The Catskill Chronicle

Review by Barry Plaxen

JEFFERSONVILLE & SHANDELEE, NY (July 29, 2013) – Sullivan County music lovers are beholden to two yearly chamber music festivals for bringing world class performers (and this year – a Pulitzer Prize composer) every July and August. I, for one, am very grateful for the remarkable music I heard on July 20 and July 24, 2013.

On July 20, Weekend of Chamber Music (WCM) held its second concert of the season in the Eddie Adams Farm in Jeffersonville with Judith Pearce, flute (with oboist Matt Sullivan in photo at left); Pavel Vinnitsky, clarinet (photo below right), Sunghae Anna Lim, violin (photo below left); Caroline Stinson, cello; Andrew Waggoner, violin; Tannis Gibson, piano and Matt Sullivan, oboe.

Co-Artistic Directors Andrew Waggoner and Caroline Stinson’s 2013 theme, “Transformations” was, once again as at the July 14 concert, aligned with each piece on the program by Waggoner during his always informative and entertaining pre-concert talks.

The program was highlighted with an intermission during which staff, musicians and audience members honored Judith Pearce on her retirement as WCM’s Artistic Director of 19 years. Honored, yes, but “thanked” is a much better word, as each speaker gave their heartfelt thanks to “Judith” for what she gave to them professionally, personally, and musically.

I was not able to attend WCM’s July 18 “Transprovisations” during which works by Waggoner and John Harbison were interspersed with improvisations. The July 20 concert might have been called “Transportations,” as I found myself being transported into places I had never been, or rarely have experienced.

The opening work, a “Trio for flute, cello, piano” by Bohuslav Martinu brought me to his “American period,” which I am not familiar with, knowing more of his early Czech and Parisian works prior to emigrating here.

With Pearce performing Nicholas Maw’s flute solo “Night Thoughts,” I was transported back to 2005 when she brought Maw to my home town, Bloomingburg (and Jeffersonville and Central Valley), for a concert in his honor.

Also on the program was Beethoven’s “Piano Sonata Op. 109 (#31)” lovingly offered by WCM regular Tannis Gibson (photo left), who spoke so well during intermission about Pearce’s influence on her (Gibson’s) children through the last 19 years. If I remember correctly, Waggoner told of Beethoven’s transformation with this sonata (or this period in his life), leaving behind all classical music references and forms and composing totally in the romantic period. And there was Waggoner’s arrangement of Bach arias, transformed for the ensemble.

Again, as we have seen before, Waggoner and Stinson (photo right) are dual-masters (duel-masters?) of improvisation and we were treated to another fine example. I am now beginning to sense what happens to me (and we in the audience) during these “instant gossamer compositions”. There is a different place we are transported to when we pay attention to, listen to improvisations. But I can’t quite find the words to explain it yet.

And lastly on the program, I was finally transported into the world of Waggoner & Stinson’s Pulitzer Prize winning composer-in-residence, John Harbison, when the ensemble performed his “Songs America Loves to Sing”, a fascinating interpolation of Harbison’s musical language into well known hymns, pop songs and folk songs.

Thanks to Judith Pearce for her bringing world class concerts to Sullivan for 19 years. Thanks to Andrew Waggoner and Caroline Stinson for picking up Pearce’s baton and bringing these world class artists back to Sullivan once again, musicians who never cease to amaze, thrill and move with their ability to perform any genre of music, any period of music and any style of music. Greatness! Always!

On July 24, Shandelee Music Festival held its first concert of the season at the Bethel Woods Museum. They have another in that location on July 28 before the August concerts begin at Shandelee.

The piano soloist was Allen Yueh (b.1991) (pronouced You-ay) who first performed at Shandelee at the age of twelve and has performed there as a guest and as one of the International Artists of Shandelee. His playing of each piece, with his skillful technique and expressive phrasing which comes from deep within him and fully communicated to all within hearing, “transports” us all to another place.

First there was Mozart’s “Piano Sonata in A Major, K.331”, which just about every music student has played: the ‘theme and variation’ sonata that ends with the famous Rondo Alla Turca. With what I can only describe as magic, Yueh phrased each and every line as you would WANT to hear it. Inspired. Exquisite.

The audience interrupted his Chopin section with well-earned, vociferous applause after the profound “Nocturne in c minor, Op. 48 No. 1” because he needed to be told that each and everyone in attendance was aware of and appreciated what he was doing, of every single expressive nuance that came out of his fingers and his soul.

It was his world class technique that showed through his own two-hand adaption of Schubert’s “Fantasia in f minor for Four Hands” and Liszt’s “Rhapsodie Espagnole.”

I do, however, question the chosen locale for solo piano concerts. I think the sound is not “transported” (there’s that word) properly. Loud sometimes was not as clear as soft (not the pianist’s doing, for sure) and the sound seemed to “be” on the stage, and not moving throughout the room. As if the stage had a fourth wall and the music could not break through.

The Weekend of Chamber Music festival, which began on July 14, ended on July 27 with composer-in-residence, John Harbison’s world premiere of his Violin/Piano Sonata that he wrote for his wife, Rose Mary Harbison, who joined him in the performance.

The Shandelee Music festival continues through August 17 in the Sunset Pavilion at Shandelee with a variety of ensembles, soloists and the International Artists of Shandelee, on-the-rise concert pianists who come to Shandelee to hone their skills in an intensive summer program for young professionals. www.shandelee.org, 845-439-3277.