Newtown Friends Of Music Preparing For 31st Season

“It is hard to believe,” said Ellen Parrella, president of Newtown Friends of Music, “that it is time already to get ready for NFoM’s 31st season. It does not seem that long ago that we were struggling to present just four concerts a year, and that our finances were wobbling on the brink of bankruptcy.

“But, somehow,” she continued “we managed to attract people from Newtown and surrounding towns, who appreciate fine classical music, or as we like to say, ‘exquisite music - superbly performed,’ and somehow we managed to attract artists that give more than a mere concert on a Sunday afternoon at Edmond Town Hall.”

The artists who have graced the town hall stage have all been most carefully picked, or auditioned, and have met the high standards that include among other criteria: first class training and technical brilliance; a superb sensitivity to and intelligent understanding of the music the composer has written down on paper; and an ability to exude a deeply felt enthusiasm for the piece of music they are performing that spans not only the footlights but is palpable in the very last row of the balcony and infects the audience with a certain glow of appreciation.

In addition, of course, when a group is considered, they have to be playing in one voice, with one breath and with one soul.

Finally, there is a certain something indefinably special about all of the artists who have appeared for NFoM. Not everyone who aspires to be included in the NFM concert series is actually invited. Members of the board df Directors go to great lengths in seeking and finding musicians who have, in addition to all the requisite abilities, that certain special appeal that will guarantee an absolutely memorable afternoon. Of course, the deeply impressed audience always wants to have the same artists come back again.

“After every concert,” said Mrs Parrella “we have audience members clamoring to hear the particular ensemble they have just heard back again, the sooner the better.” 

In order to keep the series fresh, lively and interesting it is important, however, to seek out new and emerging talent and surprise the subscribers with ensembles they have never heard before, or of whom they have never heard or read a word in their daily papers. NFoM board members attend competitions; attend other concerts, such as those at Music Mountain, Yale at Norfolk, the Spoleto Festival in Charleston; international competitions at Merkin Hall and the 92nd Street Y in New York City.  The members of the Program Committee then meet and discuss in detail who should be invited and why.  At times, these discussions can become quite intense, when opinions are strongly held and vigorously defended. 

After all that, the task of actually engaging the selected artists depends upon the availability of the venue, the auditorium at Edmond Town Hall, which is being used for many events, most of all for showing movies. This, in turn, depends on the calendar of the Newtown schools. When a school vacation is planned, the auditorium is not available to Newtown Friends of Music.

The specific music that will be performed at the Newtown concert is also an item that is part of the negotiations.

All NFoM concerts take place only on Sunday afternoons at 3 pm.

The Concerts

The first concert of the 2008-09 season will take place on Sunday, September 21, and will feature the St Petersburg String Quartet with guest cellist Roman Mekinulov, a fellow native of Leningrad, the town that was renamed St Petersburg. This group of Russians is very special to Newtown Friends of Music and its audiences, having received standing ovations and superlative reviews the last times they were in Newtown.

Not only will the ensemble perform music by Russian composer Anton Arensky – an admirer of Tchikovsky’s, featuring the extra cello, but also music of Erwin Schulhoff and a cello quintet of Franz Schubert (No Russian, he; archetypal Viennese music here).

For November 2 the Trio Con Brio will come here from Copenhagen. Con Brio translates as with vivacity; or with vigor. A very young group they are the winners and protégés of the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson International Trio Competition.

The Korean sisters Soo-Jin Hong and Soo-Kyung Hong are joined by the Dane Jens Elvejaer were also chosen by the eminent musicians Claude Frank (pianist), Michael Tree (violist of the Guarneri Quartet), and Peter Wiley (former cellist of the Beaux Arts Trio). This piano trio brings with it the energy and ebullience associated with their standing in life. 

Trio Con Brio will perform music by Beethoven, Dvorak or Smetana, and also a newly commissioned work.

On March 1, 2009, the Hugo Wolf Quartett visits from Vienna, Austria (in German the word quartet has two Ts). Formed in Vienna in 1993, the ensemble has taken the name of the late 19th Century composer/critic Hugo Wolf (1860-1903) in recognition of his pivotal position between 19th Century romanticism and the various new music movements of the 20th Century; their name was granted to them by the International Hugo Wolf Society.

The quartet has achieved astonishing renown within the 15 years of its existence. Technically gifted and highly focused, these four superbly matched musicians are less concerned with superficial sheen and gloss than digging in and finding the emotional core of the music.

Their program will include music by Haydn or Mozart and they will premiere a piece written just for them by one of today’s young composers.

The quartet will stay in town overnight and work with Newtown’s  schoolchildren in a school outreach program on Monday morning. 

After these two European groups, both new to NFoM’s roster, music lovers will welcome back on March 22 the pianist Katia Skanavi, who was here last and performed on the town hall’s venerable Knabe one day after one of the worst snowstorms in February 2006 and when all the roads were closed. It was the first time in the history of Newtown Friends of Music that a concert had to be postponed due to weather.

Miss Skanavi has many fans in the USA and piano music lovers order their tickets well in advance, making certain they have a seat for her extraordinary performance. She is planning on performing music by Chopin and Schubert and other favorite pieces.

Closing the 2008-09 season will be the violinist Maria Bachmann accompanied by pianist Jon Klibonoff on April 5.  She, too, will stay in town overnight and work with Newtown’s school children in the second of this season’s school outreach programs.

Miss Bachmann first appeared on our Newtown stage many seasons ago as the winner of the Concert Artist Guild International Competition and audiences have had the pleasure of hearing her more recently with Trio Solisti.  The New York Times raves about her: “A rare violinist … she embraces a wide variety of styles with absolute confidence … crisply clean, warmly lyrical and unexpectedly sensuous.”

Miss Bachmann has chosen some virtuosic music by Ravel, Glass, Brahms and Enescu for her April performance.

Pianist Jon Klibonoff has established a versatile career as orchestra soloist, recitalist and chamber musician throughout the United States and abroad. His many awards and prizes include the Silver Medal in the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition and winner of the Pro Musicis International Concert Series.   

Together they are a winning team each and every time.  

“It was a challenge,” said Mrs Parrella, “to follow the highly successful thirtieth anniversary season, when we actually brought six concerts to town hall plus the holiday concert at Trinity Church. But there are so many highly talented, hardworking musicians, graduates of prestigious music schools, and there is so much more classical music we want to hear, that even after thirty years we have only just scratched the surface. We won’t run out of music in our lifetime.”

Season tickets have already been sent out all summer long and individual tickets will go on sale right after Labor Day. Look for further specific announcements before each concert.

For more information or to request a free season brochure, call 426-6470 or visit NewtownFriendsOfMusic.org.