For six years, the Rountree Ensemble has been performing at UW-Platteville, as well as being featured at UW-Madison and Wisconsin Public Radio. The ensemble performs twice each semester, with some additional performances. The Rountree Ensemble is chamber music and a professional chamber ensemble, composed primarily of faculty members as well as guest musicians.

The Rountree Ensemble will be performing in the Brodbeck Concert Hall at the Center for the Arts at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 20. The Lyle & Ruth Olson Fund, Dorthea Wilgus Pickard Fund and the UW-P Foundation provided the funding to make the performance possible. Musical selections will feature Saint-Saens, Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu and Johann Nepomuk Hummel, an Austrian composer.

Associate Director of Bands, Matthew Gregg, performs with the ensemble, playing the french horn. Gregg said the ensemble is made up of top-notch players with varied repertoire, and it is as good as a professional ensemble.

The number of the ensemble depends on how many musical instruments are needed for the certain pieces and is chosen by John Marco, a clarinet instructor at UW-P. Marco has been playing clarinet for 40 years, most notably in New York before coming to Platteville. Marco also teaches other courses including music appreciation.

Marco said students as well as others who attend the performance will get a lot out of it, but it is not as easy as reading a comic strip because it is more of a high art.

Marco said that the pieces he has chosen are like intimate conversations between friends, whether it be piano and winds or strings and winds.

“Eugene Alcalay is world class,” Marco said. Alcalay will be featured on the piano. One other unique aspect of the ensemble is that there is no director and it is a more concentrated listening experience that requires more attention. The ensemble will also be featured on Wisconsin Public Radio at 12:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 24, live at the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison. There will also be a live stream on the Wisconsin Public Radio Web site at wpr.or.index.cfm.

John Hassig, CFA Director of Performing and Visual Arts, said that tickets for this event are $10 for adults, and $4 for children under 18, senior citizens and UW-P students who have their student ID. Tickets are available through the University Box Office, located at Ullsvik Hall, and open Monday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., Wednesday - Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The box office can be reached by calling 608-342-1298. Tickets are available online 24 hours a day all week at tickets.uwplatt.edu. More information on the Performing Arts Series and other performance events can be found at uwplatt.edu/arts/cfa.