Événement

Guillermo and Friends

Albuquerque Chamber Soloists is delighted to welcome Guillermo Figueroa back to our stage at St. Paul Lutheran Church! Both Guillermo and David Felberg will play both violin and viola (thought not simultaneously) on the program. The concert begins at 3:00PM, Sunday, January 8, with a pre-ception (refreshments and conversation about the concert with ACS artistic director James Holland) at 2:15.

Gustav Mahler is best known as a symphonist and composer of orchestral songs. However, he embarked on a piano quartet at the tender age of 15, completing only the first movement. The piece was performed in 1876, disappeared, and re-surfaced in 1964 after his widow, Alma, discovered the score. The 11-minute work is highly expressive, and one gets an inkling of the style that would define his later songs and symphonies. Guillermo, Shanti Randall, Joel Becktell, and Pamela Pyle will perform this work.

Richard Strauss composed his Metamorphosen in 1945, near the end of the Nazi regime and his own life. While his final version was written for 23 strings, he began it as a string septet. In 1996, Rudolf Leopold arranged the work for its original combination of instruments. While the piece's true meaning has been the subject of speculation, the beauty of it's lush sonorities, the rigor of it's counterpoint, and the subtle quotes of Beethoven make its status as a masterpiece unquestionable. Guillermo, Megan Holland, David Felberg (viola), Shanti Randall, Joel Becktell, James Holland, and bassist Aaro Heinonen perform this gorgeous work.

The second half of our concert celebrates the centennial of the birth of the wonderful Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera. His work is evocative of the open spaces and life of the gauchos. The two works we will present both come from his "objective nationalist" period. Both the Pampeana no. 2 for cello and piano (performed by James Holland and Pamela Pyle) and the String Quartet no. 1 (Megan Holland, David Felberg [viola], Guillermo Figueroa [viola], and James Holland) feature both energetic, driving rhythms, and ethereal lyricism.