Baroque bassoonist Kelsey Schilling will make his CMSCVA debut on December 12, 2017. Kelsey will be the first Baroque bassoonist to play with CMSCVA, and he recently answered a list of questions we are asking many of this season’s performers. Click here to read our 2017-18 Performer Profile of Kelsey Schilling
Chioke I’Anson, VCU professor of African American Sudies and announcer for National Public Radio, will join CMSCVA musicians this weekend. Chioke will work alongside Angela Lehmen, Kobi Malkin, Brendon Elliot, Max Mandel and James Wilson on our “Shostakovich and War,” event on September 29. Click here to read our Performer Profile of Chioke I’Anson
Bass-baritone Jonathan Woody will make his CMSCVA debut on September 16 and 17, 2017. Jonathan recently answered a list of questions we are asking many of this season’s performers. Click here to read our 2017-18 Performer Profile of Jonathan Woody
Canadian violinist Aisslinn Nosky will make her CMSCVA debut on September 16 and 17, 2017. Aisslinn recently answered a list of questions we are asking many of this season’s performers. Click here to read our 2017-18 Performer Profile of violinist Aisslinn Nosky
Belgian violinist Guillaume Pirard will make his third appearance with CMSCVA on September 16 and 17, 2017. Guillaume recently answered a list of questions we are asking many of this season’s performers. Click here to read our 2017-18 performer profile of Guillaume Pirard.
Canadian violist Max Mandel will make his third appearance with CMSCVA on September 16 and 17, 2017. Max recently answered a list of questions we are asking many of this season’s performers. Click here to read our 2017-18 Performer Profile of violist Max Mandel
CMSCVA talks with violinist Diana Cohen and pianist Roman Rabinovich, who will be performing on April 22 and 23. Click here to read the interview
Read our interview with trumpeter Justin Bland, who performs music by Saint-Saëns and d’Indy on our April 23 concert “La Belle Époque”: Justin Bland interview
Notes on the Bach Suites – By Elizabeth King Despite their fame and popularity, the six suites on tonight’s program have a foggy origin. They were written sometime between 1717 and 1723 during Bach’s service to Prince Leopold in Cöthen. At this period of the Baroque, the cello would have been a highly unusual choice of instrumentation for solo pieces, its role most often relegated to accompanying. So whether these suites originated for another stringed instrument or as we hear them today is unclear. They could have been written for the 5 string viola pomposa, or the miniature violoncello da spalla (both played on the shoulder like a violin). More appropriate to the Baroque period, they probably were written without a single instrument in mind – just whatever instrument was convenient. During the 19th century, these pieces fell out of the repertoire, and were mostly relegated to the non-serious status of etudes or student pieces. In 1890, a thirteen-year-old Pablo Casals discovered an edition in a music shop in Barcelona. He became the first modern-era cellist of stature to popularize them as concert pieces, and audiences everywhere since have been glad of it. The opening of Bach’s first cello suite reassures us that everything is okay. (What a terrific way to begin two hours!) In the classical tradition, composers mostly relied on a specific harmonic formula to create structure across a musical piece: a statement of the tonic key, a migration to the dominant key, and a return to the tonic key. As a result, a movement lasting many minutes feels satisfying and complete. In the Prelude of the G major Suite, Bach makes the full circle in the first eight phrases in approximately twenty seconds – a grand journey in miniature. All at once, we are given both the dramatic…
