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Violinist Marka Young, the director of string ensembles at Lafayette College, and fortepianist Gwendolyn Toth will perform works of Beethoven, Mozart, and Schubert on original instruments in a recital at 8 p.m., Monday, February 15, at Lafayette’s Williams Center for the Arts.
They will also discuss these original instruments and stylistic differences between the classical period and today at a brown bag luncheon at noon that day in the Williams Center. Both events are free and open to the public.
Young teaches violin and viola at Lafayette and violin, viola, and chamber music at the Manhattan School of Music Preparatory Division. She is a member of the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, Artek, Orchestra of the Old Fairfield Academy in Fairfield, Conn., Concert Royal, and the Smithsonian Chamber Orchestra. She has performed solo recitals in concert series in Lubec, Maine; at the College of Staten Island, and throughout New Jersey. She has been a member of the Stony Brook Quartet; BIS, a 20th century ensemble; and the Princeton University Composer’s Ensemble. She has participated in the Banff Winter Artist-in-Residence program, the Blossom Festival, the Bach Aria Festival, and the New England Bach Festival. She was concertmistress for Music Theatre at Banff, Alta. She holds master’s and doctoral degrees in music from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and a bachelor’s degree from Sarah Lawrence College.
Gwendolyn Toth, the director of music at St. Frances of Assisi Church in New York City, is one of America’s leading performers on early keyboard instruments, including harpsichord, organ, fortepiano, and clavichord. Her technique is founded on historical performance principles of fingering, articulation and phrasing, and her interpretations have been acclaimed for their spirit and intelligence. She has won prizes in the Magnum Opus Harpsichord competition and the American Guild of Organist competitions. She has been heard in concert throughout North America, Europe, and the Far East, and on radio networks in the United States, the Netherlands, Germany and France.
Toth has performed in early music festivals in Boston, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic. Her solo keyboad debut of organ works by Heinrich Scheidemann on the meantone organ in Zeerijp, the Netherlands, was released in 1998 on the Lyrichord Early Music Series label. She holds a doctor of musical arts degree in performance from Yale University.