FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Shirley Luna – September 28, 2004

Guest artists to present saxophone and guitar recital at SFA

Drs. Joseph Murphy and Matthew Slotkin will present a saxophone and guitar recital at 6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 8, in Cole Concert Hall on the Stephen F. Austin State University campus. Admission is free and open to the public.

The men are both members of the music faculty at Mansfield University in Mansfield, Penn. They are presenting recitals at three or four other universities in Texas, according to Dr. Brian Utley, SFA assistant professor of music.

Included on the guest artists’ program will be music by Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos and Argentinean composer Astor Piazzolla.

The saxophone and guitar provide a unique combination of instruments, Utley explained, and the duo’s repertoire includes original and transcribed music.

According to Utley, Murphy has studied saxophone with some of the world’s foremost saxophonists, including Fred Hemke, John Sampen and Jean-Marie Londiex. He has performed in Europe, Japan and the United States and has recorded on the Erol label in France and on Opus One. He received his bachelor’s degree from Bowling Green State University and his master’s and doctoral degrees from Northwestern University.

While on campus, Murphy will give a master class to SFA saxophone students.

Slotkin received his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from Eastman School of Music where he studied guitar with Nicholas Goluses and historical performance practice with Paul O’Dette. He has taught guitar and chamber music at the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival in Maine and classical and jazz guitar at Alfred University in New York, and in the Eastman School of Music’s Community Education Division. He currently serves as the director of guitar studies at Mansfield University.

Slotkin has appeared at colleges and universities throughout the United States, at the Chautauqua Institution in New York and the DuMaurier Jazz Festival in Toronto. His first compact disc, “Twentieth Century Music for Guitar,” was released by Centaur Records in November 2003.

The recital is a joint presentation of the SFA College of Fine Arts and the Department of Music.