The cabaret beckons at Ozawa Hall Saturday, June 2, 6 pm as Close Encounters With Music ushers in the summer season in the Berkshires. In a performance that evokes the twenties of the last century—a time exemplified by Art Deco, Prohibition, the loosening of social restraints, Jazz, the Charleston and flappers—“Roaring Twenties” offers a panorama of composers and styles that defined and shaped the era: Gershwin, Kurt Weill, Alexander Zemlinsky, Hanns Eisler, Cole Porter, Poulenc, Schoenberg, and Erwin Schulhoff provide a bi-continental glimpse into a decade that still looms colorful, mythical and seductive in cultural history.

Soon to be banned in the thirties by the Third Reich, their brilliant, razor-sharp, wicked and enduring songs (“Bilbao”; “Speak Low”; “Makin’ Whoopee”; “Supply and Demand”; “’S Wonderful”) are part of the program featuring Entartete (degenerate, or Jewish, and then by definition undesirable) music, composers who careers and lives were interrupted and irrevocably altered by the rise of Hitler. Under the new laws, the jazz and cabaret that had been embraced just a few years earlier were now viewed as decadent and posing a threat to European higher culture. The social, artistic, and cultural dynamism of this period ended abruptly with the stock market crash of 1929 and onset of the Great Depression and National Socialism but not before an eruption of creative frenzy in theater, film, art and music almost unparalleled in cultural history.

Wandering into the charged European pre-WWII landscape was also American composer Samuel Barber, whose works were inspired by his sojourn in Paris, as were those of Gershwin. The sonata for piano and cello is a sea of tranquility and emblematic of an isolationist America in an otherwise tempestuous political landscape. Hanns Eisler’s music got him twice ejected—initially from Germany for its subversiveness, and then from the US, for its political intent. Erwin Schulhoff, a European apostle of the new Jazz, died in a concentration camp. His Jazz Etudes for Piano, with movements titled Charleston, Blues, Chanson, Tango, and Toccata Sur le Shimmy “Kitten on the Keys” convey how fervently he internalized the edgy music of the day.

The program re-introduces an important but often neglected group of diverse composers whose works were suppressed during the Nazi era, along with those whose voices were silenced altogether, and places them and their works in context within 20th century music.

“The Roaring Twenties” performers are Jennifer Rivera, mezzo-soprano; Will Ferguson, tenor; James Tocco, piano; and Yehuda Hanani, cello and artistic director. They bring to life the spirit of a music that was nearly destroyed. Hear the recovered voices, come to the cabaret!

Tickets are $50 and $40. For reservations call 800-843-0778 or visit www.cewm.org.

A reception following the June 2 Close Encounters With Music “Roaring Twenties” concert is part of a $125 Preferred Seating Package which includes the concert and a ticket to the reception at Gateways Inn. To reserve a Preferred Seating Package go to www.cewm.org or call 1-800-843-0778.

THE ARTISTS

Jennifer Rivera is a superb lyric mezzo soprano with a growing career in the United States and abroad. She recently appeared with the Teatro Regio di Torino and makes her debut this season with the Berlin Staatsoper as Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia. Ms. Rivera received her Master’s degree from Juilliard and, while a student, was invited to join the New York City Opera where she sang Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro, Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Hansel in Hansel and Gretel, and Nerone in Handel’s Agrippina. She has been praised repeatedly by The New York Times for her “radiant mezzo soprano,” her “warm dark tone,” and “fresh ready singing.” A favorite among living composers, Ms. Rivera created the starring role of Sharon Falconer in the critically acclaimed World Premiere of Robert Aldridge’s Elmer Gantry, which premiered at Nashville Opera in 2007. She has received prizes in the Operalia Competition in Madrid where she performed in a Gala Concert conducted by Placido Domingo; the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions where she was winner of the Eastern Region and a national Semi-Finalist; the George London Foundation; the Opera Index Competition; the Licia Albanese Puccini Competition; and the Richard F. Gold Shoshana Foundation Career Grant from The Juilliard School.

