Arizona Friends of Chamber Music   Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival
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Sunday, March 4— Sunday, March 11, 2012

The Arizona Friends of Chamber Music (AFCM), which has brought nationally and internationally renowned chamber music groups to perform in Tucson for 60 years, is pleased to present the Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival.

Online ticket sales Tickets also available by mail or email Download order form here For phone orders, call 520-577-3769 For complete information go to our tickets page Unless specified, all our concerts are at Leo Rich Theater. Directions and Google map here.

The Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival, an absolutely delightful week-long series of concerts and other events during the first week of March, includes free open rehearsals, a gala dinner with wonderful music by Festival musicians, a youth concert and master classes. We have also produced an acclaimed series of Festival recordings.

Thursday features a free youth concert at which we give 600 southern Arizona school children the opportunity to see, hear and interact with the same musicians who play for the festival. Learn more about our education and community outreach efforts here.

We also have a wonderful gala dinner on Saturday evening at the elegant Arizona Inn, featuring music by our festival performers, along with champagne and dinner. Master classes for University music students are presented on Saturday afternoon. The master classes and open dress rehearsals are free and open to the public.

AFCM is proud to have one of the country's most active commissioning programs. This year's festival features two premieres: a piano trio by Lera Auerbach and a piano quartet by Pierre Jalbert. Please visit our commissioning program pages, where one can listen to complete performances of our more than 40 commissions, as well as find out much more about the composers and their works. There are still opportunities to join us in supporting the living art of chamber music by sponsoring a new composition.

Our thanks once again go to Peter Rejto, Artistic Director of all our Festivals, who has assembled some of the world's finest musicians and programmed a repertoire both contemporary and classic.

“...celebrating some of our favorite things about Arizona” The Arizona Daily Star, in its special section “Arizona at 100”, has named the Festival Best of Arizona: Music Events “Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival, inside and out” “Attending rehearsals gives context to performances” March 10, 2010 review by Dave Irwin, TucsonSentinel.com “Winter Chamber Music Fest is best game in town” “A jewel of a festival”, Kerry Frumkin, WFMT/Chicago “It promotes original programming, musical excellence, and an intimate atmosphere for audiences and musicians.” — Arizona Daily Star

"A Little Winter Music" on Arizona Illustrated from KUAT March, 2011

	Peter Rejto - artistic director
Tokyo String Quartet Martin Beaver – violin Kikuei Ikeda – violin Kazuhide Isomura - viola Clive Greensmith – cello website Apollo's Fire Baroque Ensemble website Benny Kim – violin Helena Baillie – viola Steve Doane – cello Volkan Orhon – bass Bernadette Harvey - piano Lera Auerbach – composer/piano Mihae Lee - piano Composer Pierre Jalbert Bil Jackson - Clarinet William Purvis – horn Stephen Taylor - oboe Marc Goldberg – bassoon Jerry Kirkbride* - clarinet Neil Tatman* - oboe Jessica Campbell* - bassoon Daniel Katzen* - horn Margaret McGillivray* - horn (* Dvorak Serenade)

Programs

Open Dress Rehearsals: 9 a.m. – Noon
Wednesday, March 7th — Friday, March 9th — Sunday, March 11th

Sunday, March 4, 2012 - 3 p.m.

Our first festival program, following the sparkling Mozart Quintet for Piano and Winds—the only such work he wrote—echoes other elements of the AFCM season. The compact, concentrated Bartók Third Quartet may be the best introduction to that composer’s unique personal sound; it’s also the third of his six quartets you can hear from the AFCM this season. Beethoven’s Op. 131 Quartet was played in December; its companion, Op. 132, is, up to the joyous last movement, a restrained offering of thanks for recovery from a life-threatening illness.

Mozart, Quintet in E Flat Major for Piano and Winds, K452

Bartók, String Quartet #3, sz. 85

Beethoven, String Quartet, Op.132

 

Tuesday, March 6, 2012 - 7:30 p.m.

