ENTERPRISE — The Wallowa Valley Music Alliance’s latest project, a mini-series of classical music concerts, continues Sunday, May 5, at the historic Enterprise Odd Fellows Hall, 105 NE First St.

This project is supported by the Wallowa County Cultural Trust Coalition and the Oregon Community Foundation.

The concert will feature music for violin and piano and “four-hands” compositions for piano. Performers will be Boise pianists James and Ruth Cook, performing two Mozart sonatas “four hands,” which means the players share one piano and one piano bench.

That will be followed by James Cook and violinist Lisa Robertson of Enterprise playing sonatas for violin and piano by Franz Schubert and Claude Debussy.

The first program of the series featured 10 musicians playing a number of shorter pieces by eight different composers. This second program features multiple-movement pieces by only three composers and three players.

The third program of the series will be on June 22 at 7 p.m. and will feature viola and harp played by Portland musicians Denise Fujikawa and Brian Quincy.

All concerts are free of charge, with donations requested to cover expenses.

About the musicians

Ruth Cook began her piano training at age 5 in Walla Walla. At 12, she began studying organ with Stanley Plummer at Whitman College. When her father took a call to Chehalis, Washington, she continued her organ study with Kenneth Wahlstrom through her junior and senior high school years.

After high school, she continued her organ studies at Western Washington State College for one year after which she was married and moved with her husband to Hazelton, Idaho, where they raised five children together. She moved to Boise, Idaho, to continue her studies at Boise State University where she earned a BA in organ performance.

She served as organist and choir director at numerous churches in Boise, as well as teaching piano for many years. She met her husband, Jim Cook, in 1992 and they were married in 1994. Together they served in church ministry for several years. When they moved to Revel Independent Living in Eagle, Idaho, they began playing four-hand piano together.

James Cook graduated from high school in Walla Walla and has an undergraduate degree from Whitman College. His master’s degree and doctorate in piano performance are from the Juilliard School and the University of Southern California. He traveled and performed in Europe for several years, returning to teach piano and direct music programs at Willamette University, the University of Wyoming and Boise State University.

He has become an expert in the music of the 18th century, studying the repertoire and the performance practices of the music, and performing the music on the harpsichord and clavichord. He also has a large repertoire of romantic and contemporary music.

Lisa Robertson holds a master’s degree in violin performance from the University of Iowa, a doctorate from Florida State University, and did additional studies in Switzerland at the Zurich Conservatory and the Institute of Higher Musical Studies in Montreux. She has taught violin at Florida State University, the Peter-Cornelius-Conservatory of Mainz (Germany), the University of Iowa, Walla Walla University, Eastern Oregon University, the Viennese Musical Institute of GwangJu (Korea) and in the Playing for Keeps program sponsored by the Oregon East Symphony.

She was a member of professional orchestras and chamber ensembles in Europe for 15 years. She is concertmaster of the Oregon East Symphony, past concertmaster of the Grande Ronde and Walla Walla symphonies, a member of the Siletz Bay Music Festival Orchestra, and serves on the board of the Oregon Chapter of the American String Teachers Association. She lives in Enterprise.