Tucson’s Dove of Peace opens ’23 series with horn player Lundy

Only one male composer — 20th-century Frenchman Henri Tomasi — is featured on “Luminous: Women’s Voices from Europe,” which will include horn and piano works by 20th-century European composers Ruth Gipps, Elsa Barraine, Denise Roger, Jean Francaix and Jane Vignery.

Most of the works on the concert, presented as part of Dove of Peace Lutheran Church’s series of free classical music events, run two to eight minutes; Vignery’s powerful second-half Sonata for Horn and Piano runs 18 minutes.

The composers hail from France, Belgium and England with music influenced by impressionistic styles, according to program notes. The idea was to celebrate composers whose works create color and narrative through sound.

Lundy, the former Tucson Symphony Orchestra principal horn player, teaches at the University of Arizona Fred Fox School of Music. In 2018, she released a critically-acclaimed album “Canyon Songs” and has appeared as a soloist in a number of festivals and series including the St. Andrew’s Bach Society‘s summer series. She also is the founder and director of Borderlands Ensemble, a horn and strings chamber group devoted to non-traditional concerts centered primarily on the music of American and Mexican composers.

Taiwan native Hsin-Chih Chang moved to Tucson from New York City in 2017 and has performed in festivals and events locally and throughout the state. She is the principal accompanist at the Voice in the Oaks Chorale/Oracle Piano Society and Congregation Beit Simcha and is an integration specialist with Opening Minds through the Arts at Tucson Unified School District.

Admission is free to Sunday’s concert, which starts at 2 p.m. at the church, 665 W. Rollercoaster Road, off North Oracle Road. A goodwill offering will be taken with proceeds to benefit the nonprofit Interfaith Community Services. Masks are required.

This is the first concert in the Dove of Peace 2023 series, which usually kicks off on New Year’s Day. But an issue with the building’s natural gas pipe forced series director Eric Holtan to call off the event for the first time in 15 years.