Concert Calendar

TCMG launches its 18th season with a set of intimate concerts at an original, contemporary home, made for music. The program welcomes audiences with Peter Schickele’s A Little Welcome Serenade for flute and violin and culminates in Johannes Brahms’ Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor with its fiery gypsy finale. In between the sun will shine in Ian Clarke’s Orange Dawn & Sunstreams for flute and piano and Ernst von Dohnányi’s Serenade for string trio. Wine & cheese with the musicians will follow the performances.

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TCMG celebrates the holiday season with a program of music from the 18th and early 19th centuries, including W.A. Mozart’s Piano Quartet in Eb Major, K..493, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sonata No. 2 in A Major for violin and piano and Ferdinand Ries’ (Beethoven’s friend and student) Flute Quartet in C Major, op. 145, no. 1.

A program honoring the memory of Harvey Shapiro (Professor of Cello at The Juilliard School of Music) will be performed by his former students, including world renowned cellists from New Mexico and abroad (Sally Guenther, former solo cellist of the Bergen Philharmonic, Norway; Dana Winograd, principal cellist of the Santa Fe Symphony and cellist with the New Mexico Symphony; William Grubb, Professor of Cello, Cincinnati Conservatory; Stephen Erdody, former member of the Angeles String Quartet, principal cellist for John Williams; and Sebastian Dörfler, solo cellist, Bergen Philharmonic, Norway.) The cello in all its majesty will be celebrated in works from Bach to Villa-Lobos (Bachianas Brasileiras #5 with flutist Nancy Laupheimer).

Music that speaks to the depths of the human spirit is featured in Jake Heggie’s Deepest Desire for flute, mezzo-soprano and piano (based on poems by Sister Helen Prejean of Dead Man Walking renown), the spiritual minimalism of Arvo Pärt’s Fratres for violin and piano, and Eve Beglarian’s I Will Not be Sad in This World for flute and electronics, based on an 18th century Armenian folk song. Franz Schubert’s Piano Trio in Eb, informed by the passion and pathos of his brief life, concludes the program.

Taos favorites since first coming here in 1979, the internationally acclaimed American String Quartet graces TCMG’s concert series as part of their 35th anniversary tour. The stellar ensemble will perform string quartets by Franz Joseph Haydn, Joan Tower (“Night Fields”) and Franz Schubert (“Death & the Maiden”).

www.americanstringquartet.com

TCMG presents an innovative, multi-media program that addresses the cultural and environmental fragility of the Southwest. Combining field recordings and prose by Jack Loeffler and improvised musical compositions by Patrick Neher, the ensemble will create an experiential sound environment using music, words, sights and sounds from nature. In addition, a world premiere by Edie Hill will reflect the sense of the sacred that is so powerful in New Mexico, and works for marimba and vibraphone include Takatsugu Muramtsu’s Land and Vertical River by Blake Tyson.

TCMG concludes its 18th season with music that circles the globe, from Spanish composer Joaquin Turina’s piano trio Circulo (Sunrise, Midday, Sunset), to two works for clarinet, violin and piano by Armenian composer Alexander Grigorevich Arutiunian and Darius Milhaud from France. The US is represented by Lowell Lieberman’s First Trio for flute, cello and piano and the UK by Peter Maxwell Davies’ Unbroken Circle.