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ACMCFest
July 1, 2009
Celebrating pride with chamber music
Inclusive, accessible, celebratory — and FREE — a new addition to the line-up of the Austin Chamber Music Festival offers a fresh and much-needed way of considering classical music.
Thursday night it’s ‘Pride Concert: Celebrating Music by Gay and Lesbian Composers.’
Organized by Austin composer Russell Reed and pianist Jim James, the free concert features the work of gay and lesbian composers. ‘I think it is important for people to know about gay artists, both living and dead, who have helped to shape our artistic and cultural heritage,’ says Reed. ‘I wanted to do this for my community because I am constantly dismayed about how little gay people know about their own history.’
On the program are works by well-known composers such as Aaron Copland (Duo for Flute and Piano), Benjamin Britten (Lachrymae), John Cage (‘In a Landscape’) and Reynaldo Hahn (Sonata for Violin and Piano). And representing today’s new music by living composers is Reed’s own ‘Princess Songs,’ William Lackey’s ‘Twisted Tension’ and Pauline Oliveros’ ‘To Valerie Solaneas and Marilyn Monroe.’
Reed, by the way, was most recently nominated for Best Original Composition from the Austin Critics Table for ‘Light the Lovely Candles,’ a song cycle he wrote for soprano Elizabeth Petillot and violist Aurelien Petillot.
Aurelien Petillot is one of the musicians on the roster for Thursday’s concert. Also performing is Kim Pollini, soprano; Joseph Smith, violin; Seeth Shivaswamy, flute and Adam Bedell, percussion. Both Reed and James will play piano.
‘Pride Concert: Celebrating Music by Gay and Lesbian Composers’
7:30 p.m July 2
St. James Episcopal Church, 1941 Webberville Road
www.austinchambermusic.org
Photo: Russell Reed
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June 29, 2009
Review: Chamber Music Fest, Weekend One
Cool.
It’s how the Austin Chamber Music Festival unfolded its first weekend with a trio of eclectic concerts: Modern classical guitar, a string quartet’s Grammy Award-winning riff on jazz great John Coltrane and the indie stylings of the genre-busting Tin Hat Trio.
Friday, the Brasil Guitar Duo — a concert co-sponsored by the Austin Classical Guitar Society — made an impressive, virtuosic program seem effortless in front of a full house at Northwest Hills United Methodist Church. With extraordinary technique rising young international starts Joao Luiz and Douglas Lora moved fluently from Bach (with Luiz’s arrangements) to Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s to Lora’s own sparkling compositions. Drama came with Gismonti’s “Don Quixote,” an alluring rich composition from the contemporary Brazilian composer.
Saturday night at UT’s Bates Recital Hall, the festival shifted mood. The Turtle Island String Quartet won a Grammy for their CD “A Love Supreme: The Legacy of John Coltrane.” And no wonder. The quartet’s inspired interpretations of a wide range of jazz repertoire - Coltrane, yes, but also Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke — proved the foursome has not only the courage but the soul and the chops to channel the jazz legacy with freshness and authenticity. No schmaltzy pops stylings here — these are jazz musicians. And the improvisational finesse of David Balakrishnan, Mark Summer, Mads Tolling and Jeremy Kittel percolated with complexity and originality.
Sunday night, the Chamber Music Festival boldly went to a venue no chamber music group has been before — the Continental Club. About 200 people filled the storied South Congress Avenue rock club to hear Tin Hat Trio, the San Francisco-based group that blends blues, jazz, tango, classical and little cabaret into its own blend. Theirs is the kind of genre-defying music that signals the direction younger musicians are taking chamber music - blending it seamlessly with other genres and busting out of the formal concert hall. Tin Hat Trio made a bold but much welcome (and needed) choice for inclusion on a chamber music festival program.
You have to wonder when the last time people were handed a program when they walked into the Continental Club. And when was the last time the Austin Chamber Music Center music crowd ordered drinks during a concert? Both were refreshing sights.
