MUSIC FROM EASTERN EUROPE

News from Bainbridge Performing Arts
For Immediate Release:
Date: March 12, 2008
Contact: Sally Jo Martine, Public Relations Director
Phone: 206.842.8578
Fax: 206.842.0195
Web: www.BainbridgePerformingArts.org
Email: smartine@BainbridgePerformingArts.org

Bainbridge Performing Arts (BPA) Declassified Chamber Concert
MUSIC FROM EASTERN EUROPE: Works of Antonín Dvořák, Zoltán Kodály and Bohuslav Martinů
Co-Produced in Part with Video Artist Sid Arthur
Sunday, April 27 @ 3:00 p.m. @ BPA
BPA’s April Declassified Chamber music program was selected from the almost infinite breadth and depth of music that rose out of the national schools which proliferated in the North and East of Europe from the middle of the 19th century.
The earliest of these is Antonín Dvořák, a protégé of Brahms whose name became a household word wherever virtuosic orchestras performed his symphonies and wherever amateurs gathered to play chamber music. While director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York (1892-95), Dvořák spent a summer with a Czech enclave in Iowa. There he found inspiration for his “American” String Quartet, Opus 96 (the “New World” Symphony, with its apparent references to American spirituals, was completed the year before).
Like all the proponents of “national styles,” the Hungarian Zoltán Kodály was fascinated with the folk traditions of his people. Even in the grim days of World War One, he could be seen in remote villages recording folk music on phonograph cylinders. The spirit of folk music is strongly felt in his own compositions, as we will hear from the piano miniatures that open this program and again in the concise but passionate and brilliant Sonata for Violoncello and Piano, Opus 4 (1910).
Yet another folk tradition—that of the Armenians of Southwestern Russia—is evoked in the works of Aram Khatchaturian, whose Toccata for piano of 1932 will be performed by Donna Horning, a junior at Bainbridge High School.
The program ends with the Nonet for Wind Quintet, Violin, Viola, Violoncello & Bass of Bohuslav Martinů. Martinů, born in 1890, came of age as a composer is post-1918 Paris. This work, from 1959, pays homage to Igor Stravinsky, the most influential of all Eastern European composers in the 20th century, and is a brilliant example of the “neo-classical” style. This rarely performed and challenging work will be led by Patricia Strange.
The performers include violinists Justine Jeanotte, Thomas Monk and Patricia Strange; violists Reid Blickenstaff and Peggy Spencer; cellists Marshall Brown, Barbara Deppe and Priscilla Jones; Kate Kralik, flute; Amy Duerr-Day, oboe; Patti Beasley, clarinet; Judy Lawrence, bassoon; Don Warkentin, horn; and pianists Donna Horning and James Quitslund.
Northwest College of Art graduate, BPA Graphic Designer, and video artist Sid Arthur will collaborate with James Quitslund in the presentation of two piano pieces from Kodály’s Opus 11 (1910-1918) which open the program.
BPA’s Declassified Chamber Concert appears at BPA Sunday, April 27 at 3:00 p.m. Tickets, $10 per person, may be purchased by phone at 206.842.8569 or in person at BPA, 200 Madison Avenue North, Bainbridge Island. BPA Box Office hours are 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and one hour prior to each performance. The performance is suitable for music-lovers of all ages.
Bainbridge Performing Arts extends special thanks to its sponsors: 2007 - 2008 Season Media Sponsor, Bainbridge Island Review, and Declassified Presenting Sponsor, Viking Bank. This project is supported, in part, by the City of Bainbridge Island Arts and Humanities Fund, administered by the Bainbridge Island Arts and Human. BPA is supported, in part, by the Bainbridge Island Arts and Humanities Council, the City of Bainbridge Island, and by a two-year Organizational Support Program grant from the Washington State Arts Commission.
For more information, visit online or join BPA’s mailing list at www.BainbridgePerformingArts.org.