Acclaimed for his versatility in both opera and concert, William Ferguson made his debut with the Santa Fe Opera in 2006 as Caliban in the North American premiere of Thomas Adès’ The Tempest. He soon joined the roster of The Metropolitan Opera where he has performed Beppe in I Pagliacci as well as roles in Le Nozze di Figaro and The Magic Flute (under the baton of James Levine). A regular artist at The New York City Opera, his performances have included the title role in Candide, and Nanki-Poo in The Mikado. Additional credits include Wozzeck with Opera Festival of New Jersey, Così fan tutte at Aspen, Turandot with Opera Company of Philadelphia, Pirates of Penzance with Virginia Opera and Opera Omaha, Dido and Aeneas with Gotham Chamber Opera, the title role in Albert Herring at The Music Academy of the West, L’Heure Espagnole and Falstaff at the Tanglewood Music Center (both with Seiji Ozawa), and Peter Quint in The Turn of the Screw at Chautauqua. Mr. Ferguson has appeared with the American Symphony Orchestra, BBC Orchestra (London), Boston Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (England), Handel and Haydn Society, and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, among others. A native of Richmond, Virginia, he holds both a Bachelor’s and Master’s of Music degree from The Juilliard School.

Pianist James Tocco is widely regarded as one of the foremost interpreters of American masterworks, and his extensive discography, which reflects his varied tastes and astonishing versatility, includes the world premiere recording of Bernstein’s complete solo piano music, an all-Copland disc, the complete Chopin Préludes, the complete piano music of Charles Tomlinson Griffes, Erwin Schulhof ’s Cinq Etudes de Jazz, Bach-Liszt organ transcriptions, the four piano sonatas of Edward MacDowell, and Corigliano’s Etude-Fantasy. He is acknowledged to be the definitive interpreter of Corigliano’s Piano Concerto. Recent engagements include his Royal Concertgebouw debut, performing the MacDowell Concerto and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, both under Leonard Slatkin. He is associated particularly with Bernstein’s Age of Anxiety, which he recorded with Leonard Slatkin and the BBC London Symphony. He has performed with most major American and European orchestras including the Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles, Minnesota, and Pittsburgh as well as the Berlin, London, and Munich Philharmonics.

Cellist Yehuda Hanani is founder and artistic director of Close Encounters With Music. His engaging chamber music with commentary has captivated audiences from Miami to Kansas City, Omaha, Calgary, Scottsdale, the Berkshires, and at the Frick Collection in New York City. A three-time recipient of the Martha Baird Rockefeller grant and a nominee for Grand Prix du Disque for his pioneering recording of Alkan, he appears with orchestras and on the recital stage on five continents. Mr. Hanani is one of the illustrious cellists of today, has appeared with musical luminaries—Aaron Copland, Andre Kostelanetz, Dawn Upshaw, David Robertson, Itzhak Perlman, Leon Fleisher—since his career was launched; and is a prolific recording artist and an innovator in reshaping concert programs to include original, illuminating commentary. He has been the subject of hundreds of articles and interviews in the media, and his weekly program on NPR affiliate station WAMC Northeast Radio, “Classical Music According to Yehuda” attracts thousands of fans. Professor of Cello at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, he also directs the High Peaks Festival, a teaching and chamber music festival in Hunter, New York.

“Life Is A Cabaret,” an essay in the season’s playbill by Richard Houdek, traces the movements, trends and personalities during the era variously known as the “Jazz Age” and the “Roaring Twenties”: http://www.cewm.org/twenties.pdf

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH MUSIC

Close Encounters With Music stands at the intersection of music, art and the vast richness of Western culture. Entertaining, erudite and lively commentary from founder and Artistic Director Yehuda Hanani puts the composers and their times in perspective to enrich the concert experience. Since the inception of its Commissioning Project in 2001, CEWM has worked with the most distinguished composers of our time—Paul Schoenfield, Osvaldo Golijov, Lera Auerbach, Jorge Martin, John Musto, among others—to create important new works that have already taken their place in the chamber music canon and on CD. A core of brilliant performers includes pianists James Tocco, Adam Neiman, Walter Ponce and William Wolfram; violinists Shmuel Ashkenasi, Yehonatan Berick, Vadim Gluzman and Toby Appel; harpsichordist Lionel Party; clarinetists Alexander Fiterstein, Charles Neidich; vocalists Dawn Upshaw, Amy Burton, Jennifer Aylmer, Robert White, Lucille Beer and William Sharp; the Vermeer, Amernet, Muir, Manhattan, Avalon, Hugo Wolf quartets, and Cuarteto Latinoamericano; and guitarist Eliot Fisk. Choreographer David Parsons and actors Richard Chamberlain, Jane Alexander and Sigourney Weaver have also appeared as guests, weaving narration and dance into the fabric of the programs.

