Brightmusic Society of Oklahoma  -
Concert 4 of Tenth Anniversary Season –
“Bright Tales”

Guest artist Miles Hoffman, artistic director
of the American Chamber Players.
Photo provided

On March 18-19, 2013, Oklahoma City’s own Brightmusic Chamber Ensemble will present two performances of the fourth concert of its Tenth Anniversary Season, “Bright Tales.”  Our guest artist for this concert will be violist Miles Hoffman, Artistic Director of the American Chamber Players; Associate Professor of Viola at Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina; and Music Commentator for National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition.”             

The works on the program are: (1) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Kegelstatt” Trio in E-flat Major, K.498 for viola, clarinet and piano; (2) Max Bruch’s Romance for Viola and Piano in F Major, op. 85; (3) Robert Schumann’s “Märchenerzählungen” (“Fairy Tales”), op. 132 for viola, clarinet and piano; and (4) Guillaume Lekeu’s Piano Quartet in B Minor for violin, viola, cello and piano.

Guest Artist Miles Hoffman is founder, violist and Artistic Director of the American Chamber Players, an outgrowth of his nine years’ service as the director of the Library of Congress Summer Chamber Festival, which he founded. He is the author of The NPR Classical Music Companion, now in its tenth printing.    

Four Brightmusic musicians will appear with Mr. Hoffman on this concert:  Gregory Lee (violin), Jonathan Ruck (cello), Chad Burrow (clarinet) and Amy I-Lin Cheng (piano).  

Four works will be performed. Mozart’s “Kegelstatt” has been called “dense and cerebral” – “one of his most perfectly integrated compositions, with [a balanced] interplay among the three instruments” [All Music Guide]. German romanticist Bruch’s Romance for Viola and Piano in F Major, op. 85, is conservative in form and harmony, but reflects “deep thoughtfulness and melodic richness” [David Duball]. Schumann’s “Märchenerzählungen” (“Fairy Tales”), Guillaume Lekue, Piano Quartet in B Minor (for violin, viola, cello and piano), completed by Vincent d’Indy after Lekue’s death.  His best-known work is a violin sonata commissioned by Eugène Ysaÿe, premiered less than a year before Lekue died of typhoid fever contracted from a contaminated sorbet, one day after his 24^th birthday.  He began to work on his Piano Quartet in late 1892, but he had not finished it when he died.  His friend and teacher d’Indy completed the second movement.  Lekue intended the Quartet to be a grand work, probably in three movements.  It will be, he said, “a thing of beauty [and] audacity, beside which my violin sonata will be but a penny toy.”  Lekue would have been gratified by the words of critic Jerry Dubins, who has described the first movement as an “outpouring of emotions so intense, so personal, so private, and so painful it almost hurts to listen to it,” and the second movement as a work of “heart-throbbing sadness and breathtaking beauty inexpressible in words.”

The first performance will take place on Monday, March 18^th at 7:30 pm in northwest OKC, at All Souls’ Episcopal Church, 6400 N. Pennsylvania Avenue, and the second on Tuesday, March 19^th at 7:30 pm in downtown OKC at St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral, 127 NW 7^th Street.  Admission is $10 per adult; students and Season Members are free of charge.  A reception with the musicians will follow each performance.

Brightmusic is on the Web at www.brightmusic.org

From the press release