Friday, April 02, 2004
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Cincinnati Chamber Music Society announces 2004-05 season
By
Allyson Jacob
The Cincinnati Chamber Music Society (CCMS) is celebrating its 75th anniversary: seventy-five years of bringing chamber music to the tri-state, seventy-five years of harmony and dissonance, and seventy-five years of amazing experiences. In order to mark the occasion, CCMS will bring back a number of Cincinnati favorites along with some new faces and fresh programming, including a three-concert all-Beethoven festival, a two-concert Bartók festival, and a season opener featuring a buffet supper for the audience.
CCMS has brought chamber musicians to Cincinnati since its inception in 1929. The Music Society began as a series of formal concerts in private homes, and has since grown in size and scope. The group now presents its concerts primarily in Corbett Auditorium on the University of Cincinnati campus. In the past, those concerts have featured chamber groups such as the Juilliard String Quartet, the Beaux Arts Trio, the Emerson String Quartet and eighth blackbird, as well as young ensembles such as the Cleveland Quartet, the Tokyo Quartet and the Alban Berg String Quartet.
The season kicks off Sunday, October 10, with violinist Christian Tetzlaff, who is fresh from an engagement with the Chicago Symphony under the direction of Paavo Järvi, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s music director. Tetzlaff will perform the complete Sonatas and Partitas of Johann Sebastian Bach. During intermission, audience members will be treated to a buffet supper to celebrate CCMS’ Diamond Anniversary.
The St. Petersburg String Quartet will perform on Tuesday, December 7. The group has won awards for its recordings of the chamber music of Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich, and has won numerous performance competitions, including First prize at the All-Soviet Union String Quartet Competition. The quartet has Ohio connections, having served as Quartet in Residence at Oberlin Conservatory of Music for five years.
The all–female Colorado Quartet will join CCMS on January 11 and 12 and perform the complete Bartók String Quartets. The group is based in New York and are the founders and artistic directors of the Soundfest Chamber Music Festival and Institute of String Quartets in Falmouth, Massachusetts, and currently serve as Quartet-in-Residence at Bard College in New York.
A Cincinnati favorite, The Claremont Trio returns to the CCMS on February 8, 2005. This young group of Juilliard-trained women won the first ever Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson international Trio Award in 2003, leading to an extensive American tour and a recording of the Mendelssohn trios. The group is committed to seeking out new and unknown repertoire, and has performed a number of works commissioned especially for them by composers such as Daniel Kellogg, Mason Bates and Hillary Zipper. The trio is actively involved in music education and has been recognized for its engaging programs for children.
The Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio offers a triple treat: A three-concert festival of the complete Beethoven Piano Trios, to be performed March 13, 14 and 15, 2005. The KLR made their debut at the White House for the inauguration of President Jimmy Carter in 1977, and violinist Jaime Laredo has often appeared often with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra as conductor of the CSO’s Bach and Beyond series. KLR currently serves as the Kennedy Center Chamber Ensemble in Residence. The Chamber Music Society of Detroit recently created the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson International Trio Award to honor the trio’s contribution to chamber music and to encourage promising young piano trios.
The CCMS season concludes with a performance by the Brentano String Quartet on April 19, 2005. Since its inception in 1992, the quartet has won numerous major awards, including the Cleveland Quartet Award, the Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Martin E. Segal Award. Named after Antonie Brentano, who was believed to have been Beethoven’s mysterious “Immortal Beloved,” the group has collaborated with great musicians such as Jessye Norman and pianist Mitsuko Uchida.
Most of the CCMS season will be performed at the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music. The season opener, the Bach Festival featuring Christian Tetzlaff, will be held at Memorial Hall, on Elm St. next to Music Hall.
CCMS is offering season tickets for $180 for the nine concert season. Single tickets run $30 for adults and $10 for students. Children under 18 are free when accompanied by an adult for all concerts at Corbett auditorium. The season opener is $40 for adults, $20 for students, which includes the buffet supper.
Allyson Jacob is a freelance writer and playwright living just outside of Cincinnati.
