This week’s Festival Artist Series concert, at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 2, in the Lobero Theater, is called Chausson Concerto, afrer the last work on the program.
The works and musicians we will hear include: the World Premiere of Sean Shepherd‘s “Saxophone Quintet” (2019), with Patrick Posey, saxophone; Jorja Fleezanis, violin; Karen Dreyfus, viola; Alan Stepansky, cello; and Conor Hanick, piano; Charles Gounod‘s “Petite Symphonie for Winds” (1888), with Timothy Day, flute; Cynthia Koledo DeAlmeida and Anne Pinkerton,* oboes; Richie Hawley and Roy Park,* clarinets; Luke Fieweger* and Dennis Michel, bassoons; Liana Hoffman and Julie Landsman, horns; and Amédée-Ernest Chausson’s “Concerto in D-Major for Piano, Violin, & String Quartet, Opus 21” (1891), with Glenn Dicterow, Hojung Kwon,* and Nuri Lim,* violins; Hyuna Kim,* viola; Jinn Shin,* cello; and Jonathan Feldman, piano. (* denotes Academy Fellow).
This will be brief, since I am unconscionably late in filing it, placing an unreasonable burden on my editors, to whom I apologize.
Happy Birthday to Sean Shepherd, who was born July 1, 1979, in Reno, Nev. His music is contemporaneous and accessible to anyone not afraid of novelty; energetic, without being overly aggressive, frequently avoiding dissonance by skirting the issue, diffident even at its most abstract, and very attractive overall.
The Gounod is a weightless trifle, delicious, and full of those pleasant, unchallenging tunes that made his operas so popular with the Parisian bourgeosie.
The Chausson “Concerto” is considerably more substantial, dramatic in its outer movements, with a second movement “Sicilienne” that simply melts in your mouth.
Tickets to this Faculty Artists Concert are $46 (Community Access $10, if available; 7-17s free), and they may be obtained by calling 805-969-8787, or by going on line to
www.musicacademy.org/whats-on/mafas-ii/book/25207/.
— Gerald Carpenter covers the arts as a Noozhawk contributing writer. He can be reached at gerald.carpenter@gmail.com. The opinions expressed are his own.