
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 11, 1995                   TAG: 9510110039
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TRIO EMBARKS ON BIGGEST TOUR YET

If there were a sitcom about chamber music, and it starred the Kandinsky Trio, it might have the same theme song as the "The Jeffersons."

The Roanoke College-based threesome is, without a doubt, "movin' on up."

r= Maybe not to a "dee-lux apartment in the sky" like the Jeffersons, but definitely into the big leagues.

The trio hits the road this week on its biggest and most ambitious tour yet - bigger venues, bigger concert series, and a bigger list of dates.

"We're the only group I've never heard of in some of these series," Kandinsky violinist Benedict Goodfriend said.

Goodfriend, cellist Alan Weinstein and pianist Elizabeth Bachelder will play 35 venues in 70 days, including a 1,000-seat arena - now, that's a big chamber - when they debut "Tales of Appalachia" at Pennsylvania State University on Saturday.

"We'll probably hate each other by the end," Goodfriend said.

The difference between this year and years past is the trio is now being handled by a major management company. Baylin Artists Management means automatic clout, apparently.

Goodfriend said venue managers that wouldn't even listen to the trio's tape last year are playing it up big for this season. Roanoke artist Beth Shively's brightly colored painting of the trio is plastered all over brochures for the concert series the trio is playing.

"It's a silly world in the arts," Goodfriend said. "It's all a big business, that's the way it works now."

The highlights of this year's tour will be the nine dates when they perform "Tales of Appalachia."

The group commissioned Mike Reid to compose the piece, which is based on an old folk-tale called "Wicked John and the Devil." Reid is a former Cincinatti Bengals linebacker who majored in music and was an All-American in football at Penn State. He's written for country artists like Willie Nelson and the Judds, and won two Grammy awards for his efforts.

Reid's alma mater paid part of his commission. That's why it gets to premier the unique piece, which features accompaniment by Asheville, N.C. storyteller Connie Regan-Blake.

The trio will perform the piece in Roanoke on Jan. 27.

Other dates on the Kandinsky tour include New York's Miller Theatre, Vanderbilt University and the University of Massachussetts.

by CNB