Presidential Chamber Music Series IV- Trios for Oboe, Viola, and Piano

Mon, 03/21/2011 - 7:30pm
Free
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Violist Willy Sucre will be joined by oboist Thomas O'Connor and pianist Jacquelyn Helin, performing works by Klughardt and Loeffler.

 

Schilflieder for Oboe, Viola, and Piano, Op.28

by August Klughardt

 August Friedrich Martin Klughardt was a German composer and conductor born on November 30, 1847 in Köthen. He took his first piano and music theory lessons at the age of 10. Soon, be began to compose his first pieces. In 1866 he brought his compositions to the public for the first time. One year later, he began to earn his living as a conductor. From 1869 to 1873, he worked at the court theatre in Weimar. There, he met Franz Liszt, which was very important for his creative development. During this time he wrote the Schilflieder which means Reed Songs for oboe, viola and piano. The five stanzas of Nikolaus Lenau’s poem are printed in the score and set the mood for each of the five movements. From 1882 to the end of his life, he was director of music at the court in Dessau. Klughardt died suddenly on August 3, 1902 in Roßlau at the age of 54.

Klughardt is considered as a rather conservative composer in spite of his interest in more modern tendencies. Some of his compositions show him as a child of his times. Today, most of his output is nearly forgotten.

Notes adapted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia website.

 I N T E R M I S S I O N

                                                          Deux Rapsodies for Oboe, Viola, and Piano

by Charles Martin Loeffler

 I.  L'Etang (the Pool)

 II. La Cornermuse (the Bagpipe)

Charles Martin Loeffler was born on January 30, 1861 in Schöneberg, near Berlin, Germany. Throughout his career he claimed to have been born in Mulhouse, Alsace, France. In his lifetime articles were published dissecting his ‘typically Alsatian’ temperament! As a young boy, he turned against Germany when the Prussian authorities imprisoned and apparently tortured his father, an agricultural chemist and author of Republican ideals. Loeffler aligned himself with France by asserting French nationality and acquiring French manners and tastes. Ultimately, he chose America as his permanent residence, becoming a citizen in 1887 as well as one of the greatest protagonists of impressionistic music in the United States.

Loeffler's principal instrument was the violin; by the age of thirteen, he had decided to become a professional violinist and studied in Germany. After three years of instruction at the Hochschule, he traveled to France to continue his musical training. On July 27, 1881 he arrived in New York, armed with a letter of introduction and immediately found employment playing in the New York Symphony Orchestra. In the fall of 1882 he assumed the post of assistant concertmaster for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a position he held for over twenty years.

Having established himself in professional circles as an accomplished musician, Loeffler dedicated more of his time to composition. Rapsodies was written in 1898, as a vocal setting of three poems by the French poet Maurice Rollinat. In this arrangement, Loeffler replaces the original voice and clarinet parts with a prominent oboe part. The Deux Rapsodies for oboe, viola and piano was recomposed in 1901, from Nos. 1 & 2 of the three original Rhapsodies.

After twenty-one years of service, he retired from the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1903 and, two years later, settled in Medfield, Massachusetts. After a twenty-four year engagement, Loeffler married his long-time fiancée, Elise Fay, on December 10, 1910. He died there on May 19, 1935.

 Notes adapted from The Library of Congress American Memory, Art of the States, and Classical Composer web sites.

 

BIOGRAPHIES

 

 WILLY SUCRE, Viola, was born in La Paz, Bolivia, Willy Sucre studied at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música in La Paz, Colby College Chamber Music Institute in Waterville, Maine, Mannes School of Music in New York, and Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland. Sucre has been conductor and music director of the Albuquerque Philharmonic Orchestra, assistant conductor and principal violist of the Canada Symphony Orchestra in Montreal, assistant conductor and assistant principal violist of the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, principal violist and guest conductor of the National Symphony of Bolivia, principal violist and guest conductor of the Albuquerque Chamber Orchestra, and principal violist and guest conductor of the Chamber Orchestra of La Paz. This past year Sucre performed with  the Albuquerque Chamber Orchestra as viola soloist.  In the summer of 2004 he performed as viola soloist in three concerts in Cochabamba and La Paz, Bolivia.

Currently, Sucre is a member of the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra and is the driving force behind the "Willy Sucre & Friends" concerts.

During the summer, Sucre travels throughout South America to pursue his major interests, which are to find new works of chamber music by modern composers and to encourage composers both here and in South America to write new pieces, especially piano quartets. He enjoys playing with other musicians and ensembles of diverse instrumentation. As a chamber musician, Sucre was the founder of the Cuarteto Boliviano and guest violist with various chamber music ensembles, and for ten years the violist of the Helios String Quartet. His experience includes extensive chamber music concerts, lectures and school demonstrations, CD recordings, and television performances throughout South, Central, and North America.

 

Steinway Artist, JACQUELYN HELIN, consistently wins acclaim for her vibrant and musical playing of a wide-ranging repertoire. She has performed in recital and with orchestras in the major music capitals of Europe and the United States, including London, Paris, Nice, Zurich, New York, Washington, Chicago, and San Francisco.As winner of the Artists International Competition, Helin played her New York debut to a sold-out audience in Carnegie Recital Hall; she made her European debut in London’s Wigmore Hall. Recent appearances have included concertos with the New Mexico, Richmond, Greenwich, Santa Fe, Mesa, and Redwood Symphonies, and solo recitals in California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, and Maryland.

As a chamber musician, Helin has performed with the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Taos Concert Association, Soundscapes, Santa Fe New Music, Chatter, the Ballet Pro Musica and many other groups. She has served as Music Director of the United Church of Santa Fe since 2005.Applauded for her “lucid, highly expressive” interpretations of contemporary music, Helin frequently collaborates with composers in premieres of their works.

Helin was a featured artist in the nationally televised PBS special honoring Virgil Thomson on his 90th birthday, and she has made the world premiere recordings of many of Thomson’s works.Helin holds a B.M. degree from the University of Oregon where she studied with Victor Steinhardt, a Master’s degree from Stanford University where she studied with Adolph Baller, and a Doctorate from The University of Texas at Austin where she studied with John Perry. She has recently joined the faculty of the New Mexico School for the Arts and she maintains a large private studio in Santa Fe -- many of her students actively compete and have won top prizes throughout the district and state. She has recorded for New World and Musical Heritage.

 

THOMAS O’CONNOR, a highly regarded oboist who has performed extensively on modern and historical oboes, is also the Co-Founder, Music Director and Conductor of Santa Fe Pro Musica. He has performed with all of the major classical music organizations in New Mexico including the Santa Fe Opera, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Music from Angel Fire and the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra. He frequently performs outside of New Mexico with festivals and orchestras including the International Festival at the Domaine Forget in Canada, the Oregon Bach Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, the Oregon Festival of American Music, the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra of San Francisco, the San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival in California, the Maryland Handel Festival, the American Bach Soloists in San Francisco, the Bach Ensemble, Smithsonian Chamber Orchestra, Dallas Chamber Orchestra, and Boston Baroque. He was formerly the Artistic Director of the Ernest Bloch Music Festival at Newport in Oregon and also served on the faculty of Texas Tech University.

He has recordings with Sony, Telarc and Dorian including a GRAMMY® nominated disc of the chamber version of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde for Dorian Records.

O’Connor is a graduate of the University of New Mexico and has pursued graduate studies at the Conservatory of Music at the University of Missouri at Kansas City and at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Musicale, Montreux, Switzerland. 

 

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