by Mike Telin
When the duo andPlay — Maya Bennardo, violin, and Hannah Levinson, viola — were in Cleveland to perform on the Re:Sound Festival last summer, ClevelandClassical.com critic Jarrett Hoffman wrote that “Bennardo and Levinson played with obvious chemistry, genuinely at ease with one another in the kind of way that just makes an audience feel good.”
On Thursday, November 21, andPlay will return to Northeast Ohio for a performance on the Kent State Vanguard New Music Series. The 7:30 pm concert in Ludwig Recital Hall will include Leah Asher’s Letters to My Future Self (2018), Clara Iannotta’s Limun (2011), Anthony Vine’s Terrain (2019), Scott Wollschleger’s Violain (2017), and the premiere of a new work by Adam Roberts. The event is free.
I caught up with the duo by telephone and began our conversation by asking how their invitation to Kent came about.
“It’s always wonderful when I get to stand up front,” Cleveland Orchestra principal trumpet Michael Sachs said during a telephone conversation. “I’m usually at the back, so I’m hearing all these wonderful sounds in front of me. But to have those sounds converging upon you is a completely different perspective that I’m always amazed and humbled by. I have a renewed respect for the people that I am lucky enough to work with.” 
Central to Enlightenment thought were the use and celebration of reason, the power by which humans understand the universe and improve their own condition. The goals of rational humanity were considered to be knowledge, freedom, and happiness. (Encyclopedia Britannica)
Following in a line of pianists that has included Garrick Ohlsson, Yuja Wang, Emanuel Ax, and Conrad Tao, the latest performer to be featured in Tuesday Musical’s Margaret Baxtresser Annual Piano Concert is Fei-Fei.