Duo’s Weekend Performance Continued

For A Younger Audience At NMS

Maria Bachmann and Jon Klibonoff followed their concert performance at Edmond Town Hall last weekend (side related review) with a school outreach program for the eighth grade orchestra students at Newtown Middle School the following morning.

According to Ellen Parrella, president of Newtown Friends of Music, which sponsored the April 5 concert and April 6 in-school program, the duo played scherzo movements from some of the music that had been performed at Edmond Town Hall on Sunday afternoon.

The performances elicited comments from the students, such as  “It sounds like a guy, who goes fishing but does not catch any fish.” In answer to this impression the duo immediately plunged into the last movement of Schubert’s Trout Quintet and Jon Klibonoff added this sage observation: “trout fishing is like love, not so easy to catch.”

Much time and interest was given to the Blues movement of Ravel’s Sonata No. 2 with the students engaging in singing sliding notes and listening or the typical strumming of the violin.

“The best, however, came as last,” said Ms Parrella. “Miss Bachmann, who is of Hungarian heritage, and accompanied with gusto on the upright piano in the school’s band room, performed a startling rendition of Vittorio Monti’s Czardas. She walked and serenaded each participant individually, stepping over feet and shoes and books without incident, and performed miraculous cadences and trills on her beautiful 1782 Nicolo Gagliano violin. All the students and their teachers were awed by her performance and left the lesson with joy in their hearts.”

Another special guest on Monday morning was Joan Ferris Popovic, who retired in 2007 after devoting 40 years of service to the music program of Newtown’s public schools.