Harlem Quartet ââ“ Donald P Pipino Performing Arts Series January 17
by Mike Telin
It'due south no secret that today'south young musicians easily travel between musical genres. Take the Harlem Quartet, for example, who regularly present programs that combine standard cord quartet literature with jazz, Latin, and contemporary works. They have a collaborative arroyo that broadens their repertoire and audience reach, too every bit a commitment to residency activity and educational outreach. That combination makes them a prime case of a model 21st-century chamber music ensemble.
On Thursday, January 17 at 7:30 pm at the Ford Family Recital Hall in Youngstown, the Harlem Quartet (Ilmar Gavilán and Melissa White, violins, Jaime Amador, viola, and Felix Umansky, cello) will perform works past Beethoven, Bolcom, Gillespie, Gavilán, and Debussy. The concert is presented as part of the inaugural Donald P. Pipino Concert Series. Tickets are available online .
The program will open with Beethoven's Quartet No. 11 , Op. 95 ("Serioso"). "It's beautiful, curtailed, and compact, and makes a smashing program opener," commencement violinist Ilmar Gavilán said during a recent telephone chat.
The Quartet will proceed with William Bolcom'southward Three Rags for Cord Quartet , a work they had the honour of playing for the composer. "Nosotros were lucky to encounter him," Gavilán said. "He was very nice and impressed that we were not agape to improvise. Nosotros were nervous, merely he was pleased that we took liberties, especially in the repeated sections. 'Poltergeist' and 'Incineratorag' are great fun, and 'Svelte Ghost' is a beautiful piece that he dedicated to his tardily father."
The violinist said they "dearest" playing Light-headed Gillespie'due south A Night In Tunisia . "We get to morph into a existent jazz grouping. We even alter our sound — we don't desire to sound like an opera singer performing rock."
The opportunity to present Cuarteto en Guaguancó to audiences is always special for Gavilán. "My father, Guido López-Gavilán, who is the retired conductor of the Havana Symphony Orchestra, wrote the piece." The violinist noted that the work is based on an Afro-Cuban dance from the 1800s. "It incorporates the rumba clave, which is based on traditional African chanting." The slice requires the players to bow and play pizzicato at the same fourth dimension, and pulsate on their instruments. "It'due south a lot of fun but the drumming office is non so easy."
The program volition conclude with Debussy's Quartet in g . "It'due south no blow that this closes the program," Gavilán said. "Debussy'south music influenced the sound of early jazz, and he was influenced past ragtime. The piece is all almost cross-pollination — the second movement is based on Indonesian gamelan, specifically from Java."
The Quartet was founded in 2006 by the Sphinx Arrangement with the mission of bringing classical music to inner-metropolis school children, Gavilàn said. All four original members were First Identify Laureates of the Sphinx Competition. Gavilán and Melissa White are founding members, while Jaime Amador joined in 2012, and Felix Umansky is the ensemble's newest member.
"We started with that mission, and we went to every school in Harlem — information technology was a social mission as well. And we originally added some jazz to the program just to concord the attending of the students."
It turned out that jazz was a natural fit for the Quartet. "Everyone in the grouping has ever called me the resident jazzer considering I have the Cuban sounds in my soul," Gavilán said. In improver to his father, his brother is as well a well-known classical and Latin jazz musician. "Jazz is an aural tradition — it all starts with the ear. Chick Corea says that you have to detach yourself from the page, that yous learn by doing."
In improver to Chick Corea, the Quartet has collaborated with jazz musicians such equally Aldo López-Gavilán, Paquito D'Rivera, Eddie Daniels, Tim Garland, Ted Nash, Gary Burton, Stanley Clarke, and John Patitucci.
"I accept to say that learning jazz helps u.s.a. play classical music better," Gavilán said. "Information technology gives us the skills that allow united states of america to exist more spontaneous. It gives us the gift of being free and precise. But we strive for excellence in all the music we play — being spontaneous doesn't give you lot a license to play out of tune or non together."
Published on ClevelandClassical.com January xv, 2019.
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Source: https://clevelandclassical.com/the-harlem-quartet-in-youngstown-an-ensemble-for-the-21st-century/
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