Arizona Friends of Chamber Music Fall program

October 29–November 9, 2014

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Dear Friends,We share a passion—the beauty and love of great chamber music. This music is an integral part of our lives, and we all join to maintain and increase this passion for future generations in Tucson. For 67 years, the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music has brought to Tucson the best chamber music ensembles from around the world. We continue to bring timeless music of the ages and contemporary gems of the present to our loyal audiences.

Together, we have ventured further into the community and now have a vibrant program to introduce chamber music into the schools.

And there is no parallel for our commissioning program. YOU have funded leading composers for fifty-five pieces of music to date, and three more new compositions will be presented this year. Everyone is appreciative of your generosity. These compositions will live on after their Tucson world premieres and will continue to bring pleasure to

countless audiences. I feel great pride in participat-ing in the AFCM experience. I welcome you to share with me the energy and passion of great chamber music. I look forward to meeting you all.

AFCM Welcomes You!

Board of DirectorsBryan Daum, President Paul Kaestle, Vice-President Joseph Tolliver, Corresponding Secretary Helmut Abt, Recording Secretary Wes Addison, Treasurer Philip Alejo Jean-Paul Bierny Nancy Bissell Chris Black Ted Buchholz Michael Coretz Dagmar Cushing Tom Hanselmann Brad Holland Joan Jacobson Marianne Kaestle James Reel Jay Rosenblatt Jerry Short Randy Spalding George Timson

Program Book CreditsEDITORJay Rosenblatt

CONTRIBUTORSTom Hanselmann Marianne Kaestle Paul Kaestle Nancy Monsman Jay Rosenblatt James Reel Randy Spalding

ADVERTISING SALESAllan Tractenberg

PRINTERWest Press

ContactArizona Friends of Chamber Music Post Office Box 40845 Tucson, Arizona 85717

PHONE520-577-3769

E-MAIL [email protected]

WEBSITE arizonachambermusic.org

BOX OFFICE MANAGER Cathy Anderson

Bryan Daum, President

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PROUD TO SUPPORT ARIZONA FRIENDS OF CHAMBER MUSIC

Nizar Sukkar Agency5501 N SWAN RD SUITE 247

Tucson, AZ 85718(520) 742-0100

[email protected]


The new concert programs were developed to provide much more space to let you know about important aspects of the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music. The “front” and “back” pages are in full color and will remain the same throughout the concert season. This “permanent” section includes expanded coverage of our Commissioning Program, with biographies and pictures of composers, more material on our Educational Outreach, and details on the newly formed Jean-Paul Bierny Society for legacy giving. The

middle section will change with each program book. Here you will find information on each concert, including program notes along with ensemble pictures and biographies. The list of AFCM donors is also in this section.

Each program book will cover four concerts except Book 4, which will include all aspects of the Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival. The schedule of concerts in each book is listed below:

Welcome to the New Concert Programs

Series Date Artist /EnsembleEvening Series October 29, 2014 Hagen Quartet BOOK 1

Evening Series November 5, 2014 Morgenstern Piano Trio

Matinée November 6, 2014 Morgenstern Piano Trio

Piano & Friends November 9, 2014 Behzod Abduraimov, piano

Evening Series December 10, 2014 Pacifica Quartet with Anthony McGill

BOOK 2

Matinée December 11, 2014 Pacifica Quartet

Piano & Friends January 18, 2015 Ravinia’s Steans Institute

Evening Series January 21, 2015 Hermitage Piano Trio

Piano & Friends February 1, 2015 Stefan Jackiw, violin

BOOK 3

Evening Series February 25, 2015 Auryn Quartet

Evening Series April 8, 2015 Artemis Quartet

Piano & Friends April 12, 2015 Narek Hakhnazaryan, cello

Winter Festival March 15, 2015 Festival Musicians BOOK 4

Winter Festival March 17, 2015 Festival Musicians





The Commissioning Program gives audience members the opportunity to sponsor new chamber works commissioned by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music. Since 1997, World Premiere performances have been featured during the regular season, the Piano & Friends series, and the Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival. Sponsor-ship of new commissions results in a lasting contribution to the world of music and influences what is composed and performed through-out the twenty-first century. This year AFCM is looking forward to the premiere of three new commis-sioned works, bringing the total to fifty-eight since the program’s inception. The premieres are marvelous occasions. The composer is brought to Tucson to collaborate with world-class musicians during rehearsals of the new composition and is then present at the premiere performance. The commission sponsors meet the composer, attend the rehearsals, and are acknowledged from the stage at the performance.

Many of the works are now firmly established in the chamber music repertoire and are widely played and recorded. Raimundo Penaforte’s Piano Trio, An Eroica Trio, has been played hundreds of times in the US, Canada, Europe, Japan, and New Zealand. Sylvie Bodorová’s Quintet for Harp and Strings has had many concert hall, television, and radio performances, and has been transcribed for orchestra. Pierre Jalbert’s Secret Alchemy for piano and string quartet was published by Schott, the publisher of Mozart, within two months of its March 2012 premier. Another of Jalbert’s pieces, a piano trio, will premiere on November 5, this performed by the Morgenstern Trio.

Sponsors of every AFCM commissioned work are acknowledged in the musical score, in the performance program, and in the CD insert when a recording is made.

Please contact Tom Hanselmann, Chair, AFCM Commissioning Program ([email protected]) if you are interested in making a lasting contribution to the world of music by sponsoring the commission of a new composition.

You can listen to every premiere performance on the AFCM website at arizonachambermusic.org

This year AFCM is looking forward to the premiere of three new commissioned works.

AFCM Commissioning Program


Pierre JalbertPiano Trio No. 2(b. 1967 in Manchester, N.H.)

Sponsored by Boyer Rickel in memory of his parents, Harry and Louise RickelPierre Jalbert should be remembered for two unusual works played in past Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festivals: The Invention of the Saxophone, performed in 2009 by saxophonist Ashu and poet Billy Collins; and Secret Alchemy for violin, viola and piano, premiered here in 2012 as an AFCM commission. As you might guess from the titles alone, Jalbert often draws inspiration from sources beyond music—a visit to Big Bend National Park in Texas, the splendor of Roman churches, poems about life in northern latitudes, hearing his son’s heartbeat for the first time during a pre-natal exam. A Los Angeles Times critic’s comment about one Jalbert score could apply to them all: “the piece…holds the listener through a canny blend of instrumental colors and combinations, chromatic but not dissonant, and ultimately pleasing.”

Jalbert’s music is tonally centered, incorporating modal, tonal, and sometimes quite dissonant harmonies while retaining a sense of harmonic motion and arrival. He is particularly noted for his mastery of instrumental color; in both chamber works and orchestral scores, he creates timbres that are vivid yet refined. His rhythmic shapes are cogent, often with an unmistakable sense of underlying pulsation. Driving rhythms often alternate with slow sections in which time seems to be suspended.

Although he writes in all genres, Jalbert’s compositions have been especially embraced by the chamber music world, including the Borromeo and Ying string quartets, and violinist Midori. Recent commissions have come from the Emerson String Quartet, Music from Copland House, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and, of course, the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music.

Jalbert is Professor of Composition and Theory at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music in Houston, where he has taught since 1996, and he serves as one of the artistic directors of Musiqa, a Houston-based contemporary chamber ensemble.

2014–2015 Commissions


Jiri GemrotString Quartet No. 2(b. 1957 in Prague)

Sponsored by Joan JacobsonIf you Google Jiri Gemrot, you’ll probably find him first identified as a radio and record producer. But Arizona Friends of Chamber Music audiences know him well as a composer, after having heard close to half a dozen of his compositions over the years, several of them AFCM commissions. It was composition that Gemrot studied in the 1970s at the Prague Conservatory and Prague Academy of Arts, and he has written music especially for such notable ensembles as the Pražák Quartet and the Czech Nonet. But his day jobs have been serving as a music director for Czechoslovak Radio since shortly after he completed his studies, record editor in the Panton Publishing House since 1986, and director in chief at Prague’s Czech Radio since 1990.

