There has been so much to admire in the concerts that I’ve attended at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival this season at Nordstrom Recital Hall, it seems redundant to say so yet again. But it is the truth.
As always there are musicians making their festival debut. A more significant new element is the hall, a vast improvement on the dreary acoustics of St. Nicholas Hall at Lakeside School where the festival most of past few decades. This is the festival’s first season at Nordstrom. The more one hears at Nordstrom — the clarity and vibrancy of sound — the more one appreciates the virtues of the new venue. When the festival leaves Seattle next week for Overlake School in Redmond, there will be no lapse in acoustical values. The hall is excellent. Continue reading Mozart to Barber Wednesday Night at Festival
The Seattle Chamber Music Festival used to be criticized by some for its lack of adventure in programming contemporary music. The 20th-century was well enough represented but limited mostly to well-known composer who worked early in the century. This was not necessarily a reflection of artistic director Toby Saks’ taste but a reflection of her audience, which in nearly 30 years never developed a taste for novelties of the modern era. Her partial solution was a clever one: create a small group of patrons willing to contribute money in order to commission new work. Continue reading Seattle Chamber Music Festival opens final week of 2010 Seattle season Monday
By the third week of the Chamber Music Society’s festival the excitement of opening week is gone. We’ve heard enough expertly crafted chamber music to carry us through to the fall. A number of musicians have come and gone by the third week. The third week is also when repertory experiments takes place. The chamber pieces which use wind, brass, and double bass tend to show up around this time. New commissions also show up from time to time here too, away from the intensity of opening week.
The third week is especially problematic for writers. Our adjectives are exhausted and an endless supply of Romantic melodies and classical formalities are dancing through the parts of our brain we use to listen to music. We’ve heard a lot of music with even more to come.
This year the third week of the festival ended with back to back evening concerts. Friday’s concert embodied some of the best and the worst of the festival so far. Franz Berwald’s Septet glowered for 20 minutes to start Friday’s concert. It’s a piece without much of a point even when it is played well as it was on Friday night. I would have preferred to hear Jeff Fair (horn); Sean Osborne (clarinet); Seth Krimsky (bassoon); Jordan Anderson (bass); Ida Levin (violin); Che-Yen Chen (viola); and Jeremy Turner’s (cello) use their considerable talents in different repertory. Continue reading A lot of good and some bad close out third week of SCMS festival
We all know about Gerard Schwarz, conductor. Lately, we’ve been hearing more and more about Gerard Schwarz, composer.
Schwarz’ latest work, a “Trio for Violin, Horn, and Piano” (Horn Trio for short), will receive its world premiere at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival on Monday, July 26 at 8:00 PM in Benaroya Hall. Schwarz and the three performers will give an introduction to the work in a free recital at 7:00 PM.
The Seattle Symphony’s Music Director is by no means new to composition. As a teenager, he studied with the noted American composer Paul Creston. Later teachers included Roger Sessions, Jacob Druckman, Milton Babbitt, Vincent Persichetti and Pierre Boulez. But as the trumpet and then the baton became the focus of Schwarz’ career, his composing took a three-decade hiatus. Until recently.
Summer is finally in full swing. Seattle is warming up. We are in the thick of the summer chamber festival. And, the new symphony seasons are still a few months away. Even though the number of classical performances have thinned out, it doesn’t mean there aren’t events worth mentioning or worth seeking out.
The biggest event after the chamber festival is Seattle Opera’s new production of Tristan und Isolde. Seattle’s a Wagner town and Speight Jenkins and company are back this summer with Wagner’s epic love story. Seattle Opers offers Tristan veterans and newcomers alike plenty of insightful information about the opera on the Seattle Opera website and You Tube. For instance, check out this video of Asher Fisch the conductor for the new production.
Local composer and Esoterics music director Eric Banks is on the rise nationally. The Esoterics have been invited to perform at 2011 ACDA conference in Chicago and Banks is in the thick of writing new commissions for performances at Alice Tully Hall and the Kennedy Center.
In other choral news, Robert Bode and Choral Arts have won the prestigious American Prize in choral performance. Pro Musica, another local favorite, snagged second place.
City Journal is out with a piece making a case for now being the golden age of classical music. There might be more music being made, of higher quality than ever before, but I am not sure if matters when our culture doesn’t seem as supportive of serious music as it used to be. More music doesn’t mean anything if people aren’t listening.
Each year for the past decade or more, I have been saying that Seattle Chamber Music Society surpasses itself with a season which is even better played with even more superb (and young) performers than the year before, and with programming which is far more interesting than it used to be.
