SANTA FE CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL

posted by James Reel

This quarter, KUAT-FM is broadcasting concerts from the Spoleto Festival on Thursday nights. If that's not enough first-rate chamber music for you, I suggest you spend a week or two this summer attending the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. It opens Sunday, July 17 and continues with multiple concerts each week through August 21. You can peruse the full schedule here. Fortunately, the organizers have abandoned their ill-considered efforts to present jazz and bluegrass concerts as part of the festival; I have nothing against those music forms, but their inclusion wasn't relevant to the festival's core mission of presenting classical chamber music. It was cheap tokenism that didn't draw any crossover audience, and hardly served the interests of bluegrass and jazz, which can be heard in their own festivals (in fact, there's a short bluegrass festival in Santa Fe every August).

Back in my print journalism days, I'd go to Santa Fe during the first week of August, because that's when I could cover all five works presented by Santa Fe Opera in a concentrated period, and squeeze in two or three chamber concerts, too. If you're interested, here's the August opera calendar, from which you can navigate to other months. And here for your edification is the press release I just received from the chamber festival:

Opening Week of the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival’s 39th Season

Includes Performances by Artist-in-Residence Dawn Upshaw, the Shanghai Quartet and pianists Kuok-Wai Lio and Inon Barnatan

The Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival kicks off its 2011 summer season at St. Francis Auditorium in the New Mexico Museum of Art on Sunday, July 17th.

In the opening week’s first two evening concerts (Sunday, July 17th and Monday, July 18th), the world-renowned Shanghai Quartet perform a work written for them in 2008 in honor of the Quartet’s 25th anniversary and the 75th anniversary of its composer, Kryzstof Penderecki. Well-known to film buffs for his mood-setting, hair-raising compositions (Penderecki’s works have been adapted for soundtracks including The Shining, The Exorcist, David Lynch’s Wild at Heart, and more), String Quartet No. 3, “Leaves from an Unwritten Diary” begins with what cellist Nicholas Tzavaras described in a program note for the 2009 American premiere as “an almost grave introduction with a dark and screaming melody by the viola.” The Quartet also performs Dvorak’s expressive masterwork Piano Quintet in A, Op. 81 with pianist Kuok-Wai Lio.

Mr. Lio, a popular artist with Festival audiences over the last few years, performs Janacek’s In the Mists, a collection of four works for solo piano with a sensitive, introspective air as part of his noon solo recital on Tuesday, July 19th. Additional early afternoon concerts during the opening week include a Youth Concert featuring the Shanghai Quartet on Sunday, July 17th at 1:30 pm, and a noon concert on Thursday, July 21st that includes Schumann’s moving Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 63 played by violinist Harvey de Souza, cellist Ronald Thomas, and Mr. Lio.

Mid-week, the Festival presents the first of three concerts in its Albuquerque Series at the Albuquerque Academy’s Simms Auditorium (Wednesday, July 20th). The program, which repeats in Santa Fe on Thursday, July 21st, includes Schubert’s Piano Sonata, D. 958 performed by internationally acclaimed pianist Inon Barnatan, Poulenc’s sparkling Trio for Oboe, Bassoon & Piano performed by oboist Allan Vogel, bassoonist Stefanie Przyblska and Mr. Barnatan, and Spohr’s wonderful Double Quartet in D Minor, Op. 65 performed by violinists Jennifer Gilbert and Harvey de Souza, violist CarlaMaria Rodrigues, cellist Ronald Thomas and the Shanghai Quartet.

The week concludes Saturday, July 23rd, with an all-Bach concert featuring the first of five festival performances by World-famous soprano Dawn Upshaw, the Festival’s 2011 Artist-in-Residence. The celebrated soprano will sing Cantata No. 199, “Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut” (“My Heart Swims in Blood”), BWV 199, with oboist Allen Vogel, violinists L.P. How and Kathleen Brauer, violist CarlaMaria Rodrigues, cellist Ronald Thomas, bass player Marji Danilow, and harpsichordist Kathleen McIntosh. Also on the concert is British violinist Daniel Hope in Bach’s beautiful Violin Concerto No. 1 in A Minor, BWV 1041.

The Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival continues its role as a noteworthy contributor to the contemporary chamber music repertoire with the addition of three new co-commissions this season by internationally acclaimed composers Christopher Rouse (String Quartet No. 3, July 28th & 29th), Marc-Andre Dalbavie (Piano Quartet, August 10th, 11th & 12th) and Sean Shepherd (Quartet for Oboe & Strings, August 11th & 12th; world premiere). In conjunction with the performances, the Festival presents pre-concert talks with all three composers open to the public. Through its American Composer Residency program, this summer the Festival also offers private master classes with Mr. Rouse and Mr. Shepherd to area conservatory/college music students. The American Composer Residency program is made possible with a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts’ American Masterpieces: Chamber Music initiative.

For more information on the Festival concerts and to purchase tickets, please call 505-982-1890 or visit the website at www.SantaFeChamberMusic.com. To purchase tickets in-person, the Festival Ticket Office is located in the lobby of the New Mexico Museum of Art at 107 West Palace Avenue and is open daily from 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM.