NATCHITOCHES – The Eighth Annual NSU Double Reed Day will be held Saturday, March 5 from noon to 5:30 p.m. in Magale Recital Hall. The event is open to oboists and bassoonists of all ages/levels and will include masterclasses, reed classes and a guest artist recital.
Guest artist Dr. Galit Kaunitz of the University of Southern Mississippi will present a concert at 4:30 p.m. in Magale Recital Hall. The concert is free and open to the public. The recital will also be live streamed at https://capa.nsula.edu/livestream/
Kaunitz is an experienced and versatile performer in orchestral, chamber, and solo settings. Her performing career includes solo recitals, chamber music and orchestral positions.
Kaunitz’s solo recitals center cultural identity and community belonging. The most recent example is “Feeling Back: A Tribute to Persecuted Artists,” a collaboration with Ed Hafer, musicologist, and Michael Bunchman, collaborative pianist. This lecture and recital explored the “Sonata for Oboe and Piano” (1965) by Hans Gál and “Suite for Oboe and Piano” (1939) by Pavel Haas, examining the experiences of both composers during WWII. The trio performed this recital at the University of Kentucky, Southeast Missouri State University, USM and the College Music Society National Conference in 2019.
She also performed a recital of composers who reflect different fragments of her ethnic and religious identity, and related the feeling of being “in-between” cultures, and how each piece related to the narrative.
Kaunitz performs with USM’s resident chamber music groups Magnolia Reed Trio and Category 5 Wind Quintet, and plays second oboe and English horn in the Gulf Coast and Meridian Symphony Orchestras. She has been invited to perform at International Double Reed Society conferences (2015, 2019, 2020, 2021), and College Music Society National Conferences (2015, 2019), attended the Avaloch Farm Music Institute (2015) and commissions new music. Her latest commissioning project with tenor Jonathan Yarrington, “Blake Reimagined,” is a collaboration with composers Joshua Burel, Chia-Yu Hsu, and Tõnu Kõrvits that uses William Blake’s poetry to increase the body of repertoire for oboe and voice. “Blake Reimagined” was premiered at the IDRS 2nd Virtual Symposium in 2021.
Kaunitz co-created Double Reed Dish, the first double reed specific podcast that encourages oboists and bassoonists of all ages and abilities to “geek out” together. She and bassoonist Jacqueline Wilson release two episodes per month and reach double reed musicians across the globe.
