In The Press

Praise for the Taos Chamber Music Group!

The dynamic pianist Robert McDonald will be featured in a special winter appearance with the Taos Chamber Music Group in a program called “First Light” on Saturday, January 14 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, January 15 at 4 p.m. at the Arthur Bell Auditorium of the Harwood Museum of Art. Artistic Director of the Taos School of Music during the summers and a musician well-loved by Taos audiences, McDonald will perform Johann Sebastian Bach's Sonata No. 4 in C minor for violin and piano, Robert Schumann's First Piano Trio in D minor and Bohuslav Martinu’s Trio for flute, cello and piano with violinist LP How, cellist Dana Winograd and flutist Nancy Laupheimer

“‘First Light’ is intended as a musical welcome of the return of the light and includes compositions that emanate luminosity and brilliance,” says Laupheimer. “It is always a treat to have Bob collaborate with TCMG. This will be his third appearance with us, and we had fun putting the program together last summer while he was in Taos.”

A highly sought after performer, McDonald tours extensively as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and South America. The recital partner to Isaac Stern for many years as well as other distinguished instrumentalists, he has played with the Takács, Vermeer, Juilliard, Brentano, Borromeo, American, Shanghai and St. Lawrence string quartets. As a concerto soloist, he has appeared with major orchestras including the San Francisco, Baltimore and Curtis Symphonies, and as a chamber musician participated in the festivals of Marlboro, Brevard, Caramoor, Luzerne, Salzburg, Montreux, Aldeburgh, Besançon and Schleswig-Holstein. McDonald has recorded for the Sony Classical, Bridge, Vox, Musical Heritage Society, ASV and CRI labels. The recipient of the gold medal at the Busoni International Piano Competition, top prize at the William Kapell International Competition, and the Deutsche Schallplatten Critics Award, McDonald has been a member of the piano faculty at the Juilliard School of Music since 1999 and the Curtis Institute of Music since 2007.

Reuniting for the second time with his former classmate at Curtis some thirty years ago, violinist LP How will join McDonald for Bach’s Sonata No. 4 in C minor for violin and piano. How is a member, frequently as soloist and concertmaster, of the New York based Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, with which he has also toured throughout the world. In addition, he has performed with the Caramoor, Spoleto, Lochenhaus, and Moab Music Festivals, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, New York Philomusica at the International Music Festival of Sophia, and as guest soloist for the New Mexico Symphony. He is a member of the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra, appears frequently with the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and has served as the concertmaster for the Sarasota Opera since 2005. How can be heard on numerous recordings with Orpheus on the Deutsche Grammaphon label and plays an 1863 J.B. Vuillaume violin.

Of Bach’s Sonatas, Laupheimer says “Although these pieces were not specifically sacred in intention, the Sonatas for violin and harpsichord are nothing if not soulful.” While in the employ of the Court at Cöthen from 1717-1723, Bach was given the freedom to compose secular music, unlike his previous position where most of his music was written for the church. It was an extremely fertile period, during which he also wrote the Brandenburg Concerti, the Suites for orchestra, the Violin Concerti, and the Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin and solo cello. “The Sonatas for violin and harpsichord represent the culmination of the genre of the Baroque trio sonata,” Laupheimer continued, “in which the right hand of the keyboard plays a part equal to that of the violin, while the left plays the basso continuo line. Unlike its former, primarily accompanying role, the keyboard lines comprise two of three separate parts. There is an increased sonority and expressiveness with the modern piano playing the harpsichord lines, as will be the case in TCMG’s performance.”

Cellist Dana Winograd joins McDonald and How for Schumann’s First Piano Trio, “the breadth and depth of which makes it a defining Romantic trio,” says Laupheimer. “The first movement, marked, "Mit Energie und Leidenschaft" (with energy and passion), sets the tone for this monumental work.” Winograd has played with TCMG for over a decade and is principal cellist of the Santa Fe Symphony and a member of the New Mexico Symphony (now Philharmonic). She also performs frequently as a chamber musician with the Albuquerque Chamber Soloists, Chatter and Serenata of Santa Fe.