As a composer, Gemrot says, his inventive faculties are best suited to the chamber genres, although he has also written extensively for orchestra. He is determined to bridge the gap between composer and audience with a communicative approach that, while forward-thrusting, is usually quite tuneful, and he aims to fuse styles uniting past and present. He takes several past composers as his models: Prokofiev as a master of new, intelligible melodies; Martinu° who managed to ward off atonal proce-dures and found his own original tonality; as well as Dvorák, Janácek, and Britten. Besides all this, it is not rare for Gemrot to pose philosophical and artistic questions in his music; his scores have dealt with such subjects as original human purity, how ideals undergo change, the conflict of good and evil, and nothing less than a nature-soul- death trilogy.



Lowell LiebermannTrio for Piano, Clarinet and Viola(b. 1961 in New York City)

Sponsored by Joyce and David CornellDuring his four-year term as composer in residence with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Lowell Liebermann drew the ire of a prominent critic for writing music that was too accessible. This has never seemed a problem to Liebermann’s audiences or for musicians—flutists, in particular (including James Galway), have embraced the composer for his lyrical and idiomatic writing for their instrument. But Liebermann is by no means a one-instrument man. He has written in all genres, and his piano suite Gargoyles has been recorded no fewer than fifteen times; it was performed for AFCM by Joyce Yang in 2010.

A more sympathetic critic, writing for the Wall Street Journal, described one Liebermann work as “balancing bravura and a wealth of attractive musical ideas to create a score that invites repeated listening.” Liebermann’s Grammy-nominated Second Piano Concerto has been hailed by several leading critics as among the best of the 20th century. Indeed, Liebermann knows the piano well, having made his Carnegie Recital Hall debut at age 15 playing his own Piano Sonata No. 1, and continuing to perform keyboard works of his own and of other composers to this day.

In the realm of chamber music, Liebermann has composed four string quartets (the two most recent for the Ying and Orion quartets); four cello sonatas; three piano trios (the third commissioned by AFCM and premiered by Trio Solisti at an Evening Series concert in 2013); sonatas for flute, violin, viola, and flute and harp; and works for many other combinations.

Liebermann holds bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from Juilliard, and his many honors include the $40,000 Virgil Thomson Award in May 2014.



Nikita MndoyantsPiano Quintet November 4, 2015

Sponsored by Dan Leach

Heather SchmidtDuo for Cello and Piano Festival 2016

Sponsored by Robert and Ursula Garrett, Jean-Paul Bierny and Chris Tanz, and Drs. John and Helen Schaefer

Julia WolfeCello Quintet Festival 2016

Sponsored by a European consortium (members still being finalized) and AFCM

Dmitri TymoczkoFestival 2017

Sponsored by Walter Swap

Upcoming Commissions


You can make a difference. Excellent donor recognition and naming opportunities.

Transitional Housing for The Homeless needs $250,000 to push its Capital Campaign over $5,000,000

To donate: Make checks payable to Amity/Dragonfly and mail to P.O. Box 2389, Tucson, AZ 85702 Donate online with a credit card at Dragonflyvillage.org. Visit Dragonfly Gallery and donate in person at 146 E. Broadway, Tucson, AZ 85701. Call 628-3164

-30 Units total with 5 floor plans -Utilities included -Tanque Verde School District -Transportation to bus lines -Will accept housing vouchers

and other subsidies Optional community center


Youth Concert at the Winter Chamber Music FestivalDuring the Winter Chamber Music Festival, a Youth Concert is presented to 500 local students, without charge, at the Leo Rich Theater. At the concert, world-class festival musicians present a program of music and commentary designed to be particularly appealing to a young audience. Many of these students have never been exposed to classical music, and most have never been to a professional classical music performance. Yet every year, the young audience receives these concerts with great joy and enthusiasm.

Master ClassesFive times a year, musicians performing for the AFCM Winter Chamber Music Festival and the Piano & Friends series present master classes— essentially a public music lesson for a gifted student from an expert performer, given before an audience of fellow musicians and interested spectators. These are free for our Tucson students and open to the public. Promising young musicians from our neighborhoods and students from the University of Arizona are given the opportunity to perform before an audience and then receive instant on-stage coaching from a famous visiting musician. Such coaching has an immediate effect on the quality of the student’s performance and is very enlightening and inspiring for the audience members.

Educational Outreach Program

Many young people have yet to experience the powerful effect that classical music can have on their lives. In fact, most people in the world will never hear a musical masterpiece, much less

a live performance by acclaimed musicians. We are fortunate to have repeated opportunities to experience such fulfilling and mind-expanding events.

Providing musical experiences for both adults and children often requires more than just making performances available at the Leo Rich Theater. Sometimes an encouraging hand is required

to awaken people to the rewards of classical music. AFCM is serious about its commitment to the young people of Tucson and has developed a significant Educational Outreach Program,

which consists of three active parts:


Music in the SchoolsDr. Kim Hayashi, Tucson pianist, accompanist, and educator, arranges for professional ensembles to give 15–18 performances a year in six to eight schools. The program reaches 1500–2000 students.

Every year Dr. Hayashi organizes musicians to play for concerts in Tucson area schools. His special focus is to reach schools that are under-served. Student volunteers from the Hartwick College music program come to Tucson and give several concerts, while additional performances are played by ensembles from the Tucson Symphony Orches-tra and the University of Arizona School of Music. Each of the concerts is interactive, with talks on the history of the piece and composer, followed by questions and answers. As at the Festival Youth Concert, most of the students have never heard any classical or chamber music and are riveted throughout the presentation. The students are always wildly enthusiastic, and teachers call Kim begging him to return the following year.

Adopt a SchoolThe opportunities that Kim Hayashi is providing—to hear and experience chamber music in Tucson area schools—are stunning, yet few in our audience seem to know about the program and almost no one is involved. Now, AFCM is seeking to expand Music in the Schools, gathering all these opportunities under one banner: ADOPT A SCHOOL. By adopting a school ($1,000), your support will help us bring this exciting program to more children. Sponsors will be invited to the concerts at the school and recognized in the AFCM program throughout the year. Your new role as adoptive parents at your school will be important to “the kids” and to you.



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Arizona Friends of Chamber Music 2014–2015 Season

Contents of Book One

2 Wednesday, October 29, 2014, at 7:30 pm Hagen Quartet

6 Wednesday, November 5, 2014, at 7:30 pm Morgenstern Piano Trio 9 Thursday, November 6, 2014, at 3:00 pm Morgenstern Piano Trio 12 Sunday, November 9, 2014, at 3:00 pm Behzod Abduraimov, piano 16 AFCM Donors

Please turn off cell phones and electronic signals on watches and pagers.

Taking photographs or making recordings is prohibited during performances.

Steinway Piano is the official piano of AFCM

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Hagen Quartet

Lukas Hagen, violin Rainer Schmidt, violin Veronika Hagen, viola Clemens Hagen, cello

Arts Management Group, Inc. 130 West 57th Street New York, NY 10019 Hagen Quartet

Performing at our concerts for the first time, the world-renowned Hagen Quartet comes to us with over three decades of superb music-making. The group’s concert repertoire features attractive and intelligently arranged programs embracing the entire history of the string quartet, from its pre-Haydn beginnings right through to Kurtág. Of a recent recording, FonoForum writes, “The richness of colors and emotions is spellbinding.” Founded by four siblings, the group has maintained the same membership, with the sole exception of the second violin.