(Great Barrington, MA) China’s “Empress of Pipa,” soloist Liu Fang, enchants with counterparts to the lute and zither during “Trade Winds: From China With Love,” a celebration of traditional Chinese classical music. The concert is presented by Close Encounters With Music Saturday, April 21, 6 pm at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center. Liu Fang is joined by cellist Yehuda Hanani for a premiere of Green by recent Pulitzer Prize winner Zhou Long. Originally written for Chinese bamboo flute and pipa in 1983, the version for cello and pipa was adapted in 2011. Composer Zhou Long elaborates on the intent of the work: “Heaven is blue, Earth yellow, and green all the plants they nurture. Green symbolizes the spirit of life. The music is exquisitely provocative, and its sound filling the distant space evokes the communion between man and nature.”

Before today’s multi-culturalism and penchant for fusion, the musical dialogue between East and West began with Debussy, Ravel, and the American avant-garde. “Trade Winds” also includes Bulgarian pianist Emma Tahmizian playing Ravel’s Mother Goose and Leo Ornstein’s remarkable A la Chinoise, while Israeli violinist Hagai Shaham offers Debussy’s pentatonic-inflected Sonata and Fritz Kreisler’s Tambourin Chinois. He also performs a work from another ancient tradition-Joseph Achron’s haunting Hebrew Melody.

The pipa has existed in China for over 2,000 years. Liu Fang compares classical Chinese music to Chinese poetry, lyric drama and calligraphy: “Chinese calligraphy has been regarded as the highest art form in our tradition. Indeed, great calligraphy gives me immense inspiration. The dynamics and movement of strokes of the brush, the line and the points, and the whole structure, are all comparable.” This is a rare appearance by one of today’s masters of the instrument combining her knowledge and practice with Western classical music, contemporary music and improvisation with distinguished colleagues.

An on-stage Afterglow Reception for the audience and artists follows the performance.

THE ARTISTS

As a child prodigy in her native China, and now as a resident of Canada, Liu Fang has been regarded as one of the eminent pipa soloists in the world. She is also an excellent proponent of the Guzheng, or Chinese zither. Her talent crosses all boundaries, linguistic and cultural: She regularly performs solo recitals of Chinese traditional and classical music as well as contemporary music with orchestras, string quartets and varying ensembles and has premiered new compositions-works of Canada’s leading composers R. Murray Schafer and Jose Evangelista among others. Highly acclaimed for her “Silk and Steel” projects in which she collaborates with world class musicians from various traditions, she has released nine solo and collaborative albums. Her most recent recording Silk Sound, for the French Label Accords Crosses, won the prestigious Académie Charles Cros (the French equivalent of the Grammy). Liu Fang is referred to in the press as “the empress of pipa” (L’actualité, 2001), “divine mediator” (World, 2006), “the greatest ambassadress of the art of the pipa” (La presse, 2002) and “possessing virtuoso technique, grace and a unique empathy toward the music she plays-whether it is a traditional folk tune or a modern Western composition” (All Music Guide, 2004). To view a conversation with Liu Fang, click here: http://www.cewm.org/pipa_soloist.pdf

Displaying a dazzling combination of technical brilliance and an intensely musical personality, Hagai Shaham is internationally recognized as one of the astonishing young violinists who have emerged from Israel in recent years. In September 1990, Hagai Shaham and his duo partner, Arnon Erez, won first prize at the ARD International Music Competition in Munich in the Violin-Piano duo category, the first competitors to be awarded this coveted prize since 1971. As a soloist, Shaham has performed with many of the world’s major orchestras, among them the English Chamber Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic; with the Taipei, Singapore and Shanghai Symphony Orchestras, and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under Zubin Mehta. In 1985 he was invited to join Isaac Stern and Pinchas Zukerman Brahms’ Double Concerto at Carnegie Hall. In 2006 he performed this work again under Mehta, at the Israel Philharmonic 70th anniversary’s celebrations with cellist Misha Maisky. Mr. Shaham has recorded for Decca International, Chandos, Biddulph, Naxos, and Hyperion and served on the faculty of the Thornton School of Music at USC, Los Angeles.

