Chamber Music

Like many people, John and Margaret Wilbur first heard about Chautauqua Institution through word of mouth.

“We came and we started to figure out what it really was,” John Wilbur said, “just like everybody else who has some sort of brief description that never is quite adequate to what the whole place is about.”

One of the many facets of the Institution they discovered and grew to love was the Chautauqua Chamber Music Series. They began to look forward to the performances every season, and their years of enjoyment led them to underwrite a show in the series for the 2018 season.

They were especially motivated to sponsor a performance when they heard the series might have been discontinued following the passing of its former namesake patron, Kay Logan.

The Wilburs’ donation is underwriting the performance of guest artist Nicholas Phan at 4 p.m. Monday, July 23, in Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall. Phan has performed with San Francisco Symphony, Toronto Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

The Wilburs’ interest in music goes back to their early adulthood. They enjoy many genres of music, including classical music, jazz and rock.

“My mother was very musical,” Margaret Wilbur said.

Growing up, her mother was a music teacher and played many instruments. Yet Margaret Wilbur was not very interested in music as a child.

“I had never heard an orchestra play until I was in college,” she said. “The first time I heard the orchestra was in Cleveland when I was in college. And, of course, we went to a lot of rock concerts in the ’70s.”

John Wilbur also discovered classical music in college.

“I got introduced to classical music mostly when I went to school at Case (Western University),” he said.

As a native of Cleveland, Ohio, he also enjoyed the Cleveland Orchestra, which he said ranks as one of the best orchestras in the world.

Although the music programs at the Institution stand out to the Wilburs, they also explore a variety of events — from lectures to the swan races during the CHQ Olympics. Their philanthropic investment expands beyond the Chautauqua Chamber Music Series, as they also have created a garden endowment in memory of John Wilbur’s mother.

Some of the couple’s most cherished memories at the Institution are the times spent with their families. For them, endowing a garden represents that the Institution is a gathering place for their family.

“Everybody does gather here at least once a year,” John Wilbur said. “That’s why we made the memorial gift. … As (our family) keeps coming and their children come, it becomes part of the family, and the family has a relationship to the space.”

Few things remain as constant throughout the ages as love — and the fact that people write songs about it. When tenor Nicholas Phan was learning Baroque love songs, he was surprised by how relatable they were given that they’re around 400 years old.

“The experience of falling in love with somebody is not really that different than it was 500 years ago,” he said. “As a teenager, I’m sure I could relate to the angst of it all, too.”

Phan will perform a selection of those songs in a program called “A Painted Tale” at 4 p.m. Monday, July 23, in Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall. He will be joined by flutist Michael Leopold and violist da gamba Ann Marie Morgan as part of the Chautauqua Chamber Music Guest Artist Series.

The trio recorded “A Painted Tale” for album release in 2015. The album received outstanding reviews and earned accolades from the Chicago Tribune and Gramophone Magazine. In addition to collaborating with renowned chamber musicians, Phan has performed and recorded with the world’s foremost orchestras and opera companies.

Today’s program consists of just under 20 songs from Baroque composers that Phan has selected and arranged to form a narrative about two young lovers. It begins with the song from which the program’s name is derived — “A Painted Tale” by Thomas Morley, which serves as an introduction to the story.

The tale then winds through a tale of unrequited (but consummated) love, complete with eroticism, longing, triumph, jealousy and ultimately, rejection. Phan modeled the program after Franz Schubert’s famous song cycle, Die schöne Müllerin, which explores similar themes. But composers in the Baroque era (which came before Schubert, a Romantic) didn’t weave their songs into 20-part cycles, so Phan researched the repertoire and put together his own cycle.

Phan said he discovered his love for Baroque songs when he was a student at Interlochen Center for the Arts. He was taking a class on early music and his teacher — Morgan, who will join him on stage today — had him learn a song by John Dowland, whose music will also be heard this afternoon.

“The first thing that grabbed me about it was the sheer beauty of the song,” Phan said. “I was fascinated.”

Those songs stuck with him, so when Carnegie Hall requested that Phan perform a concert of early music in the prestigious Weill Recital Hall, Phan put together “A Painted Tale.” Phan did many hours of research for the project, but he said the narrative that binds the songs together came to him naturally.

