Red Cedar Chamber Music celebrates the beginning of their third decade bringing world-class chamber music to Eastern Iowa with Red Cedar Express, the fall program featuring new Executive Director Miera Kim (violin) and new Artistic Director Carey Bostian (cello) in a powerful duo program. The performance will feature selections from the Red Cedar Express program, which opens with the new core ensemble’s first commission, Red Cedar Express, by Iowa City composer Michael Kimber and includes duos by Bach, Bartok, Kummer & Kodaly. 

Kimber’s Red Cedar Express is an exuberant work designed to show off the skill and power of the new duo. Other works on the program embrace a range of time periods and musical styles. The audience is treated to the intricate genius of Bach’s Two-Part Inventions and the rustic quality of Bartók’s folk-inspired duos. This is followed by an unabashed showpiece by F.A. Kummer. The concert concludes with Kodály’s monumental Duo, a three-movement work that is also folk-influenced, but simultaneously explores the technical limits of the instruments.

Education is a central part of Red Cedar’s mission. One of the unifying aspects of this concert is that all five of the composers represented were/are educators. The audience will be treated to wonderful details of each composer’s career and how their focus on teaching and learning is represented in their works. 

Performances of the Red Cedar Express program will culminate in October with MainStage concerts in Iowa City at The Englert Theatre on Sunday, October 2 at 3:00 p.m. and in Cedar Rapids at First Presbyterian Church on Saturday, October 8 at 7:00 p.m.