Brightmusic eNewsletter - March 2010

Brightmusic’s fifth concert of the 2009-10 Season will be a very special musical treat.  “Music for Three – Part II” on March 23 will feature four piano trios, including the world premiere of a new composition by Dr. Edward Knight entitled Curve of Gold, specially commissioned by Brightmusic.

This is the fifth season Brightmusic has commissioned at least one new chamber music work.  Commissioning new works not only allows our audiences to hear brand new music but also allows Brightmusic to make its own contribution to the literature of chamber music. 

This season, Brightmusic commissioned Ed Knight – professor of music, composer-in-residence and director of composition at Oklahoma City University – to compose a new work for a piano trio.  Ed’s musical creativity took the form of a trio for piano, clarinet and tenor vocalist.  His new work is a five-song cycle based on poems of American lyrical poet Sara Teasdale (1884-1933): Old Tunes, Redbirds, There Will Come Soft Rains, Wild Asters and Barter. 

In 2007 Brightmusic commissioned Dr. Knight to compose a chamber music work in honor of the Oklahoma Centennial.  That work, Beneath a Cinnamon Moon, premiered at Brightmusic’s January 2007 concert and was performed again at the 2007 OK Mozart Festival in Bartlesville.

The Brightmusic musicians will also perform Two Rhapsodies for oboe, viola and piano by American composer Charles Martin Loeffler (1861-1935); Gran Duetto for clarinet, double bass and piano by Italian composer Giovanni Bottesini (1821-1889); andTrio in A minor for piano, violin and cello by French composer Maurice Ravel (1875-1937).

The musicians who will appear on the program are: Amy I-Lin Cheng (piano); Gregory Lee (violin); Royce McLarry (viola); Jonathan Ruck (cello); George Speed (double bass); Lisa Harvey-Reed (oboe); Chad Burrow (clarinet); and William Nield Christensen (tenor).

Brightmusic will perform this concert at St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral, 127 NW 7th Street (at Robinson) in Downtown OKC.  Our new two-performance concert format will return for the Season Finale on April 19-20.  As always, a reception with the musicians will follow the March 23 concert.

Steve Blevins Reviews Brightmusic’s February 9 Concert, “Music for Three – Part I”  
 

Resolved: Oklahoma State law should require that all winter concerts begin with Haydn. Happily, no laws were required to persuade pianist Amy Cheng, violinist Gregory Lee, and cellist Tomasz Zieba to open Brightmusic’s February 9 concert with Haydn’s resplendent Trio in C Major, the perfect opener to Part 1 of a two-part series dubbed “Music for Three.”  The series, devoted to the art of the trio, began symmetrically with two piano trios separated by a trio for trumpet, violin, and piano. Classical, Romantic, and modern periods were represented in the music of Haydn, Dvorak, and Ewazen.

Bundled in winter coats and mufflers, the audience gleaned what it is accustomed to gleaning from Brightmusic: superb playing from our city’s finest chamber musicians. Leave it to artistic directors Amy Cheng and Chad Burrow to mix traditional masterpieces with perfectly chosen works from the contemporary repertoire, offering novelty and familiarity – and extraordinary variety.

 

Brightmusic’s February concert was the perfect revenge for piano enthusiasts who bristle at the notion of the string quartet as the ultimate vehicle of chamber music. Piano trios are quartets when the pianist’s left and right hands are regarded as separate instruments.  Brightmusic’s trio celebration began thus appropriately with music from the string quartet’s chief architect and proponent, Franz Joseph Haydn. His brilliant Trio in C major, Hob. XV: 27, one of the late trios, breaks the mold of “piano sonata with string accompaniment” (ironically, a paraphrase of the trio’s original title) by empowering strings in the presence of a virtuosic piano part.

Eric Ewazen’s Trio for trumpet, violin, and piano, composed in 1992 and modeled on Brahms’s Horn Trio, was perfectly placed at the center of the program. Trumpeter Michael Anderson evoked the trumpet’s rich lyricism in a beautifully crafted piece that emphasized the instrument’s expressive quality. Comprised of four movements, the work evoked a rich and varied landscape: funereal serenity in the first movement, intensity and agitation in the second, melancholic introspection in the third, and exhilaration in the fourth. The audience was reminded that color, beauty, and tonality are not anathema to the twentieth century, but characteristic of some of its finest art.

The second half of the program featured the last and best known of Dvorak’s piano trios, Trio in E minor, the “Dumky.” Although controversy surrounds the etymology of “Dumky” (either a “fleeting thought” or a Ukrainian lament), no controversy surrounds the choice of this work as a finale to an excellent concert. Comprised of six movements, the piece abandons traditional forms (i.e., sonata and theme-and-variation) for a structure in which slow melancholic sections alternate with fast vivacious ones. Dvorak’s enchantment with folk tunes manifests itself throughout the work.

The quality of musicianship at Brightmusic has been justly lauded. The quality of programming deserves no less praise. February’s concert illustrates the effect of mixing talent with imagination: a resplendent offering capable of launching an enchanted audience into the winter cold with enough warmth to herald spring, and with it, part 2 of the trio series.

Ed. Note:  Dr. Steve Blevins is an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Oklahoma; an internist at OU Physicians; an accomplished pianist; a devotee of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and other classical music events; the witty author of the Internet blog “Borborygmi,” and a member of the boards of directors of the Civic Music Association, Chamber Music in Oklahoma and, we are proud to say, Brightmusic.

