“Conversations” to Bring Dynamic Music Educator and Performer to Polk County

With “Conversations,” Polk State’s Voices of the People Chamber Music Series brings a dynamic music educator to Polk County.

Lecolion Washington, University of Memphis associate professor of bassoon, will perform at Lakeland’s Harrison School for the Arts this Saturday, Jan. 30, at 7 p.m. Tickets are $11.

Washington is both a new music and an education champion. He recorded a CD entitled “Legacy: Music for Bassoon by African-American Composers” released on the Albany Records label. He has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in venues all over the world.

The concert is called “Conversations” as it will feature Washington’s unique blend of enlightened humor, intense devotion to education, and musical virtuosity as he leads the audience in talks about the individual pieces played, each of them dialogues between instruments.

Also joining in that evening will be violinist Jannina Norpoth, who was a soloist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra at age 14. Since then she has built a career as an innovative collaborative artist with a passion for contemporary classical music, genre bending, and improvisation.

In addition, Polk State prize-winning cellist Derek Menchan and violist Celia Hatton will perform.

Hatton has toured around the globe with the Orpheus, Sphinx Virtuosi, and Shattered Glass chamber orchestras.

Harrison School for the Arts is located at 750 Hollingsworth Rd., Lakeland, 33801.