Steamboat Pilot & Today

With a 5-month-old baby watching carefully from his car seat, Kyle and Heidi Mendenhall rehearse their oboe and clarinet pieces for Wednesday's concert. Although they won't be performing the same pieces, it's the first time both musicians have performed on the same stage in Steamboat.

The couple moved to Steamboat in March.

They will be the first musicians featured in this season's Emerald City Opera Resident Artist Spotlight Series.

The Mendenhalls received their graduate degrees from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Kyle Mendenhall has a master's in oboe performance, and Heidi Mendenhall is working on her doctorate in clarinet performance and pedagogy. Heidi Mendenhall performs regularly with the Cheyenne Symphony Orchestra.

Steamboat audiences will recognize Kyle Mendenhall from this summer's staging of "The Merry Widow" and from his many performances with the Steamboat Springs Chamber Orchestra. Even before he moved to the area, Kyle traveled to Steamboat to play with the group.

Wednesday's program also includes performances by pianist Andrew Todd, a musician from Aspen who the Mendenhalls invited for the concert, and local sopranos Sue Heineman and Michelle Hess.

Because the Emerald City Opera Company sponsors the concert, the Mendenhalls chose work that was vocal in nature, including a variation of the piece "Vocalise" by Sergey Rachmaninov. The original piece was written for the voice. It had no words, only notes to be sung by the singer.

Since its publication, variations have been written for many instruments, including the piece Kyle Mendenhall will perform Wednesday, in which the oboe becomes the voice.

The Mendenhalls chose accessible pieces by well-known traditional composers for Wednesday's concert.

"It's stuff we've always wanted to play," Heidi Mendenhall said. "For years, we've been playing very serious pieces. This concert is meant to be fun and relaxing."