To kick off the month of October, the Iowa State Department of Music and Theater have a special performance featuring not only an Iowa State faculty member but also two special guest performers who are faculty members at other universities.

One of the pieces that will be performed is the newly discovered “Barber Violin Sonata,” a piece by renowned composer Samuel Barber that was considered lost and unpublished until recently.

The Faculty Recital features George Work, a music & theatre professor at Iowa State. Performing with Work will be John Gilbert of Texas Tech University and Dmitri Shteinberg of North Carolina School of the Arts.

Work and Gilbert have been friends since they were students at the Eastman School of Music, and they have subsequently taught and performed together at many summer festivals and venues. Gilbert has known Shteinberg since their collaboration in Vermont years ago.

Work joined the Iowa State faculty and its resident chamber ensemble, then known as the Ames Piano Quartet, in 1981. With the quartet he has traveled the world to perform in places like Russia, France, South Africa, Cuba, Taiwan and many more venues across North America.

The Ames Piano Quartet, which is now known as Amara Piano Quartet, is in the process of recording its first CD after recording 14 under their old title.

This recital has a few features that were noted by Work that the audience should know coming into the performance.

“This is a concert of chamber music, which means that violinist John Gilbert and I will be taking turns collaborating with pianist Dmitri Shteinberg to play music from the late 19th and mid-20th century,” said Work. “There is no conductor, no amplification and no special effects. This type of music is more like a conversation between the performers, in which they try to bring the ideas of the composers to life in the truest and most expressive way possible.”

This recital will have four pieces performed that were composed by Samuel Barber and Richard Strauss, who wrote these pieces. The four pieces are the “Barber Sonata for Cello and Piano”, the “Richard Strauss Sonata for Cello and Piano”, the “Barber Sonata for Violin and Piano” and the “Richard Strauss Sonata for Violin and Piano.”

“’The Barber Violin’ Sonata is such an early work, it was never published and was thought lost for many years,” Work said. “One movement of the original three was recently re-discovered, and that is what John will be performing.”

The Gilbert, Shteinberg and Work’s Faculty Recital is at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 5, in the Martha-Ellen Tye Recital Hall. Admission to the event is free.