Two New Brightmusic Directors

 

Since our last newsletter, two new directors have joined Brightmusic’s Board of Directors:  Lisa Harvey-Reed and Larry Reed.  Lisa is Brightmusic’s oboist, the principal oboist of the OKC and Lawton Philharmonic Orchestras, and an instructor of oboe for more than 20 years at Oklahoma City University. 

Larry Reed is a vice president in the Global Wealth Management Group of Merrill Lynch in OKC, where he has worked for almost 30 years.  In addition to being a certified financial manager and counselor to individual and institutional clients, Larry is an accomplished bassoonist, a member of the OKC Phil and a former music faculty member at Baylor University and OCU. 

Lisa and Larry join four other directors who have been elected to Brightmusic’s Board of Directors in 2010:  Dr. Joy Reed Belt, executive recruiter and proprietor of JRB Art at the Elms in the Paseo, Andy Peterson of McAfee & Taft, Deborah McAuliffe Senner of Allied Arts and Kip Welch of Chesapeake Energy.

   
 

 

Brightmusic Musicians Perform Across the Country

 

Brightmusic violinist Sean Wang played concerts on February 4-5 at the Southern Regional Conference of The College Music Society in New Orleans, and on February 27 he appeared with The IRIS Orchestra in Germantown, Tennessee.

On February 16, Brightmusic cellist Tomasz Zieba played Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet and Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No. 2 in a music faculty recital at Oklahoma City University.  On February 23, Tomasz performed works by Piazzola and Smetana with pianist Haysun Kang and violinist Diana Seitz at the University of Kansas. 

Also on February 16, Brightmusic violinist Gregory Lee and cellist Jonathan Ruck performed at the University of Oklahoma in a joint appearance of the OU music faculty’s Holmberg Quartet and the OU music graduate students’ Crouse Quartet.  The combined quartets played Schubert’s “Rosamunde” String Quartet, op. 29, and Mendelssohn’s Octet in E flat, op. 20.

On February 20, the Oklahoma Chamber Players gave a Sutton Concert Series recital at the University of Oklahoma.  Brightmusic cellist Jonathan Ruck, the group’s director, Brightmusic violinist Gregory Lee and six other OU Music School faculty members played works of Herzogenberg, Chopin and Moravec. 

Also on February 20, Brightmusic oboist Lisa Harvey-Reed and her husband Larry Reed, a bassoonist with the OKC Philharmonic, played in the inaugural concert of a new Norman-based musical group called the Norman Chamber Players. 

Brightmusic violinist Gregory Lee was the featured soloist in the OKC Philharmonic’s February 27 performance of The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Trio Solari, composed of Brightmusic violinist Sean Wang, pianist Amy I-Lin Cheng and clarinetist Chad Burrow, performed concerts at the University of Houston on March 4, Rice University on March 8 and the University of Michigan on March 15.

Brightmusic Musicians’ Upcoming Performances 

 

On March 29, Brightmusic cellist Jonathan Ruck will give a faculty recital at 8:00 pm in the Pitman Recital Hall at OU as part of OU’s Sutton Artist Series.  Jon will play four unaccompanied cello works:  Bach’s Suite No. 4 in E-flat, BWV 1010; Cassado’s Suite for Solo Cello; Bach’s Suite No. 3 in C, BWV 1009; and Rozsa’s Toccata Capricciosa, op. 36.  Tickets are $8 for adults and $5 for students, seniors and OU faculty/staff.  For more information, see http://www.ou.edu/finearts/events.html. 

On March 30, Brightmusic cellist Tomasz Zieba will give a faculty recital at 7:00 p.m. in the Petree Recital Hall at OCU.  Tomasz will perform works by Piazzola (“Le Grand Tango” for cello and piano); Chopin (etudes, waltzes and nocturnes, arranged for cello and piano, and the Polonaise Brillante written for cello and piano); and Smetana (Trio in G minor, op. 15, for cello, violin and piano). Haysun Kang, piano, and Diana Seitz, violin, will join Tomasz in this recital. For more information, see http://www.okcu.edu/music/.

At 8:00 pm on Saturday, April 3, the Oklahoma Chamber Players will give a Sutton Concert Series performance in the Pitman Recital Hall at the University of Oklahoma School of Music.  Brightmusic cellist Jonathan Ruck serves as the director of the Oklahoma Chamber Players.  Also performing at this concert will be Brightmusic violinist Gregory Lee and Brightmusic bassoonist Carl Rath.  All three of these musicians are principals in their respective sections of the OKC Phil.  Tickets are $8 for adults and $5 for students, seniors and OU faculty/staff.  For more information, seehttp://www.ou.edu/fine arts/events.html. 

Contributing to Brightmusic

 

This has not been an easy year for nonprofit organizations in general, and for arts and cultural organizations in particular.  Brightmusic is no exception to these economic trends. 

We thank our friends who have generously contributed to Brightmusic in 2009 and 2010.  However, we need additional contributions to allow us to complete our 2009-10 season with sufficient resources to launch the splendid programming that our Artistic Directors have planned for the 2010-11 Season.

If you are able to contribute to Brightmusic, or you are able to make an additional contribution, we would deeply appreciate your generosity.  Brightmusic has a unique mission in central Oklahoma’s arts and cultural community.  Our policy of performing all concerts free of charge places unique fund-raising challenges on us as well. 

Contributions can be made by mail to Brightmusic Society of Oklahoma, P.O. Box 404, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73101-0404; by depositing contributions in the baskets at the entrances to our concerts; or through our websitewww.brightmusic.org via credit card.  Thank you!