Bringing a “mellifluous blend of vigorous intensity and dramatic import, performed with enthusiasm, technical facility and impressive balance,” the 13-strong Manhattan Chamber Players make their Close Encounters With Music debut this season.
Two great melodists and two young geniuses in one brilliant evening! Bubbly, like fine Champagne, Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet is one of the most joyous pieces ever written. The program also features Schumann’s miraculous Piano Quintet in E-flat Major.
The Escher String Quartet performs works by Ravel, Tchaikovsky and Ruth Crawford Seeger.
The Avalon String Quartet, in a Berkshires premiere, perform “For Such a Time as This,” a retelling of the biblical Esther story from a feminist perspective. In this work, composer Stacy Garrop reminds us “we each possess agency to make changes happen in our lives, to act upon injustices, and leave the world a better place.” Mezzo-soprano Julia Bentley narrated this piece.
To paraphrase Walt Whitman, only the darkness of the night reveals all the stars—in the Heavens and on stage! Max Levinson, piano; John Viscardi, baritone; Kobi Malkin and Grace Park, violin; Luke Fleming, viola; Lizzie Burns, double bass; Yehuda Hanani, cello. Presented on Sunday, December 3 at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