Wednesday October 29, 2014 7:30 pm

Evening Series 67th Season


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PROGRAM

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)

Quartet in G Major, K. 387

Allegro vivace assai Menuetto: Allegretto Andante cantabile Molto allegro

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Quartet in D Major (Hoffmeister), K. 499

Allegretto Menuetto: Allegretto Adagio Allegro

INTERMISSION

Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)

Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 67

Vivace Andante Agitato (Allegretto non troppo) Poco allegretto con variazioni

This evening’s concert is sponsored by the generous contribution of Drs. John and Helen Schaefer.

Program Notes

AFTER THEIR FIRST meeting in 1781, Mozart and Haydn frequently performed together at quartet parties, informal musical evenings hosted by fellow composers for the purpose of trying out each other’s new works. On several of these occasions Mozart closely examined Haydn’s Opus 33 quartet scores (1781), six provocative works described by their composer as “written in a new, very special manner.” Greatly impressed, Mozart began to rethink his own methods of quartet composition. Whereas in his earlier quartets Mozart had composed by recasting successions of singing melodies, most of which were scored for first violin, he now followed Haydn’s practice of “thematic elaboration”—a process by which the music develops through the manipulation of short motifs derived from subjects heard at the begin-ning of the movement. The first violin no longer dominates, for the motifs are distributed through-out the four voices, as is heard in the Haydn quartets. The resulting set of six quartets was dedicated to Haydn, who thought they were a great success. After hearing the first three of the new quartets, Haydn proclaimed to Mozart’s father Leopold: “Before God and as an honest man, I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name.”

The four diverse movements of K. 387, the first of the “Haydn” Quartets, are unified by two recurring gestures that are first heard in its opening four measures: the abrupt alternation of piano and forte to achieve dramatic contrast; and the weaving of chromatic (half step) scale fragments into the melodic line to create subtle changes of mood. The three themes of the Menuetto (G major with a contrasting G minor Trio section) are not merely repeated, as is customary in this generally easygo-ing movement, but are developed in classical sonata form so that the movement achieves weight and significance. The Andante cantabile move-ment (C major) also develops three themes, each explored through an outpouring of melody that is alternately intense and serene. The ingenious finale (G major) combines fugal writing (which Mozart’s wife Constanze admired) with homophonic passages within a classical sonata framework.


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The first fugato is based on a four-note motif that Mozart later used in the last movement of the “Jupiter” Symphony.

MOZART’S FINAL TEN STRING quartets are considered his greatest achievements in the form. The first six were composed in emulation of Joseph Haydn, whose own quartets had brought Mozart back to the medium, and the final three, known as the “Prussian” Quartets, were written to please Friedrich Wilhelm II, the cello-playing King of Prussia. Mozart departed from the general eigh-teenth-century custom of composing quartets in groups with K. 499 (1786). He subtitled the quartet “Hoffmeister” to honor his friend and publisher Franz Anton Hoffmeister, but it is not known if he wrote the work to fill a commission, to repay a debt, or simply as a gesture of appreciation. Compared to his nine other late quartets, the “Hoffmeister” Quartet is a more personal exploration of sensu-ously beautiful texture and harmony.

Although the Allegretto opens with a buoyant theme that promises light entertainment, ease is only on the surface of this richly complex move-ment. Drama increases with its three subsequent motifs, developed through contrapuntal dialogues between the instruments and strong contrasts of dynamics and texture.

The songful Menuetto achieves impact through its dense texture, expressive chromaticism, and overall loud dynamic level. The softer Trio (D minor) is somber despite its energetic triplet figures. A repeat of the Menuetto concludes the movement.

The expressive weight of the quartet falls in the expansive Adagio, a supremely balanced move-ment that unfolds like a succession of glorious arias. Opening in G major, the harmony modulates to remote tonalities in the central section, colored by poignant chromaticism.

The brightly virtuoso finale, in sonata form, begins with fragmented statements of a whimsical motif that merge into a full line as all the instruments enter. The abrupt rests, perhaps homage to the surprise-loving Haydn, contribute an element of humor. The violins introduce the complementary second theme, and the cello brings in a third idea, a rising line of staccato triplets that echoes the opening motif. A brief development leads to a concise recapitulation and coda.

TO HIS ADORING VIENNESE audiences Brahms stood as Beethoven’s heir, an honor that the relentlessly self-critical Johannes considered a burden: “One will never know how it feels to have the tramp of a giant like Beethoven behind him,” he wrote. Reluctant to have his own symphonies and string quartets compared to Beethoven’s undis-puted masterpieces, Brahms created works in these forms with the utmost deliberation. Brahms produced only three string quartets over the course of his career, but it is thought that he destroyed at least twenty quartets in various stages of develop-ment. Although each of the surviving quartets was published within a two-year period (1874–75), Brahms had refined and polished their movements for over two decades. The first two of the set were dedicated to his physician friend Theodor Billroth since, as he explained in a letter, “he needed a doctor for their difficult birth.”

Brahms completed Opus 67, the third and final quartet of the set, during the last stages of compos-ing his First Symphony (a fourteen-year project). Possibly a welcome respite from these ardors, the quartet strikes a joyous spirit at the outset—the opening melody suggests a hunting fanfare, which Viennese sportsmen would have heard in the same horn key of B-flat. “The Hunt” has become a popular nickname for this quartet, which Brahms initially described as a “trifle” but later admitted was the favorite of his string quartets.


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The exuberant Allegro derives much of its energy from the juxtaposition of differing rhythms and unexpected accents. Its three contrasting themes are developed in sonata form; a brilliant coda based on the hunting theme concludes the movement. The Andante (F major) is cast in three-part song form. At its center, the serene opening melody is interrupted by emphatic, declamatory chords and terse rhythms. After a ritardando, the cello brings a return of the opening idea in a passage marked “sweet and graceful.” Subtle syncopations energize the tranquil conclusion.

Brahms described the D minor Agitato (enigmati-cally notated “moderately allegro but not too much”) as “the most tender and most impassioned movement I have ever written.” A complex inter-mezzo, the movement begins with all strings muted except the viola, which urgently carries the melodic weight. A central trio section (A minor) offers a flowing contrast. The opening material returns, and the movement concludes with a pianissimo coda.

The finale (B-flat major) offers eight variations on a folk-like theme. After an excursion into the challenging and remote key of G-flat major (six flats), the hunt theme developed in the first movement returns at variation seven. A soft and sinuous passage in B-flat minor leads to an assertive coda (B-flat major) that combines the movement’s opening theme with the hunt motif.

Notes by Nancy Monsman

“Before God and as an honest man, I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name.” — JOSEPH HAYDN TO LEOPOLD MOZART


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Morgenstern Piano Trio

Jonathan Aner, piano Stefan Hempel, violin Emanuel Wehse, cello

Marianne Schmocker Artists 25 Madison Street Huntington, NY 11743

This evening's concert is partially sponsored by the generous contribution of Jean-Paul Bierny and Chris Tanz.

Morgenstern Trio Named for the popular German poet Christian Morgenstern on the 90th anniversary of his death, the Morgenstern Trio won the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Inter-national Trio Award, the premier prize for piano trio, in January 2010. We heard them shortly afterward, and AFCM is pleased to welcome them back with concerts that include the world premiere of a work by Pierre Jalbert. “The group displayed a unanimity, polished technique, and musical imagination that I thought had vanished from the scene with the demise of the Beaux Arts Trio.” (Washington Post)

Wednesday November 5, 2014 7:30 pm

Evening Series 67th Season


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PROGRAM

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)

Variations on “Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu” Op. 121a

Introduzione: Adagio assai Tema con variazione: Allegretto

Pierre Jalbert (b. 1967)

Piano Trio No. 2 (World Premiere)

Mysterious, nocturnal, desolate Agitated, relentless

INTERMISSION

Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)

Piano Trio in A Minor

Modéré Pantoum: Assez vif Passacaille: Très large Final: Animé

Commissioned by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music for the Morgenstern Trio. Sponsored by Boyer Rickel, in memory of his parents, Harry and Louise Rickel.

