Tucson Weekly: String Thing (February 26

Upcoming Chamber Music Festival Offers Some Rare Treats.
By Margaret Regan
LAST YEAR'S TUCSON Winter Chamber Music Festival recently got a sterling endorsement from a national music publication.
"This is a splendid disc of exciting but polished in-concert performances," the American Record Guide gushed about the festival CD in its January/February issue. "Best of all, the music--including some seldom-recorded treasures--is wonderful."
Review Beautiful music, both familiar and obscure, and bravura playing are precisely what organizers have in mind for this year's festival as well, celebrating as it does the 50th anniversary of the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music. The fifth-annual festival runs Sunday through Sunday next week at the TCC Leo Rich Theatre.
"We don't have a theme for this year, but we concentrated on having superb musicians--21, more than ever before," says Jean-Paul Bierny, Friends president. The music for the four-concert program ranges from the premiere of a brand-new piano quartet commissioned by the Friends, to beloved classics by Beethoven, Brahms, Haydn and Schubert, and forgotten treasures of the repertoire.
In the opening concert Sunday, for instance, the familiar Beethoven Kreutzer Sonata and the Brahms Piano Quartet in C Minor are "two big classical pieces--you've got to love them they're so gorgeous," while the Bartók String Quartet No. 2 and Ravel's Five Greek Songs are "beautiful pieces rarely heard."
The Los Angeles Piano Quartet anchors the festival this year, as it did, with somewhat different personnel, in the Friends' first festival in 1994. Cellist Peter Rejto, the former UA prof who's been artistic director for all five festivals, heads the quartet. Rejto's task is not only to plan the program of music, but to assemble the team of musicians and to match them up in the right combinations for the right music. This year's musicians hail from the U.S., Australia, Israel and Czechoslovakia. Returnees from previous festivals include harpist Katerina Englichová, violinist Ani Kavafian, bassoonist Julie Feves, clarinetist Patricia Shands, hornist Richard Todd and violinist Carmit Zori. Among the newcomers are the musicians of the Chicago String Quartet, all professors at the DePaul University School of Music.
Following its commitment to helping create new works, the Friends commissioned Gerard Schurmann (at $15,000) to write a new piece. His Piano Quartet No. 2 will have its premiere at the Friday concert. Schurmann, who will be on hand at the concert, has won numerous awards, and most recently composed a 100th-anniversary piece for the Pittsburgh Symphony.
Schurmann is not the only composer who will be at the festival: composer Edgar Meyer doubles as a musician. At the Wednesday concert, bassist Meyer will play his own Trio for Violin, Cello and Bass.
A work by the little-known composer Schulhoff, Sextet for Strings, will be a "big surprise," says Bierny.
"He was a Czech composer who was Jewish and died in a concentration camp. He was a very good composer. This sextet is a masterpiece. This will be the first time it's played in Tucson. It's out of this world."
Other festival highlights include Britten's Songs for Harp and Soprano at the Friday concert, to be played by harpist Englichová, and sung by soprano Jennifer Foster.
"We've had a small amount of singing at previous festivals," Bierny notes. "Not everyone likes it, but voice is an integral part of the chamber music repertoire."
The roster of classics also includes Haydn's String Quartet, Opus 76, No. 2, and Schumann's "seldom-played" Piano Quintet, to be performed Wednesday. The finale on Sunday is Schubert's Octet.
"We end with a blockbuster for strings and woodwinds," Bierny says. "You don't ever want it to end."
Anybody is welcome to attend the free dress rehearsals on concert days from 9 a.m. to noon at the theatre. Observers are also free to attend master classes conducted by harpist Englichová and cellist Rejto. The Friends are offering another community bonus this year that's decidedly out of the ordinary: Festival violinist Kavafian will serenade Tucsonans at the ballpark. At the Rockies game at Hi Corbett on Tuesday, Kavafian will give a violin rendering of "The Star-Spangled Banner."
Adds Bierny, "I expect all baseball fans to come to the festival, too."

The Fifth Annual Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival, presented by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music, will run Sunday to Sunday, March 1 to 8, at the TCC Leo Rich Theatre, 260 S. Church Ave. Concerts are at 3 p.m. Sunday, March 1 (program of Beethoven, Bartók, Ravel, Brahms); 8 p.m. Wednesday, March 4 (Haydn, Ravel, Meyer, Schumann); 8 p.m. Friday, March 6 (Britten, Schumann, Debussy, Dvorák); and 3 p.m. Sunday, March 8 (Haydn, Bruch, Schulhoff, Schubert). Individual tickets are $15. Four-concert festival tickets are $55. UA music prof John Fitch will give a talk one-half hour before each concert.

Home | Currents | City Week | Music | Review | Books | Cinema | Back Page | Archives