Guest artist Grant Mack, piano, joins Korff Professor of Viola Clark Potter in a performance of three works for viola and piano by Paul Hindemith. Mr. Mack is formerly the pianist of the Honolulu Symphony and is now living in Eugene, Oregon. Mr. Mack and Mr. Potter grew up in the same town of Longview, WA, and this is their first collaboration since high school, when Grant accompanied Clark as high schoolers at solo and ensemble contest! Viola and piano were the two instruments Hindemith himself played, and while he composed a sonata for every instrument of the orchestra, he gave extra time to the viola, composing five solo sonatas and four sonatas with piano. Two sonatas from Hindemith’s early years will be performed: the tuneful Op. 11, No. 4; and the driving Op. 25, No. 4. Also performed will be the “Meditation”, arranged for the same combination from his ballet Nobilissima Visione.

Clark Potter is professor of viola and on the conducting faculty at UNL. He is principal viola of the Lincoln Symphony, director of NEBratsche (the UNL viola ensemble), and is an active performer as a solo recitalist and chamber musician. He has conducted the Lincoln Youth Symphony since 2007; is a member of two chamber ensembles: the Nebraska Chamber Players and the Trans-Nebraska Players; and is in demand as an adjudicator and clinician at schools in Nebraska and around the region.

Mr. Potter has been working for several years with Dr. Gregory Bashford and students of UNL’s biological systems engineering department to develop an instrument that measures breathing rates and intensities while playing the violin or viola, and testing has begun! Results of initial testing were documented in the presentation “How do Upper String Players Breathe When They Play? Can Anything be Done to Help?,” given at the March 2015 ASTA conference in Salt Lake City and the Nebraska Music Educators Conference in November of 2015.

He has also dabbled in composition, having composed three pieces for young orchestras, music for two contemporary ballets, one full-length “cowboy” musical, several pieces for choir and pieces for smaller instrumental combinations, including a viola sextet.