Close Encounters With Music Celebrate a Trio of Grand Piano Trios

6:00 pm • Saturday, May 18th 2013
Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center • Great Barrington, MA

The Piano Trio.  It is one of the most common forms found in classical chamber music.

Using the piano trio as the centerpiece, Close Encounters With Music celebrate the works of the great masters of the German tradition—Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven—and the man who challenged their aesthetic, Maurice Ravel.

Saturday’s program begins with Mozart’s Trio in B Flat Major and continues with Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 5 in F Major, Opus 24, also known as the “Spring Sonata.” The second half of the program is devoted to Ravel’s groundbreaking Piano Trio in A minor, brimming with ardor and his signature astringent ecstasy (as in “Bolero”!). When it was introduced in 1915, it blazed with new sonorities and contemporary rhythms based on archaic Mediterranean and Basque dances and continues to retain its freshness and exoticism 100 years later.

For the music and film buffs, the first movement of the Ravel was used extensively as the soundtrack for the 1992 French film Un coeur en hiver (A Heart in Winter). The film tells the story of the beautiful violin virtuoso Camille. She has two obsessions: the music of Ravel and a friend of her husband’s who crafts violins and whose heart seems to be as cold as her playing is passionate …. oops, getting off track.

The performers in Saturday’s Close Encounters With Music concert at the Mahaiwe are:

  • Itamar Zorman, violin
  • Yehuda Hanani, cello
  • Roman Rabinovich, piano

Go and enjoy a night of great chamber music, in this national chamber music month of May!

Other Upcoming Events

  • Albany Symphony Orchestra: Vivaldi, Stravinsky, Adams
    • Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, Troy, NY
    Sunday, May 19th 2013 at 3:00 pm

  • Organ Recital: Nixon Mcmillan & Tom Savoy
    • Proctors Theater, Schenectady, NY
    Tuesday, May 21st 2013 at 12:00 pm

  • Tannery Pond: Cellist Matt Haimovitz and Pianist Christopher O’Riley
    • Darrow School, New Lebanon, NY
    Saturday, May 25th 2013 at 6:00 pm

  • In Rectial: Pianist Arnaldo Cohen Plays Bach-Busoni, Brahms and Chopin
    • Windham Civic & Performing Arts Center, Windham, NY
    Saturday, May 25th 2013 at 8:00 pm

  • deBlasiis Chamber Music: Yvonne Chavez Hansbrough & Young Kim
    • Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, NY
    Tuesday, May 28th 2013 at 7:30 pm

  • Skidmore & SaratogaArtsFest: The 5 Browns Premiere New Arrangement of The Rite of Spring”
    • Zankel Center, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY
    Wednesday, May 29th 2013 at 7:30 pm

  • ASO’s American Music Festival: ‘Blueprint’ Reading Session
    • EMPAC, RPI, Troy, NY
    Thursday, May 30th 2013 at 7:30 pm