A 14-person Pop-up Collective of New York’s Finest String Players Offers Power, Precision, Finesse and Soaring Artistry in a Festive Holiday Concert on Sunday, December 15, 4pm at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center.
Great Barrington, MA: Close Encounters With Music’s 33rd Season in the Berkshires continues with chamber music royalty in a 14-person ensemble on Sunday, December 15, 4PM at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington, MA. This festive holiday concert is filled with music by Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Boccherini and Barber.
Composed by Tchaikovsky to counter a bout of insomnia and melancholy, Serenade for Strings immediately cheered him up, and he reported “feeling well, invigorated and content”—as gratified listeners have over the years. Few composers have possessed the ability to reflect emotions within their music as well as Tchaikovsky, and the Serenade channels solemnity and joy (an homage to Mozart, a memorable waltz) into one perfect package. Barber’s iconic Adagio, “full of pathos and cathartic passion, rarely leaves a dry eye” (it was played at the funerals of Albert Einstein and Princess Grace of Monaco…). Holberg Suite (subtitled “suite in olden style” — 1884), one of Grieg’s most beloved works, offers chorale-like harmonies, joyous and lilting rhythms, and hints of a rural fiddle player. Boccherini’s Baroque-era Cello Concerto, rewritten in a Romantic vein, is a virtuosic delight. The conductorless Vivace String Orchestra takes center stage and CEWM’s artistic director Yehuda Hanani and cellist extraordinaire will be the soloist in this work.
Comprised of fourteen top-tier soloists who gather for periodic tours, Vivace performers are the crème de la crème of chamber music players. They are members of the legendary Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Sybarite5, Frisson, Eighth Blackbird, Seraphic Fire, Sejong Soloists, The Knights, A Far Cry, Music from Copland House, Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect, and the Jasper String Quartet. Individually, they have performed as soloists with prestigious orchestras around the globe— Los Angeles Philharmonic, BBC Concert Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Saint Louis Symphony, Spanish National Orchestra, Buenos Aires Philharmonic, Rochester Philharmonic, Staatsorchester Brandenburgisches Frankfurt, Columbus, Houston, Dallas, Detroit, and New Jersey, symphony orchestras, Johannesburg Philharmonic, Venezuela Symphony, Kwazulu-Natal Philharmonic, Orchestre Royal de Chambre and Montevideo Philharmonic in the most prestigious cultural venues and in chamber music settings with stars of the music world. Members have taken top prizes in competitions, including the Naumburg, Boston Symphony Concerto Competition, Avery Fisher, and a Rising Star Award by Tiffany & Co. They lead colorful and eclectic lives in music, performing jazz, tango, contemporary and Baroque; have mastered the Violoncello da Spalla (a five-stringed mini cello that is played on the shoulder!) and the Argentine bandoneon; compose, teach, and have found other exciting outlets for their creativity. Cellist Aaron Wolff had a lead role in the Coen brothers’ film A Serious Man and has provided string arrangements for Comedy Central’s sitcom Broad City.
United in their excellence, experience and the excitement they generate, Vivace presents a precision-instrument orchestral voice.
Vivace Chamber Orchestra: Katie Hyun, Kobi Malkin, Siwoo Kim, Keiko Tokunaga, Ruben Rengel, Sami Merdinian, Miho Saegusa, violins; Luke Fleming, Caeli Smith, Tanner Menees, Andrew Gonzalez, violas; Ari Evan, Arlen Hlusko, Aaron Wolff, cellos; Lizzie Burns, double bass
Yehuda Hanani, cello solo
All audience members are invited to an “Afterglow” reception following each concert to meet the performers and one another! In addition to offering live in-person concerts, curated online performances will be available to accommodate geographically remote listeners and virtual followers.
TICKET INFORMATION
Season subscriptions are available at cewm.org: $225 for the remaining season series of 6 concerts, plus a 4 concert, select-your-own option. Single Tickets, $55 (Orchestra and Mezzanine), $30 (Balcony) and $15 for students, are available through the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center or by calling 413-528-0100.
“CEWM patrons have learned that sooner or later they’ll be blindsided by a performance so sublime it will defy explanation.”
— The Berkshire Edge
HOW TO REACH US
Close Encounters With Music
Post Office Box 34
Great Barrington, MA 01230
Web: cewm.org
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NEXT UP:
6 Unaccompanied Bach Suites for Cello with Colin Carr & Yehuda Hanani
Sunday, February 23, 2025 4 PM, Saint James Place, Great Barrington
Two leading Bach interpreters embark on a journey while traversing his Six Suites, the apogee of the cello repertoire. Filled with mystery and beauty, blasted through with rapture, every note is a bold statement. Music that first flowed from the composer’s quill in the early 1700’s, it belongs to no specific time or place. At the same time as it floats in the heavenly spheres, it provides plenty of earthly pleasures – courtly music, riffs, Celtic jigs, the merriment of a tavern musician, and glimpses of modern minimalism. The title “Unaccompanied” is a bit of a misnomer: a single cellist takes on numerous voices, making the music drama for three or four characters played by one actor! If angels danced, this is the music that would no doubt accompany them on their gramophone.
Colin Carr, cello; Yehuda Hanani, cello
“…Colin Carr – supreme technique and ebulllience” – Boston Musical Intelligencer
“In this era of the cello, Hanani is among the best. His Bach was absorbing imaginative, beautiful i all respects” – San Francisco Examiner
2024/2025 Current Season
Sunday, October 20, 4 PM, The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center: Drama and Melodrama – The Schumanns
Sunday, December 15, 4 PM, The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center: Vivace Chamber Orchestra: Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Boccherini, Barber
Sunday, February 23, 4 PM, Saint James Place: 6 Unaccompanied Bach Suites for Cello with Colin Carr & Yehuda Hanani
Sunday, March 23, 4 PM, Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center: “Rite of Spring” – Rachmaninoff/Stravinsky
Sunday, April 27, 4 PM, Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center: Classical Roots, Latin Soul – The Dalí String Quartet
Sunday, May 18, 4 PM, Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center: “A Tale of Two Salons” – Winaretta Singer and Marcel Proust
Sunday, June 8, 4PM, Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center: L’Amour Toujours and a World Premiere
