The Raleigh Chamber Music Guild (RCMG), North Carolina’s oldest chamber music presenter, has announced its line-up for the 2011-2012 concert season. RCMG is recognized for its diverse programming, featuring long-established and emerging ensembles, inclusion of minority artists, community partnerships and varied instrumental groups. “Chamber music is much more than string quartets,“ says Nancy Lambert, Executive Director, “although, admittedly, that is the most popular form among our audiences and the most numerous among chamber groups from which to choose.” For the five-concert Masters Series next season, there are two string quartets—and a third, off- series, one piano trio, one piano quartet and a vocal/instrumental group. The Sights & Sounds on Sundays series, in partnership with the NC Museum of Art, includes one string quartet, a piano quartet, a piano trio, a piano/flute/voice trio, a baroque ensemble and a brass quintet. Sights & Sounds artists are all based in North Carolina.
The Masters Series opens on September 11 with the exciting Harlem Quartet, back by popular demand after a wildly successful mini-residency last spring. This time, the ensemble is the featured artist for the 8th annual September Prelude Chamber Music Festival of the Triangle, jointly sponsored by RCMG, UNC and, new this season, NCCU. During its four-day visit, the Quartet will give three different subscription concerts in Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, lead a master class at UNC for adult amateur players, visit Raleigh’s Ligon GT Middle School, and present an informal, free concert at St. Ambrose Episcopal Church in Raleigh.
Returning in November for their third visit on this series is the New Zealand String Quartet which will play, among other things, a work by a contemporary New Zealand composer, adding to the wealth of others that we have been privileged to hear over the last 15 years. Of local interest is the fact that the second violinist is the sibling of NC Symphony cellist Elizabeth Beilman.
In February, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, one of the world’smost beloved ensembles, makes its debut on the RCMG series with a new work by Richard Danielpour in celebration of the 35th wedding anniversary of violinist Jaime Laredo and cellist Sharon Robinson. RCMG is honored to be part of a nationwide consortium of eight chamber music presenters sharing this commission.
The world-renowned Bach Aria Group arrives in March to present a variety of works by the Master, including the Trio sonata from The Musical Offering and arias from the cantatas and passions. This distinguished ensemble includes soprano Beverly Hoch; tenor David Britton; Daniel Phillips, violinist, and Timothy Eddy, cellist, of the Orion Quartet; flutist Tara Helen O’Connor of Windscape; and Yehudi Wyner, harpsichord.
The 2011-12 Masters Series concludes in May with the Los Angeles Piano Quartet, returning after a 17-year absence from the series. With the personnel changes over the years, the group is no longer based in its namesake city, but maintains its original reputation for artistic excellence and is one of the few ensembles of this configuration on touring rosters today.
All Masters Series concerts are held at 3:00 pm in Fletcher Opera Theater in the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts, 2 E. South Street, Raleigh NC 27601. Concerts are preceded at 2:15 pm by student chamber ensembles.
Flex season tickets are $100; $50 for students, and are available through September 11, 2011 from the Raleigh Chamber Music Guild, PO Box 2059, Raleigh NC 27602. (919) 821-2030
A special off-series concert, in partnership with NC State University’s Center Stage, will feature the Turtle Island Quartet in an all jazz program of music by NC native John Coltrane and others on Saturday, January 28, 2012, in Stewart Theatre on the NCSU campus. Reserved tickets are $14-$23 and are available from RCMG; NCSU Ticket Central at (919) 515-1100; or online at www.ncsu.edu/centerstage. Use the code RCMG to receive the special RCMG discount.
Each of the six Sights & Sounds on Sundays programs is based either on the NC Museum of Art’s permanent collection or on a special exhibition. The season opens in July with a frequent visitor to this series over the past 13 years, the Mallarmé Chamber Players, who will feature the exhibition Alter Ego: A Decade of Work by Anthony Goicolea in its program of Mahler, Schoenberg, Chopin, Telemann and Stravinsky.
This is followed in October by Inalare, a faculty ensemble from Appalachian State University, in a program entitled “Mirror Image in Song: Women’s Music of Women” in conjunction with Mirror Image: Women Portraying Women.
Magnolia Baroque, an early music group from Winston-Salem, will present music by Dutch composers in Rembrandt’s time in a nod to the Rembrandt Paintings in America exhibition in November.
Another Baroque program will be played by the UNC-Pembroke Faculty Brass Quintet in January.
In February, the Montage Music Society, from Durham, Greensboro and Boston, will take the stage with the Starry Night Project–music based on visual art—with works by Matthew Harris, William Grant Still and Stephen Paulus.
The series ends in April with “Paris in the Time of Rodin” with the McIver Quartet from UNCG playing works by Koechlin, Stravinsky and Saint-Saëns.
Season tickets for the Sights & Sounds series are $50; $45 NCMA members and students, and are available from RCMG, the NC Art Museum box office (919) 715-5923; or www.ncartmuseum.org.
All concerts are at 3:00 pm in the NCMA East Building auditorium. Each concert is preceded at 1:45 pm by a docent-led tour of the featured exhibition. For tour reservations, contact Christine Molesky (919) 664-6785 or christine.molesky@ncdcr.gov.nc.us
RCMG Annual Gala, a fundraiser at Ruggero Piano, will be on Saturday, February 11, 2012, at 7:30 pm. Guests can meet and mingle with the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio who will offer a brief recital during the evening as everyone enjoys hors d’oeuvres, wine and desserts. Tickets are $75; $200 sponsorship.
SUMMARY
MASTERS SERIES
Sept. 11 Harlem Quartet
Nov. 13 New Zealand String Quartet
Feb. 12 Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio
Mar. 11 Bach Aria Group
May 13 Los Angeles Piano Quartet
OFF-SERIES
Jan. 28 Turtle Island Quartet
SIGHTS & SOUNDS ON SUNDAYS
July 24 Mallarmé Chamber Players
Oct. 9 Inalare
Nov. 20 Magnolia Baroque
Jan. 22 UNC-Pembroke Faculty Brass Quintet
Feb. 26 Montage Music Society
Apr. 15 McIver Quartet
GALA
Feb. 11 with Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio
Note: This season announcement has been provided by the Raleigh Chamber Music Guild.
