for Musical Arts.
The public is invited. Admission is free.
Straus will be performing with the Great Lakes Art Music Ensemble, which includes Scott Harding (composer, narrator, percussion) and Tess Miller (flute).
The program will feature works by Harding, Orlando Di Lasso and Joseph Haydn as well as modern pieces for flute and bass. Harding’s work, “Legends of Mackinac Island,” evokes three Native American stories about the well-loved Michigan destination.
Straus performs regularly with the Lansing Symphony Orchestra, the Grand Rapids Symphony and other professional orchestras throughout Michigan. Straus and Miller have been performing together as the flute/bass duo Extreme Duality since 2008. Although her international performances span from Vienna, Austria, to Mexicali, Mexico, Straus makes her home in Michigan, where she co-founded the Mackinac Island Community Foundation Summer Concert Series, which is in its eighth year running.
An avid soloist and recitalist, she has performed on faculty recitals at Michigan State University, Central Michigan University, Alma College and Hope College as well as contemporary venues such as LadyFest.
Straus received her Doctorate of Musical Arts degree in 2003 at Michigan State University, where she studied with Jack Budrow. While at MSU, Straus also studied ethnomusicology with Dr. Michael Largey, completing the coursework for a Master of Arts in ethnomusicology. She is the author of “An American Regional Orchestra in the Twenty-First Century: Beethoven, Harleys and Social Justice.”
The Jack H. Miller Center for Musical Arts is located at 221 Columbia Ave., between Ninth and 10th streets.