Bulgarian native Emma Tahmiziàn made her debut as a soloist with orchestra at thirteen, and her international career was launched at nineteen, when she won First Prize in the Robert Schumann International Competition in Germany and gave her Berlin debut in the legendary Maxim Gorki Theatre. Ms. Tahmiziàn has concertized throughout Europe and North America. She has collaborated with first violinist of the Juilliard Quartet Joel Smirnoff, violist Kim Kashkashian, cellists Yehuda Hanani, Fred Sherry, and Matt Haimovitz, and soprano Bethany Beardslee. Critics have hailed her playing as “stunning” (The Times Record) and “electrifying” (The New York Times). Ms. Tahmiziàn has performed with all the major orchestras of her native Bulgaria, the Moscow and St. Petersburg philharmonics, The Prague Chamber Orchestra, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and the East Berlin Radio Symphony. A graduate of the Bulgarian State Music Conservatory, she holds a Master of Music Degree from The Juilliard School of Music, where her teachers included Adele Marcus. She is a laureate of the Tchaikovsky, Leeds, Van Cliburn, Montréal, Bach and Smetana competitions, a winner of the Pro Musicis Award, and a recipient of multiple grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts. She has taught at the Bulgarian State Music Conservatory, the University of Virginia, and the College of the Holy Cross and enjoys a long-standing association with the Bowdoin International Music Festival.

Cellist Yehuda Hanani is founder and artistic director of Close Encounters With Music. His engaging chamber music with commentary has captivated audiences from Miami to Kansas City, Omaha, Calgary, Scottsdale, the Berkshires, and at the Frick Collection in New York City. A three-time recipient of the Martha Baird Rockefeller grant, he appears with orchestras and on the recital stage on five continents. He has been the subject of hundreds of articles and interviews in the media, and his weekly program on NPR affiliate station WAMC Northeast Radio, “Classical Music According to Yehuda” attracts thousands of fans. Professor of Cello at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, he also directs the High Peaks Festival, a teaching and chamber music festival in Hunter, New York. He has appeared as soloist with leading orchestras around the world, with eminent colleagues, and has championed some of the most influential composers of our times.

Tickets, $40 (Orchestra and Mezzanine) and $30 (Balcony) include the After Glow audience reception on stage. They are available at The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center box office, 14 Castle Street, Great Barrington, 413.528.0100. For further information contact www.cewm.org or 800-843-0778.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Sunday, April 29, 12:30 PM: Close Encounters With Music Annual Musicale Benefit at Blantyre
Savor a superb lunch and chamber concert while supporting Close Encounters With Music. A Salon-style celebration at one of the Berkshire’s most elegant resorts. Blantyre, Lenox, MA. For further information and reservations: 800.843.0778 or cewmusic@aol.com.

Sunday, May 13, 4 PM: “Conversations With…An Afternoon of Young Berkshire Composers”.
Free Presentation by Close Encounters With Music at the Lichtenstein Center
Emerging artists present their compositions. Conversations reflect on inspiration, the creative process and differences from the days of Mozart and Stravinsky. Light refreshments follow. The Lichtenstein Center for the Arts, 28 Renne Avenue, Pittsfield, MA. Free and open to the public. For further information: 800.843.0778 or cewmusic@aol.com.

Saturday, May 19, 6 PM: “Daedalus Quartet-Beethoven, Schubert & Berg”
Presented by Close Encounters With Music
An intriguing all-Viennese program. Schubert’s Quartettsatz; Alban Berg’s groundbreaking Lyric Suite; “Razumovsky,” Beethoven’s Opus 59 No. 1 in F Major. Min-Young Kim, violin; Ara Gregorian, violin; Jessica Thompson, viola; Raman Ramakrishnan, cello. Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, Great Barrington, MA. Tickets $40/$30. Box Office: 413.528.0100.

Saturday, June 2, 6 PM : “The Roaring Twenties-Berlin, Paris, New York.”
Close Encounters With Music Season Finale at Tanglewood
Celebrate the golden age of jazz and cabaret, a period exemplified by experimentalism and decadence. Songs by Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler, Cole Porter and Gershwin; Erwin Shulhoff’s Jazz Suite; and Entartete composers whose “degenerate” music. Jennifer Rivera, mezzo-soprano; Will Ferguson, tenor; James Tocco, piano; Yehuda Hanani, cello. Tanglewood’s Ozawa Hall, Lenox, MA. Tickets $50 Orchestra/$40 Balconies. 800.843.0778; www.cewm.org.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH MUSIC

