KUSU-FM to broadcast events of Wasserman Festival

A broadcast of highlights from the 2004 Wassermann Festival Concert Series is featured next on a collaboration between Utah Public Radio and the Utah State University department of music.

A Wednesday (June 30) afternoon broadcast on Utah Public Radio features selections from the festival in March. The broadcast begins at 1 p.m. with a repeat Wednesday, July 7, at 9 p.m.

This year’s festival opened with a collaboration between the Fry Street Quartet and Misha Dichter performing Brahms’ “Piano Quintet in F Minor”. The work will be heard in its entirety later in the broadcast.

Dicter, an internationally renowned pianist, performed the final concert in the series in March. The first portion of this broadcast will feature his interpretation of works by Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff.

The Fry Street Quartet is in its second year as Faculty String-Quartet-in-Residence at Utah State University. Founded in 1997, the Fry Street Quartet took its name from the little street in Chicago on which it was born. The quartet keeps a busy international touring schedule.

This broadcast collaboration was created as a forum for Utah State’s performing artists – from students and faculty – in addition to visiting faculty, lecturers, performers and artists-in-residence.

The Wassermann Festival is named for Irving Wassermann who began teaching in the Utah State University music department in 1955 and served as a director of the piano program and was music department head. He founded the Music West Festival in 1980 with the goal of providing quality educational opportunities for local music students. It later became the Wassermann Festival.

A service of Utah State University, Utah Public Radio is heard on KUSU (91.5 FM) and KUSR (89.5 FM) in Logan and throughout Utah on a system of 26 translators.

The Utah Public Radio Web site is at UPR.ORG.

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