Arts Celebration spotlights Oak Ridge musicians
St. Andrew's Episcopal Church of Maryville hosted a well-attended, multimedia “Celebration of the Arts” on March 18, featuring displays of wares from the Townsend Artisan Guild, as well as a classical piano concert by Slade Trammell and Sophie Wang.
Trammell, music director for Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church in Oak Ridge, played selections from Schubert, Schuman, Debussy and Chopin. Along the way he shared biographical notes of interest about the artists, the musical selections, and the contexts of time and place and period.
Trammell, who serves on the music faculty of Roane State Community College, is married to Wang, who is a piano professor at Mississippi State University.
A native of Western North Carolina, Trammell gave his first public performance at the age of 10. Five years later, after a family move to Tennessee where he attended The Webb School of Knoxville (from which he graduated), he was accepted as a pupil of David Brunell, a faculty professor at the University of Tennessee, whom Trammell credits as a strong influence in his piano development.
As a conductor, Trammell’s first public appearance on the podium was at the age of 17. Shortly thereafter, he was accepted as a pupil of Maestro Serge Fournier, onetime assistant conductor with Leonard Bernstein, of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
Attending as Fournier's guest at the Maryville performance was Oak Ridge Symphony Orchestra Music Director and Conductor Régulo Stabilito.
During the St. Andrews concert, Wang joined Trammell at the piano to perform, as the finale, a selection by Richard Strauss, written originally as an orchestral piece for his opera, "Waltzes from Der Rosenkavalier." The selection was later adapted for two pianos. Wang, however, further adapted the earlier adaptation into an arrangement for four hands on one piano.
“How long did it take you two to learn how to do that?” one audience member asked after the husband-and-wife team successfully survived the series of hand-over-arm-over-hand contortions that made it possible to play the piece on only one piano.
“You had to see it to believe it,” said another attendee.
Joy Schrotenboer Fournier, organist and choirmaster with St. Andrews and formerly organist and choirmaster with St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Oak Ridge, introduced the performers.
Sales proceeds and donations supported Habitat for Humanity of Blount County.
Attending as Fournier's guest was Oak Ridge Symphony Orchestra Music Director and Conductor Régulo Stabilito.
This article originally appeared on Oakridger: Arts Celebration spotlights Oak Ridge Tennessee musicians
