Smithsonian Chamber Music Society
2011-2012 Season Tickets Available!
The Axelrod Quartet Series Masterworks of Three Centuries Series
Bach's St. Matthew Passion
The 35th season of the Smithsonian Chamber Music Society features musical masterpieces from the 17th to late 19th century, played on some of the world’s most highly prized musical instruments. Two series, featuring the SCMS’s acclaimed artists, offer musical feasts simply unobtainable anywhere but at the Smithsonian. Concerts will be presented in three acoustically appropriate venues: the intimate Hall of Musical Instruments in the National Museum of American History, the opulent Grand Salon of the Renwick Gallery, and the historic Smithsonian Castle Commons. As an added bonus, one hour prior to each program, SCMS artistic director Kenneth Slowik continues his popular pre-concert lectures, shedding light on the glorious music and the life and times of the featured composers.
Read Secretary G. Wayne Clough's column discussing the Smithsonian Chamber Music Society in the September 2011 issue of Smithsonian magazine.
The Axelrod Quartet: Stradivarius and Amati
Smithsonian Chamber Music Society audiences are privy to the unparalleled experience of being able to hear two magnificent quartets of instruments—one made by Antonio Stradivari, the other by his teacher Nicolo Amati—in this popular three-concert series. For their programs this season, the Axelrod Quartet members have chosen to present Haydn's three Op. 74 quartets, plus three quartets of Beethoven, thereby anchoring their repertoire in the works of the two greatest quartet composers. Each program also contains a Romantic-period work, including, in January, Mendelssohn's splendid Octet, which will unite all eight Stradivarius and Amati instruments for a rare sonic experience. The Axelrod members will be joined by the Old City String Quartet, Grand Prize and String Division Gold Medal Winners of the 2010 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, and recently named the graduate resident quartet at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music. Come experience why Beethoven's contemporary, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, described listening to string quartets as equivalent to "eavesdropping on a conversation among four intelligent people." You are certain to find the dialogue fascinating.
Saturday Axelrod Quartet Concert Series
Dates & Times: Sat., Oct. 29, 2011; Sat., Jan. 14, 2012 and Sat., May 5, 2012, at 8 p.m.; pre-concert talks at 7 p.m.
Sunday Axelrod Quartet Concert Series
Dates & Times: Sun., Oct. 30, 2011; Sun., Jan. 15, 2012 and Sun., May 6, 2012, at 7:30 p.m.; pre-concert talks at 6:30 p.m.
Locations: October and January concerts are held at the Hall of Musical Instruments, American History Museum; May 5th concert location is TBA; and the May 6th concert is the Smithsonian Castle Commons.
Masterworks of Three Centuries
The season opens with a Baroque concert in mid-October with Mitzi Meyerson, professor of harpsichord at the Berlin Universitat der Kunste (the very first university to offer the study of the harpsichord) in a sparkling selection of harpsichord solos. In November, Castle Trio members Lambert Orkis and Marilyn McDonald are joined by Dutch violinist Vera Beths and Canadian violist Douglas McNabney to celebrate the release of a new Friends of Music recording containing performances of Robert Schumann's exuberant Piano Quartet and Piano Quintet. A second Baroque concert follows to ring in the New Year, as Slowik presents Bach's compendious Goldberg Variations, BWV 988. Axelrod Quartet primarius Marc Destrubé and Italian viola da gamba player Paolo Pandolfo join Slowik in early February for Rameau's Pieces de clavecin en concerts; and Ian Swensen returns, with cellist Loretta O'Sullivan, for a program of Classical-era sonatas and trios in early March. The distinguished American baritone William Sharp traverses two of Schumann's great lyrical song cycles later that month. The season concludes in April with the versatile Mark Fewer leading a program that includes 17th-century solo sonatas and two sonically distinctive late-19th-century chamber masterpieces, Dvorak's Bagatelles (in their original scoring with harmonium), and Arensky's Second String Quartet (in its original version with one violin, one viola, and two celli).
The Smithsonian Chamber Players include: Mitzi Meyerson, harpsichord; Vera Beths, Marc Destrubé, Mark Fewer, Ian Swensen, Anca Nicolau, and Marilyn McDonald, violins; Douglas McNabeny and Anca Nicolau, viola; Myron Lutzke and Loretta O'Sullivan, violoncello; Paolo Pandolfo, viola da gamba; Kenneth Slowik, violoncello, fortepiano, and harpsichord; Lambert Orkis, fortepiano; William Sharp, baritone.
Masterworks Concert Series
Dates & Times: Sun., Oct. 16, 2011; Sun., Nov. 20, 2011; Sun., Jan. 8, 2012; Sun., March 4, 2012; Sun., March 18, 2012; and Sun., April 22, 2012, at 7:30 p.m.; pre-concert talks at 6:30 p.m.
Location: Hall of Musical Instruments, American History Museum for October, November, January, and March concerts. Grand Salon of the Renwick Gallery for the April concert.
ALL-DAY SEMINAR
Bach's St. Matthew Passion
In this seminar, Kenneth Slowik examines what may consider to be Bach's greatest masterpiece, as the Friends of Music record label prepares to release a new recording of the work by the Smithsonian Chamber Players, under Slowik's direction.
The seminar includes the background of German Passion settings before Bach; Bach and the chorale tradition; Bach as interpreter of the Gospel of Matthew; the history of Bach's own performances of the work; and its revival in 1829 by Mendelssohn. Slowik takes a close look at the structure and music of the St. Matthew Passion, amply illustrated with examples from Slowik's new recording.