Activities for 2006-2007

Last modified April 19, 2007

The Timmins-Gentry Music Society is both a social and an educational club that promotes the understanding and appreciation of classical music. It was founded in 1951 and is named in honor of John Timmins, VMI Class of '49, a lover of classical music who died in Korea in 1950, and Professor Emeritus Tom Gentry, VMI Class of '44, who was its faculty adviser and guiding spirit for 47 years. For a description of its general activities, click here.

This page contains information on the Society's current activities and events, primarily for its members. It is always under construction and is updated often, so members should check it regularly. To see last year's events and activities, click here.

Details of concert series at Washington & Lee and Garth Newel, as well as concerts at VMI, are posted on this page as they become available.

The Annual TGMS New York Trip

This year's trip to New York, which will take place March 29-April 1. At the Metropolitan, we will hear Giacomo Puccini's final opera, Turandot. The New York Philharmonic concert will be conducted by the distinguished English maestro, Sir Colin Davis and feature a performance by one of the greatest pianists of the last 30 years, the Rumanian Radu Lupu. They will perform the Piano Concerto No. 27 by Mozart and Lemminkäinen Legends by the Finnish composer, Jean Sibelius.

While in New York, you are required to see a musical or play and to spend at least one hour in a museum of your choice. For information on what plays are in New York, go to Playbill Online. For information on museums in New York, click here. For a subway map of New York, click here. This map has "mouseovers" that show you which trains go to each stop. Here also is a subway map in PDF format that you can save and print.

Musical Activities:

Attendance at VMI concerts and at performances in the W&L Concert Guild series is required of every cadet going to New York. Concert Guild tickets are paid for with Society dues, supplemented by the Timmins Fund. All members are particularly encouraged to attend the VMI concerts, which are free. Other concerts are sometimes listed here as potential TGMS field trips.

Concerts for 2006-2007
(W&L Concerts are in Lenfest Center at 8:00; VMI concerts are in Jackson Memorial Hall at 7:30)

VMI: Wednesday, September 27, 2006: Tobias Werner,cello, and Robert Merfeld,, piano, will perform works by Bach, Fauré, and Brahms.

W&L: Tuesday, October 3, 2006: Chanticleer will perform a program of vocal music from motets to spirituals.

W&L: Tuesday, November 7, 2006: The Kremlin Chamber Orchestra will perform the Divertimento in F, K. 138 by Mozart, Visions Fugitives by Prokofiev, and Serenade for Strings, Op. 22 by Dvořák. (optional for members going on the New York trip)

VMI: Wednesday, November 8, 2006: Kandinsky Trio will perform the Trio in G Major, Op. 1, No. 2, by Beethoven, and the Trio No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 26, by Dvořák.

W&L: Tuesday, January 16, 2007: The Emerson String Quartet will perform Beethoven's String Quartets Opus 18, No. 6, and Opus 59, No. 2 (Razumovsky); Five Movements by Anton Webern; and At the Bier of a Young Artist by Carl Nielsen.

W&L: March 2 and March 3, 2007: The Julliard String Quartet will perform the complete cycle of string quartets by Béla Bartok on two consecutive nights. For an excellent explication of the quartets by members of the Emerson String Quartet, click here and then click on the "Launch" button. This is part of the Sonoklect Series, which is free but requires tickets (members going on the New York trip must attend at least one of these concerts). Postponed because of illness.

VMI: Spring 2007, Wednesday, March 7: The Garth Newel Chamber Players will perform Two Pieces for Piano Quartet by Richard Strauss, the Piano Quartet No. 1 of Bohuslav Martinu and the Piano Quartet in A Major, Op. 26, by Brahms.

VMI: Spring 2007, Wednesday, April 18: The pianist Victor Santiago Asuncion will perform the Piano Sonata, Op. 1, by Alban Berg; "Gaspard de la nuit," by Maurice Ravel and the Piano Sonata in B minor, by Franz Liszt. This concert dedicated to the victims at Virginia Tech, April 16. 2007.