The elegant young violinist, Mayuko Kamio, will be the featured artist at the next chamber music event presented by Chamber-on-the-Mountain, at 3 p.m. Sunday, May 7, in Logan House, 8585 Ojai-Santa Paula Road, adjacent to the Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts in Upper Ojai.
Kamio, with the support of collaborative pianist Noreen Cassidy-Polera, will perform Wolfgang Mozart‘s Violin-Piano Sonata No. 21 in e-minor, K. 304 (1778); Maurice Ravel‘s Violin-Piano Sonata No. 2 in G-Major (1923-1927); and César Franck‘s Violin-Piano Sonata in A-Major (1886).
This is a low-key, sophisticated program, in which melody and grace generally take precedence over flash and drama — the dramatic exception, strange to say, being the Mozart, which is quite romantic, in its restless, questing first movement, before settling down into a mid-18th century stateliness in the finale.
The Ravel is sometimes frisky, often ironic, but never vulgar. That leaves the Franck — a serene masterpiece, constantly in demand in any number of arrangements — for cello and piano, flute and piano, viola and piano, and so on.
Serious, even solemn, in mood, the sonata has none of the earmarks of a virtuoso showcase, yet fiddlers seize upon it as if they had been leading up to it their whole lives.
Admission to this concert is $25. You can drive out to the concert in hopes of finding tickets still available at the door, or you can make advance reservations online at www.ChamberOnTheMountain.com.
— 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.