The Catskill Chronicle

Review by Barry Plaxen

After the July 10 Weekend of Chamber Music (WCM) 2011 Summer Music Festival, “From Classic to Cool,” opening concert featuring American Music for Wind Quintet, a somewhat different grouping of these world class chamber musicians performed music by Hoiby, Stravinsky, Andrew Waggoner and Ravel on July 16 at the Eddie Adams farm in Jeffersonville.

Judith Pearce (flute) (photo left), Anna Lim (violin), Tannis Gibson (piano), Matt Sullivan (oboe/English horn) (photo right), Caroline Stimson (cello) and Kenneth Hamrick (harpsichord/piano) regaled the audience with Hoiby’s Sonata for Violin and Piano, Stravinsky’s Three Easy Pieces for Piano, Ravel’s Piano Trio and the world premiere of Andrew Waggoner’s “8 Singles.”

It was a concert where “sound” was as important as “music.” The sounds of neo-classical European/American music, of “new” 20^th century sounds/music, the move forward with impressionism merging with 20^th century sounds/music and the culmination of these, and what else has transpired since the 1920s in European/American, American/Folk and African/American music, in the world premiere.

Prior to the concert, Waggoner (photo left) explained the purposeful connections of WCM Artistic Director Pearce’s programming, with the resulting pieces bringing us forward from Hoiby’s romantic-though-modern neo-classicist sound to a light and humorous Stravinsky-esque innovative work to Waggoner’s programmatic pieces based on art works in a 2010 Catskill Art Society exhibit of visual art inspired by the beautiful Zuber panels in the Livingston Manor Central School.

At one point in the Stravinsky piece, which is for four hands, Hamrick on the lower register twice leaned in front of Gibson on the upper register and reached way high on the keys to play a few notes –but with a somewhat screwball-ish theatrical “attitude,” reminding us that no matter what, light or serious, simple or profound, emotional or cerebral, easy or difficult, music is entertainment. Meaning, we need to sit back and let the sounds wash over us and feel/enjoy the energies emanating from the music while the performers make magic for us.

As WCM has done before, the Waggoner premiere was played twice, an old, but nowadays rarely used tradition, affording the audience the chance to digest any new sounds and the choice to “think” first and “sense” later, or “sense” first and “think” later.

The concert closed with Ravel’s Piano Trio, perhaps not as accessible as his more popular works, the Piano Concerto in G, the String Quartet or the Violin Piano Sonata, but more fitting with Pearce’s innovative program due to its melding of various styles and sounds and its beautifully deep, thematic material. Interestingly, the slow movements of Hoiby’s, Waggoner’s and Ravel’s pieces were the emotional highlights for this writer. (Photo right – Anna Lim)

Needless to say, the world class performers exploited every nuance in all the music for our ear-pleasing benefit. Pearce’s repertory choices gave us a rainbow of sound colors, from quintets, to trios, to duets, to solos, all masterfully executed. What a gift to Sullivan County these WCM performers are.

Concerts continue in North Branch, Jeffersonville and Monticello through July 24. I can’t wait.

For information on upcoming concerts visit The Weekend of Chamber Music’s website or call 845-932-8527.