Joshua Bishop to Perform in FSU Faculty Artist Series Concert, “Variations”

Frostburg State University’s Department of Music will present Joshua Bishop on the euphonium in a Faculty Artist Series concert, “Variations,” on Monday, Sept. 18, at 7:30 p.m. in the Pealer Recital Hall of FSU’s Woodward D. Pealer Performing Arts Center. The concert is free and open to the public. This event will also be livestreamed; click the “Join Stream” button on this page a few minutes before the recital is scheduled to begin, or any time during the recital, to view the live performance.

Bishop will perform “Stutter Step” by Benjamin Horne; “Fantasy Variations” by Yasuhide Ito; “Seven Variations on Bei Mannern” by Ludwig van Beethoven; “Allegro con brio,” “Lento con teneramente,” “Presto” and “Adagio con calore” from “Symphonic Variants” by James Curnow; and “With His First Breath” by Paul Lovatt-Cooper.

“Stutter Step” is a piece for unaccompanied euphonium that was premiered in 2020. The work was influenced by the music of Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla, who revolutionized tango music in the 20th century.

Written in the form of a theme and variations, “Fantasy Variations” (1990) actually presents the variations before the theme. The piece is a beautiful solo, essentially a concerto, in the Japanese style and is based on a Yaisamanina (love song) from Ainu folk music.

Beethoven composed his “Seven Variations on Theme” from Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte” (“The Magic Flute”) in 1801. The theme comes from the duet “Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen” (“In Men Who Know the Feeling of Love”), and is sung by Pamina and Papageno as praise to the love between husband and wife.

One of the core repertoire works for the euphonium and also one of the most demanding works ever written for the instrument, “Symphonic Variants” (1984) runs the gamut of technical facility, range, endurance and power to project and balance.

“With His First Breath” (2017) is the lovely slow melody taken from the middle movement of Lovatt-Cooper’s larger work, “Breath of Souls.” It is dedicated to his son Luca.

Bishop is a low-brass performer and educator residing in Southern Pennsylvania. He has been a featured soloist with several high schools in North Carolina, the Triangle Brass Band, ECU Wind Ensemble and the Indiana University Wind Ensemble. He is also a founding member of the Sequence Quartet, a professional euphonium quartet based in Southern Indiana. Bishop is an active educator, working with middle and high school students across the East Coast and college students in the U.S. and Canada. He is a lecturer at FSU whose teaching interests include trombone, euphonium, tuba and brass ensemble.

For more information, contact FSU’s Department of Music at 301-687-4109.