Événement

Albuquerque Chamber Soloists present Stravinsky, Puts, and Elgar!

Albuqerque Chamber Soloists presents the music of Igor Stravinsky, Kevin Puts, and Sir Edward Elgar in a concert Sunday, March 26, at 3:00PM, at St. Paul Lutheran Church, 1100 Indian School Rd NE. A pre-concert reception with refreshments provided by Napoli Coffee and a chat about the program with cellist and ACS artistic director James Holland takes place at 2:15 PM.

This concert will be a family affair, as sisters Megan Julyan Holland and Robyn Julyan will be our violinists! Now living in Denver, Robyn grew up in Albuquerque, studied violin with Susan Kempter and Lenny Felberg, and participated in the Albuquerque Youth Symphony Program. She is currently on the faculty of Regis University in Denver, performs regularly with the Colorado Symphony, and maintains a large and active private violin studio. She spends her summers with the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in California and in Orvieto, Italy as chamber music coordinator for Orvieto Musica.

Megan and pianist Debra Ayers open the concert with the Divertimento for Violin and Piano by Stravinsky, based on music from his ballet, "The Fairy's Kiss" Challenging for the violin, the music for the ballet was heavily influenced by the style of Tchaikovsky.

Pulitzer-Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts created his Credo for string quartet in 2007 as part of a concert for the Miro Quartet exploring "the lighter side of America." Hard-pressed to find lightness in the welter of events at that time, Puts saw the word "Believe" emblazoned on the side of a building in Baltimore, which led him to think of the places in which he found solace - a violin shop in Ketonah, NY, the girders of railroad beams and highway bridges along a jogging path in Pittsburgh, and a mother teaching her daughter to dance as seen through an apartment window in New York City. These three episodes form the movements of this beautiful and poignant work, which will be performed by Megan and Robyn, violist Kimberly Fredenburgh, and cellist James Holland.

Sir Edward Elgar said of his Piano Quintet, composed in 1918, it "runs gigantically and in a large mood." Indeed, it was just recently expanded into an orchestral version. It contains three expansive movements - a first movement by turns "ghostly" and bucolic, a sublimely expressive slow movement reminiscent of the Nimrod variations of the Enigma, and a galloping last movement which resurrects the theme of the opening. While his orchestra works are better known to music lovers, this Piano Quintet belongs in the top echelon of the works of this English master.