This page is no longer being updated and remains online for informational and historical purposes only. The information is accurate as of the last page update.
For questions about page contents, contact the Communications Division.
She will be accompanied by pianist Steven Silverman
Violinist Elizabeth Field, together with pianist Steven Silverman, will entreat audiences to the dynamic sounds of the Baroque Period and the elegance of 19th-century chamber music 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 10 in the Williams Center for the Arts.
Tickets are free for students, $4 for faculty and staff, and $15 for the public. They can be obtained by calling the William Center box office at (610) 330-5009.
Field is this year’s Alan and Wendy Pesky Artist-in-Residence. Now in its 22nd year, the Alan and Wendy Pesky artist-in-residence program was established to bring to campus renowned musicians who share their performance and teaching skills with students in the classroom and on the concert stage. This performance is part of the College’s Chamber Music series.
Future performers in this year’s Chamber Music series are Orpheus with Nikolaj Znaider, Feb. 3, $27; Trio Solisti with Alan Kay, March 12, $18; Orpheus with Dame Felicity Lott, March 28, $30; and Emerson String Quartet, April 9, $22.
During the concert, Field will play J.S. Bach’s Sonata in G Major and Franz von Biber’s Sonata No. VIII on baroque fiddle, accompanied by Silverman on harpsichord. The concert will also feature Beethoven’s Sonata No. 9 in A Major, “Kreuzer,” and Brahms’ Sonata No. 1 in G Major, Op. 78, played on modern violin with Silverman accompanying her on grand piano.
Field is concertmaster of the Bach Choir of Bethlehem’s orchestra and an active recitalist in early music circles. She holds a doctorate from Cornell University in historical performance practice where she worked extensively with John Hsu and Malcolm Bilson. As an early music specialist, she has performed throughout the United States and Europe. She performs regularly with her period instrument group, The van Swieten Quartet which is in residence at the Longy School of Music in Boston.
She has also been featured on live radio broadcasts in Belgium and has been sponsored by Holland’s famed Netwerk voor Oude Musik. She was featured in Finland’s first early instrument chamber music festival, MUSIKKIA LINNASSA, where she was hailed as “an exceptionally sophisticated, delicately phrasing violinist.”
In America her collaborations with fortepianist David Breitman, and Baroque guitarist Richard Savino have brought her to The Boston Early Music Festival, Aston Magna, and the Monadnock Music Festival among other American festivals sponsoring original instrument chamber music.
From 1992 to 1998 Field served as professor of violin at California State University, Sacramento, where she was first violinist of the SUN Quartet and the University of California, Davis. The SUN quartet has premiered several new works and is currently completing a recording of three new quartets. She also served as violinist for the Sharon Piano Quartet based in San Francisco as well as performed regularly as a recitalist. As a soloist, Field has performed concertos with several Northern California orchestras as well as with the Calgary Philharmonic and the Ohio Chamber Orchestra.
Silverman has performed extensively as a pianist in solo, chamber, and concerto appearances throughout the United States, and as a harpsichordist at the Amherst Baroque Academy, and at Washington D.C.’s Corcoran Gallery and Grace Church Bach Festival.
The 2007-2008 Performance Series at Lafayette College is supported in part by gifts from Friends of the Williams Center for the Arts; by provisions of the Josephine Chidsey Williams Endowment, J. Mahlon and Grace Buck Fund, the Croasdale Fund, the Class of ’73 Fund, the Alan and Wendy Pesky Artist-in-Residence Program, the James Bradley Fund, and the Ed Brunswick Jazz Fund; and by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour; the F.M. Kirby Foundation, the Dexter and Dorothy Baker Foundation, and the New England Foundation for the Arts.