Chamber
Music
Albuquerque
Chamber Music Albuquerque's concert video for the month of September, a portrait of violinist, violist and festival director Ida Kavafian, has completed its run and has been taken down. We'll leave program information and artist biographies posted a little longer:
they can be found here.
Chamber Music Albuquerque
Announces Its Return to
Live Concert Presentations
Chamber Music Albuquerque is delighted
to announce that it will resume live concert presentations
for the 2021-2022 concert season.
On Sunday, October 3, 2021, at 3pm
we will present the multiple Grammy award winning
Pacifica Quartet
with guest star Anthony McGill, clarinet.
Please note that this concert will take place at
Faith Lutheran Church,
10000 Spain Road NE, Albuquerque NM 87111
To protect the health and safety of our patrons
and to enable social distancing,
ticket sales for this concert will be strictly limited.
All tickets $35 by general admission only.
Proof of having been fully vaccinated against COVID-19,
or proof of a negative result of a COVID-19 test
performed within five days of the concert,
will be required for concert admission.
Masks will be required regardless of vaccination status.
Tickets through HoldMyTicket
at https://holdmyticket.com/tickets/378837
or call (505) 886-1251
Additional 2021-2022 Concerts
The Dover Quartet
December 5, 2021
Simms Center for the Performing Arts at Albuquerque Academy
Dawn Upshaw, soprano, and the Brentano Quartet
April 24, 2022
Simms Center for the Performing Arts at Albuquerque Academy
Other concerts TBA
Tickets on sale approximately 8 weeks before each concert
Anthony McGill (left) and the Pacifica Quartet
PROGRAM
Sergei Prokofiev (1872-1915)
String Quartet No. 2 in F Major ("Kabardinian"), Op. 92 (1941)
James Lee III (b. 1975)
Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet (2018)
First performance March 21, 2021, by Anthony McGill and the Pacifica Quartet, for whom the work was written.
The composer writes:
Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet is a four-movement work inspired by historical aspects of indigenous Americas. The first movement, Forgotten Emblems, uses what I call an ‘inverted shofar theme” that can be heard at the beginning of Nathaniel Dett’s “The Ordering of Moses” and William Dawson’s “Negro Folk Symphony.” This movement also refers to various paintings of “An Emblem of America” from the eighteenth century. There are also many moments when I try to imitate an Indian Pow Wow. I named the second movement Awashoha, which is a Choctaw Indian word that means to “play somewhere.” This serves as the scherzo movement. Movement three serves as a kind of lament and references the reclassification of many indigenous people and the removal to other regions of the country. Then finally, movement four is a short dance celebration of the lives represented in the various paintings of “An Emblem of America.”
James Lee III
-- INTERMISSION --
Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897)
Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115 (1891)
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Clarinetist Anthony McGill is one of classical music’s most recognizable and brilliantly multifaceted figures. He serves as the principal clarinet of the New York Philharmonic — that orchestra’s first African-American principal player — and maintains a dynamic international solo and chamber music career. Hailed for his “trademark brilliance, penetrating sound and rich character” (The New York Times), as well as for his “exquisite combination of technical refinement and expressive radiance” (The Baltimore Sun), McGill also serves as an ardent advocate for helping music education reach underserved communities and for addressing issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion in classical music. He was honored to take part in the inauguration of President Barack Obama, premiering a piece written for the occasion by John Williams and performing alongside violinist Itzhak Perlman, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and pianist Gabriela Montero.
McGill appears regularly as a soloist with top orchestras around North America including the New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera, Baltimore Symphony, San Diego Symphony, and Kansas City Symphony. As a chamber musician, McGill is a favorite collaborator of the Brentano, Daedalus, Guarneri, JACK, Miró, Pacifica, Shanghai, Takacs, and Tokyo Quartets, as well as Emanuel Ax, Inon Barnatan, Gloria Chien, Yefim Bronfman, Gil Shaham, Midori, Mitsuko Uchida, and Lang Lang. He has led tours with Musicians from Marlboro and regularly performs for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. Festival appearances include Tanglewood, Marlboro, Mainly Mozart, Music@Menlo, and the Santa Fe, Seattle, and Skaneateles Chamber Music Festivals.
Recognized for its virtuosity, exuberant performance style, and often daring repertory choices, over the past twenty-six years the Pacifica Quartet has achieved international recognition as one of the finest chamber ensembles performing today. Named the quartet-in-residence at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music in March 2012, the Pacifica was previously the quartet-in-residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and has received multiple Grammy Awards for Best Chamber Music Performance. In 2017, the Pacifica Quartet was appointed to lead the Center for Advanced Quartet Studies at the Aspen Music Festival and School.
Formed in 1994, the Pacifica Quartet quickly won chamber music’s top competitions, including the 1998 Naumburg Chamber Music Award. In 2002 the ensemble was honored with Chamber Music America’s Cleveland Quartet Award and the appointment to Lincoln Center’s The Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two), and in 2006 was awarded a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. With its powerful energy and captivating, cohesive sound, the Pacifica has established itself as the embodiment of the senior American quartet sound.
In 2008 the Quartet released its Grammy Award-winning recording of Carter’s quartets Nos. 1 and 5 on the Naxos label; the 2009 release of quartets Nos. 2, 3, and 4 completed the two-CD set. Cedille Records released the group’s four-CD recording of the entire Shostakovich cycle, paired with other contemporary Soviet works, to rave reviews: “The playing is nothing short of phenomenal.” (Daily Telegraph, London) Other recent recording projects include Leo Ornstein’s rarely-heard piano quintet with Marc-André Hamelin with an accompanying tour, the Brahms piano quintet with the legendary pianist Menahem Pressler, and the Brahms and Mozart clarinet quintets with the New York Philharmonic’s principal clarinetist, Anthony McGill. The Pacifica Quartet were awarded a second Grammy in 2021 for their album "Contemporary Voices."