Brightmusic Chamber Ensemble

Edward Knight, Curve of Gold, a new work for tenor, clarinet and piano:  Dr. Edward Knight is a professor of music, composer-in-residence and director of composition at Oklahoma City University.  He has composed works for orchestra, symphonic band, percussion ensemble and piano trio, as well as a clarinet sonata, cabaret songs, two fanfares and two original, full-length romantic musical comedies.  In 2007, Brightmusic commissioned Dr. Knight to compose a chamber music work in honor of the Oklahoma Centennial.  That work, Beneath a Cinnamon Moon for clarinet, viola and piano, premiered at Brightmusic’s January 23, 2007 concert and was performed again at the 2007 OK Mozart Festival in Bartlesville.  His new work, Curve of Gold, is a song cycle based on five poems of Sara Teasdale: Old Tunes, Redbirds, There Will Come Soft Rains, Wild Asters and Barter.  Dr. Knight is a member of the board of directors of Brightmusic.

Charles Martin Loeffler, Two Rhapsodies for oboe, viola and piano:  Loeffler was a German-born American composer who lived from 1861-1935.  He was a violinist who studied with the legendary Joseph Joachim, among others.  He immigrated from Germany to the United States in 1882 and became a U.S. citizen in 1887.  He performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the BSO regularly performed his new compositions.  He maintained a wide circle of musical friends, including Fauré, Busoni and Gershwin.  Two Rhapsodies is probably his best-known chamber music work, composed over a number of years and finished in 1905.  These rhapsodies rework two songs that were set to texts by the poet Maurice Rollinart.  It reflects the musical colors and imagery of impressionism.   

Giovanni Bottesini, Gran Duetto for clarinet, double bass and piano:  Bottesini was an Italian Romantic composer, conductor and double bass virtuoso.  He lived from 1821 to 1889.  After studying at the Milan Conservatory, he established a reputation in London and the European continent as a performer, a composer of operas and instrumental music, and a conductor (especially of operas, including his own).  He composed the single-movement Gran Duetto in 1880, originally for two double basses and orchestra.  It is still performed that way today.  In addition, it has been adapted to several different chamber music formats, including the trio that features piano and clarinet with the double bass, which Brightmusic will perform.  

Maurice Ravel, Trio in A minor for piano, violin and cello:  Maurice Ravel was a French Romantic composer who lived from 1875 to 1937.  In addition to chamber music, he composed orchestral music (Bolero was instantaneous famous, well before its memorable use in the 1979 movie “10”).  He also composed ballets, operas and vocal works, as well as a large number of truly virtuosic works for piano.  Ravel composed this brilliant piano trio in 1914, shortly before he abandoned music temporarily to serve as an ambulance driver for the French army during World War I.  This Trio has four movements.  The first is in a sonata-allegro form.  The second is a scherzo, which sounds very “French” to many listeners.  The third is a passacaglia with two themes and a massive climax.  And the fourth is a quick-paced finale that, just to give the musicians a bit of a challenge, shifts meters between 5/4 and 7/4.  The Trio closes with what one music critic called “passionate shimmering trills from the strings and a wild whoosh or two from the piano.”