North Coast Musicians Combine in Deborah Clasquin Memorial Scholarship Benefit

HSU Music Department colleagues, North Coast friends and former students combine to honor Deborah Clasquin, the much-beloved pianist and teacher who passed away last March, with a concert to benefit the newly established Deborah Clasquin Memorial Scholarship Fund, on Saturday, October 26 in the Fulkerson Recital Hall on the HSU campus.

“With her extraordinary gift for teaching, and her passion for the arts, Deborah transformed the way people listened to music,” said Brian Post, HSU Music professor and coordinator for the event. “Performers for this concert have chosen their material to reflect Deborah’s love of the arts and passion for good music.”

The concert features Clasquin’s best-known student, pianist Ryan MacEvoy-McCullough of Eureka, who will play “Shibui--A dirge in memory of my mentor, Deborah Clasquin,” composed by another of Clasquin’s students, Dante de Silva.

MacEvoy-McCullough, who now performs internationally, will also play Chopin’s “Nocturne in B major,” one of the last pieces he played for Deborah Clasquin as her student, and one of his own favorites.

Pianist Valerie Reed, also a Clasquin student, will perform a piece by Henri Ribauld with HSU Music professor Paul Cummings on clarinet.

Other HSU Music Department colleagues performing Saturday include Eugene Novotney, playing his own composition on snare drum, Kenneth Ayoob on clarinet and John Chernoff on piano playing a rhapsody by Debussy, and soprano Elisabeth Harrington, Cindy Moyer on violin, David Davis on cello and Daniela Mineva on piano, performing songs by Roger Quilter. Mineva, who joins the HSU faculty this year, also performs her own piano transcription of Debussy’s “Prelude to the Afternoon of the Faun.”

In addition to the classical selections, a jazz quartet combining HSU faculty members Brian Post and Shao Way Wu with North Coast musicians Susie Laraine and Jill Petricca, will play an original piece by Shao Way Wu.

Deborah Clasquin joined the HSU Music Department faculty in 1985. She won many awards for both her performances as a pianist and for her teaching. Locally she appeared with the Eureka Symphony and the Humboldt Symphony. She performed internationally, and even after her diagnosis and treatment for cancer, she performed in Paris. Her last solo performance at HSU was last October. Deborah Clasquin died in March, at the age of 52.

The Deborah Clasquin Memorial Scholarship Benefit is Saturday, September 26 at 8 PM. Tickets are $20, from the HSU Ticket Office (826-3928) or at the door. The HSU Music Department will gratefully accept additional donations to the scholarship fund.

Media: HSU Now, Eureka Times Standard, North Coast Journal, Arcata Eye, KHSU ArtWaves.