by Hannah Schoepe
The Rocky River Chamber Music Society opens its 59th season with a free concert by the Green Mountain Chamber Players on Monday, October 9 at 7:30 pm at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church. The program of piano trios will include Beethoven’s Fourteen Variations in E-flat, Op. 44, the Cleveland premiere of Evan Chambers’ A Hundred Ways, and Brahms’ Trio No. 1.
Made up of violinist Kevin Lawrence, cellist Brooks Whitehouse, and pianist Clara Young, the Green Mountain Chamber Players include members of the faculty from the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, held each summer in Burlington, Vermont, where they work with today’s top string students from the United States and across the globe. Lawrence, the founder of the Festival, also serves as chair of the string department at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, where Whitehouse also serves on the faculty. Young currently teaches piano at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Answering questions by email, Lawrence said, “The heart of this program is the deeply moving trio by Evan Chambers, A Hundred Ways.” The ensemble commissioned the work from Chambers, and has worked closely with him during the creative process. In his composer notes, Chambers writes, “This piece is a small hymn to the effort and process of working to arrive at positive inner states: of peace, of vibrant energy, of release, of decisive action, and most importantly, gratitude.” Chambers serves as professor of composition at the University of Michigan, where the group plans to record the trio in May of 2018.
Lawrence said, “The evening opens with a light-hearted set of variations from Beethoven’s youth and closes with the Brahms B-major trio, one of the towering works of the genre. These two pieces provide a satisfying frame for the new work, and show something of the journey the piano trio form has undertaken from the 18th century to the 21st.”
The Green Mountain Chamber Players will repeat Monday night’s program throughout October at the UNC School of the Arts and in the Chinese cities of Beijing, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Chengdu, and Taiyuan.
Published on ClevelandClassical.com October 4, 2017.
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