The next free concert from the Santa Barbara Music Club, now in its 55th season, will feature a program of works for piano four hands and for oboe. The concert will be at 3 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 11, in St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, 4575 Auhay Drive.

Maestro Eric Valinsky, composer, pianist, and past president of the Music Club, will team with pianist Pascal Salomon to present the World Premiere of the composer’s arrangement for piano/four hands of his “Wisperfal.” (2010)

“Wisperfal” is a four-movement fantasy based on Antonio Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons.”

Also, oboist Adelle Rodkey will solo in Richard Strauss’ “Concerto in D-Major for Oboe and Small Orchestra” (1946) with Valinsky ably providing the orchestral parts on piano.

“‘Wisperfal was originally commissioned by Ballet Santa Barbara (now the AD&M Performance Group) in 2010,” says the Music Club. “Although originally intended for several instruments, budgetary considerations constrained the work to piano solo.

“The work was premiered at Santa Barbara’s Lobero Theater for over 1,000 elementary school children. The piano solo version never quite did justice to Valinsky’s musical ideas, and fourteen years later, he expanded the work to piano four-hands.

“Valinsky drew from Vivaldi’s use of ostinato, the repetition of musical patterns for musical effect, and sequence, the repetitive patterns that shift in pitch. Although the use of ostinato is a feature of minimalist music, ‘Wisperfal’ is not minimalist music. Valinsky likes to think of it as a ‘maximalist’ celebration of Vivaldi’s music.

“The title ‘Wisperfal’ is compounded from abbreviations for the seasons, Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. Each movement corresponds to one of the four concerti.

“The composer changed the order of the movements to start with the joy of summer and end with the hope of spring.

“Wisperfal quotes Vivaldi liberally, but also includes quotes from other works by Valinsky. Each of the movements uses a recurring motif, the carillon chime from Riverside Church in New York City, which the composer heard every hour when he was a doctoral student at Columbia University. The chimes mark transitions, as they do in real life.”

For more about this concert, as well as future and past concerts, visit the club’s website.