Program Notes

THE FINAL PIANO TRIO that Beethoven published during his lifetime, his set of eleven variations on “Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu” (I am the Tailor Kakadu) were most probably written twenty years before their first printing date of 1824. Beethoven borrowed its charming theme from a fashionable light opera, The Sisters of Prague, by Wenzel Müller. A slow introduction in G minor, made portentous by recurring chromaticisms, precedes the first statement of the theme, a bouncy G major tune adaptable to Beethoven’s inventive variation treatments. In the first three variations each instrument announces itself separately: the solo piano performs the first variation, the violin takes over the second, and the cello dominates the third. The score then alternates between movements of technical display, as in the piano tour de force of Variation VI, and moments of graceful invention, as the duet for violin and cello heard in Variation VII. Variation IX, Adagio espressivo (G minor), returns to the poignant mood of the slow introduc-tion. The rapid Variation X, a presto movement that shifts from G major to G minor, prepares the brilliant finale. Here the theme is again heard in its original form, and the movement concludes with a display of virtuosity.

PIERRE JALBERT’S COMPOSITIONS have been performed throughout the United States and abroad, including two of his orchestral works in Carnegie Hall. He has been commissioned and performed by violinist Midori, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Houston Symphony, and the Budapest Symphony, among many others. From 1999–2002 he served as composer-in-resi-dence with the California Symphony and from 2002–2005 with the Los Angeles Chamber Orches-tra. He is currently Professor of Composition and Theory at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music in Houston.


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He writes of his Piano Trio No. 2: “My second piano trio was written for the Morgenstern Trio for the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music. The work is in two movements of contrasting character. A couple of ideas served as starting points for each move-ment: the first was the thought of a desert land-scape at night, desolate and calm; the second came from an incident driving home in the city of Houston. I was driving through downtown late at night on an elevated highway, which runs through the center of town. There were just enough cars on the road to feel like it was busy, but there were no traffic jams so everyone was going at a high rate of speed, some cars weaving in and out of lanes. Coming around a large curve, I looked over at the downtown skyline as I passed very near the buildings. Since this was an elevated highway, I was looking at the fourth or fifth floors of most build-ings, and as I glanced at the buildings, they seemed to be going by in slow motion, even though our cars were moving at very high speed. This provided the impetus for the second movement. The music is not meant to be pictorial — it is abstract music. These were simply starting points, and the music itself eventually developed on its own terms.

“The first movement, marked mysterious, noctur-nal, and desolate, begins with high, ethereal harmonics in the strings, slowly building a long line. The movement eventually builds and acceler-ates directly into a scherzo-like Presto agitato section, only to dissipate back into the opening materials.

"The second movement, marked agitated and relentless, contains frenetic motion, only occa-sionally interrupted by slower, non-synchronized segments of music. The fast-pulsed motion always returns, and after several segments where each instrument takes on the main role, the instruments join together, racing to the end."

IN FEBRUARY 1914 RAVEL left Paris to be near his mother in St. Jean-de-Luz, a small Basque village near the Spanish border. He planned to work on two projects — a piano concerto incorporating Basque themes and a piano trio — but abandoned plans for the concerto and incorporated its

themes, which he described as “Basque in color,” into the trio’s first movement.

Composition proceeded well until the outbreak of World War I, which coincided with initial work on the finale. Ravel was eager to serve in the military, and in fact later became an ambulance driver for the French army. Yet he was reluctant to leave his aged mother. He wrote to a friend: “If you only knew how I am suffering. If I leave my poor old mother, it will surely kill her. But so as not to think of this, I am working with the sureness and lucidity of a madman.” Because of his feverish pace, the trio was soon completed. With its brilliant writing, wide range of instrumental color, and refined elegance, the Piano Trio in A Minor is considered to be one of Ravel’s finest compositions.

The first movement explores Spanish rhythms and melodies with French gracefulness. Its two themes are based on a popular Basque folk dance with a persistent 3-2-3 rhythm. After a brief development, the movement concludes as a fragment of the opening theme fades into a rhythmic outline tapped in the piano’s low register.

Ravel entitled the scherzo movement “Pantoum,” a Malay poetic form in which the second and fourth lines of one stanza become the first and third of the next. Its rapid rhythms, pizzicati, and harmonics create a dazzling effect. In the middle section the strings continue their brilliant passagework in a fast meter while the piano articulates contrasting chorale-like phrases in 4/2 time.

The clear melodic contours, distinct rhythms, and lucid structure of the third movement, a passaca-glia, suggest Ravel’s classical orientation. Ten variations of its opening theme are arranged in arch form. The statements begin quietly and gradually gain fervor, then calm as the movement approaches its conclusion.

The energetic Animé, following without pause, opens with fortissimo repeated violin arpeggios. The primary theme, related to the principal theme of the first movement, is heard in the piano. Virtuosic trills, arpeggios, and tremolos propel the movement toward its exhilarating conclusion on a high A major chord.



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Morgenstern Piano Trio

Jonathan Aner, piano Stefan Hempel, violin Emanuel Wehse, cello

Marianne Schmocker Artists 25 Madison Street Huntington, NY 11743

PROGRAM

Germaine Tailleferre (1892–1983)

Piano Trio

Allegro animato Allegro vivaceModerato Très animé

Pierre Jalbert (b. 1967)

Piano Trio No. 2 (World Premiere)

Mysterious, nocturnal, desolate Agitated, relentless

INTERMISSION

Bedrich Smetana (1824–1884)

Piano Trio in G Minor, Op. 15

Moderato assai Allegro, ma non agitato Finale: Presto

Commissioned by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music for the Morgenstern Trio. Sponsored by Boyer Rickel, in memory of his parents, Harry and Louise Rickel.

Thursday November 6, 2014 3:00 pm

Thursday Matinée 67th Season


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Program Notes

GERMAINE TAILLEFERRE IS BEST KNOWN as the sole female member of Les Six, a group of for-ward-thinking young composers that flourished in Paris after World War I. Seeking to rejuvenate a musical establishment they perceived as stagnant and boring, these composers sought inspiration from the culturally subversive Erik Satie and his avant-garde literary friend Jean Cocteau. Taille-ferre’s ineffable early works, composed while studying at the Paris Conservatory, attracted the attention of Francis Poulenc and Darius Milhaud. They invited her to join their initial group Les Nouveaux Jeunes (The New Young Ones), which after 1926 became known as Les Six, and Tailleferre was soon immersed in the rarified artist communi-ties of Montmartre and Montparnasse. The six composers were united for a brief time by their aversion to romanticism and impressionism, their emphasis on clarity and simplicity of expression, and their avoidance of pretense. Since the group did not have access to large ensembles, they created much chamber music for various combinations of instruments. Despite their often daring harmonic experiments and free handling of contrapuntal lines, the group also believed in “melody that comes from the heart,” which spokesperson Darius Milhaud insisted was the basis of music. Thus much of their repertoire reveals a delicate lyricism that somewhat ironically indicates reverence for France’s great melodists of the not-so-recent past.

Unfortunately, Tailleferre has been slow to gain recognition despite a compositional career that spanned six decades. The majority of her published work has appeared posthumously. An unassuming woman, she wrote: “I write music because it amuses me. It’s not great music, I know, but it’s gay, lighthearted music, which is sometimes compared with the minor masters of the eighteenth century. That makes me proud.”

Tailleferre wrote her first version of the Piano Trio in 1916–17 during her student days. She substantial-ly reworked the trio in 1978, at which time she added the second Allegro vivace movement and the finale, Très animé. A gracefully nuanced work, the trio suggests the lyric influence of Fauré and the modernist harmonic structures of Ravel. Animated passagework in all instruments decorates her melodic lines, often propelled by fanciful ara-besques and piquant figuration. The richly romantic sonorities of the Moderato movement provide moments of calm in this energetic and playful work.

