AUGUST 12: MUSIC@MENLO FINALE

The final week of Music@Menlo’s 10^th anniversary season began with a Café Conversation which opened the eyes and ears of the audience to the possibilities of music education through the internet. As a long passion and curiosity for me, I decided to share many of my favorite videos, recordings, and web sites – focusing especially on our students.  Dividing my talk into three segments – music lessons, master classes, and performance examples – the hour and 15 minutes flew by as we toured violinist Kurt Sassmannshaus’s violinmasterclass.com, Paul Katz’s cellobello.com, and my own cellotalks.com.  We then moved to the masterclassfoundation.com site which offers numerous classes, and we watched Daniel Barenboim working with both Lang Lang and Alessio Bax on Beethoven.  Finishing up with performances, the room sat in an awed silence as we experienced the incomparable sound of David Oistrakh in Debussy’s Clair de Lune.

The week included a fantastic series of master classes, one after the other, led by Ani Kavafian, Gilbert Kalish, Ian Swensen, and finally Wu Han on Friday. She worked magically with two Young Performers’ piano duos on Mozart and Schubert with the hall packed full of listeners. Her ability to express herself powerfully, and to inspire, always enables young musicians to rise to higher levels and to produce new and more musical sounds, right in front of the audience.  And she does it all so naturally, and with such love – sometimes tough love – that it draws everyone together onto the same page- like very few artists I’ve ever seen.

Wednesday brought the season’s final Encounter, led by festival Artistic Administrator, Patrick Castillo. Focusing on the diversity of musical experiences today, and on today’s uses of music and listening habits, Patrick courageously put forth strong theories concerning the role of music in contemporary society, challenging his listeners with experimental and provocative musical examples.  Declaring rightly that “Music today is inescapably everywhere” ,  Patrick reasoned that music is an important means of engaging with the world of our time, and his selections – from Steve Reich to Mario Davidovsky – justified his arguments.  A riveting performance by Gloria Chien of Davidovsky’s Synchronism for piano and prepared tape perhaps elicited a pivotal moment in the evening, in which an audience member suddenly spoke out saying “That’s not music!” The tension was high for a few moments while Patrick deftly navigated away from a protracted argument, but as Patrick said in his opening remarks, there are more questions than answers about music today, and it is precisely the questioning that is the most important process.

On Thursday, the pressure shifted towards me and Wu Han as we presented our Carte Blanche recital program.   There is nothing quite like playing in front of your students: you tell them what to do and what not to do for 3 weeks, and then it is time for you to live up to the same expectations you have set for them.  We played a program in which each work represented one of the main festival program themes: Our opening Strauss Sonata was Delighted, the Messiaen “Praise to the Eternity of Jesus” was Inspired; Wu Han’s Spanish dances by Albeniz was Motivated; Glazunov’s “Minstrel’s Song” was Transported, and finally, Chopin’s Cello Sonata was Impassioned.  We made it through somehow, and people seemed to enjoy it, which is the most we could ask for in the middle of our heavy festival schedule.

After the Friday night concert in Stent Hall at Menlo School, a large crowd consisting of artists and staff trekked through the back gate of Menlo school, crossed the driveway, and went through the hole in the fence that leads to the house of long-time festival friend Jack Phillips.  It was the most poignant of parties, as, after hosting ten years of gatherings there, Jack has decided to sell the house.  But the good news is that it was purchased by Menlo School, and we are hoping with all our might that the new Head of School – who will live there – might enjoy a party once in a while.  (It was Jack Phillips who introduced us to Menlo School twelve years ago and helped us forge the relationship that began the festival.  We can never thank him enough!)

On Saturday at noon, the final Koret Young Performers Concert took place in the Center for Performing Arts at Menlo-Atherton.  These events have always been packed, even though we are now presenting them in our larger 500-seat hall. Unusual ensembles, including two octets (Spohr and Mendelssohn) bookended the concert, which showcased the incredible talents and preparation of the students in violin duos, piano duos, and even a selection of sublime cello quartets.  We could not be more proud of our students, and of our coaches, who all emerged for a well-deserved ovation from the audience of students, staff, parents, many senior artists and IP’s, the public, and of course me and Wu Han.

The summer’s closing concert, entitled Delighted, presented music which was designed to be enjoyed. No lofty messages came off the stage on Friday and Saturday, but plenty of great music and phenomenal playing nonetheless.  It’s possible that I have not heard a chamber music concert with quite so many notes, between Paul Schoenfield’s frenetic trio for clarinet, violin and piano, Mendelssohn’s Allegro Brillant for piano, four hands, Moszkowski’s virtuoso four-movement duo for two violins and piano, and the grand Chausson Concerto for violin, piano and string quartet. Ani Kavafian was the eloquent soloist in the Chausson, spinning out gorgeous lines while pianist Inon Barnatan, with the score mostly in his head but reading off an iPad nevertheless, dispatched the fearsome piano part with astounding command and musicianship.  In a concert that was riddled with highlights, among them were: the triumphant violin performances of Sean Lee and Kristin Lee in the Moszkowski; the wild and funny performance of the Schoenfield by Gloria Chien, Arnaud Sussmann and Jose Franch-Ballester; and the expert performance of the festival’s made-to-order string quartet for the Chausson, consisting of  Sean and Kristin Lee, Arnaud Sussmann on viola, and cellist Dmitri Atapine.

