The EastWind Ensemble, a faculty performing group at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, will make its first appearance at Carnegie Hall on Thursday, March 10. The ensemble will perform in Weill Recital Hall at 8 p.m.

“We are hopeful that this will be the first of a long series of performances by UNCG faculty at Carnegie Hall. The School of Music’s performance faculty is of exceptionally high quality, and this kind of exposure is critically important for their careers and for the visibility of the school,” said Dr. John Deal, dean of the UNCG School of Music.

Members of the ensemble are Dr. Kelly Burke (clarinet), Dr. Michael Burns (bassoon), Dr. Ashley Barret (oboe) and Dr. Andrew Harley (piano). UNCG professor Dr. Mark Engebretson (theory and composition) will journey to New York to hear the ensemble perform the first full premiere of his original work, “Five Songs of Passion.”

The ensemble will also play an original composition by the bassoonist, Burns. “E Toro nga Hau: The Three Winds,” was inspired by a return to his native country and was written for the EastWind ensemble’s 2001 tour of New Zealand and Australia. The title appears in both Maori, the language of the Polynesian people indigenous to New Zealand, and English. In addition, the group will play a 1926 piece by Demitri Melkikh, which Burke discovered in 1991 in an archive in Moscow. The work was recorded by the ensemble in 2000 for Centaur Records.

In conjunction with the concert, the university is sponsoring a reception for alumni in the New York area. Nearly 1,100 have been invited and Chancellor Patricia A. Sullivan will be in attendance.

To prepare for their New York performance, the ensemble went on a one-week tour in November of upstate New York. They appeared at several colleges, including SUNY Potsdam, Ithaca College, Onondaga Community College and the Eastman School of Music. The get-away allowed the musicians to gauge public reaction and to season and perfect the program without the multiple distractions of a professor’s life.

“Touring was a real confidence boost” said Burke. “We are excited about performing at Carnegie and we’ll be ready.”