“This (program) is something that’s revealed itself to me through the song texts,” Phan said. “We tend to look at this music as if it were in a museum, when actually the reason we keep coming back to this stuff is because it still holds relevance today. There’s nothing timeless like a love story.”

For Chautauquans, this weekend’s chamber music concert will be an eclectic mix of familiar and foreign repertoire presented by members of the School of Music faculty. But for the performers, it will also be a miniature family reunion.

“It’s really fun to play with your family because you get to see each other,” said violinist Almita Vamos. “We don’t always get to see each other because we’re all so busy.”

At 4 p.m. Saturday, July 14, in Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall, Vamos will be joined by her sister, Eugenia Monacelli, daughter-in-law, Nurit Pacht, and son, Rami Vamos, for the latest installment in Chautauqua Chamber Music’s Resident Artist Series.

For Vamos, music and the arts are at the center of the family. The extended family includes actors, a painter, and classical musicians; each of the four performers in Saturday’s concert hold impressive resumes, as well.

Pacht, a concert violinist, has given recitals and concerts all over the world, including a U.S. State Department funded tour of Ukraine with Monacelli, a pianist. In her own career, Monacelli has performed as soloist with orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic and the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra.

Guitarist Rami Vamos has a multifaceted career as an educator, composer, and performer in New York City. He teaches at all levels, coordinating the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s children’s concert series while also serving on faculty at Concordia University.

Violinist Almita Vamos, the coordinator of Saturday’s concert, is one half of the teaching duo affectionately referred to as the “Famous Vamoses.” In addition to leading performance careers, Roland and Almita Vamos have taught many most prominent violinists, including Rachel Barton Pine and Jennifer Koh.

Pacht was also a student of the Vamoses. In 10th grade, she left her home in Texas for Minnesota, where she moved in with the Vamos family to study with the couple. She lived in the room next to her future husband, Rami Vamos — but they didn’t immediately hit it off.

“We didn’t really get along — we didn’t even like each other too much,” Pacht said. “It was when we met at a party of musicians many, many years later that we became friends, and then more.”

Now, they’re married with three children. Saturday they will perform “Two Pieces for Violin and Guitar,” which they composed together. Pacht said that the couple enjoys writing and performing their own music because it allows them to write for their own instruments in the way that they want to play them — so it ends up being more fun.

The program will also feature Almita Vamos performing music of Respighi and Schnittke with Monacelli accompanying her on piano. Vamos is particularly excited for those two pieces, she said, because they will likely be new to audience ears but are extremely interesting and enjoyable pieces.

Vamos said the Respighi is rarely performed because it’s difficult to put the violin and piano parts together due to their rhythmic complexity. But she’s not worried — performing with her sister is easy, she said.

“(When we were young), we had lessons and coachings together many times, even though we play different instruments,” Vamos said. “So we think of music similarly.”

Some of those lessons and coachings took place at Chautauqua Institution. While in school, Vamos and Monacelli came to the Institution in the summer to study with Mischa Mischakoff, then concertmaster of the CSO.

That’s part of the reason why Vamos chose to organize this concert — she said that she only gives performances at special times, and her time at the Institution this week is certainly that.

On Wednesday morning, the rain was coming down on Chautauqua Institution as three School of Music faculty members were setting up for rehearsal.

The mood might have been somber — in addition to the the weather, the trio was rehearsing Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Trio No. 2 in D minor, a tragic and mournful elegy for the death of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Instead, the group was having quite a bit of fun.

“So sexy!” cried out cellist Arie Lipsky, when violinist Aaron Berofsky played a melodic passage with impressive delicacy.

“I’m the wise man, and he’s the beautiful girl,” Lipsky said with a laugh, again referring to Berofsky. The group, although having never performed together before, seemed to click immediately.

At 4 p.m. on Saturday, June 30, in Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall, the three School of Music School faculty members — Berofsky, Alexander Gavrylyuk and Lipsky — will perform Dmitri Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No. 1 in C minor, op. 8 and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Trio No. 2 in D minor, Trio élégiaque, as the first in the 2018 Chautauqua Chamber Music Resident Artist Series.

