Garth Newel Music Center’s Summer Season continues with concerts on Saturday, Aug. 23 at 5 p.m. and Sunday, Aug. 24 at 3 p.m.
Saturday afternoon’s activities begin at 4 p.m. with a Musical Icebreaker discussion and mini-performance by National Symphony Orchestra double bassist Paul DeNola, who will share the ups and downs of life at the bottom (of an orchestra). He’ll also perform the devilishly difficult and quite funny solo piece Failing: A Very Difficult Piece for Solo String Bass by American composer Tom Johnson. In the piece, the soloist is required to read a text about the difficulties inherent in playing the double bass while reading a text about playing the double bass.
German author Patrick Süskind’s influential monologue The Double Bass begins the 5 p.m. concert. Conceived as a one person theater piece, it incorporates both spoken word and musical excerpts from Schubert’s Trout quintet, the Overture to Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, von Dittersdorf’s Double Bass Concerto, Brahms’ Second Symphony and Wagner’s Die Walkurie, all performed at the piano by actor/pianist and longtime Garth Newel Music Center friend Read Gainsford.
Shortly after its premier in Germany in 1981, the work was translated into English and eventually into over 35 languages. In the 1984-85 season it was performed over 500 times worldwide and it has been performed thousands of times since, to great acclaim.
After intermission, the Garth Newel Piano Quartet’s Teresa Ling (violin), Evelyn Grau (viola) and Isaac Melamed (cello) will join pianist Gainsford and bassist DeNola in performance of Schubert’s much loved “Trout” Quintet, one of the grandest and most beloved works in the chamber music repertoire.
Sunday’s concert offers a dramatic contrast to Saturdays, featuring dancers/choreographers Gabrielle Lamb, Giorgia Bovo and Forrest Hersey performing original choreography in collaboration with the Garth Newel Music Center’s musical artists and their colleagues.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Oboe Quartet in F Major, K370 will be accompanied by a trio of dancers in a newly choreographed piece by Adam Barruch. As a choreographer, Adam’s work has been presented at venues such as Dance Theater Workshop (NYLA), City Center, NYU/ Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, The Juilliard School, The Ailey-Citigroup Theater, SUNY Purchase, New York University, Cedar Lake Theater and Theatre Usine C in Montreal. In March 2009, he self-produced his first full evening of original dance/theater works at The Baryshnikov Arts Center and in 2014 he was honored with the Lotos Foundation Prize in the Arts and Sciences, which recognizes institutions and individuals for distinguished accomplishments and exceptional talent in the arts and sciences.
Johannes Brahm’s 1891 Trio in A Minor, Op. 114 for Clarinet, Cello and Piano concludes the first half of the Sunday program. Performed by clarinetist Richard Faria, cellist Isaac Melamed, and pianist Read Gainsford, the work is one of only a very few works composed for unusual combination of instruments.
Sunday’s concert concludes with Sergei Prokofiev’s Quintet in G Minor, Op. 39 for oboe, clarinet, violin, viola and double bass. In essence, the work is a 25 minute long, six movement suite that evolved out of his 1924 ballet Trapeze.
Scored for a rather unusual combination of instruments and a small dance corps, the work is now most often performed as a concert suite, rather than as movements from a ballet. Choreographer and dancer Gabrielle Lamb has taken on the challenge of reinterpreting this work and re-introducing the dance elements to it.
Garth Newel concert tickets are available for purchase now. Group discounts for groups of 10 or more are available as are ten-concert passes. Full program and guest artist materials are available on the Music Center website – www.garthnewel.org.
To make reservations by phone for events and meals at the Music Center, or for additional information about Garth Newel Music Center’s 41st season, call 540-839-5018 or toll free at 877.558.1689 or email tama@garthnewel.org.