PIERRE JALBERT’S COMPOSITIONS have been performed throughout the United States and abroad, including two of his orchestral works in Carnegie Hall. He has been commissioned and performed by violinist Midori, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Houston Symphony, and the Budapest Symphony, among many others. From 1999–2002 he served as composer-in-resi-dence with the California Symphony and from 2002–2005 with the Los Angeles Chamber Orches-tra. He is currently Professor of Composition and Theory at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music in Houston.

He writes of his Piano Trio No. 2: “My second piano trio was written for the Morgenstern Trio for the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music. The work is in two movements of contrasting character. A couple of ideas served as starting points for each move-ment: the first was the thought of a desert land-scape at night, desolate and calm; the second came from an incident driving home in the city of Houston. I was driving through downtown late at night on an elevated highway, which runs through the center of town. There were just enough cars on the road to feel like it was busy, but there were no traffic jams so everyone was going at a high rate of speed, some cars weaving in and out of lanes. Coming around a large curve, I looked over at the downtown skyline as I passed very near the buildings. Since this was an elevated highway, I was looking at the fourth or fifth floors of most build-ings, and as I glanced at the buildings, they seemed to be going by in slow motion, even though our cars were moving at very high speed. This provided the


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impetus for the second movement. The music is not meant to be pictorial — it is abstract music. These were simply starting points, and the music itself eventually developed on its own terms.

“The first movement, marked mysterious, nocturnal, and desolate, begins with high, ethereal harmonics in the strings, slowly building a long line. The movement eventually builds and accelerates directly into a scherzo-like Presto agitato section, only to dissipate back into the opening materials.

"The second movement, marked agitated and relentless, contains frenetic motion, only occa-sionally interrupted by slower, non-synchronized segments of music. The fast-pulsed motion always returns, and after several segments where each instrument takes on the main role, the instruments join together, racing to the end."

ALWAYS STRONGLY AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL in his approach to composition, Czech composer Bed ich Smetana found inspiration for several of his most important works in the most tragic events of his life. Within a two-year period Smetana had lost three of his young daughters to childhood diseases, primarily scarlet fever. His grief over the death of his eldest, Bed iska, was especially profound. He wrote: “The loss of my eldest daugh-ter, an extraordinarily gifted child, inspired me to compose my chamber work in 1855. In the winter of the same year the Trio was performed publicly in Prague with poor success. The critics condemned it harshly, but a year later we performed it in our home for Liszt, who embraced me and expressed his congratulations to my wife.”

Smetana’s grief over his loss pervades the score. The first movement opens with a sorrowful violin solo and continuously develops a sense of melan-choly through numerous extensive descents of the fifth. The harmony, searchingly chromatic, is developed within a richly ornamental texture that suggests the influence of Franz Liszt. After a calm interlude in which the daughter is remembered in life, the powerful opening material returns.

In the second movement Smetana recalls his daughter’s playfulness. Here the principal theme is a polka melody that has been derived from the plaintive opening material. Twice it is interrupted by extensive interludes, the first pastoral and the second heroic.

The restless, defiant finale is a rondo in which the main theme, borrowed from his earlier G minor violin sonata, moves with turbulent cross-rhythms that suggest the irregular heartbeats of the dying child. Warmly lyrical interludes are interspersed. Near the end of the movement the mode changes from G minor to G major, and a serene mood prevails—a suggestion that the composer has finally accepted fate.


“The loss of my eldest daughter, an extraordinarily gifted child, inspired me to compose my chamber work in 1855.” — BEDRICH SMETANA


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Behzod Abduraimov, piano

HarrisonParrott Artist and Project Management 5-6 Albion Court Albion Place London W6 0QT United Kingdom

This afternoon’s concert is sponsored by the generous contributions of Fred and Diana Chaffee, and Jean-Paul Bierny and Chris Tanz. Mr. Abduraimov will give a master class on Saturday, November 8, 2014, at 3:00 pm, in the Leo Rich Theater.

Behzod Abduraimov Born in Tashkent in 1990, Behzod Abduraimov began to play the piano at the age of five. He achieved a sensational victory at eighteen in the 2009 London International Piano Competition, winning First Prize with his thrilling performance of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3. “His recital at the Queen Elizabeth Hall was the venue’s best of the year.” (International Piano)

Sunday November 9, 2014 3:00 pm

Piano & Friends 20th Season


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PROGRAM

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1847)

Ballade No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 23

Ballade No. 2 in F Major, Op. 38

Ballade No. 3 in A-flat Major, Op. 47

Ballade No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 52

INTERMISSION

Claude Debussy (1862–1918)

Children’s Corner

Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum Jimbo’s Lullaby Serenade of the Doll The Snow is Dancing The Little Shepherd Golliwogg’s Cake-walk

Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)

Gaspard de la nuit

Ondine Le gibet Scarbo

Program Notes

THE TERM “BALLAD” HAS CLEAR precedents in poetry as well as opera and art song, where it refers to a text that tells a story. For instrumental music, the connection is less clear, but in the case of Chopin, an acquaintance with the Polish poet, Adam Mickiewicz, may have been an influence on his works with this title. Mickiewicz was Chopin’s contemporary and countryman, and he was well aware of the literary tradition. In the preface to his Ballads and Romances (1822), he observed: “The British ballad is a tale based on the events of common life or on the annals of chivalry; it is usually enlivened by marvels from the romantic world; it is sung in a melancholy tone; it is dignified in style, simple and natural in expression.” Such aspects of mood and style can be detected in Chopin’s ballades, although, with the exception noted below, no narrative has ever been attached to them with certainty.

Ballade No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 23 (1836) opens with a gesture unique to these works, an octave passage that melodically has no relation to the themes that follow and that suggests a harmony oblique to the key. The phrase rises and falls, as if a master storyteller is saying, “Now I am about to begin!” But if the opening is distinct, the ending has much in common with Chopin’s other ballades, in which the work comes to a striking conclusion, similar to the narrative climax that is found in much of the poetry. For Ballade No. 2 in F Major, Op. 38 (1840), there is a tradition that it was inspired by Mick-iewicz’s ballad Switez. The tale begins in moonlight by the lake of the title and tells the story of “how the maidens of a Polish village were besieged by Russian soldiers.” As Chopin scholar Jim Samson continues: “They pray that they might be swal-lowed by the earth, and when their wish is granted they are transformed into beautiful flowers which adorn the site of the village.” Here Chopin’s themes are wildly contrasted, from the peaceful siciliano of the opening to the furiously rushing figure that alternates with it, easily matched to the characters in the poem.


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Chopin found a much gentler approach for his Ballade No. 3 in A-flat Major, Op. 47 (1841). Here the change of mood is more gradual, growing in intensity until the climax of the work arrives with the transformation of the opening theme, provid-ing a grand finale. More complex in overall content, the Ballade No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 52 (1842), tells a different story. We feel as if we have wandered in after the narrator has begun, while throughout, the music suggests a dizzying array of images. Finally Chopin brings the piece to a swirling conclusion, and in a sense we have come full circle with his works in this genre—a dramatic denouement similar to the first ballade and evoking memories of the sort of climax that only a great storyteller can provide.

MARY GARDEN, THE SINGER who created the role of Mélisande in Debussy’s opera, Pelléas et Mélisande, wrote of the composer: “I honestly don’t know if Debussy ever loved anybody really. He loved his music—and perhaps himself. I think he was wrapped up in his genius. . . . He was a very, very strange man.” It’s true that both of his mar-riages were troubled, but he was devoted to his only child, a daughter, Claude-Emma, born 30 October 1905, and affectionately called Chouchou. It was for her that he composed Children’s Corner (1908), a suite of piano pieces that reflect on various aspects of childhood. But although written from the child’s point of view, they are not necessarily for young children to play—they are too challenging for that. Nevertheless, every aspect of the work is wrapped up in his daughter. The titles are all in English, a nod to her English governess, and the dedication in the score reads “To my dear little Chouchou, with tender excuses from her father for that which follows.”

“Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum” appears to be a reference to a notorious set of instructional piano pieces by Muzio Clementi (the bane of every young piano student), as if Debussy is demonstrating by example that exercises for the fingers do not have to be dull. Even without the title, the opening of “Jimbo’s Lullaby” would suggest that it was about an elephant. It may refer to “Jumbo,” a visitor to Paris from the Sudan in the 1880s, but just as likely to his stuffed counterpart. Debussy also adds a reference to a French lullaby. The doll of the third piece may well be Chinese, given the pentatonic melody used at the beginning and the end. It has also been suggested that Debussy, with his poor English, meant “Serenade for the Doll.” For the depictions of the next pieces, the titles are certainly sufficient — dancing snowflakes and a lonely shepherd playing a pipe. “Golliwog’s Cake-walk” refers to an African-American character (actually, a doll) in the children’s books of Florence Kate Upton. Thus Debussy draws upon ragtime for the outer sections. For the central section, he leaves child-hood behind and indulges himself by quoting (and making fun of ) the opening phrase of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde (marked by Debussy “avec une grande émotion”). The result is suggestive of the humor which runs throughout Children’s Corner. When Debussy asked the pianist who gave the premiere how the audience reacted, he responded, “They laughed.” For that, Debussy was profoundly grateful.


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GASPARD DE LA NUIT (1908) was inspired by a book of poetry of the same name by Aloysius Bertrand (1807–1841), a writer who was himself inspired by the ghostly imaginings of E. T. A. Hoffmann, and who in turn inspired a legion of French writers who followed, including Hugo and Baudelaire. Bertrand’s subtitle for his book was “Fantasies in the Style of Rembrandt and Callot,” and his imagery is haunting in the best manner of Edgar Allan Poe. Each of Ravel’s three pieces takes the name of one of Bertrand’s poems, and the music deftly illustrates aspects of the text in the best Impressionistic manner. In terms of piano style, whereas Debussy’s writing is sometimes likened to a piano “without hammers,” Ravel’s is very indebted to Liszt. He indicated this clearly when he referred to Gaspard de la nuit as “three romantic poems of transcendental virtuosity,” “transcen-dental” being the term that Liszt himself used to describe his achievements at the piano. His stated goal was to write a work “more difficult than Balakirev’s Islamey.” In this he succeeded.

“Ondine” is a water nymph. From the first mea-sures Ravel depicts the gentle waves of the ocean and the sprite moving within it. The final bars provide a tremendous display of virtuosity, as Ondine “burst out laughing and vanished in showers.” A stark landscape of “The Gibbet” is the subject of the second piece, “a hanged man . . . on the gallows fork.” The “bell ringing by the walls of a city” is reflected in an octave B-flat in a distinctive rhythm, heard from the first measures. It relent-lessly tolls away throughout the movement, above and below a series of desolate harmonies, and it is all that remains at the close. “Scarbo” is a mysteri-ous dwarf-like creature who comes unbidden in the night. Ravel begins with a series of disconnected motives, suggesting the quiet and stillness of an empty room. At once the dwarf enters, “pirouet-ting on one foot.” Finally he vanishes as mysteri-ously as he entered: “But soon his body would become blue, diaphanous as the wax of a taper; his face would become pale as the wax of a candle end—and suddenly he would be extinguished.”

Notes by Jay Rosenblatt

“I honestly don’t know if Debussy ever loved anybody really. He loved his music—and perhaps himself. I think he was wrapped up in his genius… He was a very, very strange man.” — MARY GARDEN


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$10,000 & above

Jean-Paul Bierny & Chris Tanz Jim Cushing Mrs. Ghislaine Polak Boyer Rickel

$5,000 – $9,999

Arizona Commission on the Arts Stan Caldwell & Linda Leedberg David & Joyce Cornell Robert & Ursula Garrett Mr. Wesley Green Joan Teer Jacobson Mr. Thomas Polk Drs. John & Helen Schaefer Walter Swap Ms. Carla Zingarelli Rosenlicht

$2,500 – $4,999

Nancy Bissell EOS Foundation Dr. & Mrs. Elliott & Sandy Heiman Dan Leach Tom Lewin Grace McIlvain Mr. Hal Myers Serene Rein Jayant Shah & Minna Mehta Jerry & Kathy Short Randy Spalding Wendy & Elliott Weiss

$1,000 – $2,499

Ms. Nevenka Bierny Celia A. Balfour Ms. Dagmar Cushing Mr. & Mrs. Bryan & Elizabeth Daum Caleb & Elizabeth Deupree Mr. & Mrs. John & Terry Forsythe Ms. Beth Foster Thomas Hanselmann Drs. John Hildebrand & Gail Burd Claire B. Norton Fund Mr. & Mrs. Charles M. Peters Herschel & Jill Rosenzweig Mr. & Mrs. John Rupley Si & Eleanor Schorr Mrs. Betsy Zukoski

$500 – $999

Mr. & Mrs. Frank & Betsy Babb Ms. Selma Bornstein Richard & Galina De Roeck Raul & Isabel Delgado Mr. Richard E. Firth Leonid Friedlander Milton Francis Harold Fromm Drs. J. D. & Margot Garcia Elizabeth Giles Dr. Marilyn Heins Ms. Ruth B. Helm Helen & Jerry Hirsch Mr. & Mrs. Sidney Hirsh Paul & Marianne Kaestle Mr. I. Michael Kasser Keith Kumm & Sandy Pharo Dr. & Mrs. Wayne Magee Mr. Eddy Muka Mr. John Raitt Reid & Linda Schindler Paul A. St. John & Leslie Tolbert Ted & Shirley Taubeneck George Timson John Wahl & Mary Lou Forier

$250 – $499

Mr. Robert Alpaugh Ms. Anna Anderson Mr. & Mrs. Dennis &

Anna Bourret Mr. & Mrs. Tim & Diane Bowden Cynthia & Lee J. Cannon James & Frances Dauber Mr. Philip M. Davis Bob Foster Mr. Brad Holland Mr. & Mrs. Janet & Joe Hollander Arthur & Judy Kidder Dr. & Mrs. Henry Koffler Dr. Daniela Lax Dr. Alan Levenson &

Rachel Goldwyn Ms. Mary Lonsdale Baker Harry Nungesser Mr. Herbert Ploch Mr. Teresa Pusser Dr. Elaine Rousseau Dr. & Mrs. Richard Sanderson Susan S. Small Mr. Steven Strong Ms. Pamela Sutherland Mr. & Mrs. Lester &

Carol Welborn Jan Wezelman & David Bartlett Mr. & Mrs. John & Helen Wilcox Mr. James Wittenberg Mrs. Peggy Wolf

AFCM Donors


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$100 – $249

Helmut Abt Thomas & Susan Aceto Mr. & Mrs. Mark & Jan Barman Mrs. Margaret Bashkin Dr. Nathaniel Bloomfield Gary Blumenshine Ms. Joyce Bolinger Ms. Laurie Camm William & Barbara Carpenter James Cassady Shirley Chann Nancy Cook Phyllis Cutcher Ms. Ruth Davis Ms. C. Jane Decker Anne Denny Marilyn & John Dettloff Mr. Martin Diamond Stephen Doctoroff Mr. & Mrs. John & Mary Enemark Phillip & Nancy Fahringer Dr. & Mrs. Lionel & Karen Faitelson Carol & Peter Feistmann Mr. & Mrs. James & Ruth Friedman Mr. Tommy Friedmann Dr. & Mrs. Gerald & Barbara Goldberg Mr. & Mrs. Marvin & Carol Goldberg Mr. Ben Golden Ms. Rachael Goldwyn Ms. Kathryn Gordon Ms. Marilyn Halonen Ms. Clare Hamlet Mr. Ted & Jeanne Hasbrook Dr. & Mrs. M.K. Haynes James Hays Evan & Lydia Hersh Mary Lou Hutchins Dr. David Johnson

