“…the TLC that went into the realization of this masterwork was apparent in every bar. All of the players…had a large repertory of sounds at their fingertips to create such startling contrasts. … the overall feeling I took from this performance was one of being swept up in a powerful current of magnificent music. The middle section of the third movement was as heart-meltingly beautiful as anything I could hope to hear, and the fugal coda of the finale generated so much heat, it could singe your hair if you sat too close." —the Ithaca Times in a review of Brahms’s Piano Quintet
Franklin Crawford
When we first began performing in 1990 we were a group of friends who just wanted to play some chamber music together in the summer. We really had no thought beyond these first few concerts. Before we knew it, several years of performing concerts in various venues had passed and we began to refer to each year as a season. Gradually the Finger Lakes Chamber Ensemble evolved and we found ourselves performing through all the seasons with Fall, Spring, Mother's Day, and Summer chamber concerts as well as Salons and Recitals. Today we find ourselves at the start of our third decade.
Our twentieth anniversary season fulfilled three gifts promised to you and ourselves: we commissioned and premiered a Piano Quartet by award-winning composer, Diego Vega; we performed a benefit concert for the Ithaca chapter of Amnesty International; we established a policy of free admission for all students. While last season marked the culmination of much of hard work, it has also served as a point of departure and inspiration for further projects: a new commission is in the works, more exciting programs with distinguished guest artists this season, a dinner-concert collaboration in March with Danos’ on Seneca, as well as other projects, the details of which we’ll be sharing with you as the year progresses.
A quick look at our season may lead you to think that we are celebrating Brahms's birthday. He'll be 179 years old in May—and that's certainly worth celebrating! His works will be a focus of our season and you’ll have the opportunity to hear his complete Violin Sonatas, the Viola/Clarinet Sonatas, his Horn Trio, the G Minor Piano Quartet and the great Piano Quintet, all in one season.
In March we offer a distinct change of pace with an All French program, which features Ravel's jazz inflected Violin Sonata, Debussy's magical Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp, and Messiaen's extraordinary outpouring of the human spirit, Quartet for the End of Time, written while the composer was a captive in a German prisoner of war camp during World War Two.
It is a great pleasure to welcome to FLCE our new member, Shannon Nance, assistant concertmaster of the Rochester Philharmonic, who has been a familiar face as a guest artist in our recent concerts. We hope to challenge and inspire each other for many years to come.
We are thrilled to have Janet Sung and Nicholas DiEugenio, violins, and Richard MacDowell, clarinet returning as guest artists. We welcome and know you’ll enjoy hearing our new guest artists, Alexander Shuhan, horn, Elizabeth Shuhan, flute, and Lacey Lee, harp.
As always, we wish to thank the many individuals, listed under gifts of time and service in the back of this booklet, who make it possible to present these programs and the Lodi Historical Society that graciously sponsors our Lodi Series and hosts such lovely post-concert receptions. We couldn’t do it without you!
Here’s to another decade!
Roberta Crawford and Michael Salmirs, Artistic Directors, FLCE