All material found in the Press Releases section is provided by parties entirely independent of Musical America, which is not responsible for content.
Press Releases
Taos School of Music Virtual 2020 Chamber Music Festival Continues with Shanghai Quartet, Robert McDonald, Brentano String Quartet and Young Artists
Taos School of Music Virtual 2020 Chamber Music Festival Continues
with Shanghai Quartet, Robert McDonald, Brentano String Quartet and Young Artists
(Taos, N.M.) The Taos School of Music Virtual Chamber Music Festival from June 21 through August 9, 2020 continues in late July with a faculty seminar by the Shanghai Quartet, a faculty performance by Shanghai Quartet, a piano recital by pianist Robert McDonald, and two concerts by the school’s young artists. All programs begin at 7 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time and will be broadcast with live hosting by Taos School of Music Director Elizabeth Baker from the school’s website at taosschoolofmusic.com, as well as on Facebook and YouTube. The performances are offered freely, with donations greatly appreciated.
"The responses to our Virtual Festival have been overwhelmingly positive,” says Baker. “In addition, Performance Today and Your Classical FM reached out to cross post our weekend concerts on their Facebook pages. As a result of this collaboration we are reaching a much wider audience and sharing the magic of the Taos School of Music with them. We have had people listening in from as far away as Bogota, Colombia and Tokyo, Japan. So, we’re reaching a worldwide audience. All our hard work putting this festival together is paying off.”
Nick Tzaveras, cellist with the Shanghai Quartet, presents a seminar on Beethoven’s String Quartet in F Major, Op. 18 No.1 on Thursday, July 16. The seminar is a recent recording from this year. On Sunday, July 19, the Shanghai Quartet performs a faculty concert, also from a recent 2020 recording.
Wednesday, July 22, Robert McDonald performs a piano recital with the Brentano String Quartet. Works performed are the Claire de Lune movement of Claude Debussy’s Suite Bergamasque, Franz Joseph Haydn’s String Quartet in B Flat Major, Op. 50 No. 1, and Robert Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze Op. 6 for piano solo.Recordings are from 2019 at Queens College, New York; 2015 in Morse Recital Hall at the Yale School of Music; and 2019 at the Olympic Music Festival in Port Townsend, Washington, respectively. Claude Debussy’s Claire de Lune is the most famous movement of his Suite Bergamasque. Haydn’s quartet is one of the “Prussian” Quartets the composer wrote. An early work, Davidsbündlertänze’s theme is based on a mazurka written by Clara Wieck, who deeply influenced Schumann’s compositions and would become Schumann’s wife in 1840.
Saturday, July 25, features a Young Artists performance. The program includes Benjamin Britten’s String Quartet #2 in C Major Op. 36 and Antonín Dvorák’s Piano Trio No. 3 in F Minor, Op. 65. The Britten performance was recorded in 2015 at SMU-Taos Fort Burgwin, and features violinists Claire Bourg and James Thompson, violist Stephanie Block and cellist Keith Williams. Britten wrote this string quartet in 1945 and it was premiered on November 21, 1945 to mark the 250thanniversary of the death of English composer Henry Purcell. The Dvorákperformance is a 2016 recording of a concert at the Taos Community Auditorium featuring violinist Emma Frucht, cellist Peter Eom, and pianist Hana Chu. Dvorák’s Piano Trio was written shortly after the death of his mother and was influenced by the style of his mentor, Johannes Brahms.
On Sunday, July 26, a second Young Artists concert includes Felix Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in E Minor, Op. 44 No. 2 and Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio in A Minor, Op. 50. The performance of Mendelssohn’s piece was recorded in 2019 at the Taos Community Auditorium with violinists Abigail Hong and Yue Qian, violist Cara Pogossian and cellist Sterling Elliott.Mendelssohn composed the Op. 44 quartets from 1837 to 1838 and they are dedicated to the Crown Prince of Sweden. The Tchaikovsky performance was recorded in 2008 at the Hotel St. Bernard, performed by violinist Ying Fu, cellist Natalie Helm and pianist Andrew Tyson. This composition is considered one of Tchaikovsky’s finest works.
The Taos School of Music’s mission is “to immerse young musicians in chamber music study with the finest faculty, in a creatively nurturing alpine setting, and to provide Taos audiences with exceptional chamber music performances.”
Virtual 2020 Chamber Music Festival
Sunday, June 21- Borromeo String Quartet
Saturday, June 27- Young Artists Concert
Sunday, June 28- Young Artists Concert
Thursday, July 2- Seminar with the Borromeo String Quartet
Sunday, July 5- Borromeo String Quartet with Thomas Sauer and Ara Gregorian
Saturday, July 11- Young Artists Concert
Sunday, July 12- Young Artists Concert
Thursday, July 16- Seminar with the Shanghai Quartet
Sunday, July 19- Shanghai Quartet faculty artist concert
Wednesday, July 22- Robert McDonald Piano Recital with the Brentano String Quartet
Saturday, July 25- Young Artists Concert
Sunday, July 26 - Young Artists Concert
Thursday, July 30- Seminar with the Daedalus String Quartet
Sunday, August 2- Daedalus String Quartet
Saturday, August 8- Young Artists Concert
Sunday, August 9- Young Artists Concert
# # #
WHO'S BLOGGING
Law and Disorder by GG Arts Law
Career Advice by Legendary Manager Edna Landau
An American in Paris by Frank Cadenhead
FEATURED JOBS
RENT A PHOTO