Ms. Lee L. Kane Carl Kanun Barbara Katz Boris & Billie Kozolchyk Keith & Adrienne Lehrer Mr. & Mrs. Amy & Malcolm Levin Ms. Mary Ellen Lewis Mr. Robert Lupp Dr. Dhira Mahoney Ms. Ana Mantilla Dr. & Mrs. Frank Marcus Mrs. Marjory Margulies Mr. & Mrs. Larry & Rowena G. Matthews Mr. & Mrs. Warren & Felicia May Mr. William McCallum Ms. Sally McGreevy-Gorman Joan Mctarnahan Ms. Martha Mecom Mr. Lawrence & Nancy Morgan Ms. Gisele Nelson David & Cookie Pashkow Drs. Lynn Nadel & Mary Peterson Donn Poll Mr. & Mrs. Jim & Debbie Quirk Ms. Lynn Ratener Richard & Harlene Reeves Ms. Kay Richter Jay & Elizabeth Rosenblatt Dror & Lea Sarid Howard & Helen Schneider Dr. Stephen & Janet Seltzer Goldie & Isidore Shapiro Barbara Silvian Ms. Donna Somma Ms. Jennalyn Tellman

Carl Tomizuka & Sheila Tobias Mr. Stokes Tolbert Dr. & Mrs. Joseph Tolliver Ms. Ellen Trevors Ms. Barbara Turton Ms. Karla Van Drunen Littoy Mr. Clague Van Slyke III Ms. Iris C. Veomett Mrs. Rudolf von Glinski Ms. Gail Wahl Ms. Patricia Wendel Sam & Grace Young Stephen Zegura Ms. Carol Zuckert


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Gifts in honor of

JEAN-PAUL BIERNYby William & Bonnie Carpenter by Raul & Isabel Delgado by Joe & Janet Hollander by Barbara Katz by Dan Leach by Sam & Grace Young

ERIC HOLTANby Raul & Isabel Delgado

ANNE NARDby her daughter, Linda Leedberg

PETER REJTOby Stefanie Fife

ALLAN & DIANE TRACTENBERGby Mark Barmann

Gifts in memory of

DR. MURRAY BORNSTEINby Selma Bornstein

CLIFFORD & WENDY CROOKERby Beth Foster

MIKE CUSANOVICHby Marilyn Halonen

RUDOLF VON GLINSKIby Elfriede von Glinski

KATHY KAESTLEby Paul & Marianne Kaestle

PATTE LAZARUSby Jean-Paul Bierny & Chris Tanz by Nancy Bissell by Dagmar Cushing by Beth Foster by Joan Jacobson by Randy Spalding by Joseph Tolliver

RHODA LEWINby Tom Lewin

DANA NELSONby Carla Zingarelli Rosenlicht

HARRY & LOUISE RICKELby their son, Boyer Rickel

ALAN ROSENLICHTby his mother, Carla Zingarelli Rosenlicht

NORMAN VAINIOby Marilyn Halonen

This program lists contributions made to the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music from October 1, 2013 through September 30, 2014. The next update will be for donations made from January 1, 2014 through December 31, 2014 and will appear in the program covering our concerts beginning February 1, 2015. Space limita-tions prevent us from listing contributions less than $100. We are grateful, however, for every donation, each of which helps us to secure the future of AFCM.

Please advise us if your name is not listed properly or inadvertently omitted.

TO DONATE, please call our office at 520–577–3769 or e-mail [email protected].

AFCM Donor Tributes


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AFCM 2014–2015 Season

22nd Annual Tucson Winter Chamber Music FestivalMarch 15–22, 2015 Peter Rejto, Artistic Director

Festival Musicians

Bernadene Blaha, piano Katerina Englichová, harp Jiri Gemrot, composer Marie-Catherine Girod, piano Clive Greensmith, cello Bernadette Harvey, piano Bil Jackson, clarinet Lowell Liebermann, composer Joseph Lin, violin Paul Neubauer, viola Nokuthula Ngwenyama, viola Axel Strauss, violinPrazak Quartet

Evening Concert Series67th Season

HAGEN QUARTETWednesday, October 29, 2014 7:30pm

MORGENSTERN PIANO TRIOWednesday, November 5, 2014 7:30pm Thursday, November 6, 2014 3:00pm

PACIFICA QUARTET WITH ANTHONY MCGILLWednesday, December 10, 2014 7:30pm Thursday, December 11, 2014 3:00pm

HERMITAGE PIANO TRIOWednesday, January 21, 2015 7:30pm

AURYN QUARTETWednesday, February 25, 2015 7:30pm

ARTEMIS QUARTETWednesday, April 8, 2015 7:30pm

Piano & Friends20th Season

BEHZOD ABDURAIMOV, PIANOSunday, November 9, 2014 3:00pm

RAVINIA’S STEANS INSTITUTE ON THE ROADSunday, January 18, 2015 3:00pm

STEFAN JACKIW, VIOLINSunday, February 1, 2015 3:00pm

NAREK HAKHNAZARYAN, CELLOSunday, April 12, 2015 3:00pm

Master classes are open to the public on the Saturday preceding our Sunday concerts at 3:00pm


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Sponsor a ConcertJean-Paul Bierny and Chris Tanz have sponsored the most concerts at AFCM. It is their way of offering a gift to the audience. Sharing a sponsored program is a way that members of the audience can participate. Then you both have that personal connection with the music. Sponsor any concert for $5,000 or co-sponsor one for $2,500.

Sponsor a MusicianDo you have (or want to have) a special connection with a musician in one of this season’s ensembles? Perhaps he or she is among the outstanding performers at this year’s Winter Chamber Music Festival. In either case, you can participate in the special honor of sponsoring one of our musicians this year for $1,500.

Adopt a SchoolDo you remember the excitement you felt when you were a child, going to a special school assembly? You may have that feeling of heightened anticipation now on your way to an AFCM concert. You can share that feeling with young, disadvantaged kids in our Tucson schools. This is an experience neither you nor your “adopted” schoolchildren will ever forget. Adopt any school in AFCM’s Music in the Schools program for $1,000.

All sponsorships will be acknowledged in the lobby and from the stage before the concert, and included in the program and on the website.

The Grace of Sponsorship

Jean-Paul Bierny and Chris Tanz, the Royal Couple of Sponsorships

At AFCM, we have the opportunity to share the love of chamber music by supporting the superb concerts that we and our fellow audience members enjoy. There are so many

who have chosen this way to share music. And as we engage in sponsorship, we enter a marvelous new world filled with excitement and generosity. Many of our audience members have

discovered this wonderful way to share. Join them. Everyone is rewarded.


Legacy GivingThe members of the Jean-Paul Bierny Legacy Society are avowed supporters of the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music. Their generosity and foresight of including AFCM in their wills or estate plans have contributed to making AFCM the world-class organization that it is today. Jean-Paul served AFCM for thirty-five years as President, and it was his vision that brought AFCM its current stellar reputation.

Please show your appreciation for his effort and join other lovers of chamber music by leaving a legacy gift. AFCM will be glad to provide you an expert in all aspects of planned giving to work with you and your estate lawyers at your discretion. If you have already made such a provision, we encour-age you to notify us, so that we may welcome you to the Jean-Paul Bierny Society and appropriately acknowledge and honor your generosity.

