Musical Powerhouse, Madison Native David Finckel to Perform at Drew with Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
MADISON, NJ—Madison’s native son, cellist David Finckel, will return to town on October 5 to present a one-night-only concert with renowned pianist Wu Han and clarinet virtuoso David Shifrin. The concert, which features works by Beethoven, Bruch and Brahms, kicks off the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s fourth season in residency at Drew University.
It is rare that these three musicians share a stage for an evening and equally rare that the Chamber Music Society presents a concert at Drew that is not part of its season at Alice Tully Hall in New York. This concert is being offered exclusively in Madison.
David Finckel and Wu Han, the artistic directors of the Chamber Music Society, are arguably two of the most influential classical musicians in the world today. In addition to leading the Chamber Music Society, they are also the founding creative directors of ArtistLed, an internet-based classical music recording label, and the founding artistic directors of Music@Menlo, an annual classical music festival in the San Francisco Bay Area. Additionally, David Finckel has served as the cellist for the award-winning Emerson String Quartet since 1979.
David Shifrin has been on the faculty of Yale’s School of Music for two decades. He is a past winner of the Avery Fisher Prize and a Solo Recitalist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He served as the Chamber Music Society’s artistic director from 1992 to 2004 and has been performing with the ensemble for over 20 years.
The October 5 performance at Drew will feature three pieces of music, beginning with Beethoven’s Trio in B-Flat major for Clarinet, Cello and Piano, Op. 11, which was composed in 1798 and is said to be a good example of his “eagerness to stretch the boundaries of conventional forms and modes of expression.” The Beethoven piece will be followed by Selections from Eight Pieces for Clarinet, Viola and Piano, Op. 83, which was composed in 1909 by Max Bruch for his son, a talented clarinetist. The performance will conclude with Brahms’ Trio for Clarinet, Cello and Piano in A minor, Op. 114, which was composed in 1891 after Brahms experienced a creative reawakening at a concert in Meiningen. The piece is said to be very “autumnal in mood.”
Concerts on November 2 and February 8 will round out the 2009-10 season of Madison appearances.
On November 2, David Shifrin will return to the stage along with pianist Anne-Marie McDermott, violinist Ani Kavafian and cellist Nicolas Altsteadt. The second concert’s musical selections are Debussy’s Sonata for Violin and Piano and Premiere Rapsodie for Clarinet and Piano, Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Cello, and Massiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time for Clarinet, Violin, Cello and Piano.
The final concert in the series, which will be held on February 8, will feature the Chamber Music Society’s Andre-Michel Schub on piano and the Daedalus Quartet’s Jessica Thompson on viola, Raman Ramakrishnan on cello, and Min-Young Kim and Kyu-Young Kim, both on violin. The musical selections are Beethoven’s Quartet in G major for Strings, Op. 18, No. 2; Dvorak’s Quintet for Two Violins, Viola, Cello and Piano in A major, B. 155, Op. 81; and the New Jersey premiere of Lerdahl’s String Quartet.
All concerts will begin at 8:00 p.m. and will be preceded at 7:15 p.m. by an onstage discussion featuring the evening’s artists and Garyth Nair, professor of music. Subscriptions for the three-concert series are $141. Single event tickets are available on a limited basis and are $55. For more information or to purchase tickets, please visit drew.edu/community or call the box office at 973/408-3917.
###
Posted: September 18, 2009
