The Red Cedar Trio

The Red Cedar Trio -- flutist Jan Boland, violist David Miller, and guitarist John Dowdall -- forms the core ensemble of Red Cedar Chamber Music, Eastern Iowa’s premiere chamber music organization. The ensemble gives their audiences equal doses of the antique and the avante-garde. On one hand, they are known for their performances on early 19th-century period instruments (they perform this music on a wooden flute, a Tyrolean viola, and gut-strung guitar) – on the other hand, they commission and premiere new works by American composers.

Red Cedar Chamber Music has commissioned chamber trios for the Red Cedar Trio from Jerry Owen, Andrew SImpson, Peter Bloesch, Michael Kimber, and Harvey Sollberger. Additionally a group commissioning project hired 15 Iowa Composers to write for the Red Cedar Trio.

Boland, Miller, and Dowdall have performed together since 1996 and have recorded four award-winning compact discs on the Fleur De Son Classics label. Their Czech Chamber Music recording received a Critics' Choice award from the American Record Guide, which stated "Chamber music should be just like this…intimate, bonding and conversational." Vintage Viennese, was lauded by Soundboard Magazine as "a terrific recording in terms of musical pleasure and performing excellence." Audiophile Audition, a nationally syndicated public-radio program, added "All three performers are top rate." In 2004 a new disc titled Three Guys Named Mo, featuring the music of Mozart, Molitor and Molino, was released by Fleur de Son Classic. Czech Inspired, featuring the music of Jerry Owen and other Iowa composers was released in 2005.

In 2007, the Red Cedar Trio was featured on Classical Guitar Alive, the syndicated program of National Public Radio, on a program titled “Rising Stars.”

Red Cedar has performed scores of concerts and educational activities in Eastern Iowa, as well as numerous public radio performances/interviews. Reaching beyond the Midwest, recent performances have taken them to the Kennedy Center, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and to Nova Scotia.
Red Cedar frequently commissions new works – many for flute and guitar, and more recently for flute, viola and guitar; Jerry Owen’s Trio Concertant over Czech Folk Songs was premiered in the fall of 2002 and his Gypsy Inspirations, inspired by gypsy music, was premiered in October, 2003. Andrew Earle Simpson’s Tesserae: Six Mosaics of Ancient Rome was premiered by the trio in April of 2004. A group commissioning project created Spillville Varitions on a Theme by Dvorak for a Fall 2004 premiere both in the United States and also in the Czech Republic.
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The inspiration for Red Cedar Chamber Music came in 1996 when Iowa musicians Jan Boland, flute, and John Dowdall, guitar, first brought east-coast violist David Miller to Cedar Rapids to join them in performing trios by early 19th-century Czech composer, Wenceslaus Matiegka. Encouraged by the success of this November, 1996 concert with Miller, Boland and Dowdall formed Red Cedar Chamber Music, a not-for-profit arts organization to bring the world's finest chamber musicians to Eastern Iowa to explore chamber music scored for flute and guitar with other instruments.

Each season the Red Cedar Trio presents intimate concert and educational performances in Eastern Iowa. Audiences love the artistic quality and are especially drawn to the lively and informative commentary that is a part of each concert event.

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