Former Tucson musicians reunite in Friends recital

Violinist Lauren Roth-Gómez, the former Tucson Symphony Orchestra concertmaster, and pianist John Milbauer, a longtime former University of Arizona School of Music professor, will perform violin-piano works by Stravinsky, Debussy and Ravel.

Roth-Gómez, wife of TSO Music Director José Luis Gomez, spent 11 years in Tucson, playing with the orchestra and teaching on the faculty of the U of A, where she crossed creative paths with Milbauer.

She went on sabbatical from both positions in the 2024-25 season to take the assistant concertmaster position with the Atlanta Symphony in Georgia. In spring 2025, she made her move to Atlanta permanent when she officially resigned from the orchestra.

Milbauer came to the U of A in 2008 and quickly found a place in Tucson's chamber music community, performing with the Friends and other groups and in the university's faculty artist series. He left Tucson in 2022 to become dean of DePaul University School of Music in Chicago.

The pair's recital Wednesday opens with Stravinsky's neoclassical Suite italienne, the 1932 arrangement for violin and piano from his 1920 ballet "Pulcinella," before focusing on two works that turned out to be finales for their composers.

• Ravel's Second Sonata for Violin and Piano in G minor, rich with stylistic turns and twists including delving into the Frenchman's fascination with American blues and jazz, was his last chamber music work. He wrote it over several years from 1923-27 before going on to focus on orchestral works including arguably his most famous composition, "Bolero."
• World War I was weighing heavily on his psyche when Debussy, wracked with terminal colon cancer, wrote his Violin Sonata in G minor in 1917. The work hopscotches emotions, from delicate piano melodies and dramatic flashes to hints of macabre humor and sentimental pauses before exploding in a fit of notes at the finale. Some musicologists say the ending was Debussy's way of defeating his failing health, showing off a level of energy reserved for a healthy body, not a dying one.

Debussy performed the 13-minute sonata's premiere on May 5, 1917, with violinist Gaston Poulet. Debussy died less than a year later in March 1918.

Wednesday's recital begins at 7 p.m. at Rincon Congregational United Church of Christ, 122 N. Craycroft Road. Tickets are $45, or $12 for students with ID, through arizonachambermusic.org or at the door.