The Jean-Paul Bierny Legacy Society

Jean-Paul Bierny


LegacyJean-Paul Bierny and

Chris Tanz Nancy Bissell Mr. and Mrs. Nathaniel

Bloomfield Theodore and Celia Brandt Richard E. Firth Judy Kidder Randy Spalding Anonymous

$25,000 and aboveFamily Trust of Lotte Reyersbach Phyllis Cutcher, Trustee of the Frank L. Wadleigh Trust Carol Kramer Arthur Maling Claire B. Norton Fund (held at the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona) Agnes Smith

$10,000 – $24,999Marian Cowle Minnie Kramer Jeane Serrano

Up to $9,999Elmer Courtland Margaret Freundenthal Susan R. Polleys Administrative Trust Frances Reif Edythe Timbers

Legacy – current plans

Dollar amounts – posthumous

For more information on endowment and planned gifts, please contact Bryan Daum, President of AFCM, at [email protected].

Arthur Maling Bequest – $25,000 to AFCMArthur Maling was the president of the family-owned chain of shoe stores founded by his family in the early 1900s. Not satisfied with his full-time job as the CEO of a highly successful, major retailing company, Arthur took to writing mystery novels. He had fourteen published and one, The Rheingold Route, won the coveted Edgar award for the best mystery novel of the year in 1980. A snowbird in Tucson late in his life, he attended the Winter Festival in the 2000s. It apparently made a very positive impression, and we deeply appreciate his generous gift.

Legacy Giving


PROUDLY SUPPORTS THE ARTS IN TUCSON www.PasticheMe.com


The perfect evening! Wonderful Food — Great Companions — Superb MusicOur chamber music concerts are extraordinary and memorable. AFCM wanted everything surrounding them to enhance that experience. To that end, we inaugurated a wonderful new Chamber Music Supper Club last January. The focus was to be on the members of the audience of our Wednesday evening concerts. The format was simple: dinner together followed by the concert. We met with resounding success.

Pastiche restaurant is our home. It is an old favorite, has great food, a marvelous atmosphere, and has been owned for years by Pat and Julie Connors. It is like having dinner at the home of old friends. We are seated together, and the camaraderie between like-minded people flourishes. Each person can select from the full, eclectic menu, and Pastiche delivers speedy service and timely individual bills. The Leo Rich Theater is a short drive from the restaurant. We start at 5:00 pm, and the last of us are out by 6:45. We are never late for the concert!

What makes this dinner special? Nancy Monsman, Jay Rosenblatt, and James Reel. Nancy, musician and artist who writes the program notes for all the concerts, Jay, our equally beloved musicologist and hero from the Humanities Seminars at the Univer-sity of Arizona, and James, Music Director and popular weekday morning announcer on KUAT-FM, the Executive Director of the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra, and an AFCM pre-perfor-mance speaker, have generously agreed to rotate and speak to us for about 10–15 minutes at each of our Supper Club gatherings. They will offer their comments and insights on the evening’s program, and the excitement will rise as we happily anticipate the music that we are about to enjoy. We are delightfully “primed” for the concert.

Please join us. It will give all of us the opportunity to meet new friends and deepen the bonds of existing friendships. Simply call or e-mail for information or a reservation.

The Chamber Music Supper Club

James Reel

Jay Rosenblatt

Nancy Monsman


Gunther Schuller’s String Quartet No. 5, composed in 2013, was commissioned by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music and received its world premiere at our 21st Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival the following year. Every Festival since 2000 has included at least one world premiere and many of them two, and new commissions are scheduled through 2017.

Commission Premiered at 2014 Winter Festival

Gunther Schuller


The Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival cordially invites you

to the historic Arizona Inn

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Experience Chamber Music as it was presented for centuries—a concert of glorious music in an

intimate and elegant setting. Continue your evening of pleasure by sharing your table with the musicians

as they join us for dinner.

6:00 pm – Wine and hors d’oeuvres in the Courtyard7:00 pm – Concert by the Prazak Quartet and the Festival Musicians

8:00 pm – Dinner in the fabulous Tucson Room

Prazak Quartet

Festival Gala Dinner and Concert

For more information and reservations, please call 520-577-3769 or e-mail [email protected]


There are angels in our midst and they come in the form of our volunteers. We offer them a sincere and heartfelt “Thank You!” for their countless hours of work, energy, and expertise. They contribute immeasurably to the success of AFCM, and we could not do without them. Many, many thanks to these dedicated friends!

UshersBarry and Susan AustinPat and Peter HirschmanMarilee MansfieldElaine OrmanBarbara TurtonDiana WarrDeAnna White

Amy Burmeister E-mail lists

Beth Daum Evening concert receptions and Festival team

Kevin Chau Facebook

Beth Foster Lobby posters and Festival team

Bob Foster AFCM Web master

Marie-France Isabelle Festival team

Keith Kumm CD sales desk

Nancy Monsman Program notes

Eddy Muka Festival team

Sandy Pharo CD sales desk

Allan Tractenberg Ad sales director

Diane Tractenberg Festival team

Volunteers


Whether a large floral painting or a small alla prima still life, award-winning Brenda Semanick paints with passion and sensitivity for the subject. To learn more, visit www.brendasemanick.com

Brenda Semanick

THIRD ANNUAL

For more information visit www.tucsondesertsongfestival.org

JANUARY 16 - FEBRUARY 1, 2015

Tamara Mumford

Steven Blier Zach Borichevsky Angela Brower Susan Graham Anthony Dean Gri�ey David Margulis David Adam Moore Rufus Müller

Heidi Grant Murphy Kevin Murphy Simone Osborne Katie Van Kooten Corinne Winters

“The song of sorrow shall resound laughingly in your soul …”

The 2015 Tucson Desert Song Festival explores the exquisite sorrow and de�ant laughter of life and love, with Tamara Mumford and Anthony Dean Gri�ey featured in the rarely performed chamber orchestration of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, Susan Graham singing the neglected Berlioz masterpiece La Mort d’Ophélie, and Katie Van Kooten, Heidi Grant Murphy and Angela Brower presenting the �nal trio from Der Rosenkavalier. All this, as well as the New York Festival of Song and Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute on tour, Corinne Winters singing her �rst Tatiana in Arizona Opera’s Eugene Onegin, plus Carmina Burana and Poulenc’s Gloria!

MARK YOUR CALENDARS FOR 2016: January 22 - February 8 Highlights for 2016 include: A Latin American inspired collaboration of voice, dance & guitar with Ballet Tucson & Tucson Guitar Society, Arizona Opera returns for a second year of astounding opera, Tucson Symphony Orchestra, Tucson Chamber Artists and more compel with even more exciting art song programs starring world-class singers from top opera houses around the world.



OCTOBER 4-5Berlioz Rákóczy March from The Damnation of FaustMozart Piano Concerto No. 21

Sandra Wright Shen, pianoHolst The Planets NOVEMBER 8-9

Guest conductor Gabriele PezoneRossini Overture to L’Italiana in AlgeriPanufnik Concerto for Violin and String Orchestra

Marta Magdalena Lelek, violinSchubert Symphony No. 5

FEBRUARY 20-22 Suppe Light Cavalry OvertureBeethoven Triple Concerto

Melanie Chae, pianoEdwin E. Soo Kim, violin

Zoran Stilin, celloDvorák Symphony No. 8 APRIL 10-12 Michael Kiefer Psalm 22Martinu Rhapsody-Concerto

Hong-Mei Xiao, violaKhachaturian Masquerade Suite MAY 9-10 Mussorgsky Night on Bald MountainBruch Violin Concerto No. 1

Chloe Trevor, violinElgar Enigma Variations

Concerts in SaddleBrooke, NW Tucson and Green Valley! For tickets and venue information

visit: www.sasomusic.org or call: (520) 308-6226

Many Thanks to our Season Sponsor Dorothy Vanek

FEBRUARY 20-22

Come hear it speak to YOU!

Music is the international language.


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DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun6300 North SwanTucson, Arizona 85718

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