STARKVILLE, Miss.--A guitarist performing the music of his native South American country will be featured during the Brazilian Music Festival being held next week at Mississippi State.
The Wednesday-Friday [Feb. 2-4] series of public programs is sponsored by the music education department with support from the university's Lyceum Series.
Thomas Garcia, associate professor at the University of West Georgia in Carrollton, will be joined by MSU faculty artists during a Thursday [the 3rd] concert in McComas Hall theater. General admission to the 7:30 p.m. Brazilian Chamber Concert performance is $5; free to MSU students with valid identification.
Selections will be featured from the works of Heitor Villa-Lobos, Nicanor Teixeira, Mozart de Araujo, and Baden-Powell, among others. The faculty performers include pianist Rosângela Sebba, also a Brazilian native; guitarist Michael Patilla; bassoonist Elaine Peterson; and clarinetist Sheri Falcone.
Other Brazilian Festival events include:
--A free Wednesday [the 2nd] Garcia recital to begin at 2 p.m. in the Bettersworth Auditorium of Giles Hall.
--A Friday [the 4th] recital, also free, by students who participated in a Garcia-led master class. Also in Bettersworth Auditorium, this final program of the week begins at 7:30 p.m.
Garcia holds bachelor's and master's degrees in performance from New York's Juilliard School, a master's degree in musicology from the University of Massachusetts/Amherst and a doctorate in performance practice from Duke University.
He has performed widely throughout the U.S. and Brazil, including New York City concerts at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and Merkin Concert Hall. In Brazil, he has performed at the Villa-Lobos Museum and the Museum of the Republic in Rio de Janeiro.
He is co-author of the forthcoming "Chôro: A Social History of Brazilian Popular Music" (Indiana University Press, spring).
For more information, telephone the music education department at (662) 325-3070.