Audience members at opening night of the North Shore Chamber Music Festival on June 4 will be treated to two world-class violinists, Anne Akiko Meyers and Vadim Gluzman, playing Bach's Double Concerto on priceless instruments.
Meyers will perform on her much-celebrated "Ex-Vieuxtemps" Guarneri del Gesu violin, the most valuable violin in existence. And Gluzman's legendary "Ex-Leopold Auer" Stradivarius is the instrument for which Tchaikovsky dreamed up several of his masterworks, including his famous Violin Concerto. This Strad represents the pinnacle of violinmaking's Golden Age.
Meyers and Gluzman will also play Arvo Pärt's mysterious Passacaglia for two violins, vibraphone and strings. The evening also holds Beethoven's "Gassenhauer" Trio for violin, cello and piano, featuring Meyers, Italian pianist Alessio Bax, and acclaimed cellist Wendy Warner, who is a native of Winnetka, Ill.
The Festival was founded in 2010 by Gluzman and his wife, concert pianist Angela Yoffe, both residents of Northbrook, Ill. This year's festival includes three concerts, all of which take place at the Village Presbyterian Church in Northbrook. A detailed schedule is available at nscmf.org.
The program on Friday, June 6, "Mozart in Hollywood," will feature chamber music written by Mozart, Schoenberg, and Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The program includes a special jazz piano tribute to the great Oscar Peterson, as conductor and pianist Andrew Litton takes the stage to celebrate the release of his new album for the BIS label called, fittingly, A Tribute to Oscar Peterson.
The festival will culminate with "Virtuoso Fireworks" on June 7, a program of dazzling showpieces that includes the world premiere performance of Aram Khachaturian's Waltz from "Masquerade", transcribed by the acclaimed film composer Ljova.
Also on June 7, a special pre-concert program at 6:00 p.m. features noted Chicago arts administrator Henry Fogel, who will give a talk about "WUNDERKIND! - Child Prodigies in Musical History". Fogel is Dean and distinguished professor at Roosevelt University's Chicago College of Performing Arts, and former President and CEO of both the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the League of American Orchestras.
"While we create interesting themes around every program, the real theme of our festival is friendship," Gluzman has said about the inspiration behind the festival.
"Nothing gives me more joy than to gather on stage great musicians and wonderful friends with whom we have performed all over the world," he continued. "Our friendship is the driving force of our music making and this brings a very special level of intimacy to these performances, as well a great degree of excitement that can only be experienced in a chamber music concert."
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