Close Encounters With Music stands at the intersection of music, art and the vast richness of Western culture. Entertaining, erudite and lively commentary from founder and Artistic Director Yehuda Hanani puts the composers and their times in perspective to enrich the concert experience. Since the inception of its Commissioning Project in 2001, CEWM has worked with the most distinguished composers of our time—Paul Schoenfield, Osvaldo Golijov, Lera Auerbach, Jorge Martin, John Musto, among others—to create important new works that have already taken their place in the chamber music canon and on CD. A core of brilliant performers includes pianists James Tocco, Adam Neiman, Walter Ponce and William Wolfram; violinists Shmuel Ashkenasi, Yehonatan Berick, Vadim Gluzman and Toby Appel; harpsichordist Lionel Party; clarinetists Alexander Fiterstein, Charles Neidich; vocalists Dawn Upshaw, Amy Burton, Jennifer Aylmer, Robert White, Lucille Beer and William Sharp; the Vermeer, Amernet, Muir, Manhattan, Avalon, Hugo Wolf quartets, and Cuarteto Latinoamericano; and guitarist Eliot Fisk. Choreographer David Parsons and actors Richard Chamberlain, Jane Alexander and Sigourney Weaver have also appeared as guests, weaving narration and dance into the fabric of the programs.

AUGUST 18, 2011

Also presenting second season of CEWM at the Frick Collection in New York City

(Great Barrington, MA…) Going into its 20th year of presenting outstanding chamber music with lively commentary, Close Encounters With Music continues to expand its original programming of classical, contemporary and cutting-edge music. For the 2011-2012 season, CEWM offers world-renowned musicians, brings back the outrageously virtuosic Chamber Orchestra Kremlin, introduces one of the foremost pipa players in the world, marks an important birthday for Franz Liszt and revisits one of the most evocative periods in cultural history—the Roaring Twenties.

(For Calendar listings, see below.)

The season opens at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center on Sunday, October 30, 2 PM with the return of the audience favorite Chamber Orchestra Kremlin in a program of Dvorak’s sunny Serenade for Strings Op. 22 and Elgar’s Serenade in E minor, Shostakovich’s tragic Chamber Symphony Op. 110, and Bach’s radical Contrapunctus I from The Art of the Fugue. The “crème de la Kremlin” has carved out a singular niche, touring the US, Europe, Asia, and South America, and recording over 30 CDs with its signature supercharged brilliance (“The ensemble’s music director elicited warm, full-blooded and virtuosic playing with colorfully shaped, gleaming phrases” —The New York Times). Luigi Boccherini’s Cello Concerto features Yehuda Hanani as soloist.

Chamber Orchestra Kremlin, Misha Rachlevsky, conductor; Yehuda Hanani, cello

On Sunday, December 4 at 2 PM at The Mahaiwe, it’s Lisztomania! CEWM explores the cult of celebrity that had its roots with Franz Liszt, sex symbol and showman extraordinaire. Keyboard innovator and a powerful genius whose compositions blazed the way for Impressionism, Romanticism, and atonality, he is widely regarded as the greatest pianist of all time, mesmerizing audiences at his thousands of concert appearances. The program includes Liszt’s pictorial piano solo works; Saint-Saëns’ Rondo Capriccioso and Mendelssohn’s C minor Trio. Listeners will be rewarded with four recently published works for cello and piano, transcribed by Liszt himself, with acclaimed interpreter Jeffrey Swann (“His Liszt was a triumph of virtuosity” – Cincinnati Post).

“Lisztomania! A 200th Anniversary Celebration”
Jeffrey Swann, piano; Yehonatan Berick, violin; Yehuda Hanani, cello

The complex relationships between Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms and the immortal Clara are examined through Grand Piano Quartets on Saturday, March 24, 6PM at The Mahaiwe. The Piano Quartets in E flat Major, Opus 44 (Schumann) and G minor, Opus 25 (Brahms) deliver an enthralling range of emotions—vigor, passion, power, and the timelessness of enduring masterpieces. Both were premiered by Clara Schumann, and the music evokes an auditory remembrance of things past, glimpses into a lost world of nobility and higher ideals.
“Grand Piano Quartets: Schumann and Brahms”
Lydia Artymiw, piano; Arnaud Sussman, violin; Toby Appel, viola; Yehuda Hanani, cello

In Trade Winds—From China with Love, a musical dialogue between East and West fill the Mahaiwe Saturday, April 21, 6PM. China’s “Empress of Pipa,” soloist Liu Fang, performs traditional selections on the Chinese counterparts to the lute and zither, and is joined by Yehuda Hanani for a premiere by Pulitzer Prize winner Zhou Long. Bulgarian pianist Emma Tahmizian plays Mother Goose and Leo Ornstein’s remarkable A la Chinoise, and Israeli violinist Hagai Shaham offers Debussy’s pentatonic-inflected Sonata and Fritz Kreisler’s Tambourin Chinois.

