Prize-winning pianist joins Alexander String Quartet to perform Dvorák

The Alexander String Quartet celebrates its 30th anniversary with a focus on Czech composer Antonin Dvorák in a concert at 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 29, at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts at UC Davis. From left are Zakarias Grafilo, violin; Sandy Wilson, cello; Paul Yarbrough, viola; and Frederick Lifsitz, violin. Courtesy photo

Hear more

What: Alexander String Quartet and pianist Jon Nakamatsu

When: 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday

Where: Vanderhoef Studio Theatre at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts

Tickets: $49 general, $24.50 students; www.mondaviarts.org, (530) 754-2787

The Alexander String Quartet will welcome pianist Jon Nakamatsu as its guest on Sunday for performances of two chamber works by Antonín Dvorák at 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday in the Mondavi Center’s Vanderhoef Studio Theater.

Nakamatsu — winner of the Gold Medal at the Van Cliburn Competition in 1997 — will be featured in Dvorák’s Piano Quintet in A Major, Op. 81, dating from 1888, a substantial 40-minute piece that is commonly found on the “short list” of great piano quintets in the classical tradition.

As is often the case with Dvorák, there are folk melodies woven into the music throughout. At a time when German music largely set the standard in Europe, Dvorák was proud of his Czech/Bohemian heritage, and made a point of bringing references to his homeland’s music into his compositions.

Sharing the program will be Dvorák’s Terzetto in C Major, Op. 74, for two violins and viola (1887). The concerts are part of this year’s survey of Dvorák’s chamber works by the Alexander String Quartet at Mondavi.

Nakamatsu is coming up on the 15th anniversary of his big breakthrough at the Cliburn Competition. He is unusual among that competition’s winners in that he did not come up through a music conservatory. While he devoted considerable time to studying piano privately over many years, his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Stanford were in German studies and education, respectively.

And at the time he won the Cliburn Competition in 1997, Nakamatsu was working as a German teacher at a private high school in the Silicon Valley area, and he continues to make his home there.

Since winning the competition, Nakamatsu has devoted himself to a musical career. He appeared in Davis at Freeborn Hall in 2001 and he’s recorded 10 albums for the Harmonia Mundi label. In November, Nakamatsu and the Tokyo String Quartet recorded an album of music by Brahms that should be released sometime later this year.

Nakamatsu continues to tour widely. His performances in Davis come on the heels of appearances earlier this month with the Reno Philharmonic (playing Tchaikovsky) and the Modesto Symphony Orchestra (playing Beethoven). Nakamatsu also has entered the realm of arts administration, serving as co-artistic director of the Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival on the East Coast.

This will be Nakamatsu’s first visit to the Mondavi Center, and also his first time working with the Alexander String Quartet. Based in San Francisco, the quartet has been performing regularly at the Mondavi Center since the facility opened in October 2002, presenting three-year surveys of the complete string quartets of Shostakovich and Beethoven, as well as shorter series examining the chamber works of Mozart and Brahms.

The quartet has recorded the complete Shostakovich and Beethoven cycles for its Foghorn label, and a Brahms recording project could be coming up for the group in the near future.

At Sunday’s 2 p.m. performance, composer and music historian Robert Greenberg, who has partnered with the Alexander String Quartet on many occasions, will offer commentary and background on the music.

Greenberg will not speak at the 7 p.m. performance; instead, there will be a question-and-answer session with the musicians following the concert.

Tickets are $49 general, $24.50 students, available at www.mondaviarts.org or (530) 754-2787. The 2 p.m. concert is sold out, but a few turned-back tickets typically become available on the day of the performance.

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

Short URL: http://www.davisenterprise.com/?p=129032

Posted by Jeff Hudson on Jan 23 2012.
Last Login: Sat 19 May 2012 11:40:19 AM PDT
Filed under Entertainment, Mondavi Center, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry