Chamber Music Society begins 25th season in September

The Chamber Music Society of Sacramento will begin its 25th anniversary season with a concert Saturday, Sept. 17, at Congregation Bet Haverim in Davis.

There will be six programs by the Chamber Music Society in Davis this year, with artists including violinist and artistic director William Barbini and violinist Kineko Okumura, both veteran performers and longtime El Macero residents; soprano Rebecca Plack, who has a voice studio in Davis and also serves as an adjunct faculty member with the San Francisco Conservatory; cellist Julie Hochman, who teaches locally; and flutist Mathew Krejci, who teaches at the University of the Pacific in Stockton.

The season features many works from the Romantic era. There is also a curious convergence of works numbered Opus 25 by eight different composers. The annual December program of Baroque era works — now a tradition with the Chamber Music Society — returns. A gala featuring a prominent pianist, Jon Nakamatsu, has been added, but that concert will be in Folsom.

Here is an overview of the season:

* Saturday, Sept. 17, 7:30 p.m. at Congregation Bet Haverim: Pianist Brenda Tom, violinist Ruth Freeman and cellist Julie Hochman will be guest artists in a program featuring one of the many string quartets by the early classical master Josef Haydn (in this case the Quartet No. 25, Op. 20, No. 2); the “Jugend” for Flute, Clarinet, Horn and Piano by German composer Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877-1933, whose music was widely performed in his lifetime, but is not so often heard today), and the Piano Quintet No. 1, written in 1923 by Swiss-born composer Ernest Bloch (1880-1950), who was director of the San Francisco Conservatory in the late 1920s.

This program will repeat at Sacramento State University on Sept. 18.

* Thursday, Dec. 1, 7:30 p.m., Congregation Bet Haverim: A program of Baroque-era works by Arcangelo Corelli, Pietro Locatelli, Leonardo Leo, C.P.E. Bach, J.S. Bach and Antonio Vivaldi featuring guest artist Jonathan Salzeno, harpsichord, with the Ariel Ensemble (William Barbini and Kineko Okumura, violins, Paul Ehrlich, viola, and Victoria Ehrlich, cello).

This program repeats Dec. 18 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 1430 J St, Sacramento.

* Saturday, Feb. 11, 7:30 p.m., Congregation Bet Haverim. Soprano Rebecca Plack and cellist Julie Hochman will be guest artists in a program featuring the Serenade for Flute, Violin and Viola, Op. 25, by Ludwig van Beethoven; “Myrthen” (“Myrtles”) Op. 25, by Robert Schumann, with texts by various poets; a set of Scottish folk ballads with texts by poet Robert Burns; “Nuvoletta,” written in 1947 by American composer Samuel Barber (incorporating text drawn from “Finnegan’s Wake” by James Joyce); and the String Quartet in A Major, Op. 41, by Robert Schumann.

This program will be repeated Feb. 12 at Sacramento State University.

* Saturday, March 10, 7:30 p.m., Congregation Bet Haverim. Pianist Dmitriy Cogan and flutist Mathew Krejci will be featured in a program containing “Five Impressions of a Holiday” by English-born composer Eugène Goosens (1893-1962);  the Sonata for Violin and Piano Op. 75, No. 1, by Camille Saint-Saëns (1885); the Sonate de Camera for Flute, Cello and Piano by French composer Gabriel Pierné (1863-1937); and the Piano Quartet in G Minor, Op.25, by Johannes Brahms (1861).

This program will repeat on March 11 at Sacramento State University.

* Saturday, April 21, 7:30 p.m., Congregation Bet Haverim. Bassist Thomas Derthick will be the guest artist in a program featuring a String Quartet by Czech composer Bederic Smetana (1824-1884); Pablo Sarasate’s arrangement of George Bizet’s “Carmen Fantasy,” Op. 25; and British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Quintet for Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello and Bass (1903).

This concert also will be presented on  April 15 at Sacramento State University.

* Saturday, May 5, 7:30 p.m., Congregation Bet Haverim. Guest pianist Yoshikasu Nagai will featured in a program with American composer John Harbison’s “Six American Painters” for Flute and Strings (2000); the “Poème” for Violin and Piano, Op. 25, by Ernest Chausson (1855-1899); the “Round of the Goblins,” Op. 25, by Italian composer Antonio Bazzini (1818-1897); the Piano Quartet in E Flat Major by Antonin Dvorák, Op. 87 (1889); and a chamber work by Mozart to be announced.

This program will repeat on May 6 at Sacramento State University.

Congregation Bet Haverim is at 1715 Anderson Road in Davis. The Sacramento State performances are in the Music Recital Hall in Capistrano Hall.

The season also includes two programs that are not in Davis:

* Thursday, Oct. 20, 7:30 p.m., Three Stages at Folsom Lake College (10 College Parkway, Folsom). Pianist Jon Nakamatsu, winner of the Gold Medal at the Van Cliburn Competition in 1997, will join the Ariel Ensemble  in a gala at the recently completed Three Stages complex. The program will feature Ludwig van Beethoven Sonata in A Major for Cello and Piano, Op. 69; Benjamin Britten’s String Quartet No. 1 in D Major, Op. 25; and Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio in A Minor, Op. 50.

* Saturday, June 2, 3 p.m., San Francisco Conservatory of Music (50 Oak St., San Francisco), and Sunday, June 3, 7:30 p.m., Sacramento State University. Philip Myers, principal French horn with the New York Philharmonic, and clarinetist Patricia Shands are guests in a program of works by British 20th Century composers Lennox Berkeley, Graham Whettam, Elizabeth Maconchy and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

A “season pass” subscription is $150 ($126 for seniors), and a mini-series plan (three concerts) is $78 ($60 for seniors).

Individual tickets are $28 general, $22 for seniors and $12 for students with ID. Gala tickets are $35 (or $28 with purchase of season pass or mini-series).

For more information, visit www.cmssacto.org or call (916) 443-2908.

— Reach Jeff Hudson at jhudson@davisenterprise.net or (530) 747-8055.