Puget Sound Piano Trio: A Farewell Concert for Duane Hulbert

TACOMA, Wash. – Duane Hulbert, pianist, teacher, composer, and admired public performer in Tacoma for 30 years, will give his final performance as a faculty member at the University of Puget Sound in April. Hulbert will perform with the School of Music’s Puget Sound Piano Trio before retiring from college teaching to pursue creative music projects of his own.

The Grammy-nominated musician and recording artist, and longtime head of the piano department have helped countless students rise to their talent height while sharing remarkable artistry and love of music with the Tacoma community.

School of Music director Keith Ward, who has worked with Hulbert for 17 years, said the top-rated professor would be missed by many.

"Duane's retirement after 30 years on the faculty marks a profound moment in the history of music at Puget Sound,” Ward said. “He has a presence among us that his many awards—a distinguished professorship, a Grammy nomination, and the university's distinguished service award bestowed on him last year—provide only a hint of. 

“We will miss even more the glue in-between those trophies: the person Duane Hulbert, who gives selflessly to this school, its faculty, and its students. I treasure Duane as a colleague and a friend. I will miss running into him through the week, but I will smile and congratulate him for his untold number of accomplishments as a teacher, artist, and steward of this community in less selfish moments. I wish him nothing but the best in the next step of his journey."

Hulbert says he will continue to perform in Tacoma and elsewhere, and he is looking forward to the opportunity to compose more music and to create new musical projects with his wife, Judy Carlson Hulbert, a playwright, author, and artistic director. In recent years the duo has created a series of imaginative children’s concerts for the Jacobsen Junior series, including the original musicals The Wild Adventures of Pecos Bill and The Pirate Musician. Hulbert also will continue to teach advanced younger students privately. His high school students have excelled in recent statewide and national competitions.

The Puget Sound Piano Trio, including Duane Hulbert, piano; Maria Sampen, violin; and Alistair MacRae, cello; will perform at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, April 15, in Schneebeck Concert Hall. Ticket information and a map of campus are below. Following the concert, everyone is welcome to a special reception in honor of Hulbert, in Room 106 of the Music Building, next to the concert hall.

The evening’s performance will be an unusual one, in that the first half of the program will be a four-movement “hybrid” of music, combining drama, playfulness, and beauty. The second half will include a complete performance of Beethoven’s “Archduke” piano trio, a composition written for the German master’s piano student and patron, Archduke Rudolph. The piece itself is one of the great aristocrats among piano trios, music critics say. The full program will include:

Elegiac Trio No. 1 in G minor, by Sergei Rachmaninoff
Scherzo movement from Charles Ives’ Piano Trio (“This Scherzo is a Joke”)
Piano Trio in C minor, Op. 101, third movement (Andante Grazioso), by Johannes Brahms
Piano Trio, fourth movement finale, by Maurice Ravel
Piano Trio No. 7 in B-flat major, Opus 97 (“Archduke”), by Ludwig van Beethoven.

The Puget Sound Piano Trio, which delighted Pacific Northwest audiences throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, was revived five years ago after a 15-year hiatus. Duane Hulbert was an original member of the group, together with the late Edward Seferian and retired cellist Cordelia Wikarski-Miedel.

This academic year, Hulbert and Maria Sampen welcomed the new School of Music faculty member and Cordelia Wikarski-Miedel Artist in Residence Alistair MacRae into the trio.

Duane Hulbert, distinguished professor and chair of piano at Puget Sound, has toured the United States and Europe, winning rave reviews. The Minnesota native has won prestigious prizes at numerous competitions, including the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition in Salt Lake City and Paloma O’Shea International Piano Competition in Spain. Hulbert has appeared as a soloist with major orchestras, including the Minnesota Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Tacoma Symphony Orchestra, Northwest Sinfonietta, and Seattle Symphony. He has performed as a recitalist at Merkin Concert Hall in New York, Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and at Benaroya Hall in Seattle.

Hulbert's CD recording of the complete piano works by Russian composer Alexander Glazunov was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2002. In a critique of the recording, Classics Today magazine wrote, “Gorgeous sound sets the seal on a product that makes the best case for this excellent but sadly neglected repertoire.” In fall 2014, Hulbert released the four-CD collection Glazunov: Complete Works for Piano, a five-hour album that was the culmination of 15 years of work.

Hulbert’s students have won major competitions and held distinguished positions across the country. Hulbert received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from The Juilliard School and earned his doctorate from Manhattan School of Music.

Maria Sampen, associate professor and director of strings at Puget Sound, has performed as a concert violin soloist with orchestras across the United States and as a chamber musician in Europe, Asia, and North America. She is in demand as a performer of both standard and experimental works and frequently collaborates with leading composers. In addition to the Puget Sound Piano Trio, Sampen is a member of The IRIS Orchestra and Brave New Works. Along with her husband, Tim Christie, she spends her summers teaching and performing on Brevard Music Festival's faculties in North Carolina, and Walla Walla Chamber Music Festival, in Washington. Sampen holds bachelor's and doctoral degrees in violin performance from the University of Michigan and a Master of Music degree from Rice University.

Alistair MacRae, cello, has appeared as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral principal throughout North America and Europe, Asia, South America, and the Middle East. He has performed on radio across the United States and has recorded chamber music by Georg Philipp Telemann and Laurie Altman and ensemble Mozart and Scott Joplin's CDs. He also appeared in Carnegie Hall’s Making Music series. The principal cello of Princeton Symphony Orchestra, MacRae, has performed at major New York chamber music venues and premiered new works at Princeton, Yale, Columbia, and Harvard universities. He has performed his own compositions throughout North America. His eclectic collaborations also have found him on stage with the Paul Taylor Dance Company, Westminster Choir, jazz bassist Ben Wolfe, and Paragon Ragtime Orchestra.

The Jacobsen Series, named in honor of Leonard Jacobsen, former chair of the piano department at Puget Sound, has been running since 1984. The Jacobsen Series Scholarship Fund awards annual music scholarships to outstanding student performers and scholars. The fund is sustained entirely by season subscribers and ticket sales.

FOR TICKETS: Tickets are available online at tickets.pugetsound.edu or at Wheelock Information Center, 253.879.3100. Admission is $15 for the general public; $10 for seniors (55+), students, military, and Puget Sound faculty and staff. The concert is free for current Puget Sound students. Group ticket rates are available for parties of 10 or more by calling 253.879.3555 in advance. Any remaining tickets will be available at the door.

For directions and a map of the campus:pugetsound.edu/directions 
For accessibility information, please contact accessibility@pugetsound.edu or 253.879.3236, or visit pugetsound.edu/accessibility.

Press photos of Duane Hulbert can be downloaded from pugetsound.edu/pressphotos.
Photos on page:  From top: Duane Hulbert; Piano class with Duane Hulbert and Gabrielle Chang '18; Maria Sampen (all by Ross Mulhausen), Alistair MacRae.

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