Music could be heard escaping the doors of the Old Baptist Foundation Recital Hall on Saturday night as the SIU School of Music hosted a violoncello and piano recital featuring Amy Catron and Silvan Negru?iu.

The two performed “Suite Per Violoncello” by Gaspar Cassado, “Sonata for Arpeggione and Piano” by Franz Schubert and “Sonata in D minor” by Dmitri Shostakovich.

Eric Lenz, an associate professor of cello at SIU, contacted Catron to come play in Carbondale. Catron, who is an adjunct cello professor at Millikin University in Decatur, said Lenz performed at Millikin in September and her appearance at SIU is part of a recital exchange.

Catron and Lenz have been playing cello together in the Illinois Symphony Orchestra and the Illinois Symphony Chamber Orchestra for the past eight years.

“I have enjoyed working closely with [Catron] because we often share music in the symphony, so we get to know each other more closely,” Lenz said.

Catron said she decided she wanted to play the cello when she saw a famous cellist named Leonard Rose when she was in sixth grade.

“I think the cello has a range closest to the human voice, and I love the lyricism,” Catron said.

Catron received her bachelor’s degree from Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., and her master’s degree from the University of Akron in Ohio.

Catron has performed with the Sinfonia da Camera since 2000, a chamber orchestra at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

In February, she will perform as the principal cellist for the world premiere of a Concerto for Cello and Orchestra with Sinfonia da Camera.

Negru?iu, a pianist from Romania, said he and Catron have performed at University of Illinois Springfield, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and now in Carbondale as part of their Midwestern tour.

“It brings me a lot of joy to collaborate with [Catron],” Negru?iu said.

Negru?iu received his master’s degree with first class honors from the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin, Ireland.

“This is my first time in SIU, I know SIU has a very good school of music,” Negru?iu said