by David Kulma
As violinist Andrew Sords criss-crosses the continent playing violin concerti, he builds into his schedule hometown concerts to play with his Cleveland-area colleagues. “An Afternoon of Romantic Chamber Music,” the program he anchored for Rocky River Presbyterian Church’s Artist Concert Series on Sunday, September 22, was an opportunity to perform music written specifically by composers to play with their friends. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
While violinist Andrew Sords’ prolific career as a soloist and chamber musician takes him around the world to far away places, there’s just something about coming back to Cleveland and making music with his friends. “There’s nothing better than to rehearse with these high-level colleagues, and have dinner afterwards,” the Cleveland Institute of Music graduate said by telephone on his way to Toronto.
On Sunday, September 22 at 3:00 pm at Rocky River Presbyterian Church, Sords will join violinist Mari Sato, violist Eric Wong, cellist Nathanael Matthews, and pianist Elizabeth DeMio for a program titled “An Afternoon of Romantic Chamber Music.” The free concert is presented as part of the church’s Artist Concert Series.
“Liz and I have done nearly 400 performances together,” Sords said, “and I’ve known Nate Matthews for a number of years. Mari was a coach of mine at CIM. We get along so well and I’m always inspired by her classy playing. And Eric and I were both students at CIM but never worked together until this year, when we played the Schumann piano quintet back in January. I thought wow, what a player.”
by David Kulma
Is it possible to take the standard song and dance forms of your time and turn them into virtuosic devotional meditations on the life of Christ? The composer and master violinist Heinrich Biber answered this question in the affirmative back in the 1670s with a set of 16 violin works — 15 sonatas with continuo and a solo passacaglia — meant to take the musicians through the Mysteries of the Rosary. And not only are these works demanding in scope, they require complex scordatura — retuning the violin’s strings to new notes for each sonata and giving each work its own color and resonance.