|
Chamber Music Unbound
5-7-2009 The Eastern Sierra’s resident chamber music phenoms have a special surprise in store for music-lovers when they perform the swan song to their winter concert season this weekend.
Chamber Music Unbound presents its last program of the winter season, “Bel Canto,” at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Bishop High School and Saturday at St. Joseph’s Church in Mammoth Lakes.
Joining the Felici Trio’s Rebecca Hang and Brian Schuldt are three illustrious L.A.-based guests; pianist Ming Tsu, violinist Josefina Vergara and Nico Abondolo, bass. On the program are works of Italian master Gioachino Rossini, Louise Farrenc and a special world premier by the Felicis – to be revealed at the concert.
Pianist Ming Tsu has concertized in Europe, Asia, Mexico, Canada and the United States, and her performances have been broadcast on German National Radio as well as on more than 40 stations throughout the United States. She joined Southwest Chamber Music in 2003 and since then has recorded with the ensemble the complete chamber works for piano and strings by Carlos Chávez as well as chamber music by Chinary Ung for Cambria Records. Josefina Vergara, a native of Chile, is Principal Second Violin of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. As an active chamber musician, she has appeared in recitals in Europe and the Far East, and festivals including the St. Barth’s Music Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, the La Jolla Chamber Music Festival and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. She has served on the chamber music faculty at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara.
Nico Abondolo is internationally recognized as a leading double bass soloist and chamber musician. He made his debut at the age of 14 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and in 1983 became the first double bassist ever to win first place in the International Competition for Musical Performers in Geneva, Switzerland. Since then he has appeared with orchestras and in recital throughout the U.S. and Europe. Abondolo is professor of Bass at USC Thornton School of Music and the Music Academy of the West. Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868) – Duetto for Cello and Bass
Often nicknamed the “Italian Mozart,” Gioachino Rossini embodied Italian opera, enjoying an unprecedented measure of popularity, wealth and prestige throughout the 19th century. At the height of Rossini’s fame in 1824, the wealthy English banker and amateur cellist Sir David Salomons commissioned the composer to write a Duetto for Cello and Double Bass. At the time, England, and indeed most of Europe, was infatuated with Italian opera and Rossini was riding a wave of incredible popularity. Salomons paid Rossini the then enormous sum of 50 pounds for the work, which was to be performed by Salomons himself and the celebrated Italian bass virtuoso, Domenico Dragonetti.
Gioachino Rossini – Sonata for 2 Violins, Cello and Bass
In 1804, before even the onset of his formal instruction, the 12-year-old composed in the course of three days the Sei Sonate a quattro. They were written for his friend and patron, the amateur musician Agostino Triossi of Ravenna, at whose villa “Il Conventello” the young Rossini spent some time in the summer of 1804. Scored for two violins, cello and double bass, the Sonatas were written for the immediate use by Triossi, his cousins and Rossini himself.
Louise Farrenc (1804-1875) – Piano Quintet no. 2, opus 31
Louise Farrenc was born in Paris to the Dumont family whose lineage included numerous successful visual artists, painters and sculptors. She received instruction from some of the foremost musicians of her time, including Ignaz Moscheles and Johann Nepomuk Hummel. By the age of fifteen she studied harmony and music theory with the distinguished Antonin Reicha, composer and professor at the Conservatoire de Paris. Farrenc was the only woman to hold a full chair as Professor of Piano at the Conservatoire during the nineteenth century, a highly prestigious position she filled for more than 30 years. Louise Farrenc is today considered one of the pioneers of chamber music in 19th century France, due to her achievements as a performer and composer in this genre. Her delightfully fluent style merges the French fondness for sound colors, elegant melody and playfulness with the German chamber music ideal of a poetic dialogue between equal partners.
Tickets for this weekend’s concerts are available online at www.ChamberMusicUnbound.org, at Access Art & Business Center in Mammoth, The Inyo Council for the Arts in Bishop or at the door on concert nights after 6:45 p.m.
|
