If you go
› What: String Theory, featuring Colin Carr (cello), Alexander Sitkovetsky (violin) and Gloria Chien (piano).› When: 6:30 p.m. today, March 24; preceded by Art Connections talk at 5:30 p.m.› Where: Hunter Museum of American Art, 10 Bluff View.› Admission: $30 Hunter members, $40 nonmembers, $10 students, $25 groups of 2o+.› Phone: 423-267-0968.› Website: stringtheorymusic.org.
About the performers
* Colin Carr: Began playing cello at age 5. Has served as a professor at the Royal Academy of Music and on the faculty of the New England Conservatory, St. John’s College of Oxford and Stony Brook University. Regularly appears as a soloist, chamber musician, recording artist and teacher and plays with major orchestras worldwide. Has been a regular guest at the BBC Proms and has twice toured Australia. Recorded and toured extensively for 20 years as a member of the Golub-Kaplan-Carr Trio. Is a frequent visitor to international chamber music festivals worldwide and has appeared often as a guest with the Guarneri and Emerson string quartets and with New York’s Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Awards include first prize in the Naumburg Competition, the Gregor Piatigorsky Memorial Award, second prize in the Rostropovich International Cello Competition and the Young Concert Artists competition.* Alexander Sitkovetsky: Made his concerto debut at age 8, going on to perform with the Netherlands Philharmonic, the Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic, English Chamber Orchestra, Academy of St. Martin’s in the Fields and the BBC Concert Orchestra, among others. Performs in the Sitkovetsky Piano Trio with Wu Qian and cellist Leonard Elschenbroich. Regularly gives performances in England at the Wigmore Hall and across Europe in halls such as Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and the Frankfurt Alte Oper.* Gloria Chien: Serves as artistic director of String Theory and an artist-in-residence at Lee University. Is a prize winner of the World Piano Competition and the San Antonio International Piano Competition. Was appointed director of the Chamber Music Institute at Music@Menlo, a chamber music festival and institute in the San Francisco Bay Area. Has been a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 2012 and frequently plays at Alice Tully Hall in New York, as well as other venues around the country with CMS on Tour.
Colin Carr
Alexander Sitkovetsky
Gloria ChienChamber music series String Theory will continue its seventh season with music from Maurice Ravel tonight, March 24, at the Hunter Museum of American Art.
Cellist Colin Carr, violinist Alexander Sitkovetsky and pianist Gloria Chien will perform three works from the French composer during the evening:
* Piano Trio (1914), which contains Basque, Baroque and Far Eastern influences. This work is said to show Ravel’s growing technical skill as he dealt with difficulties of balancing the percussive piano with the sustained sound of the violin and cello.
* Sonata for Violin and Cello (1920-22), a departure from the rich textures and harmonies of the Piano Trio. According to online sources, the composer said it marked a turning point in his career, with thinness of texture pushed to the extreme and harmonic charm renounced in favor of pure melody.
* “Tzigane” (1924), a rhapsodic composition originally intended as a virtuoso display piece for Hungarian violinist Jelly d’Aranyi. The name of the piece is derived from the generic European term for “gypsy,” although it does not use authentic Gypsy melodies. The term referred to the musical exoticism popular at the time rather than the Roma people.
An hour before the performance, Ellen Simak, former Hunter Museum chief curator, and maestro Robert Bernhardt will lead Art Connection, a discussion of works from the Hunter collection that relate to the music featured in the concert.