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The Final Two BLEMF Performances Reviewed!

5/26/2015

 
BLEMF wraps up Sunday

By Peter Jacobi H-T Reviewer | pjacobi@heraldt.com 


A pair of satisfying Sunday concerts wrapped up a four-day Bloomington Early Music Festival weekend. The high quality of music-making and what seemed repeatedly enthusiastic audience response gave one hope that the renewed festival popularly referred to as BLEMF will once again become something to look forward to at the end of future Bloomington Mays.
 
A Georg Philipp Telemann Feast - [Check out the Photos Here]
 
Sunday afternoon’s concert in Auer Hall remembered the late Washington McClain, a virtuoso baroque oboist who came to teach with great success at IU’s Jacobs School, and honored retired Michael McCraw, an equally gifted bassoonist who served influentially as director of the Early Music Institute.

The program ended with recordings that featured the two: McCraw and colleagues in Telemann’s Sonatina Quinta in A Minor and both of them in the composer’s Partita Number 2 in G-Major. Listening served to remind one of how special were their talents.

Earlier, four musicians who knew them as colleagues or students paid their respects with more Telemann compositions. Eva Legene, the remarkable recorder artist who taught at the Jacobs School until her retirement in 2009, returned to pay her respects with a top-of-the-line performance of Telemann’s Sonata in D-Minor for recorder and basso continuo, the latter supplied at the harpsichord by Corey Jamason, a distinguished alum now at the San Francisco Conservatory where he is the school’s Distinguished Chair in Historical Performance.

Jamason — along with Kathryn Montoya, teacher of baroque oboe and recorder at the Oberlin Conservatory and the University of North Texas, and Keith Collins, baroque and classical bassoonist who teaches at Jacobs and North Texas — contributed a reading of the Sonata in E-Flat Major for oboe, obbligato harpsichord, and continuo. Montoya and Legene teamed for the Sonata in G-Major for two recorders. And all four musicians took on the C-Major Trio Sonata for oboe, recorder, and basso continuo.

One heard a lot of Telemann. That was a bonus.

Honors for Stanley Ritchie
- [Check out the Photos Here]

Violinist Ritchie, who encouraged his Early Music Institute students in the early 1990s to pursue their dream of establishing a festival, has been BLEMF’s most avid supporter and participant. This year, he continued to back festival revival efforts as a member of the Bloomington Early Music Board.

He kept his fiddle at home, however, and chose to listen as an audience member. Having just recently turned 80, his students and friends decided to honor him with “An Evening in Celebration of Stanley Ritchie” concert to conclude this year’s festival. He came to Auer Hall Sunday night to hear it.

What he didn’t know was that he would be given an honor from the city. Mayor Mark Kruzan declared May 24, 2015, Stanley Ritchie Day in Bloomington. Miah Michaelsen, the mayor’s assistant economic development director for the arts, came to deliver the declaration and to read a long list of Ritchie achievements for which this honor was bestowed.

But, of course, there also was music, quite a bit of it, all performed by long-standing colleagues, friends, and former students. Violinists Christopher Verrette, Janelle Davis, and Martha Perry, cellist Shelley Taylor, and harpsichordist Eunji Lee played Henry Purcell’s “Fantasy upon a Ground.” Eva Legene added some more Telemann, with not a recorder note out of place in the Fantasia Number 9 in E-Major. Elisabeth Wright was all grace and elegance at the harpsichord as she played Suite II in D Minor from Louis Marchand’s “Pieces de Clavecin.”

She was joined by Leela Breithaupt on traverso (flute), violinist Verrette, and violist da Gamba Erica Rubis for Jean-Marie Leclair’s “Deuxieme recreation de musique d’une execution facile;” they made an excellent, unified quartet. An orchestra of a dozen or just over played some more Purcell, the exquisite Suite from “The Fairy Queen.” The remarkable Marilyn Keiser came along for Handel’s Concerto for Organ and Orchestra; she played not the big Auer organ but a rolled-on little one and made it sound like far more of an instrument than it is.

Finally, Christopher Verrette took the solo spot for Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 3, Number 9. He was terrific, offering a performance worthy of bringing BLEMF 2015 to a close.

The Final Two Reviews for 2015 are In!

5/26/2015

 

The First BLEMF '15 Reviews are Stellar!