“Trade Winds—From China with Love”
Liu Fang, pipa and guzheng; Emma Tahmizian, piano; Hagai Shaham, violin; Yehuda Hanani, cello

On Saturday, May 7 at 6PM, the “refined but passionate Dedaelus Quartet” (The New York Times) brings an intriguing all-Viennese program. Like Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony, his Quartettsatz is a piece brimming with ardor and ecstasy—but unfinished. Alban Berg’s groundbreaking Lyric Suite plays with cryptic messages and themes depicting the tragic love of Tristan and Isolde while it is in fact about his “unrequited passion for a friend’s wife,” a mystery revealed 20 years ago when the composer’s letter were released. Also on tap: Beethoven’s Opus 59 No. 1 in F Major, the majestic “Razumovsky.”

Dedaelus Quartet:
Min-Young Kim, violin; Ara Gregorian, violin; Jessica Thompson, viola; Raman Ramakrishnan, cello

The season finale, “The Roaring Twenties: Berlin, Paris, New York,” celebrates the golden age of jazz and cabaret, and a period exemplified by experimentalism and decadence, Saturday, June 2, 6PM at Tanglewood’s Ozawa Hall in Lenox. Brilliant, enduring songs by Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler, Cole Porter and Gershwin; Erwin Shulhoff’s Jazz Suite; and Entartete composers whose “degenerate” music was banned just a few years later by the rising Nazis and whose careers and lives were interrupted by the cataclysmic events that followed. Hear the recovered voices. Come to the cabaret!

“The Roaring Twenties: Berlin, Paris, New York”
Jennifer Rivera, mezzo-soprano; Will Ferguson, tenor; James Tocco, piano; Yehuda Hanani, cello

For Subscribers Only: Fireside Subscriber Concert
An exclusive event for season subscribers on Saturday, February 25, 6 PM at Searle’s Castle in Great Barrington, the Midwinter Concert features the rising young piano trio, TROIKA.

MORE THAN MUSIC: POETRY AND MEET-THE-COMPOSERS EVENTS
Close Encounters With Music continues its listen and talk series, Conversations with…intimate and stimulating afternoons of music, literature and exchanges of ideas with notable performers, critics, authors, and cultural personages. On Saturday, November 12, 4PM, Close Encounters With Music and The Mount present “Picnic With Poets,” featuring Massachusetts poet Charles Coe and regional Berkshire poets reading their works at Edith Wharton’s majestic estate. Coe, winner of the Massachusetts Cultural Council Poetry Fellowship and author of the collection Picnic on the Moon, combines subjects as diverse as African-American history, myth, jazz and family. On Sunday, May 13, 4PM at The Lichtenstein Center for the Arts in Pittsfield, Close Encounters With Music hosts Young Berkshires Composers, introducing emerging Berkshire composers. Audience members will be among the first to hear their compositions and take part in the conversation on the how and why of their compositional process.

Close Encounters in New York City
Returning to the Frick Collection in New York City popular demand, Close Encounters With Music offers Fall and Spring concerts. On Tuesday, October 4 7:30PM, “Romanticism and Enlightenment: Mendelssohn and Eduard Franck” features the American premiere of the Eduard Franck Sonata for Cello and Piano. James Tocco, piano; Shmuel Ashkenasi and Nurit Pacht, violins; and Yehuda Hanani, cello, in rediscovered works of Eduard Franck, one of Mendelssohn’s only students, as well as pieces by Mendelssohn and Eduard Franck’s student, Mortiz Moszkowski. On Tuesday, March 27, 7:30PM, Eliot Fisk, guitar, and Yehuda Hanani, cello, will blend the sonorities of plucked and bowed strings in music by Schubert, Boccherini, Bach, Albeniz, Villa-Lobos and more.

Close Encounters On the Radio/Podcast
Close Encounters With Music concerts are broadcast on WMHT-FM, and audiences are encouraged to tune into the new weekly broadcasts of “Classical Music According to Yehuda” on WAMC Northeast Radio or visit www.wamc.org.

