Reviews
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May 5, 2024
Few classical compositions based on bird song soar higher than Haydn’s Quartet in D Major, Op. 64, No. 5 (“The Lark”), the Viano Quartet’s opener May 5 at Chamber Music Marin.
As first violinist, Lucy Wang played the lark’s part on the high E string with admirable fluidity and purity of tone. Her violin took liquid flight above a thrumming landscape of sound by partners violinist Hao Zhou, cellist Tate Zawadiuk and violist Aiden Kane... More -
February 25 2024
It’s difficult to write without superlatives about Chamber Music Marin’s February 25 concert by the trio of Jon Nakamatsu, piano, clarinetist Jon Manasse and violinist Jennifer Frautschi. There aren’t a lot of compositions for this ensemble, and while Mr. Nakamatsu and Mr. Manasse have been a performing duo since 2004, the addition of Ms. Frautschi reaches back a few years.
The three instruments’ blended voices are uniquely warm and rich. Each is capable of a wide range of mood and emotion, harmonic adventures, percussive effects, and rhythmic complexities... More -
January 28, 2024
Black Oak Ensemble’s Jan. 28 concert at Mill Valley’s Mt. Tamalpais Methodist Church, one day after Yom Ha Shoah, the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, included two works by Jewish composers who met death in Nazi concentration camps: Gideon Klein and Sándor Kuti. Presented by Chamber Music Marin, the concert also included works by other rarely heard 20th century composers.
The Black Oak three—Desirée Ruhstrat, David Cunliffe, and Aurélien Fort Pederzoli—related to the audience how earlier in the day they had hiked in the Marin hills (“without jackets!”), seemingly a welcome relief from icy Chicago where they live... More -
November 12, 2023
The Alexander Quartet, consisting of David Samuel, viola, Zakarias Grafilo and Yuna Lee, violin, and cellist Sandy Wilson, gave Chamber Music Marin’s audience a gift November 12 with a sweep of “Russian” quartets by Haydn, Prokofiev and Shostakovich. Sponsored by Chamber Music Marin, the Bay Area ensemble performed with exquisite verve and nuance before a near-capacity audience in the Mt. Tamalpais Methodist Church.
Haydn’s delightful String Quartet in C major, Op. 33, No. 3, opened the program. Referred to as a “Russian” quartet—only because it was dedicated to the Russian Grand Duke Paul—it was innovative for its time... More -
April 2, 2023
The Telegraph Quartet, resident quartet at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, created a “Journey for the String Quartet” for Chamber Music Marin April 2 that put the expressive versatility of the form on full display.
Compositions by Haydn, Mendelssohn and Gabriela Frank were played with much innovation, showcasing the sonic range of the string instruments whose wonderful components can produce a universe of sound effects... More -
March 12, 2023
In Japanese, sakura means the five-petaled cherry blossom, and members of SAKURA Cello Quintet treated their Chamber Music Marin audience March 12 to a rare musical flowering. All but one of the eleven selections in the program were arrangements, not surprising because until SAKURA formed, finding original scores for an ensemble of five cellos was difficult.
Cellists Stella Cho, Michael Kaufman, Yoshika Masuda, Peter Myers and guest artist Nathan Chan, seated in a half-circle, opened a generous program with Fauré’s dreamlike song cycle Cinq Melodies “de Venise,” Op. 58, composed in 1891, lushly arranged by Mr. Myers... More -
February 12, 2023
Per Nørgård scored one of my favorite films, “Babette’s Feast,” but on Feb. 12 I got to know Nørgård better.
In a Chamber Music Marin concert the Trio con Brio Copenhagen played the Danish composer’s mesmerizing 1973 composition Spell, 18 minutes of an astral journey that could have been modeled on the interior of an atom as it was conceived by Nørgård’s countryman, the physicist Niels Bohr, one hundred years ago... More -
October 2, 2022
Chamber Music Marin, formerly Mill Valley Chamber Music Society, inaugurated their 50th season October 2 with a stunning concert of Bach harpsichord concertos.
A stellar ensemble of musicians including Janine Johnson and Yuko Tanaka, harpsichords; Kati Kyme and Elizabeth Blumenstock, violins; violist David Bowes; cellist David Morse and Farley Pearce, contrabass, performed five of Bach’s keyboard concertos. This was a reprise of a 2017 program at the Berkeley Early Music Festival with all but one (Mr. Bowes) of the original seven players... More -
March 27, 2022
Quartet San Francisco, the eclectic and adventuresome Bay Area chamber ensemble, knocked the socks off its March 27 Mill Valley Chamber Music Society audience with their program of Latin and Tango music.
From the heated opening bars of Astor Piazzolla’s Libertango through Chick Corea’s ebullient Spain, the four players inspired collective euphoria. Chins bobbed and feet tapped. Whatever worries patrons brought with them to the Mt. Tamalpais Church were swept away by the beating pulse and edgy harmonies of the arrangements of thirteen exciting pieces of music... More -
February 27, 2022
The Horszowski Trio brought the Mill Valley Chamber Music Society’s near-capacity audience to its feet Feb. 27 with sensitive and beautifully balanced ensemble playing. The music performed, piano trios by Smetana, Rebecca Clarke, and Arno Babadjanian, span 100 years and three cultures. The governing idea behind their program was to explore ethnic consciousness in piano trios that are underperformed and deserving of more exposure. Each trio was written when its composer was in their early 30s, which perhaps explains each work’s blend of youthful passion and compositional mastery.
The Trio: Jesse Mills, violin, cellist Ole Akahoshi, and pianist Rieko Aizawa, was making its MVCMS debut in the concert’s Mt. Tamalpais United Methodist Church... More -
November 14, 2021
The Mill Valley Chamber Music Society sprang back to life on November 14 when a stellar ensemble from the Manhattan Chamber Players, a New York-based collective, arrived to perform two piano quintets: Vaughn-Williams’ in C Minor (1903), little known and rarely performed; and Schubert’s in A Major D. 667 (the “Trout,” 1819) one of the most frequently performed works in the chamber repertoire.
This is the 49th season of the Society, and after the enforced hiatus due to the pandemic, outgoing president Bill Horne and incoming president Jane Rogers took the stage in front of the capacity Mt. Tamalpais Church audience to be honored... More