The two pieces on the program share many qualities — they’re both Russian trios written by 20th-century composers, they were written when the composers were very young, and they are rarely performed. In a sense, they both represent the last vestiges of Romanticism in western classical music.

Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No. 1, written when the composer was only 17, was the last Romantic piece he would ever produce, according to Berofsky. It contains many of the dry, sarcastic elements that Shostakovich would eventually become known for, but it also has tender, expressive moments in which the violin and cello sing their melodies over delicate harmonies from the piano.

Rachmaninoff also wrote his Piano Trio No. 2 at a young age — he was just 20. Rachmaninoff would go on to write much more music in a Romantic style, but many consider him to be the last great composer to do so.

“(Rachmaninoff) took after Tchaikovsky, who was probably one of the most melodic composers of the 19th century,” Lipsky said. “Rachmaninoff lived well into the 20th century, but his musical language stayed pretty much in the 19th century.”

That Tchaikovsky-steeped language is on wonderful display in this piano trio, which starts with a heart-breaking theme that reappears in different forms throughout the work. But in Berofsky’s opinion, it’s best not to think about themes and form at the concert — he advises not to engage with the piece too analytically.

“I don’t know that (the audience needs) something to be talked about before, to hold on to. I sense that it will just kind of wash over them,” Berofsky said. “And if you’re analyzing it too much, thinking too much left brain, I have a feeling you might get impatient because it’s just so broad and singing. But if you don’t do that, then it’s very beautiful.”

Before the Garth Newel Piano Quartet had ever been to Chautauqua Institution, violinist Teresa Ling suspected that the two places — Garth Newel and Chautauqua — had some common ground.

After performing at Chautauqua in 2014, Ling’s suspicions were confirmed.

“(The Institution) seems to attract people who are searching for something important. And those people tend to find places like Chautauqua and Garth Newel,” she said.

The quartet will give the first performance in this summer’s Chautauqua Chamber Music series at 4 p.m. on Monday, June 25, in Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall. Garth Newel — the name of the Virginia estate where the quartet is based — is a Welsh phrase that roughly translates to “new hearth” or “new home.”

The title is a fitting one, as the group’s adventurous programming often gives infrequently performed pieces a new home in the contemporary chamber music repertoire. Ling said that’s in part due to the relative scarcity of repertoire available for the piano quartet.

“At a certain point, you need to fill out your menu a little more because you don’t want to just keep playing the same pieces all the time,” she said.

On the first half of its program, the quartet will perform music of the little- known French composer Louise Héritte-Viardot.

Her Piano Quartet No. 1 will likely be a new piece for all in the audience — it has never been recorded, even though it was composed in 1883.

Garth Newel has been a champion of Héritte-Viardot’s music, performing her Spanish Quartet when they first visited Chautauqua four years ago.

“The discrimination she faced throughout her life for being a woman was really a shame because she writes so much wonderful music,” Ling said. “We just felt like it’s important to champion her music, which is just really beautifully written and I think emotionally interesting.”

The other piece on the first half of the program will be Frank Bridge’s Phantasy for Piano Quartet, another uncommon composition. It was written for a composition competition in 1910, and although it did not win, it certainly planted itself in the minds of the Garth Newel Quartet.

“When we became familiar with it, we just fell in love with it,” Ling said. “It’s probably eight or nine minutes, and it’s so colorful and beautiful and dramatic in a lot of ways, and there are a lot of French-sounding textures. It’s really just a lovely piece, and we wanted to include it on the program.”

Ling has been a member of the quartet for 20 years, but she took a rather unusual path to becoming a professional chamber musician.

Before she earned master’s degree in violin performance, Ling completed her bachelor’s degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale University.

“I had always played the piano and the violin as a young person, and there was a mentality in my family that music was a wonderful discipline, and yet it wasn’t a reasonable career option,” she said.

In her junior year, Ling’s teacher encouraged her to apply for a fellowship to the Aspen Music Festival and School. She auditioned, was accepted and decided to attend as a break from her usual summer routine of doing research in laboratories.

