mendelssohn

Last night was the benefit concert at the Community Music Center for the Naomi Blumberg Fund for Chamber Music Education at the Community Music Center.  

The first half was a wonderful performance of the Mendelssohn Trio for violin, cello and piano in c minor, Op. 66.  It was given a wonderfully polished and emotional performance by CMC students Brandon Garbot, violin, Boris Popadiuk, cello, and Eloise Kim, piano. It was so nice to hear such young performers give such a poised and flexible performance of a great work from the piano trio literature.

Next came the Mendelssohn Octet, Op. 20, which was written when the composer was just 16 years old (just a year or two older than the young performers who played his piano trio on the first half!).  

It was a delight to play this great piece with such a fine group of colleagues.  Jun Iwasaki, our new concertmaster, led easily and clearly from the first violin chair, and handled its many hurdles quite nicely.

It was my first time to perform in a chamber group with Jun, as well as with cellist Adam Esbensen, who leaves after this season for the Boston Symphony, cellist Trevor Fitztpatrick and violinists Inés Voglar and Becky Anderson.  

In spite of rehearsing from three different editions of the parts (I was constantly asking where we were in rehearsals) we were able to put together a convincing performance of the piece, and show the rewards of being good collaborators (which reaps many dividends in the orchestral ensemble as well).

It was great fun for everyone involved, and I learned (unofficially) that it was a very successful fundraiser for the endowment fund as well.  I hope that it’s the first of many such collaborations.