Feb. 12 U.Va.'s McIntire Department ofMusic will present the next installment in its Chamber Music Series. The concert will be the second of four this year in the Chamber Music Program, which is performed by an ensemble composed of members of the University's music faculty.
Music Department professor Amy Leung, the group's cellist, has spent six years as part of a professional string quartet, worked with the prestigious Emerson and Guarneri Quartets and performed throughout Europe and the United States. When asked about the importance of chamber music in the University community, she referred to it as one of the most satisfying parts of the music world.
Leung said that performing in a chamber group is different from performing in an orchestra under the direction of a conductor; it's more like a meaningful conversation among friends, and so it provides a nourishing creative outlet for the faculty and a kind of necessary discourse that is excellent for faculty morale.
For the audience, the program is a superlative opportunity, because the Old Cabell Hall auditorium is one of the finest spaces in the country for chamber music performances. Its intimate acoustics, like those of the private chambers where the genre had its origin, coddle the music almost perfectly. Leung urged students interested in chamber music, or indeed classical music in general, not to miss the opportunity to attend a performance in so ideal a space for so reasonable a price.
For those without much experience with classical music, chamber music provides perhaps the best introduction; it's art music at its most accessible. Chamber music is a genre intended for performance by small, intimate ensembles of no more than about a dozen performers, with only one instrument per part. It has an emotive directness and clarity that speak to all receptive people, regardless of their familiarity with the conventions of classical composition. If you don't know much about classical music but find it intriguing, this is a good place to start.
The upcoming concert will feature contemporary composer Victoria Bond's Hot Air for Wind Quintet, an elaboration on portions of her Gulliver-themed opera, Travels, followed by the melodic Duo Concertant for Violin and Marimba, Op. 10, by Raymond Helble. Last comes the program's most recognizable piece, Schumann's complex and well-known Op. 44 Quintet.
The next concert will be held April 2, in honor of Mozart's 250th birthday. As an introduction to the tonal language then in currency, it will feature pieces by Reicha and Albrechtsberger, two of Mozart's contemporaries, followed by Mozart's own Kegelstatt trio. This arrangement should serve to highlight the universal quality that made Mozart's work so significant or, as Leung said, "...Why Mozart was Mozart, and Reicha wasn't."
The season's final concert, April 9, will feature the University's own violinist, Constance Gee, who is also the coordinator of the student chamber music program. Details about this concert are not yet available, but fans of Mozart and new converts from the Happy Birthday concert can expect to find some of him here, too.
Each of the performances will be held at 3:30 p.m. in the auditorium of Old Cabell Hall. Art$ may be used; tickets may be obtained by calling 434-924-3984.
Read More
The best albums of 2014
By Noah Zeidman | December 4, 2014Across genres, it has been a pretty great year in music.
Top 10 movies of 2014
December 4, 2014This has been an excellent year for film, offering everything from gripping blockbusters to innovative personal films.
Iggy Azalea is “Reclassified”
December 4, 2014It has become common practice among music artists to repackage their albums in an effort to simultaneously boost single sales and dish out new content by slightly renaming the album or slapping “Deluxe” onto the title.
