by Jarrett Hoffman
Two Chicagoans and an Irishman walk into a bar — or rather, a university. That’s the origin story of the McGill/McHale Trio.
The university is none other than Bowling Green, where flutist Demarre McGill and clarinetist Anthony McGill were artists in residency in 2014. There they performed alongside a pianist hailing from Belfast — Michael McHale — and a long-term partnership began to brew.
The Trio will return not quite to the scene of the crime, but close, when they perform on the Kent Blossom Music Festival’s Faculty Concert Series as Kulas Visiting Artists on Wednesday, July 13 at 7:30 pm at Kent State’s Ludwig Recital Hall. Tickets are available here.
Their program will draw on Portraits, the album they recorded in 2017 on the Cedille Records label, which featured a slew of world-premiere recordings of works by living composers: Valerie Coleman (Portraits of Langston), Chris Rogerson (A Fish Will Rise), Paul Schoenfield (Sonatina for Flute, Clarinet and Piano), and Philip Hammond (the trio version of his Lamentation of Owen O’Neil).