“I went to Aspen, and I spent time with hundreds of violinists who were planning to go into music,” she said. “It had never occurred to me until that point that one could actually pursue that.”

After her experience in Aspen, Ling did decide to pursue a career in music, landing her current position as violinist in the Garth Newel Piano Quartet in 1998. She’s quite satisfied with her decision.

“What I love about chamber music and about our group is that it’s really the ultimate democracy where we each have a say, and yet we each have our own identity,” she said. “Every single instrument (in a piano quartet) is different, so it allows us to have our own voice, but we also come together in order to make a musical whole.”

Lauren Hutchison | Staff Writer

Variety is the spice of life. For Calmus, it also is an important part of the group’s musical philosophy.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a pop arrangement, a Bach motet or a Brahms setting or a secular piece,” baritone Ludwig Böhme said. “To bring the music to life is the most important thing that we do.”

The five members of the Leipzig-based a cappella group will make their Chautauqua debut with their program, “The Bright Side of Life,” featuring joyous music — from Johannes Brahms to Bobby McFerrin — at 4 p.m. today in Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall.

“We try to sing very different styles, different colors to entertain the audience,” bass Joe Roesler said. “Every piece has to be an event on its own.”

Böhme said the group’s varied repertoire, in addition to being entertaining, also fosters better understanding of the musical connections between styles.

“Ancient music is important to know for singing contemporary music,” he said. “And if you know something about singing popular arrangements, it helps you make pieces by Bach a bit more groovy.”

Böhme is one of the co-founders of the group, which was formed in 1999 by five members of the St. Thomas Boys’ Choir. Named for the first initials of each of the founding members, with an added C, Calmus quickly grew from a hobby into a professional endeavor. The current ensemble includes another founding member, countertenor Sebastian Krause as well as Roesler, soprano Anja Lipfert and tenor Tobias Pöche.

“The Bright Side of Life” opens with Hugo Distler’s Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, Op. 12, No. 1, which translates as “Sing unto the Lord a new song.” Böhme said Distler is one of the most important composers of the early 20th century because he offered new solutions of how to write vocal music to contrast Romantic conventions.

In the first half of the program, Krause favors the selections from Heinrich Schütz’s “19 Italian Madrigals,” written in 1611, inspired by the young composer’s trip to Italy.

“He made a real new style, as a German composer, taking Italian works and composing them in a very intelligent, very expressive way,” Krause said.

Roesler also named Schütz’s madrigals as some of his favorite pieces on the program.

“More than many other composers, I think (Schütz) knows everything about the human voice in a way that makes the music very easy to sing and to find the idea behind the music,” he said.

In addition to Schütz’s madrigals, Roesler also said he enjoys the program’s selections from Brahms’ Lieder und Romanzen, Op. 93.

“Brahms has a very direct connection to the German soul,” he said. “It is very easy for us to understand the music, development and emotion of the piece.”

The first half of today’s program concludes with Adriano Banchieri’s “Il Festino nella sera del giovedì grasso,” which Krause described as a very comedic scene, featuring the voices of people getting ready for the Carnival of Venice.

Selections from Francis Poulenc’s “Huit chansons françaises” open the second half of “The Bright Side of Life.” Krause described these as small, sweet pieces that resemble folk songs.

Today’s concert closes with several pop songs, including Böhme’s own arrangements of Michael Jackson’s “Remember the Time” and Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”

In addition to their busy touring schedule, the members of Calmus just finished their album, “Mythos 116,” which features different compositions, all set to the text of Psalms 116. The album will be released in September.

Chautauqua is Calmus’ second stop on its summer tour of the U.S. The ensemble held concerts in the U.S. this spring and will tour here again for Christmas concerts. Calmus first visited the U.S. in 2009, after it won the Concert Artists Guild International Competition.

“The people in the U.S. love a cappella music, so we want to be there as often as possible,” Krause said. “With this award, we are able to do that. It’s very important to the group.”

Roesler added that he’s  looking forward to seeing more of the United States.

“It’s a big country with very nice people,” Roesler said. “In our last tours, we learned that they all love a cappella music. I like to be there to sing for the American people.”