TCMG flutist Nancy Laupheimer teams up with McDonald and Winograd for Martinu’s sunny Trio for flute, cello and piano. Martinu is considered among the foremost composers of the twentieth century and certainly one of Czechoslovakia’s finest. He lived and studied in Paris, Rome, Prague and the US, absorbing and combining many musical styles along the way. This Trio was written in 1944 in New England in just a brief five days. It incorporates elements of Martinu’s native Moravian and Bohemian folk music, as well as jazzy syncopations, a meditative lyricism and a joyful heroism.

Tickets may be charged in advance for $20 at www.taoschambermusicgroup.org, or purchased at the Harwood Gift Shop on Ledoux St. ($16 for Harwood Alliance members there only.) Children under 16 are $12 and remaining seats will be available at the door for $22. Dinner discounts are being offered by Doc Martin’s, Graham’s Grille, Dragonfly Café and Lambert’s restaurants with a ticket stub for the day of the concert. Call 758-9826 for more information or visit www.taoschambermusicgroup.org.




Review: Taos Chamber Music Group’s Stupendous Concert
Fowler, Mirabal, Laupheimer, Guenther
October 21, 2007
By Bill Whaley

The Taos Chamber Music Group's marked its 15th Anniversary with a remarkable concert on Sat. Oct. 20. The collage of juxtaposed classical, traditional, and pop styles managed to celebrate its virtuoso musicians-Flutist Nancy Laupheimer, Cellist Sally Guenther, multi-music-master Robert Mirabal, while featuring the creativity of composer and arranger, the classically trained Paul Fowler. Fowler's tropes on musical styles pushed the envelope of chamber music well beyond this layperson's expectations or experience. Last night's sold-out concert not only delighted the audience with Antonio Vivaldi's fairly traditional "Trio Sonata in A minor" and presented Sally Guenter solo in Fowler's “La Vie Zazou” and Nancy Laupheimer in Rhonda Larson's “Movin' On' for solo flute, which required the flutist to play without seeming to take a breath, but also displayed Robert Mirabal's facility on traditional Native American (or other?) flutes during “The Ancient Language of Breath.”

Contrary to expectations that Mirabal would improvise or be featured as an addendum to the program, whether singing, drumming, playing one of several flutes, he and his Native American creative voice were fully integrated into the concert. Robert's ease and facility gave the impression he'd been rehearsing and playing with formally trained classical musicians as a matter of course. Whether Mirabal improvised on flute with Fowler on piano or took center stage with”The Ancient Language of Breath” with Laupheimer and Fowler, or participated with all three musicians, including the fabulous cellist Sally Guenter (a Taos School of Music grad of yore) in the grand finale, “On Taos,” composed for the occasion by Fowler, Robert's mastery of the form and presentation of the quasi-classical styles displayed the fruits of one of the hardest working musicians in Taos.

If there was a star in the concert, apart from the ensemble and the music, it was composer and keyboardist Paul Fowler. He played the synthesizer, rattles, drums, and strummed the strings on the piano not unlike a Harpo Marx liberated from conventional expectations. I mean Fowler manhandled that baby grand piano, running his fingers or a hand across the strings, slapping the grand from below, above, and on its sides to get the percussive sounds, while also tending to the ivories for their sweet sounds. As he turned that baby upside down and inside out, I was reminded of one of those street musicians, who use their hands on body parts and beat garbage cans while creating compositions with their urban licks. You could also see Fowler's influence in “ZaZou,” the piece he composed for Cellist Sally Guenter, who, similarly, took advantage of the cello's percussive potential with a slap or two beside the throat. Before and after the bows, Paul played prop man and stage manager, setting up the chairs, checking the sound and making himself as useful to the technical presentation as he did to the musicians and audience members for whom he composed and arranged an evening of tasty musical pleasure. Bravo Nancy (the founder and director of TCMG) for a concert well done and well appreciated. You raised the standard. Just as the Harwood will be hard pressed to surpass the Diebenkorn show, so the Taos Chamber Music Group will be hard pressed to step beyond last night's “Special Anniversary Event with Robert Mirabal.”

Bill Whaley, Editor, Taos Horsefly

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