However blame it on the current wilting heat wave or perhaps some awkward technical sound problems, but Tin Hat Trio didn’t quite deliver much energy Sunday. Ethereal to point of being atmospheric, they skittered around the music more than they seemed to arrive with it. The unusual combination of colors from the combo guitar, a soulful violin and an assortment of clarinets intrigued, but felt more like a tease than a show.
The Austin Chamber Music Festival continues through July 11. See www.austinchambermusic.org for more information.
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June 24, 2009
ACMC Fest: Week One's stunning line-up
The heat wave may be burning down on us and the economy is still fizzling, but this year’s Austin Chamber Music Festival is bringing us some inspiring talent, and free concerts to boot.
Here’s the first week of the three-week festival offerings:
FREE CONCERT: Mendelssohn Piano Trio
12 noon, Thursday
Central Presbyterian Church, 200 E. Eighth St. Program: Three Nocturnes by Ernest Bloch and Brahm’s Piano Trio in B Major.
Brasil Guitar Duo
7:30 p.m. Friday
Northwest Hills United Methodist Church, 7050 Village Center Dr.
Young and blazingly talented, the Brasil Guitar Duo make their mark with a seamless blend of traditional and Brazilian works. On the program is music by Bach, Rameau, Piazzolla, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, and others. Check out the Brasil Guitar Duo’s YouTube page.
Turtle Island String Quartet
7:30 p.m. Saturday
Bates Recital Hall, University of Texas Butler School of Music, 2350 Robert Dedman Drive.
The boundary-breaking quartet present their much-heralded interpretation of the music by the 20th-century jazz master that re-frames the improvising riffs of Coltrane’s saxophone for a sometimes-improvising string quartet. Also on the jazz-centered program — the first half of which will be announced from the stage — is Stanley Clarke’s ‘For John.’
Tin Hat
7:30 p.m. Sunday
Continental Club, 1315 S. Congress Ave.
This San Francisco-based ensemble uses accordion, guitar, violin, clarinet and other instruments in a singular blend of tango, blues, Eastern European folk music, cabaret songs and avant-garde classical. And where better to listen to that at one of Austin’s iconic live music clubs? (Yes, the club’s bar will be open.)
All concerts are $25. See www.austinchambermusic.org for more information.
See previous coverage and reviews of the festival here.
Image: Brasil Guitar Duo.
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June 21, 2009
Review: 'Tango on the Terrace'
Tango set a sophisticated tone for Austin Chamber Music Center’s kick-off concert Friday night for its annual summer festival.
Beautifully played by a five-piece ensemble led by ACMC artistic director Michelle Schumann and featuring Grammy-winning bandoneonist Raul Jaurena, the virtuoustic hour-long program of Astor Piazzolla’s urbane and expressive nuevo tango exemplified the smart, forward-thinking turn this chamber festival has taken since Schumann took the helm.
Regarded as one of the world’s most prominent bandoneonists — and a musician who can claim a direct link to Piazzolla before the great composer’s death in 1992 — Jaurena’s masterful playing exemplified tango’s schizophrenic tones and moods. Nervous and edgy, lusty and full-bodied, mournful and nostalgic — Jaurena wrested it out of an instrument that has one the most compellingly unique voices.
Schumann and the ensemble — Korine Fujiwara on violin, Russ Scanlon on electric guitar and Chris Maresh on bass — made spotless work of Piazzolla’s charging rhythms, twisting harmonies and jumpy use of counterpoint. In tango, every instrument can be used as percussion, with string players not just using pizzacato plucking, but making the distinctive ‘chicharra’ sound produced from scraping the strings. Those are tricky techniques that can sound inauthentic in some hands, but both Fujiwara and Maresh pulled it off with aplomb.
Jaurena and the ensemble poured a breathtaking level of energy and passion into the seamless program and that energy flowed off the stage. The audience — a packed house in the intimate auditorium of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center — began the rousing cheers about half-way into the concert that were soon joined by ovations.
Nothing like starting a sizzling three-week line-up of concerts with a sizzle.
The Austin Chamber Music Festival continues through July 11. See www.austinchambermusic.org for information.
