Robert McDuffie, violin; William Ransom, piano

Robert McDuffie plays violin at Emerson Concert Hall on Friday, November 6, with William Ransom on piano. It's a duo recital, just the two of them on stage, and it falls under the Cooke Noontime Series run by the Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta.

McDuffie is a big name to have in the city. He's an Emmy Award-winning and Grammy-nominated violinist who's played with the New York Philharmonic and worked with R.E.M. and the Rolling Stones. He's also spent a lot of time building things: he founded the Rome Chamber Music Festival in Italy and the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings at Mercer University in Macon. Emory recently gave him an honorary doctorate, so this recital is a bit of a homecoming. Ransom, the Society's artistic director, joins him on piano.

The concert is part of a much larger season. The Emory Chamber Music Society just launched its 34th, with more than 60 free concerts, masterclasses, and world premieres spread across Emory University and the city. The season's biggest project is a yearlong celebration of Ludwig van Beethoven, marking the 200th anniversary of his death on March 26, 1827. The Society's Quartet-in-Residence, the Vega Quartet, is performing Beethoven's complete cycle of 16 string quartets over six concerts throughout the year.

If you want to catch this one, it's at Emerson Concert Hall in the Donna & Marvin Schwartz Center for Performing Arts, 1700 N Decatur Rd, Atlanta, GA. It starts at 12 PM on Friday, November 6, and admission is free.