Diemer, Ficsor Offer CD Release Concert

Renowned composer Emma Lou Diemer collaborates with Philip Ficsor, Westmont professor of violin, in a free concert featuring selections from their yet-tobe-released album, “Summer Day,” Sunday, Oct. 25, at 3 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church, 21 E. Constance Ave. Pre-release CDs will be available for $15.

“Summer Day,” the first recording of Diemer’s complete works for violin and piano, features Diemer on piano, a rarity in the composer’s celebrated career. She says she was honored to work with Ficsor on this unique recording.“He’s an outstanding and exciting performer who brought great insight and interpretative skill to all the works,” she says.

The program includes “Aria and Scherzo,” “Before Spring,” “Suite for Violin and Piano,” “Homage to Paderewski,” “Three Hymns” and “Catch-A-Turian Toccata.”

Diemer, a pioneering woman composer, was one of only two women composition majors in her class at Yale’s School of Music, where she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in 1949 and 1950. Her works are widely published and her second piano concerto received a Kennedy Center Friedheim Award in 1991. Diemer, who joined the faculty at UC Santa Barbara in 1971 and became professor emerita in 1991, has been commissioned for many chamber, orchestral and choral compositions. She was composer-in-residence with the Santa Barbara Symphony in the early 1990s, and the orchestra performed five of her works.

Ficsor’s previous CD release, “William Bolcom’s Complete Works for Violin and Piano,” has been widely praised. Ficsor, a University of Michigan graduate, earned his doctorate in violin performance at Boston University and his master’s degree at Yale University.