Aspect Chamber Music Series Announce Winter/Spring 2022 Season

ASPECT CHAMBER MUSIC SERIES ANNOUNCE WINTER/SPRING 2022 SEASON

 

Featuring the Hermitage Piano Trio (February 3)
Quatuor Danel (March 31)
Violinist Grace Park, cellist Zlatomir Fung, and pianist Gilles Vonsattel (April 6)
The Four Nations ensemble (April 28)
Mezzo-soprano Rebecca Ringle, pianist Bryan Wagorn, violinist Michelle Ross,
cellist Brook Speltz, and pianist Adam Golka (May 18)

 

January 10, 2022: New York, NY: Aspect Chamber Music Series presents its Winter/Spring 2022 season, comprising five concerts from February to May 2022. In addition to gems of the chamber music repertoire performed by world-class artists, many concerts also feature Illustrated Talks — or in one case, a poetry reading — by scholars and writers whose expertise and wisdom provide invaluable context to the musical performances. The winter/spring concerts delve into music by composers from Haydn, Beethoven, and Schubert to Dvorák and Alma and Gustav Mahler, and examine what these works might reveal of each composer’s life. All concerts take place at Bohemian National Hall (321 E. 73^rd Street) at 7:30 p.m., with the exception of the season’s final concert on May 18. For more information, visit aspectmusic.net.

 

On February 3, 2022, Intimate Portraits: Ravel and Schubert juxtaposes Schubert’s Piano Trio in B-flat major and Ravel’s Piano Trio in A minor, performed by the Hermitage Piano Trio. Both trios can be enjoyed simply as glorious outpourings of song and dance, but complexities hide beneath the surface, which may reveal more than their guarded composers intended. Nicholas Chong, musicology professor at Rutgers University, gives an Illustrated Talk offering additional insight on Ravel, Schubert, and their lives and works.

 

Beethoven Variations: Music, Poems, Life, on March 31, 2022, features the Quatuor Danel performing two string quartets by Beethoven: String Quartet No. 1, composed when Beethoven was 30, and String Quartet No. 15, composed at the end of his life. To illuminate more of Beethoven’s life and musical journey, British poet and scholar Ruth Padel reads excerpts from her book Beethoven Variations, with poems on the composer’s life and music that, according to Anthony Tommasini in The New York Times, “took me deeper into Beethoven than many biographies I’ve read.”

 

On April 6, 2022, violinist Grace Park, cellist Zlatomir Fung, and pianist Gilles Vonsattel bring works by Dvorák and Smetana to life in Bohemian Nostalgia. As the program’s title suggests, Smetana’s Piano Trio and Dvorák’s Piano Trio No. 3 look back with longing to an earlier age of the kingdom of Bohemia, which by the 19^th century had been absorbed into Habsburg Austria and adopted German as its official language. Tinges of a particularly Slavic melancholy, as well as Czech national dance forms like the dumka, evoke a yearning for a past golden age and an independent future.

 

The Four Nations ensemble, which for four decades has specialized in Baroque and Classical repertoire, brings their latest program Music of the Pleasure Gardens to Aspect on April 28, 2022. Centered around music that might have been heard in London’s famous pleasure gardens of the 18^th century, the program includes works by Handel, Haydn, J.C. Bach, Thomas Chilcot, and Jonathan Battishill. Far more than just concerts, the pleasure gardens combined music with art exhibitions, food and drink, and the splendor of the outdoors, creating an Arcadian atmosphere that also provided unparalleled opportunity for many composers. John Brewer, professor emeritus of literature and history at Caltech, gives an Illustrated Talk on the pleasure gardens and their significance in early modern Britain.

 

Aspect’s season closes on May 18, 2022 with Alma Mahler: Muse or Monster? An ensemble that includes mezzo-soprano Rebecca Ringle, pianist Bryan Wagorn, violinist Michelle Ross, cellist Brook Speltz, and pianist Adam Golka performs chamber music and songs that examine the enigma that was Alma Mahler and her impact on music and culture. The program features songs by Alma herself and her husband Gustav, as well as Zemlinsky’s Three Pieces for Cello and Piano and Korngold’s Piano Trio.

 

Listing Information:

 

Aspect Chamber Music Series Presents:

Thursday, February 3, 2022 at 7:30 p.m.

Intimate Portraits: Ravel and Schubert

Bohemian National Hall (321 E. 73^rd Street, New York)

 

Hermitage Piano Trio

Illustrated talk by Nicholas Chong

 

Schubert – Piano Trio in B-flat major, D898

Ravel – Piano Trio in A minor

 

Aspect Chamber Music Series Presents:

Thursday, March 31, 2022 at 7:30 p.m.

Beethoven Variations: Music, Poems, Life

Bohemian National Hall (321 E. 73^rd Street, New York)

 

Quatuor Danel

Poetry Reading by Ruth Patel from Beethoven Variations: Poems on a Life

 

Beethoven – String Quartet in F major, Op. 18, No. 1

Beethoven – String Quartet No. 15 in A minor, Op. 132

 

Aspect Chamber Music Series Presents:

Wednesday, April 6, 2022 at 7:30 p.m.

Bohemian Nostalgia

Bohemian National Hall (321 E. 73^rd Street, New York)

 

Grace Park, violin

Zlatomir Fung, cello

Gilles Vonsattel, piano

 

Smetana – Piano Trio, Op. 15

Dvorák – Piano Trio No. 3, Op. 65

 

Aspect Chamber Music Series Presents:

Thursday, April 28, 2022 at 7:30 p.m.

Music of the Pleasure Gardens

Bohemian National Hall (321 E. 73^rd Street, New York)

 

The Four Nations Ensemble:

Pascale Beaudin, soprano

Thomas Cooley, tenor

Charles Brink, flute

Olivier Brault & Chloe Fedor, violins

Kristen Linfante, viola

Loretta O’Sullivan, cello

Andrew Appel, harpsichord

Illustrated Talk by John Brewer

 

Handel – Sonata for violin and continuo in D major

‘Sweet bird’ (L’Allegro)

‘Tune your harps to cheerful strains’ (Esther)

‘Happy we’ (Acis and Galatea)

J.C. Bach – Quartet in C major for flute, violin, viola and cello, Op. 8 No. 1

Thomas Chilcot – Come live with me and be my love

Jonathan Battishill – May Eve, or Kate of Aberdeen

Haydn – Saper vorrei se m’ami (1796)

Symphony No. 104 in D major for flute, strings and keyboard, Hob. 1:104 (transcr. Salomon)

 

Aspect Chamber Music Series Presents:

Alma Mahler: Muse or Monster?

Wednesday, May 18, 2022 at 7:30 p.m.

Italian Academy (1161 Amsterdam Ave., New York)

 

Rebecca Ringle, mezzo-soprano

Bryan Wagorn, piano

Brook Speltz, cello

Michelle Ross, violin

Adam Golka, piano

 

Songs by Alma and Gustav Mahler

Zemlinsky – Three Pieces for Cello and Piano

Korngold – Piano Trio, Op. 1

 

About Aspect Chamber Music Series

Aspect Chamber Music Series was established to introduce and promote a novel concert format – ‘Music in Context’. It’s aim is to transform a traditionally auditory experience into a fusion of various art forms, creating a thought-provoking amalgam of performance, lecture, and discussion, so as to present not only a recital, but an inspiring synthesis of music, art history and social culture. The central objectives of the series are to support and promote artists, to enlighten and inspire audiences through intellectually charged collaborations between musicians and speakers, and to forge meaningful and lasting connections between artist, audience and repertoire. For more information, please visit aspectmusic.net.

 

# # #