The Four Horsemen Tuba/Euphonium Quartet will perform a free concert at 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 8, at Johnson Memorial United Methodist Church at 513 10th St. in Huntington.
“The quartet joined to perform fresh, enlivened interpretations of standard quartet repertoire, as well as to introduce audiences to exciting original music and new transcriptions,” said Dr. George Palton, who teaches tuba and euphonium at Marshall.
The group originated as a student ensemble; its members were undergraduate and graduate musicians under the tutelage of Dr. Skip Gray at the University of Kentucky. Through many reincarnations, the quartet performed frequently throughout central Kentucky and in chamber music competitions.
This latest edition of the quartet includes Palton, Beth McDonald, Dr. Aaron Meacham and Jeff Barbee.
“After graduating from a traditional academic setting at the University of Kentucky, all four of us took off down our individual paths of life—teaching, performing, composing, traveling, studying outside of music, adopting pets, having quarter-life crises,” Palton joked. “Yet we continued to share a craving that was not so easily satisfied: the desire to perform chamber music at the highest possible level while enjoying the camaraderie of our fellow musicians and audience members.”
Palton is active as a tuba/euphonium performer, arranger and pedagogue, and is currently on the faculty at Marshall. McDonald is an active tuba performer, improviser, and electroacoustic musician with a penchant for traveling and touring, and is currently based in Chicago. Meacham is a published composer with particular interests in brass, sacred and wind music, though he now works as a medical physicist in northwest Arkansas. Barbee is currently finishing his doctoral degree at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He actively travels around the country, giving master classes and presenting his research on how the human brain learns as a musician.
“Through our unique blend of talents and backgrounds, our goal is to provide our audiences with a distinctive experience and bring a fresh interpretation to the genre of the tuba/euphonium quartet,” Palton said.
Admission to the Nov. 8 concert is free and open to the public. For more information about this concert, call 304-696-3117 or e-mail Palton at palton@marshall.edu.
————-
Dr. George Palton, who teaches tuba and euphonium at Marshall, will participate in a performance of the Four Horsemen Tuba/Euphonium Quartet Sunday, Nov. 8.