Music Colleges Join Forces to Bring Rising Star Cellist to Spartanburg
Upstate audiences will have a rare opportunity to enjoy a free concert by Dr. Brooks Whitehouse, one of the nations most gifted cellists, on February 16 at 8 p.m. in Daniel Recital Hall at Converse College. The concert is the result of a collaboration between Converse Colleges Petrie School of Music and the North Carolina School of the Arts.
During the concert, Whitehouse will be joined onstage by a cello choir comprised of students from the Petrie School, the North Carolina School of the Arts, Converses Alia Lawson Pre-College Program and other Upstate colleges for the South Carolina premier of Whitehouses arrangement of Victor Herberts Cello Concerto for two solo cellos and cello choir. Kenneth Law, associate professor of violoncello at the Petrie School, will perform the second solo cello part.
Brooks is without doubt one of the rising stars in the world of cello performers, said Law. In addition to his international performing career and radio broadcasts worldwide, he is a very gifted instructor. His concert at Converse will provide an exciting and unique listening experience for Upstate audiences.
The evening before his concert, February 15, Brooks will lead a cello masterclass in the Alia Lawson Pre-College recital hall. The masterclass is open to the public for observation.
A member of the North Carolina School of the Arts music faculty, Whitehouse has appeared with the New England Chamber Orchestra, as well as the Nashua, New Brunswick, Billings, North Arkansas, Wichita Falls and Owensboro symphonies, and has appeared in recital throughout the United States. His performances have been broadcast on NPRs Performance Today, WQXR’s “McGraw-Hill Young Artist Showcase,” WNYC’s “Around New York,” and the Australian and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation networks. He has recorded for the Centaur, CRI, and Innova labels.
As guest artist, Whitehouse has appeared with the American Chamber Players, the New Millennium Ensemble, the JU Piano Trio, the Seacliffe Chamber Players, the Atelier Ensemble and the New Zealand String Quartet. He also appears regularly with the Apple Hill Chamber Players as part of its summer chamber music festival. Recently he appeared at the Kennedy Center with Selma Gokcen and Bernard Greenhouse as part of a tribute to the legacy of Pablo Casals.
In addition, Whitehouse is the founder and director of the Cello Celebrations at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. At UNC-G, his Greenhouse Celebration of 2005 brought together participants from 20 states, five international countries, and 22 conservatories and universities to celebrate the living legend of Bernard Greenhouse.
Whitehouse is also a founding member of the Guild Trio, a group that won both the “USIA Artistic Ambassador” and “Chamber Music Yellow Springs” competitions, and has held artist-in-residence positions at Stony Brook University, the Guild Hall in East Hampton, N.Y., and The Tanglewood Music Center. With the trio he has performed and held master classes throughout the United States and Canada, as well as in Norway, Turkey, Croatia, Serbia, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Portugal, France and Australia.