Upcoming Concerts
by Marcel Smith
The Blair School of Music presents the first of five concerts that over the next two seasons will showcase Beethoven’s sonatas for piano and strings. Each program includes two sonatas for piano and violin, and one for piano and cello. The series features violinists Christian Teal, Cornelia Heard, and Carolyn Hueble, cellist Felix Wang, and pianist Craig Nies. The opening concert offers the Sonata in A Major and the Sonata in E-flat Major for piano and violin, and the Sonata in F Major for piano and cello. Fri. Sept. 14 in Turner Recital Hall.
Great Performances at Vanderbilt presents the Miró String Quartet in a program of Beethoven, Shostakovich, and Grieg. The quartet won both the first and the grand prizes at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition in 1996 and has been a spectacular presence in chamber music performance venues since. Critics have found their playing as brilliant and audacious as their eponym Joan Miró’s surrealist paintings. Sat. Sept. 15 in Vanderbilt’s Langford Auditorium.
On Mon. Sept. 17, the Tennessee Philharmonic Orchestra at MTSU, directed by Laurence Harvin, features as guest soloist Anthony Kearns, one of the three “Irish Tenors” of PBS fame. A prizewinning singer of oratorios and of the passionately expressive songs rooted in Ireland’s tragic history, Kearns is not to be missed in person. The performance is in MTSU’s Tucker Theater.
Tues. Oct. 2 in the Belmont Mansion, duo classical guitarists Robert Thompson and Mark Godwin perform two works composed for them by Michael Slayton—as well as works by Isaac Albéniz and others. On Oct. 5-6 at TPAC, the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet joins the Nashville Symphony to play a concerto by 20th-century blind Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo. The Symphony’s new associate conductor, Byung Hyun Rhee, makes his official debut on the podium.
Nashville Opera’s season opener should once again raise the bar: Puccini’s Turandot is splendid as story, music, and spectacle. A blend of realism and folktale, this fable about a beautiful Chinese princess’ implacable fight not to be handed over to any man ends happily when a courageous man’s unconditional love melts the cruel maiden’s cold heart. Lori Philips, who has wowed Nashville already as Butterfly and Desdemona, sings the incandescently glacial Turandot. Randolph Locke sings the prince who lights her fire. Oct. 18 and 20 at TPAC.
On Fri. Oct. 26 in Turner Recital Hall, the Blair String Quartet serves up some Schubert, Bartók, and Beethoven. The program opens with Schubert’s lyrical Quartet in E-flat Major, then continues with the fourth of Béla Bartók’s six string quartets, concluding with the last of Beethoven’s three middle-period “Rasumovsky” quartets. Less jagged and dissonant than the late quartets, this Beethoven is muscular and supple. The program lets the BSQ show that it’s made of the right stuff.
Beginning Wed. Oct. 24 at Belmont University, a three-day Fall Choral Institute will be led by Donald Neuen, director of choral activities at UCLA. By means of workshops, master classes, and concerts, the conductor and teacher will talk with choral directors and with singers about effective rehearsal techniques and performance procedures. The Institute culminates in a performance Friday evening in Massey Concert Hall: Maestro Neuen leads the Belmont Oratorio Chorus in works by Bach and Vivaldi.
Kenneth Schermerhorn conducts the Nashville Symphony and guest pianist Seymour Lipkin in Mozart’s great Piano Concerto in C Minor, sorrowful music that recalls Mozart’s own disastrous final cadence. The program also includes music by Antonio Salieri, no mean composer himself, despite being portrayed as an envious villain in the movie Amadeus. Find out if your own ears can tell who deserves the Grammy. At TPAC Nov. 2 and 3.
On Nov. 9 and 10 the Nashville Chamber Orchestra showcases marimba man Chris Norton doing a brand-new work by Conni Ellisor for marimba and strings. Chris and the internationally acclaimed percussion ensemble Nexus will also reprise Conni’s Concerto for Marimba and Latin Percussion that NCO premiered in 2000. The venue is War Memorial Auditorium, acoustically one of the finest in the city. The music will be picante to your ears.
Great Performances at Vanderbilt does it again with the Netherlands Chamber Choir, one of an elite few vocal groups who specialize in singing a cappella. Founded in 1937, NCC consists of 26 carefully chosen singers. Like the incomparable British sextet The King’s Singers, NCC sing everything, from the early medieval to the contemporary. Their special sound has been heard all over the world. They’re doing a one-night stand in Langford Auditorium Tues Nov. 13. Go there: They’re worth it.
The Nashville Symphony Chorus, directed by George Mabry, gives its annual Christmas concert Wed. Dec. 12, accompanied by the Nashville Symphony at War Memorial Auditorium. This year’s program, called “Classical Christmas,” will offer a selection of Christmas classics ranging from Bach and Vivaldi to Benjamin Britten and John Rutter, and will include traditional works arranged by Alice Parker and by Lloyd Wells.
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