ABOUT CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH MUSIC
Close Encounters With Music stands at the intersection of music, art and the vast richness of Western culture. Entertaining, erudite and lively commentary from founder and Artistic director Yehuda Hanani puts composers and their times in perspective to enrich the concert experience. Since the inception of its Commissioning Project in 2001, CEWM has worked with the most distinguished composers of our time: Paul Schoenfield, Osvaldo Golijov, Lera Auerbach, Kenji Bunch, John Musto, among others to create important new works that have already taken their place in the chamber music canon and on CD. A core of brilliant performers includes pianists James Tocco, Adam Neiman, Walter Ponce and Jeffrey Swann; violinists Shmuel Ashkenasi, Yehonatan Berick, Vadim Gluzman and Toby Appel; harpsichordist Lionel Party; clarinetists Alexander Fiterstein, Charles Neidich; vocalists Dawn Upshaw, Amy Burton, Jennifer Aylmer, Robert White, Lucille Beer and William Sharp; the Vermeer, Amernet, Muir, Mnahattan, Avalon, Hugo Wolf quartets, and Cuarteto Latinamericano; and guitarist Eliot Fisk. Choreographer David Parsons and actors Richard Chamberlain, Jane Alexander and Sigourney Weaver have also appeared as guests, weaving narration and dance into the fabric of the programs.

TICKET INFORMATION
Tickets, $38 (Orchestra and Mezzanine) and $28 (Balcony), are available at The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center box office, 413.528.0100. Subscriptions are $175 ($150 for seniors) for a series of 6 concerts. Visit our website at www.cewm.org.

Note: Tickets for June 2nd concert at Tanglewood’s Ozawa Hall can be purchased through CEWM
only.

2011-12 CALENDAR

Chamber Orchestra Kremlin, Sunday, October 30, 2PM
Lisztomania! A 200th Anniversary Celebration, Sunday, December 4, 2PM

Grand Piano Quartets: Schumann and Brahms, Saturday, March 24, 6PM

Trade Winds — From China With Love, Saturday, April 21, 6PM

The Dedaelus Quartet, Saturday, May 19, 6PM

These five performances are at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, Great Barrington, MA. A reception with light refreshments follows each concert.

Admission for “Picnic With Poets” on Saturday, November 12 is $15 per person which light refreshments. The Young Berkshire Composers event on Sunday, May 13 is free and open to the public.

The Roaring Twenties: Berlin, Paris, New York concert takes place Saturday, June 2, 6PM, at Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, Lenox, MA. Tickets: $50 Orchestra and $40 Balconies.

For information and tickets for the Close Encounters With Music concerts at the Frick Museum in NYC, call 212.547.0696 or www.frick.org.

Songs about lotus flowers and pagodas, chamber music by German Romanticist par excellence Richard Strauss, and the Berkshire debut of opera star Jennifer Rivera highlight the Close Encounters With Music March 12 concert “Thus Spake German Romanticism” 6 PM at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington, MA. “Radiant…ravishing mezzo soprano bloom from top to bottom” is how Opera News recently described Rivera’s opulent voice.

Also scheduled is the world premiere of this season’s Composer-in Residence Jorge Martin’s Four Noble Truths, a brilliant addition to the chamber music repertoire inspired by Buddhist wisdom and following in the footsteps of late nineteenth century German Romantics. According to artistic director Yehuda Hanani “Mr. Martin comes out of this tradition, and his musical language, sonorities and spiritual affinities are a continuation of this grand saffron-scented Silk Road that so influenced the 19th century arts. That’s why this 2008 work is programmed alongside Strauss, Hugo Wolf, Mendelssohn.”

In the nineteenth century, Europe, and especially Germany, discovered in Indian civilization an entire ancient system of religious thought, mythology, and poetry that was still breathing with life (against which Greco-Roman classicism seemed a pale shadow of a dead past that championed reason over imagination). Convinced that the roots of spirituality and answers to the West’s malaise lay in the Far East, German poets and musicians, from Goethe and Heine to Hermann Hesse and Richard Strauss, made a cultural voyage to the Far East and found inspiration in Oriental philosophy, poetry and art. Not only silks and spices, but ideas as well, influenced 19th century German culture. India, in particular, represented an age of innocence, the childhood of humanity, and religious sentiment closely allied with nature. Hesse, one of the few who, in 1916, actually traveled to India, envisioned a homecoming and renewal from the spirit of the East.

Richard Strauss, who was inspired by Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra, is represented on the program by his youthful Sonata for Cello and Piano. In musical settings by Mendelssohn, Schubert, Strauss and Wolf the poets Heine and Goethe transport us to the banks of the Ganges to be intoxicated by the perfume of exotic flora. Award-winning composer Jorge Martin, continuing in the German Romantic tradition, leads his listeners through four stages, from suffering and strife, to enlightenment and nirvana, in the new Four Noble Truths, which receives its world premiere on March 12.