5/25/2015

 
Friday, Saturday BLEMF concerts greeted with enthusiasm

By Peter Jacobi H-T Reviewer | pjacobi@heraldt.com

We had some savory tastes of the Bloomington Early Music Festival over the weekend, bringing a melodic finish to a month of May which, up to then, had not too much classical music to show for it and bringing also a reminder of a festival that used to fill the last 10 days of the month with a lush buffet of early music for Bloomington music lovers.

Those fighting mightily to revive the festival tradition are, wisely, moving carefully and slowly, testing the waters, so to speak, using mostly local talent, current Indiana University Jacobs School of Music students and alumni, thereby striving to determine the depth of community interest at low cost. The official opening of the BLEMF weekend on Friday evening indicated the level of enthusiasm is high, what with a larger than expected audience and warm response. Of course, all of the programs were free of charge, which is not a completely fair indicator. But the enthusiasm with which the various attractions were greeted did strongly suggest that support exists.

Forgotten Clefs [Check out the Photos Here!]

The rotunda of the Monroe County Courthouse proved an excellent choice for Friday evening’s concert by this six-member Renaissance Wind Band. The very live acoustics added thrills to the sounds produced by shawms (ancestor of the oboe), dulcians (bassoons), recorders, sackbuts (trombones), percussion, and bagpipe.

Folks sat on stairs as well as three levels in the rotunda; the musicians performed on the middle one, the second floor balcony, and all those strange sounds magically blended into a small orchestra of instruments that seemed to belong, that seemed to complement one another.

Forgotten Clefs’ bill of fare: French popular songs from the 15th and 16th centuries, songs about love and romance and everyday life that were arranged into wordless pieces by various composers so the tunes could be enjoyed even more broadly. Led by Charles Wines, a performer on bagpipes, shawms, dulcians and recorders, these young musicians of our day sounded as if they had just arrived by time machine from way back then.

The ensemble has been chosen to perform at the upcoming Boston Early Music Festival, arguably the most prestigious of our nation’s all. That’s a coup, a deserved one; they’re fine musicians with an intriguing product to sell. Two suggestions for the Boston gig: (1) Work on choreography; smooth out the sometimes awkward incomings and outgoings as personnel demands shift; (2) Provide program notes to give listeners a clearer picture of what they’re experiencing.

Due le Fils [Check out the Photos Here!]

Two former students of Stanley Ritchie, the eminent Jacobs School faculty violinist whose students back in the early 1990s were instrumental in getting the first BLEMF going, joined for another unusual program, this on Saturday afternoon in the First Presbyterian Church. Martin Davids came down from Chicago and Antonin Stahly flew in from Paris to honor their professor with works by Joseph-Barnabe Saint-Sevin, an 18th century violinist of repute who, at age 16, became a member of the Paris Opera orchestra. He remained for 20 years.

When those years were done, he wrote “Deuxieme Suite d’Airs d’Opera,” 13 pieces based on melodies from operas performed at the time. The duo played those pieces with great verve and passion, transmitting floods of captivating sounds. They added a minuet from Saint-Sevin’s “Principes du Violon,” plus an encore of Bach dedicated to their mentor, in sum more than an hour of exuberant violin playing; these fellows learned much from their master.

A Lully Jubilee [Check out the Photos Here!]

Baroque Violinist Reynaldo Patino, currently working on a doctorate, decided he wanted to contribute his musicianship to the festival not only as violinist but as music director. He put together an elaborate program for Saturday evening at First Presbyterian: extended Prologues from two operas of Jean-Baptiste Lully plus instrumental selections from works by Lully contemporaries Francois-Andre Philidor, Jean-Henri d’Anglebert, and Jean-Philippe Rameau. A six-musician ensemble, Les Hautbios du Rey, led by Keith Collins authoritatively played the music of the contemporaries. For the Lully, there was an orchestra of 11 and eight singers who served as chorus and soloists.

The Prologues chosen were from “Armide” and “Prosperpine,” both products of the 1680s. The opener for “Armide” offers some amazing music attached to a moral discourse between Wisdom and Glory. Early on, Wisdom voices the sentiment that “All the universe must yield to the august hero whom I love …. He is master over a hundred several peoples, and even more than this, he is master of himself.” At this point came the unveiling of a large photo showing the image of Stanley Ritchie, prompting the laughter of surprise and cheers. The performance was splendid, crowned by two sopranos: Christine Lynch as Glory and Kathryn Summersett as Wisdom.

The “Prosperspine” Prologue closed the program and provided more music of substance and persuasion. Here, we were told of the victory of Peace over Discord. The Discord of Kevin De Benendictis stood out, but again, all the elements — choral, solo and instrumental — fused like a charm.



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