Dear Friends of the Feldman,

We were very sorry to have had to cancel our final two concerts of our 2019-2020 regular season, as well as our special joint concert with the Virginia Arts Festival which was to have been on May 20, 2020 with the Brentano Quartet.  As we all try to figure out the way ahead, please know that your Feldman Board is, at this point, looking forward to presenting our 2020-2021 season, which we will be announcing on our website shortly.  That said, we will keep you informed of any changes in our concert plans as the world situation continues to unfold, with our continuing priority being the safety of you our patrons, and our guest artists first and foremost.  

We hope you will subscribe for our 2020-2021 season when our mailing comes out later this summer.  As a measure of gratitude for your loyalty, we will be offering a discounted ticket price for our upcoming season for our return subscribers to reflect the value of the concerts we lost due to COVID-19.  If you would rather have the value of the concerts refunded to you directly, please email me and I will arrange for a refund to you.  For anyone holding single tickets, your tickets remain valid for any future Feldman concert.

If you purchased a ticket to our special concert with the Brentano Quartet through us at our special Feldman rate of $20, please contact me and I will likewise arrange a refund.  If you’d like to donate the value of your ticket to us instead, we would be most grateful.

Please continue to check back on our website or our phone recording (552-1630) for updates as the situation continues to develop.  As always, please don’t hesitate to contact me at feldman.president@gmail.com if you have any questions.  And most importantly, thank you for your support of the Feldman.

All the best,

Frank

Frank Mangum
President
Feldman Chamber Music Society

Concert co-presented with the Virginia Arts Festival

MUSIC SELECTIONS

• Mozart Quartet in A major, K464
• Beethoven Quartet in A major, Op.18, No.5
• Beethoven Quartet in E-flat major, Op.127

Since its inception in 1992, the Brentano String Quartet has appeared throughout the world to popular and critical acclaim. “Passionate, uninhibited and spellbinding,” raves the London Independent; the New York Times extols its “luxuriously warm sound [and] yearning lyricism”; the Philadelphia Inquirer praises its “seemingly infallible instincts for finding the center of gravity in every phrase and musical gesture”; and the Times (London) opines, “the Brentanos are a magnificent string quartet…This was wonderful, selfless music-making.” Within a few years of its formation, the Quartet garnered the first Cleveland Quartet Award and the Naumburg Chamber Music Award; and in 1996 the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center invited them to be the inaugural members of Chamber Music Society Two, a program which was to become a coveted distinction for chamber groups and individuals. The Quartet had its first European tour in 1997, and was honored in the U.K. with the Royal Philharmonic Award for Most Outstanding Debut. That debut recital was at London’s Wigmore Hall, and the Quartet has continued its warm relationship with Wigmore, appearing there regularly and serving as the hall’s Quartet-in-residence in the 2000-01 season.

Brentano String Quartet website

Tickets for Brentano Quartet are available to concertgoers at Feldman concerts at a discounted rate of $20.  Tickets can also be purchased at regular price of $35 at the Virginia Arts Festival website: Order Tickets.

MUSIC SELECTIONS

• Brahms: Quartet No. 2 in a minor, Op. 52, No. 2
• Intermission
• Tchaikovsky: Quartet No. 3 in E♭ minor, Op. 30

The Quatuor Danel was founded in 1991 and has been at the forefront of the international music scene ever since, with important concert performances worldwide and a row of groundbreaking CD recordings. The quartet is famous for their bold, concentrated interpretations of the string quartet cycles of Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Shostakovich, and Weinberg. Their lively and fresh vision on the traditional quartet repertoire has delivered them subsequent praise from public and press. The other part of their force lies in the collaboration with major contemporary composers such as Wolfgang Rihm, Helmut Lachenmann, Sofia Gubaidulina, Pascal Dusapin Jorg Widmann and Bruno Mantovani.

Russian composers have a special place in the Quatuor Danel’s repertoire. They have championed all string quartets by Shostakovich and recorded the complete cycle for Fuga Libera in 2005. This box-set was re-issued by Alpha and still counts as one of the benchmark interpretations of Shostakovich’ quartets. The Danel were the first quartet to record the other great string quartet cycle of the twentieth century: the 17 quartets by Mieczysław Weinberg. Their performance in Manchester and Utrecht was the first time ever live interpretation of the complete Weinberg cycle worldwide.

Quatuor Danel website

We are postponing our concert with Parker Quartet on 3/23 indefinitely due to the Coronavirus pandemic. We will work with the artist to try to reschedule some time in the future.