THE PERFORMERS

Jennifer Rivera is a superb lyric mezzo soprano who was invited to join the roster of the New York City Opera while still a student at Juilliard. She recently debuted as Sesto in La Clemenza di Tito with the Teatro Regio di Torino and will make her debut this season with the Berlin Staatsoper as Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia. She has been praised repeatedly by the New York Times for her “radiant mezzo soprano,” her “warm dark tone,” and “fresh ready singing.” Ms. Rivera created the starring role of Sharon Falconer in the critically acclaimed 2007 Nashville Opera world premiere of Robert Aldridge’s Elmer Gantry and sings this season with the Portland Opera as well as the Innsbruck Early Music Festival. She has recorded for Harmonia Mundi. Internationally acclaimed pianist Walter Ponce has been heard in every major city of North and South America, as well as concert halls in Europe, Japan, Korea, and Africa. Born in Bolivia, his musical beginnings were in Buenos Aires, where he attended the National Conservatory and came under the influence of Alberto Ginastera before arriving in the United States on a Fulbright grant. Mr. Ponce has made guest appearances with Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Society and given the world premieres for more than two hundred works, including those by Hugo Weisgall, George Rochberg, Karel Husa, William Bolcom, Morton Gould and Ezra Laderman. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from the Mannes College of Music, and Master of Science and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from Juilliard where was one of three students chosen to play and study with Vladimir Horowitz.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH MUSIC

Close Encounters With Music stands at the intersection of music, art and the vast richness of Western culture. Entertaining, erudite and lively commentary from founder and Artistic Director Yehuda Hanani puts the composers and their times in perspective to enrich the concert experience. Since the inception of its Commissioning Project in 2001, CEWM has worked with the most distinguished composers of our time—Paul Schoenfield, Osvaldo Golijov, Lera Auerbach, Kenji Bunch, John Musto, among others—to create important new works that have already taken their place in the chamber music canon and on CD. A core of brilliant performers includes pianists James Tocco, Adam Neiman, Walter Ponce and William Wolfram; violinists Shmuel Ashkenasi, Yehonatan Berick, Vadim Gluzman and Toby Appel; harpsichordist Lionel Party; clarinetists Alexander Fiterstein, Charles Neidich; vocalists Dawn Upshaw, Amy Burton, Jennifer Aylmer, Robert White, Lucille Beer and William Sharp; the Vermeer, Amernet, Muir, Manhattan, Avalon, Hugo Wolf quartets, and Cuarteto Latinoamericano; and guitarist Eliot Fisk. Choreographer David Parsons and actors Richard Chamberlain, Jane Alexander and Sigourney Weaver have also appeared as guests, weaving narration and dance into the fabric of the programs.

TICKET INFORMATION

Tickets, $40 (orchestra and mezzanine) and $30 (balcony), are available at The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center box office, 413.528.0100, or through Close Encounters With Music at 800-843-0778 or by emailing cewmusic@aol.com. Subscriptions are $175 ($150 for seniors) for a series of 6 concerts. Visit our website at www.cewm.org.

Note: Tickets for June 4th concert at Tanglewood’s Ozawa Hall can be purchased through CEWM only.

2010-11 CALENDAR

Chamber Orchestra Kremlin, Saturday, October 16, 6PM
Baroque Pantheon: A Holiday Concert Saturday, December 4, 6PM
Thus Spake German Romanticism Saturday, March 12, 6PM
Viola Quintets: Dvorak and Mendelssohn Saturday, April 16, 6PM
The Avalon Quartet: Steve Reich, Osvaldo Golijov and Schubert Saturday, May 7, 6PM

These five performances at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, Great Barrington, MA. A reception with light refreshments follows each concert.

Tickets for Conversations with…. events on Sundays, November 21 and May 15, Hudson Opera House, Hudson NY, are $15 per person which includes refreshments.

Fiesta! A Latin Splash of Music and Dance takes place Saturday, June 4, 6PM, at Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, Lenox, MA. Tickets: $50 Orchestra and Loges; $40 Balconies.

For information and tickets for the inaugural season of Close Encounters with Music at the Frick Museum in NYC call 212.547.0696 or www.frick.org.

“A chamber music series on a par with anything heard at the height of the season. For this, we year-rounders are blessed.” —Rogovoy Report

“There’s a palpable mystique about these Close Encounters concerts.” —Berkshire Eagle

“STUNNER CLOSES SEASON! Though Hanani, Prutsman and Upshaw all performed with that rare combination of mutual understanding and technical finesse which makes for the most satisfying chamber music, Hanani deserves special recognition for his astute program choices.”

—Albany Times Union

“An all-star lineup…CEWM’s usual high caliber.” —Metroland