by Daniel Hathaway
The Rocky River Chamber Music Society opened its 64th season on Monday, September 26 at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church with a performance that symbolized part of what the organization is all about.
RRCMS regularly ferrets out ensembles that have only recently arrived on the world stage and presents them free of charge. The Balourdet String Quartet, which hangs its shingle in Boston at the New England Conservatory, is such a group, having been formed at Rice University in 2018 and quickly built a following and an impressive list of engagements.
Well-earned, because they’re terrific. Named after Antoine Balourdet, the celebrated head chef at the Hotel St. Bernard in Taos, New Mexico near the Taos School of Music, the Balourdet offer up well-curated, delectable musical menus that are apparently analogous to the chef’s wizardry in the kitchen. [Read more…]
When the Oberlin Conservatory’s Richard Hawkins was asked to curate a concert for the Rocky River Chamber Music Society, he knew right away that it was an opportunity to program works that would include his Oberlin Conservatory faculty friends. “It’s always nice to present chamber music for winds and strings that people might not know,” the clarinetist said during a telephone conversation.
Russian pianist Arsentiy Kharitonov played the second concert in the Rocky River Chamber Music Society Series on Monday evening, November 15, not in the Society’s home venue — West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church — but at Lakewood Congregational Church, due to COVID-19 concerns. I watched the recital, a hybrid event with in-person attendance permitted, via the live stream.
One challenge of concert previews is balancing a discussion of the music against a portrait of the artist. In the case of pianist Arsentiy Kharitonov, who will visit the Rocky River Chamber Music Society for a free concert on Monday, November 15 at 7:30 pm at Lakewood Congregational Church (masks required), those two worlds of content collided. The way he described his program — works by Bach, Schubert, Schumann, Johann Strauss, Scriabin, and Rachmaninoff — was very telling about the way he thinks about music.
The Rocky River Chamber Music Society’s live-streamed 62nd season came to a rousing conclusion on Monday, May 17, when five wind players and a pianist came together around quintets by masters of old and new.
Lately, wind players have only been sighted here and there on the calendar, and have mostly performed all on their lonesome. That makes the finale to the Rocky River Chamber Music Society’s 62nd season an extra special occasion for anyone with a fondness for music of the lungs.
Live music brings risk, and when it comes to live-streamed concerts, that risk extends to technology. A recital on February 15 from the Rocky River Chamber Music Society hit a few snags in that area early on, but that didn’t steal the spotlight from the dazzling performances we heard from Steven Banks and Xak Bjerken in a compelling program of music for saxophone and piano.
Four string players and a clarinetist, all from The Cleveland Orchestra, came together on December 7 for a quartet and a quintet in “Nothing But Mozart,” streamed live from West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church as part of the 62nd season of the Rocky River Chamber Music Society.