STATE COLLEGE — A ‘Dynamic Duos Concert’ will take place at 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 21, at Grace Lutheran Church, 205 S. Garner St., State College. Six married couples from the Pennsylvania Chamber Orchestra will perform together during this event.
Susan Kroeker, executive director of the PCO for six years and the principal flutist since 1991, said, “We wanted to do a smaller concert with less than the usual 32 musicians. It occurred to me that we had an unusual number of performers married to each other in our orchestra. So, the idea of the Dynamic Duo Concert was born.”
The music of Bach, Strauss, Adams, Gliere, Moscheles, Rouse, Rossini and others will delight audiences of all ages. Tickets are $25, and $5 for children and students with IDs. Tickets are available online at www.centreorchestra.org or by calling (814) 234-8313.
The six couples participating in the show are:
■ Eleanor Duncan Armstrong, flute, and Dan Armstrong, percussion
The Armstrongs met and became friends in the Oklahoma Symphony in 1975. Their first duo performance followed at the Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute, and their career paths led them both to Ann Arbor, Mich., for graduate study at the University of Michigan.
Armstrong accepted Penn State’s School of Music offer for a faculty post in the fall of 1982, and Duncan Armstrong joined Penn State in 1983.
The Armstrong Duo has commissioned and premiered new works by composers Dana Wilson, Dan Welcher, Lynn Glassock, Philip Parker and Burt Fenner. They have presented concerts all over this country and given pedagogy presentations at percussion symposiums in Denver, Philadelphia and UNC Greensboro.
The National Flute Association has featured the duo at conventions in New York City, Phoenix, Columbus and Nashville. Two compact discs by the pair are “Exotic Chamber Music” on Centaur Records and “Creative Mix” on Gasparo Records.
Duncan Armstrong retired from as PSU as professor emerita in 2012. Armstrong continues as professor of percussion.
■Susan Kroeker, flute, and Barry Kroeker, oboe
The Kroekers have been performing together since their college days in the late 1970s, when they were music majors at the Wheaton College Conservatory of Music in Illinois. After marrying, they attended the Hartt School of Music in Connecticut, receiving master’s degrees in music in oboe and flute performance, respectively.
The couple has decades of experience performing with orchestras and chamber ensembles and as instructors. Both have performed as full-time principal wind players in the South Dakota Symphony and Dakota Wind Quintet, and have instructed at several colleges, including Penn State.
Currently, Barry Kroeker is second oboist in the PCO and principal oboist with the Nittany Valley Symphony. He works at EnergyCAP Inc. in State College. Susan Kroeker is principal flutist with the PCO and performs as flutist/piccoloist for the Nittany Valley Symphony. She also serves as executive director and personnel manager of the PCO.
The couple recently formed a chamber ensemble, Da Capo, with pianist Kathy Cinatl.
■Carol Lyon, cello, and James Lyon, violin
The Lyons met at the Castleman Quartet Program during the summer of 1980. Their first date was four months later at the Eastman School of Music’s Christmas Dance. After graduating and marrying in 1983, they moved to Louisville, Ky., where they taught at Indiana University Southeast and performed in local professional arts organizations.
They then moved to Texas, where Jim Lyons performed in the Harrington String Quartet and Carol Lyons performed with the Amarillo Symphony.
They moved to State College in 1991 when Jim Lyons assumed a professorship at Penn State. The couple performed in local ensembles, including PCO. They have three children, and the Lyon Family Chamber Ensemble has performed both locally and at St. Patrick’s cathedrals in New York City and Melbourne, Australia.
■Svetlana Rodionova, piano, and Matt Patton, horn
Patton and Rodionova have been together since 1993, when they met in Barcelona at the Palau de la Musica, where Patton played in the Orchestra de la Ciutat de Barcelon and Rodionova had performed a concert with the orchestra’s concertmaster. Rodionova had traveled from her home in St. Petersburg, Russia, and Patton had come from Omaha, Neb.; they were married that same year.
They lived in the Midwest for several years, but moved back to Patton’s hometown of State College in 2005. Patton began his musical training at Radio Park Elementary School in the fourth grade when he started on horn, and now teaches history at State College High School. Rodionova first played piano at age 5 and received her degrees, including one in piano performance, in St. Petersburg.
The couple have played with the PCO since returning to State College. In 2011, Rodionova performed the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto with the orchestra and has appeared as the featured soloist on multiple other occasions.
■Sally Williams Minnich, and Mark Minnich, violins
The couple behind Revamped Duo fuse pop, jazz, classical, rock, folk and even hip-hop styles in a way entirely their own. They create concert experiences with complex arrangements and electronic and altered instruments, using extended techniques of their own invention. Integration with live-streaming and social media places viewers in the center of the action.
The couple met briefly in high school and again in at Bowling Green University in Ohio, where their performing and dating began in 2009.
They moved to State College for graduate studies shortly after their 2012 wedding and have been playing with the PCO since.
Both have performed as soloists with the PCO, the Altoona Symphony and the Cleveland Pops Orchestra. Williams Minnich directs the State College Suzuki Program and both serve as members of the Penn’s Woods Music Festival orchestra and advisory councils.
The two hold principal chairs in the Williamsport Symphony Orchestra.
■ Ashley English Tobin and John Paul Tobin, violas
The Tobins met in 2013 while working together with the Corona Symphony near Los Angeles.
Originally from the Philadelphia area, Tobin worked as a musician in many capacities in Los Angeles from 2004 to 2016. He appeared regularly as a guest musician on television broadcasts such as “American Idol” and “The Voice.” As a conductor, he has worked with young musicians from elementary through collegiate levels across the United States. He served as principal conductor and artistic director for two youth orchestras within the Harmony Project Los Angeles system.
Tobin has returned to play with the PCO after working with the ensemble previously while completing his undergraduate degree at Penn State. In addition to serving as a section violist for PCO, he is an adjunct faculty member at Lycoming College and principal violist for the Williamsport Symphony Orchestra.
English Tobin is PCO’s assistant principal violist, in her second season. She has beguiled audiences with energetic performances from her positions at the heart of PCO, Williamsport Symphony and the Commonwealth Pops since 2015. In Los Angeles, she performs as a member of the legendary daKah Hip Hop Orchestra, bringing live, progressive hip-hop, funk and jazz to festival and concert hall audiences. As a teacher, she has worked as an orchestral coach, mariachi coach and class instructor for Harmony Project Los Angeles.