“Mediterranean Nights: Sultry Songs & Passionate Dances from 17th century Italy & Spain” Apollo's Fire Baroque Ensemble Music is a form of communication – a language that resonates with people in an emotional and spiritual way, touching people in a way that words cannot. The treatises from the 17th and 18th centuries all talk about “Affekt” – the emotional character of the music. The performer’s role was to evoke a particular Affekt or emotional state in the listeners – whether that be joy or contemplation or rage or despair or triumph. The baroque performer used every possible means to cast his emotional spell on the audience – rhetoric, gesture, harmony. Apollo’s Fire is a collection of artists who believe passionately that our job is to communicate – to take the listeners with us on an emotional journey. If, at the end of two hours, the audience is moved to tears, or joy, or laughter, or prayer, then we have done a good night’s work. – Jeannette Sorrell This concert presented in cooperation with the Arizona Early Music Society Video and much more on the Apollo's Fire website www.apollosfire.org Watch highlights of Vivaldi's Summer, from The Four Seasons, from the PBS television broadcast here

 

Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - 7:30 p.m.

You can never get enough of Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet. At least, let’s hope not; our festival musicians present this loveable work just a few weeks after a probably quite different performance from the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio and friends. If you’re seeking novelty, look no further than the cello sonata by Lera Auerbach, who is quickly being recognized as one of Russia’s leading composers, moving forward from the Shostakovich tradition. And if you want variety, there’s something just for strings. Mozart’s thick-in-the-middle (added viola) quintet, and something mainly for winds, Dvořák’s endearing serenade.

Mozart, String Quintet # 1 in B Flat, K174

Dvořák, Serenade in D minor, Op. 44

Auerbach, Cello Sonata

Schubert, Quintet in A Major for Piano and Strings, Op. post. 114, D.667 “The Trout”

 

Friday, March 9, 2012 - 7:30 p.m.

Lera Auerbach was asked to write something especially for this year’s festival, and she has come through with a trio that she, as pianist, will premiere with members of the Tokyo Quartet. The program also holds an old favorite, the buoyant and inventive Schumann Piano Quintet, and a fairly rarely-heard work (because of its unusual instrumentation) by one of the greatest of all composers: Beethoven’s septet for strings and winds.

Auerbach, Trio (Premiere)

Schumann, Piano Quintet in E Flat Major, Op.44

Carl Vine, The Anne Landa Preludes (solo piano)

Beethoven, Septet in E Flat Major, Op.20

Sunday, March 11, 2012 - 3 p.m.

Just as Beethoven’s septet on the Friday concert is something of a rarity because of its unusual scoring, so is Schubert’s hour-long octet for strings and winds, which is a typical blend of the composer’s lyricism and nobility. Something more insouciant opens the concert, Poulenc’s witty trio for reed instruments and piano, and in the middle will be the premiere of a festival commission, a piano quartet by Pierre Jalbert, whose The Invention of the Saxophone proved popular on past Arizona Friends of Chamber Music concerts.

Poulenc, Trio for Oboe, Bassoon, Piano

Jalbert, Piano Quartet (premiere)

Schubert, Octet in F Major, D.803

 

Special events

Youth concert Thursday, March 8, 2012 10:30 - 11-30

A free youth concert at which we give 600 southern Arizona school children the opportunity to see, hear and interact with the same musicians who play for the festival. Click here for more information about our education and outreach efforts.

 

Saturday, March 10, 2012
Master Class Steve Doane (cello) 3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. Master Class William Purvis (horn) 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. The master classes and open dress rehearsals are free and open to the public. They are held at Leo Rich Theater.
		As part of our active education and outreach program, oboist Allan Vogel gave a master class at the 2011 Festival. We are delighted to be able to share this with the rest of the community. Part 1 can be viewed to the left. All three parts can be found by going here. Also, in addition to audio from all our commissions, we now have videos of several premieres online. More will be online soon. See them all at vimeo.com/channels/afcm

 

Gala dinner and concert at the Arizona Inn Saturday, March 10, 2012

Cocktails - 6:00 p.m., Selections by festival musicians - 7:00 p.m., Dinner - 8:00 p.m. Previn, Trio for oboe, bassoon, and piano Hugo Wolf, “Italian Serenade” Schumann, Adagio and Allegro Handel Halvorsen, Duo for violin and viola

 

Festival Discography
	Visit our Festival discography page and browse CD's from all our prior Festivals Listen to audio clips and order online! Click below to listen to complete movements for each CD Open our CD sample player here

 

Click here for complete CD notes

Our CD from the 2010 Festival View the program, now with audio Click below to view the 2010 Festival program and listen to the Presto from Farr's Taheke for Flute and Harp

 

 

Supported by the Arizona Commission on the Arts Join us in thanking our corporate sponsors

 

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