A grand closing party brought speeches, tributes and thanks to all our staff, musicians, donors, board members, and many audience members who attended the event.  In what seemed like a few moments, Music@Menlo’s 10^th anniversary season had ended as quickly as it began, and everyone scattered: musicians running off to other festivals, some on the evening’s red eye flights to the east coast; staff back into the offices on Sunday for debriefings and festival clean up; and Wu Han and I back to New York for two nights only.

Added Value Blog: A Great Moment

On Monday night in New York, the Emerson Quartet reconvened for a single concert at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall for a Mostly Mozart Festival concert.  It was a great surprise, and delight, for me to learn that my successor in the Emerson, cellist Paul Watkins, was in the audience with his wife Jennifer, and backstage we saw each other for the first time since he accepted the position of cellist in the quartet.  We gathered joyfully for what will be, I’m sure, the first of many group photos.

Post script:

Stay tuned to this blog for a major post from the next chapter of our amazing summer.

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JULY 20-22: MUSIC@MENLO’S TENTH SEASON KICKOFF

MUSIC@MENLO’S TENTH SEASON

After nine successful years, Music@Menlo, the summer chamber music festival started by David Finckel and Wu Han on the San Francisco Peninsula, opened its doors last week to celebrate a milestone season.  The first week included the concerts, lectures, master classes and festive events that have been a part of the festival since its earliest year.

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In David’s words
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Like a dream come true, Wu Han and I arrived in San Francisco on consecutive days, from diverse and hectic summer schedules, to open Music@Menlo’s landmark tenth season.  Almost everyone, except the performers and Chamber Music Institute students, had already shown up to prepare.  Some of the interns had been on site for nearly four weeks learning how to perform a wide range of seasonal festival tasks, from managing donor events to selling CD’s, from artist hospitality to concert production.

One of our first stops – one of the most exciting every year – was to see the art of our festival visual artist displayed in Stent Family Hall, one of the festival’s most beloved concert venues and the true heart of Music@Menlo.  This year’s artist is the brilliant Harvard professor Eric J. Heller, who captures actual sound waves and converts them into extraordinarily beautiful graphics.

The festival’s 10-year partner, the New York based ProPiano, was on hand to deliver the dozens of pianos required for concerts and rehearsals, including three always-magnificent Hamburg 9-foot Steinway D’s, the state-of-the-art instrument preferred by artists and venues the world over.

We were delighted to see our CMI faculty hard at work preparing for the imminent arrival of over forty eager young musicians.  This special group of teachers, assembled from past International Performer classes, includes: Institute Director, pianist Gloria Chien; violinists Sean Lee, Kristin Lee, and Hye-Jin Kim; pianists Teresa Yu and Hyeyeon Park; and cellists Dmitri Atapine and Nicholas Canellakis.

Coaches Dmitri Atapine, Hyeyeon Park, and Sean Lee

A significant addition to the Institute’s faculty structure this season is the creation of the International Performers director position, this summer occupied by no less an august musician than pianist Gilbert Kalish.  Gil remains in residence, teaching and performing, for the entire three weeks this summer, and this festival could not be luckier to have him.  His vast experience as a performer and educator are matched by few in the world today.

To introduce the festival and to explain the season’s theme, Resonance, we called on long-time festival friend Ara Guzelimian to present the opening Encounter on Friday evening.  Our association with this deep-thinking and eloquent scholar, educator and administrator goes back many years, having known him in his many distinguished roles at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Aspen Music Festival, Carnegie Hall, and currently at the Juilliard School, where he is both Dean and Provost.  (As such, he is my new boss, having recently joined the Juilliard cello faculty).

Ara spoke movingly about the importance of great music in the world today in a two-hour presentation entitled Why Music?  The events of that day, on everyone’s mind, provided the first opportunity for the topic’s relevance: the massacre in the movie theater in Colorado. Ara reminded us that when human beings commit unspeakable, inhuman acts, we all hope and reach for a sense of renewal of faith in ourselves, in society, and in each other.  Music’s transformative and restorative qualities offer reassurance, emotional footing and sustenance in the most trying of times and circumstances, and Ara shared his own experience of depending on music during a time of personal crisis.  As can always be expected of Ara, his Encounter was not only informative but inspirational, providing all us with a clear view of the weeks ahead, and all of the right reasons to be here in the first place.

