LEWISTON – Musicians from Bates, Bowdoin and Colby colleges will join forces for a concert of piano trios by Beethoven and Brahms at 8 p.m. Saturday, March 22, at Bates College.

The concert by pianist James Parakilas, violinist Mary Hunter and cellist Steve Witkin is open to the public at no cost. The concert will be presented in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

The program consists of Beethoven’s Piano Trio in G (Op. 1, No. 2) and Brahms’ Piano Trio in B (Op. 8). Both are ambitious and powerful works by then-young composers – Beethoven composing at the age of 25, Brahms at 21. However, Brahms revised his Trio in B 35 years after its original publication, so the composition combines youthful inspiration with mature focus.

Parakilas chairs the Bates music department. A piano student of Robert Miller, John Kirkpatrick and Leonard Seeber, he has given solo and chamber performances throughout Maine, including in the clarinet-violin-piano trio Penumbra and with the dancers Carol Dilley and Jill Eng.

Parakilas has also performed as soloist with the Bates College Orchestra and coaches chamber music at Bates. He is editor of the social history “Piano Roles: 300 Years of Life with the Piano” (Yale University Press, 2000).

Hunter chairs the music department and coaches chamber musicians at Bowdoin. She studied violin at the Guildhall School of Music in London, and more recently with Rowan Smith and Eva Gruesser. She is a member of the Midcoast Symphony Orchestra.

Witkin is principal cellist with the Colby College Symphony Orchestra and former principal cellist of the Bach Chamber Orchestra of Milwaukee. He plays frequently throughout Maine and has performed in orchestras and at chamber music recitals in Florida, New York and Italy. He studied with Kermit Moore, David Soyer, Lowell Creitz and George Sopkin. He is an ophthalmologist with Maine Eye Care Associates in Waterville.

For more information, call 786-6135, or log on to olinarts@bates.edu.

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