MUSIC SELECTIONS

• Haydn: String Quartet in E♭, Op. 33 No. 2 (“Joke”)
• Symanowski: Quartet No. 2 in e minor, Op. 56
• Intermission
• Beethoven: Quartet in a minor, Op. 132

Inspiring performances, luminous sound, and exceptional musicianship are the hallmarks of the Grammy Award-winning Parker Quartet. Renowned for its dynamic interpretations and polished, expansive colors, the group has rapidly distinguished itself as one of the preeminent ensembles of its generation. The Quartet has appeared at the world’s most important venues since its founding in 2002.

The  Parker  Quartet has  distinguished  itself  with acclaimed  recordings  for  Nimbus,  Zig-Zag Territoires,  Innova  Records,  and  Naxos.  The  Quartet’s  most  recent  recording  featuring Mendelssohn’s Quartets Op. 44, Nos. 1 and 3, was widely lauded by the international press. The Quartet’s debut commercial recording of Bartók’s String Quartets Nos. 2 and 5 for Zig-Zag Territoires (July 2007) won praise from Gramophone: “The Parkers’ Bartók spins the illusion of spontaneous improvisation… they have absorbed the language; they have the confidence to play freely with the music and the instinct to bring it off.” Their Naxos recording of György Ligeti’s complete works for  string  quartet won the  2011 Grammy Award for  Best Chamber Music Performance (the last string quartet to win this category). In April 2016 Augusta Read Thomas’s world premiere recording of Helix Spirals for string quartet on “Of Being is a Bird” was released on Nimbus Records.

The Parker Quartet’s members hold graduate degrees in performance and chamber music from the New England Conservatory of Music and the Juilliard School, and the Quartet was part of the New England  Conservatory’s  prestigious  Professional  String  Quartet  Training  Program from 2006–2008. Some of their most influential mentors include the original members of the Cleveland Quartet, Kim Kashkashian, György Kurtág, Zakhar Bron, Robert Lipsett, Mark Steinberg, and Rainer Schmidt.

Parker Quartet website

“Glowing reports hold true. The Trio con Brio Copenhagen clearly occupies a lofty perch in today’s musical scene.” – Washington Post

MUSIC SELECTIONS

• Beethoven: Op. 121a, Kakadu Variations
• Mendelssohn: Piano Trio No. 2 in c minor, Op. 66
• Intermission
• Tchaikovsky: Piano Trio in a minor, Op. 50

Acknowledged as one of the world’s finest piano trios in the world, the Trio con Brio Copenhagen are about to celebrate their twentieth anniversary. To mark the occasion, Orchid Classics will be releasing their multi-volume traversal of the complete Beethoven Piano Trios.

The Trio was born out of an idea of the coming together of ‘musical pairs’ – of the two Korean-born sisters, Soo-Kyung Hong (cello) and Soo-Jin Hong (violin), with Soo-Kyung and her husband, Danish pianist Jens Elvekjaer. They quickly gained a reputation for their fresh and contemporary approach to the core repertoire and won almost all of the majorcompetitions for piano trio. Today they are regularly heard at the world’s leading venues andconcert series, among them, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Wigmore Hall, Berlin Pierre Boulez-Saal, the Concertgebouw and many more.

Leading composers have dedicated works to the Trio, including Per Nørgård, BentSørensen’s and Sven-David Sandström. And reviews are fulsome. “One of the greatest performances of chamber music I’ve ever encountered,” praised American Record Guide.Gramophone wrote, “Superb…Any group would be hard-pressed to imitate this blend of verveand poise…” Their Mendelssohn album was chosen by the UK’s Classic FM as the Best Chamber Music Disc of the year.

The Trio are artistic directors of the Copenhagen Chamber Music Festival, the Chamber Music Festival on Lundsgaard Estate in Kerteminde and the Hellerup Chamber Music Society in Copenhagen. Soo-Jin plays an Andrea Guarneri violin, Soo-Kyung plays aGrancino cello, and Jens is Denmark’s first Steinway Artist. Both string players are endorsed by Jagar Strings and Thomastik-Infeld Vienna.

Trio con Brio Copenhagen website

Mozart, Mendelssohn, and More!

Please join us for a FREE concert for the community at the Chrysler Museum of Art’s Kaufman Theater on Saturday, January 18, 2020, at 2:00pm.  An hour of classical music will be performed by Norfolk’s very own New Commonwealth Quartet, a string quartet comprised of local musicians from the Virginia Symphony.  Very casual: come as you are.  Stay for a little or stay for awhile… all ages welcome!

MUSIC SELECTIONS

• Mozart: String Quartet in G Major, K. 387, 1st movement
• Felix Mendelssohn: Quartet in a minor, Op. 13, No. 2
• Arvo Part: Summa
• George Gershwin: I Got Rhythm

About The New Commonwealth Quartet:

• Elizabeth Vonderheide
• Elizabeth Richards
• Jonathan Richards
• Matthew Umlauf

Formed in 2015 by friends with a shared love of chamber music playing, the New Commonwealth Quartet has enjoyed an exciting and varied tenure in the Hampton Roads area. NCQ helped create a popular Sunday afternoon chamber music series at East Beach, Norfolk, that involved brief conversations about the works performed and allowed an up close experience for audience members. They have also twice been featured performers at Funhouse Fest in Williamsburg, invited by Grammy Award winning artist Bruce Hornsby. There they were thrilled to bring difficult works by Ligeti, Carter and others to diverse audiences. They can also be heard on several tracks on Bruce Hornsby’s latest album, Absolute Zero. This June they will present their second full length recital at the new Susan S. Goode Fine and Performing Arts Center at Virginia Wesleyan University.

New Commonwealth Quartet website

MUSIC SELECTIONS

• Mozart: String Quartet in F, K. 590
• Bolcom: Three Rags for String Quartet
• Lopez-Gavilan: Cuarteto en Guaguanco
• Intermission
• Brahms: String Quartet in B♭, Op. 67

Harlem Quartet advances diversity in classical music while engaging new audiences with varied repertoire that includes works by minority composers. Their mission to share their passion with a wider audience has taken them around the world; from a 2009 performance at The White House for President Obama and First Lady, Michelle Obama, to a highly successful tour of South Africa in 2012, and numerous venues in between. The musically versatile ensemble has performed with such distinguished artists as Itzhak Perlman, Ida Kavafian, Carter Brey, Fred Sherry, Misha Dichter, Jeremy Denk, and Paquito D’Rivera. The quartet also collaborated with jazz masters Chick Corea and Gary Burton on the album Hot House, a 2013 multi-Grammy Award winning release.

New York-based HARLEM QUARTET, currently serving a three-year residency at London’s Royal College of Music, has been praised for its “panache” by The New York Times and hailed in the Cincinnati Enquirer for “bringing a new attitude to classical music, one that is fresh, bracing and intelligent.” It has also won plaudits from such veteran musicians as GRAMMY-winning woodwind virtuoso Ted Nash of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, who declared in a May 2018 Playbill article, “Harlem Quartet is one of the greatest string quartets I have ever heard. They can play anything.” Since its public debut at Carnegie Hall in 2006, the ensemble has thrilled audiences and students in 47 states as well as in the U.K., France, Belgium, Brazil, Panama, Canada, Venezuela, Japan, and South Africa.

Harlem Quartet website

MUSIC SELECTIONS

• Telemann: Concerto No. 1
• Royer: La Marche des Scythes
• Rameau: Chaconne from Dardanus
• Quantz: Trio sonata in a minor
• Intermission
• Veracini: Sonata No. 1 in g minor, Op. 1
• Pisendel: Sonata in e minor for violin & continuo
• Telemann: Quartet in a minor

Musica Pacifica has, since its founding in 1990, become widely recognized as one of America’s premier baroque ensembles, lauded for both the dazzling virtuosity and the warm expressiveness of its performances.

The press describes them as “some of the finest baroque musicians in America” (American Record Guide) and “among the best in the world” (Alte Musik Aktuell).

They have performed on some of the most prestigious concert series in the U.S. and abroad. Their appearance on the mainstage at the Boston Early Music Festival in 2015 was reviewed as “little short of sensational… astonishing… breath-taking throughout” (The Boston Musical Intelligencer).

Musica Pacifica website

MUSIC SELECTIONS

• Haydn: Trio in D Major Hob. XV No. 16
• Chaminade: Piano Trio No. 1, Op. 11
• Intermission
• Jennifer Higdon: Piano Trio (Pale Yellow only)
• Piazzolla: The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires

Since forming in 2010, Neave Trio – violinist Anna Williams, cellist Mikhail Veselov, and pianist Eri Nakamura – has earned enormous praise for its engaging, cutting-­edge performances. WQXR explains, “‘Neave’ is actually a Gaelic name meaning ‘bright’ and ‘radiant’, both of which certainly apply to this trio’s music making.” The Boston Musical Intelligencer included Neave in its “Best of 2014” and “Best of 2016” roundups, writing, “it is inconceivable that they will not soon be among the busiest chamber ensembles going,” and “their unanimity, communication, variety of touch, and expressive sensibility rate first tier.”

Neave Trio strives to champion new works by living composers and reach wider audiences through innovative concert presentations, regularly collaborating with artists of all mediums. These collaborations include performances with the Blythe Barton Dance Company; projection artist Ryan Brady; the interactive concert series “STEIN2.0,” with composer Amanuel Zarzowski; Klee Musings by acclaimed American composer Augusta Read Thomas, which was premiered by Neave; the upcoming premiere of Eric Nathan’s Missing Words V, sponsored by Coretet; and an upcoming short film based on the tango music of Astor Piazzolla.

Neave Trio website