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The Sheffield Chamber Players (SCP) “embody the art of Chamber music,” said one attendee at the Martin residence.
Over thirty people gathered in residence of Jennifer and Ansley Martins to garner a listen. The Martins’ new guests and returning fans of SCP lingered long after the finale to personally congratulate the Players’ inspired rendering of this year’s program, titled, “Legends of the Andes.” The program featured the music of some of “the greatest composers of South American heritage,” as described by the SCP, such as Alberto Ginastera, Osvaldo Golijov and Gabriela Lena Frank.
At the heart of it, chamber music is instrumental music played by a small ensemble, with one player to a part. The most important form of chamber music is the string quartet. It’s also increasingly more complex and challenging, making greater demands on the individual players while still requiring them to work as a cohesive, constantly inter-responsive unit. The Sheffield Chamber Players are Sasha Callahan and Katherine Winterstein (violins), Alexander Vavilov (viola), Leo Eguchi and Ying Jun Wei (cello).
When asked about upcoming performances as a group, the SCP said, “the next program is our Season Finale starting in April, 2017. It will feature a very colorful cello quintet by Luigi Boccherini called ‘Night Music of the Streets of Madrid’ and the magnificent ‘String Sextet N. 2’ by Johannes Brahms. We are currently down for five performances of this program at homes throughout the Boston area, but it’s entirely possible we’ll add a few if more people will propose to host!”
When asked why the SCP chose this particular theme of the Andes, Alexander Vavilov said, “every year, sometime in May, all five of us get together to forge the programs for the upcoming season. We all have a list of our favorite compositions we’d love to play, so we try and see what programs we can put together with the music from those lists. The works you heard on our ‘Legends of the Andes’ program - Ginastera, Golijov and Gabriela Lena Frank quartets - all came from different members of our group, but all three of these pieces seemed to fit so naturally together that we decided it would be a really compelling idea to have it as a program with South American theme to it. Having just recently had to cancel one of our winter performances due to massive snow storms, we thought we’d take our revenge by scheduling this escapade during the coldest winter months!”
“There are so many strong and creative voices that are not the usual deceased European men (brilliant though some of those may be),” added cellist Leo Eguchi. “This South American program allows us the chance to delve into some new or lesser-known masterworks, each with a completely unique sense of place, but in intimate format, where we have the chance to take guests on a real tour of what we think they have been missing out on.”
“I had a lot of fun playing all three of these works,” said Alexander Vavilov. “To me, there is nothing more rewarding than performing music that engages you as a player and a musician from beginning to the very end with colleagues and friends who, like all great artists, not only listen and respond, but inspire you to sound your best and give everything you got at every performance. Still, I have to say that performing Osvaldo Golijov’s ‘Tenebrae’ was a special experience. This composition, for all its apparent simplicity, manages to gradually work its way to a very deep place for me every time I hear or play it.
“Every work is colorful and vibrant, with a personal heartfelt voice that has the power to grab you on the first listen,” he continued. “I also especially love that we could end these evenings with an amazing work by a living female composer, Gabriela Lena Frank, whose work is making a formidable mark on the world’s stage”.
According to the group, the “Sheffield Chamber Players is founded on the belief that experiencing chamber music in the intimate settings they were written for profoundly changes the way we respond to music, and to each other.” They invite everyone to take part in this experience for themselves.
For more information about the SCP or to host a concert, visit www.sheffieldchamberplayers.org.
