London's Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Octet will perform the first octet work ever written during its Sunday performance in Eisenhower Auditorium.

At 8 p.m., the Academy Octet, composed of members from the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Orchestra, will play three pieces of chamber music, two of which were specially composed for eight-piece ensembles: Mendelssohn's Octet for Strings in E-flat-Major, Shostakovich's Prelude and Scherzo, Opus 11 and Brahms' Sextet in G-Major, Opus 36. The event is presented by the Center for the Performing Arts.

Taylor Greer, assistant professor of music, said the Mendelssohn piece is the most important of the three because it was the first to be composed for an octet. Greer will provide background on the composers and works at 7 p.m. Sunday in the Greenroom of Eisenhower Auditorium.

Greer said the Mendelssohn octet is an exhilarating, uplifting piece, created when the composer was 17 years old. Along with a quartet composed to accompany Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, it represents one of his greatest works, Greer said.

Leonard Feldman, associate professor of music, has played the cello part for the Mendelssohn octet in the University's Allard Quartet.

"The fast movements are spectacular and require great bow control. It has to be both very light and graceful as well," Feldman said.

Greer said the Shostakovich piece was composed rather early in the artist's development, and has "lots of raw energy." He added, however, that it is impossible to think of the 20th century composer without a sense of tragedy, because he suffered enormously at the whimsical aesthetic tastes of the communist regime.

The Academy Octet has toured several countries in Europe, the United States and Canada, and has made many recordings. The ensemble is comprised of Kenneth Sillito, Malcolm Latchem, Josef Frohlich, Robert Heard on violin; Robert Smissen, Stephen Tees on viola; and Stephen Orten and Roger Smith on cello.

"They have no conductor. This is really about as large you as can get without a conductor," Greer said. "It takes an enormous amount of musicianship and sense of internal coordination of your own part."

Tickets are available at the Eisenhower Ticket Center and the Playhouse Box Office for $15, $13 and $11.