This year is no exception. A couple of last year’s newcomers, violinist Augustin Hadelich and pianist Ran Dank, are showing themselves to be musicians of unusual sensitivity as well as extraordinary technique. So too are violinist Nurit Bar-Josef, the very young concertmaster of the National Symphony and cellist Edward Arron, also recent additions; while another youngster, violinist Andrew Wan, who shares the concertmaster position at the Montreal Symphony, is new this year and already showing his ability to join in the very rarified level of musical performance we’ve come to expect at the Festival.
All these and more go to prove that classical music is alive and well in this country with excellent performers coming up all the time, and judging by the audiences SMCS gets, the audience for chamber music is there too. Continue reading Summer festival continues as expected: another splendid concert on Sunday
Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Summer Festival is a joy in the midst of July’s usual musical dearth. Concerts come up three times a week, each with stellar performances and programs which are never boring. Even very familiar pieces receive illuminating performances which bring out facets not perceived before.
Friday’s performance at Nordstrom Recital Hall was a case in point. Frank Bridge is a composer we don’t often hear. He worked at the beginning of the 20th century in England, at a time when the only towering figure in English music was Edward Elgar. Bridge’s chamber music is well worth a hearing. Continue reading More superb chamber music: Bridge, Stravinsky, and Schubert
Without a doubt, hearing new musicians perform is the best part of the Seattle Chamber Music Society festival. We might be hearing them for the first time, but others, especially the musicians in the festival and Toby Saks are already familiar with their talents. Over the years, Saks has plucked players out of the musical hinterlands, at the start of their careers (Jeremy Denk and Adam Neiman are good examples), and given them a chance to network, hone their skills, and play chamber music with other supremely talented colleagues at the festival.
This year, two musicians have captured my attention. I honestly can’t remember when I was this enthralled with a performer, let alone two performers. Andrew Wan won my favor a few nights back with a gorgeous performance of Beethoven’s Violin Sonata Op. 30, No. 1. Ran Dank, a pianist who made his debut at the festival last year sparked my curiosity then with an ardent Bach performance. He returned to the festival this year and has been playing in a number of chamber pieces. He stirred my ears again the other night in Dvorak’s First Piano Trio. His playing was empathetic, not showy, and attuned to the violin and cello (at least from where I was sitting).
Earlier tonight, Wan and Dank made their debut on stage together playing Cesar Franck’s Violin Sonata for the pre-concert recital. This was a performance that had had to be heard to believed. Wan’s tone – which is light and smooth – was a good match for Franck. Phrases slide off his bow easily. Behind him, Dank pushed, prodded, and soaked up every moment of his part. Franck’s piano part gives keyboardists opportunities for bombast, Dank didn’t overdue his playing; there was no thundering but he was assertive when he needed to be.
I’ll remember this recital for a long time. This was the best recital I have heard so far this year. Interpretation, playing, acoustics, audience, and musicians synchronized in such a way that musical bliss was the only outcome possible.
Unfortunately, Wan played his last festival concert last night. Dank is sticking around and will be playing some killer pieces. Pick a concert (any concert, they’re all good) with Dank on the bill, and I am sure (I hope) you’ll agree with me.
In an alternate (maybe even perfect) universe unfamiliar composers and works would be cat nip for curious ears looking to expand their musical horizons. Dissonances would pleasantly shake listeners. We’d tap our toes to awkward rhythms and take pleasure in sorting out difficult melodies. Seats would be filled. People would be turned away at the door only to hear an enlivened retelling of the experience from their friends luck enough to get inside the concert hall. An excited audience reaction would launch outlying repertory into the mainstream.
Judging by Wednesday’s Seattle Chamber Music Society concert – which featured Zoltan Kodaly’s Op. 7 Duo for Violin and Cello and Frank Martin’s Piano Quintet – the alternate universe I proposed is still a long way off. Too many seats sat empty and the audience’s response, while effusive (a standing ovation after every piece) seemed obligatory – polite. Continue reading Must hear Martin, Kodaly and Dvorak at Wednesday’s SCMS concert
The second week of the Seattle Chamber Music Society’s summer festival began with Andrew Armstrong’s return to the piano. An infection caused by a bug bite or some other intruder sidelined the pianist, putting him in the hospital even. Although Armstrong was missed by the loyal festival attendees, other pianists, including the incomparable Craig Sheppard, filled in for their ailing colleague.
Armstrong made his return playing the piano at the pre-concert recital tackling Bela Bartok’s demanding Second Sonata for Violin and Piano with James Ehnes. Armstrong followed this performance by playing the piano part for another violin sonata — Beethoven’s Violin Sonata Op. 30, No. 1. Violinist Andrew Wan, a festival newcomer, joined him in the performance. Continue reading Borodin and Ravel start week two of the SCMS summer festival; Armstrong returns to the piano
Gathering Note 