The 2010-11 Chamber Music Series at the Westport Arts Center, curated by composer, New Yorker music editor, and Westport native Russell Platt, moves into fresh territory this season while keeping in touch with the classics. The first three programs—offered by the Alessio Bax/Lucille Chung piano duo, by the St. Petersburg Quartet with the renowned bassoonist Peter Kolkay, and by the scintillating Trio Solisti—offer a lavish selection of Russian and Slavic repertoire, along with Austrian, French, and American works. The season concludes in 2011 with a first-ever venture into period-instrument performance, courtesy of the famed New York Baroque ensemble Rebel, and with a concert given by the debonair English pianist Simon Mulligan that celebrates the anniversary years of Chopin and Samuel Barber, with several jazz selections added to the mix.
Co-presented with arts partner the Pequot Library in Southport, CT.
The Westport Arts Center’s 2010/2011 Chamber Music Series is generously supported by Howard J. Aibel, Artur and Heida Hermanns Holde Foundation, Inc., the Estate of Ruth Steinkraus Cohen and Herbert L. Cohen (Friends of Music), the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, the National Endowment for the Arts, and members of the WAC Board of Directors and Chamber Music Committee.
ST. PETERSBURG QUARTET
with Peter Kolkay Sunday, 10/3/10 4:00pm $35, $10, $5
This
The St. Petersburg String Quartet, renowned for its authentically Russian style, will perform Tchaikovsky’s grand Third Quartet along with the sublimely lyrical Nocturne from Borodin’s String Quartet No. 2 and the Quintet for Bassoon and Strings. This Quintet was written by our own Russell Platt (featuring the extraordinary Peter Kolkay, Artist Member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the only bassoonist to win the coveted Avery Fisher Career Grant.
The concert will begin with “Five Miniatures on Jewish Folk Tunes” by the distinguished Georgian composer Sulkhan Tsintsadze, programmed to complement our fall art exhibition, “Memory.”
This concert is sponsored by WAC Chamber Music Committee Members, Gloria and Michael Stashower.
Please join us after the concert for a 3-course prix fix dinner at Da Pietro's, 36 Riverside Avenue in Westport. $33 (tax, tip, and alcohol excluded).
Call Da Pietros to make your reservation at (203) 454-1213.
Trio Solisti, one of the finest piano trios in the world, will perform Dvorak’s beloved “F Minor Trio”, Astor Piazzolla’s charming “Four Seasons of Buenos Aires” (inspired by Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons”), a work by Pulitzer Prize winner and former curator of the WAC chamber music series Paul Moravec, and the trio’s own unique arrangement of Mussorgsky’s thrilling “Pictures at an Exhibition.”
The WAC expands into the early music field by engaging REBEL, a much-heralded group of baroque instrumentalists in residence at New York’s Trinity Church Wall Street. They will perform “Irregular Pearls”, an accessible, delightful program of music by beloved Baroque-era composers.
SIMON MULLIGAN
Sunday, 4/10/11 4:00pm $25, $10, $5
The season closes with an appearance by the exciting young British pianist Simon Mulligan, a Sony Classical recording artist. Mulligan will perform music by 2010-11 birthday boys Chopin and Samuel Barber (the Ballade and the Nocturne) along with a bit of jazz, which Mulligan plays with consummate flair.
Our 2010 Chamber Music season begins with a summer concert honoring the tradition of South Shore Music, a long-time summer series held at this historic Church, which has now been integrated into the WAC chamber music schedule. The charismatic young Italian pianist Alessio Bax, a member of Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s CMS Two, and his wife Lucille Chung perform a one-piano, four-hand concert of favorite works by Ravel and Schubert along with a special treat, Stravinsky’s four-hand version of his ballet “Petrushka.”
This concert is sponsored by WAC Chamber Music Committee Members, Howard J. Aibel and Joyce and David Thompson.
Playing "Chamber Music in Any Chamber," the Chiara Quartet reaches from the concert hall into clubs, bars and galleries, expanding the places to hear live classical music while returning chamber music to its roots in intimate spaces. The Pequot Library offers a perfect space to hear this exciting young string quartet who will perform music by Haydn, Beethoven, and the outstanding young New York composer Jefferson Friedman, a protégé of former Westporter John Corigliano.
Special offer: Buy 2 tickets and get 1 free! For online ticket orders: The discounted price will not be reflected at check out; it will be applied when processed by our office.
In a lovely concert for a winter afternoon at the Arts Center, two engaging young musicians, the harpist Bridget Kibbey and the flutist Claire Chase—both winners of the prestigious Concert Artists Guild International Competition—will offer solo and duo works by Bach, Britten, Paganini, Takemitsu, Piazzolla, and Elliott Carter.
Please join us before or after the concert for a 3-course prix fix lunch or dinner for $33 (tax and tip excluded) at Da Pietro's, 36 Riverside Avenue in Westport. Call Da Pietros to make your reservation at (203) 454-1213.
The Connecticut Alliance for Music presents its annual Heida Hermanns International Piano Competition. Semi-Finals Saturday, December 5, 2009, 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m Free admission
Finals Sunday, December 6, 2009, 3:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. Members and guests: $20. Age 18 and under are free Prizes are awarded at reception that follows.
Both the semi-finals and finals will be held at the Westport Town Hall, 110 Myrtle Ave. Tickets are available at door. Reservations are not required.
COLIN AND ERIC JACOBSEN
Saturday, 11/21/09 8:00pm $25, $5.00 youth
Fresh from their exciting appearance at the Westport Arts Center in April, two members of the quartet Brooklyn Rider--Colin and Eric Jacobsen, on violin and cello--will return for an evening of duo works by Handel, Bach, Kodaly, and a brand new Duo for Violin and Cello by Russell Platt.
Please join us before the concert for a 3-course prix fix dinner for $30 (tax and tip excluded) at Blue Lemon, 15 Myrtle Avenue in Westport. Call Blue Lemon to make your reservation at (203) 226-2647.