On Saturday, the festival’s annual Open House day, Wu Han and I took the stage of Martin Family Lecture Hall to be interviewed by festival Artistic Administrator Patrick Castillo, who is also celebrating his 10^th consecutive year with the festival.  Joining us was Executive Director Edward Sweeney, Operations Director Marianne LaCrosse, pianist and Institute Director Gloria Chien, Production Manager Ellen Mezzera, Assistant Artistic Administrator Andrew Goldstein. The unusual discussion focused on the activities and role of Music@Menlo’s remarkable internship program and how it parallels the Chamber Music Institute in training the future music industry.

Patrick Castillo, Gloria Chien, David Finckel, Wu Han, Andrew Goldstein, Edward Sweeney, Ellen Mezzera, Marianne LaCrosse at a question and answer session during Open House Day

After a quick run dress rehearsal for the evening’s concert, I returned to Menlo School where I was privileged to share the stage with Ara Guzelimian for the season’s first Café Conversation, the festival series of presentations by artists and guests on a wide variety of music-related subjects.  Ara and I talked about the use of composers’ original manuscripts as keys to interpretation.  We introduced the Juilliard School’s state-of-the-art web site devoted to its extensive manuscript collection, all of which is viewable online in high definition.  I shared with the large audience of CMI students and Open House public photos from my recent visit to Prague (see the Bohemian Immersion blog from late May) of the manuscripts of Dvorak.  The intrepid CMI International Performers joined us on stage to demonstrate the different possibilities of interpretation revealed by the manuscripts – possibilities not visible in printed editions.

With Ara’s enticing Encounter still fresh in our memories, we were all primed for the first concert on Saturday night in Stent Family Hall on the beautiful campus of Menlo School. After a dynamic Prelude Performance by the International Performers, which included Haydn’s Lark Quartet and Dvorak’s Piano Quartet, Wu Han welcomed the eager audience to the first main stage concert of the anniversary festival.

The opening of this festival has to have been one of the most extraordinary openings of any concert series ever presented.  A program entitled Sustained offered music of the kind that nourishes the soul, fills basic human needs, strengthens and ennobles. One of music’s most profound, joyful and exciting works is the duo for violin and piano that Franz Schubert composed late in his life.  Titled Fantasie, it is just that, with a slow, magical opening of rippling piano chords and a seemingly endless, timeless melody for the violin.  The mystery gives way to a vibrant and brilliant dance, followed by a set of variations on one of Schubert’s most beloved songs, the achingly beautiful Sei mir gegrußt.  After a return of the mysterious opening, the music breaks into a triumphant C major melody, and the piece concludes with unbelievable fireworks from both instruments.  It is universally regarded as one of the most difficult works in classical music.

Rising to the challenge, and well beyond, was returning Finnish pianist Juho Pohjonen partnered with the young violinist – also a recent addition to the CMS Two roster, Benjamin Beilman.  These two musicians, in a jaw-dropping display of virtuosity and equally sensitive musicians, brought our audience to its feet.  It was their first performance of the work – neither of them had ever played it before, either together or separately.

This bar-setting performance was followed by the return on stage of one of Music@Menlo’s most beloved artists: clarinetist Anthony McGill, who was not only with us in the festival’s first season but also in its one-day pilot concert in 2002.  Joining him was the Pacifica Quartet, no strangers to the festival, having performed the complete Mendelssohn quartets two summers ago in the 2009 season, Being Mendelssohn.  The work they played together is one of the all-time favorite pieces of chamber music, the Mozart Clarinet Quintet, well known as a “desert island” piece that many people simply cannot live without.  The heavenly slow movement once again reminded us of the many reasons we began this project in the first place, as we looked over our audience in a state of profound concentration, many overcome with emotion.

Having been soothed by Mozart, and entranced by Schubert, it was time to be strengthened by the composer who does that better than anyone: Ludwig van Beethoven.  From him we chose his magnificent piano trio Op. 70, No. 2 in Eb, a middle-period work that combines the energy of his youth, the expansiveness of his mature style, and hints of the transcendent music of his last years.  I was privileged to be the cellist joining the already-spectacular duo of Benjamin Beilman and Juho Pohjonen.

Sunday morning brought the first Carte Blanche Concert, a tour-de-force by the newly-formed duo of clarinetist Anthony McGill and pianist Gloria Chien.  Over two-and-a-half hours, these indefatigable rendered flawless performances of solo and duo works, including standard literature such as the Poulenc Sonata and novelties such as transcriptions of Scriabin Preludes.  At the program’s emotional center were two extraordinary works for each player as soloist: Scriabin’s Etude for the left hand alone, performed with astounding beauty, accuracy and command by Gloria, and the movement for solo clarinet from Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, played by Anthony in a performance that could only be called sonic magic.  As Gilbert Kalish told me right after the concert “Anthony can do absolutely anything on the clarinet”, and he certainly proved it on Sunday, all before lunch to boot.  It was easily one of the best recitals we have ever heard, and much of it will be available on record, produced by Da-Hong Seetoo.

The weekend finished with another performance of Concert Program I in the Performing Arts Center at Menlo-Atherton.  Stay tuned for next week’s report, appearing here next Monday.

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