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Contact: Gabriel Langfur
info@chameleonarts.org
617-427-8200
Chameleon Arts Ensemble Announces 10th Anniversary Season
August 3, 2007 - Boston, MA - 2007-2008 marks The
Chameleon Arts Ensemble's Tenth Anniversary Season of chamber
music concerts. All of the concerts take place at the Goethe-Institut
Boston, 170 Beacon Street in the Back Bay, one of the most
beautiful and intimate music rooms in the city. The series
opens on Saturday September 29th, and continues with concerts
on Saturday November 10th, Saturday February 2nd, Saturday
March 15th, and Saturday May 17th. All concerts are at 8 PM.
In a city immersed in music, the Chameleon Arts Ensemble
is distinguished by superb artistry, luminous performances,
and dynamic musical dialogues. This innovative ensemble draws
capacity audiences of those who love the adventure of music-classic
and contemporary. A Chameleon concert is a multifaceted experience
in an intimate environment joining audience and musicians
in an exuberant celebration of music. The musicians are award-winning
local artists with growing national and international reputations,
who have appeared with orchestras and in recitals around the
world. Since its founding in 1998, Chameleon and artistic
director Deborah Boldin have earned high praise for integrating
old and new repertoire into unexpected chamber music programs
that are themselves works of art, and were recognized nationally
with a 2007 ASCAP/CMA award for adventurous programming. In
a recent review, Jeremy Eichler of The Boston Globe
praise her "discerning ears and cosmopolitan tastes"
and remarked that "planning a good chamber music program
is an art unto itself, and few in town have mastered it as
persuasively as the Chameleon Arts Ensemble."
The Tenth Anniversary season will again offer Chameleon's
inimitable mix of the witty and the sublime, the adventurous
and the beloved, with favorites by Brahms, Mozart, Schubert
and Beethoven, marvelous yet less familiar works by Vaughan
Williams, Duruflé, Penderecki and Leo Ornstein, and
a Boston Premiere on every concert. At the conclusion of season
ten, Chameleon will have performed 60 concerts throughout
its history, with 218 different works by 126 different composers!
The opening concert of the season, on Saturday September
29th, is a re-imagining of the very first Chameleon concert
held in October 1998: a wide-ranging, colorful evening of
trios entitled strands of a trio twining. "When
I selected the repertoire for the first concert ten years
ago," says Artistic Director Boldin, "I only realized
when I was finished that it was all trios. This time, of course,
it was deliberate." The program includes Beethoven's
Trio in G Major for flute, bassoon & piano, Ingolf Dahl's
Concerto a Tre for clarinet, violin & cello, the Penderecki
String Trio, Brahms' Third Piano Trio in c minor, and the
Boston Premiere of Daron Hagen's Harp Trio.
forever sounding across centuries, on Saturday,
November 10, includes the Boston Premiere of Derek Bermel's
Wanderings for woodwind quintet, the Mozart Clarinet
Quintet in A Major, and the Piano Quintet of 1927 by American
composer Leo Ornstein. In the early 1900's Ornstein dazzled
audiences with his virtuoso piano playing and electrifying
compositions. He was famous enough to have a biography written
about him by the age of 26 but abruptly abandoned his performing
career, choosing to teach and compose in near-obscurity until
his passing - at the age of 109! His piano quintet is a masterpiece
of the genre, an epic work deserving of a wider audience,
fully the equal of any of the great Romantic piano quintets.
The first concert of 2008 is twin notes inseparably paired,
on Saturday, February 2. The program of duos - the
most intimate, most fundamental form of chamber music - includes:
Brahms' e minor Cello Sonata, Virgil Thomson's Five Phrases
from the Song of Solomon (1924) for soprano and percussion,
Lowell Lieberman's Sonata for flute & harp, Op. 53, the
Prokofiev f minor Violin Sonata , and the Boston Premiere
of Tigran Mansurian's Duo for viola & percussion, composed
in 1998.
between eternity and time on Saturday, March 15
is built on a theme that Artistic Director Deborah Boldin
has been working on for several years. "I'm fascinated
by firsts and lasts," she says. "There is a special
place in the repertoire for the last works of master composers.
I am particularly interested in contrasting those with early
works, juxtaposing youthfulness with the mature voices representing
lifetimes of experience, and the glimpses this gives us into
the passage of time." For this program, she has selected
the last chamber works by Vaughan Williams (his Ten Blake
Songs for soprano and oboe) and Schubert, the marvelous Cello
Quintet in C Major. Firsts are represented by Maurice Duruflé's
Prelude, recitatif et variations, Op. 3 for flute, viola
and piano (as his only chamber work, this is also a last!)
and fellow Frenchman Marc-André Dalbavie's In advance
of the broken time for flute, clarinet, string trio &
piano, another Boston Premiere. Dalbavie is one of the most
important and original voices in French music today. In advance
of the broken time is inspired by the first ready-made of
Marcel Duchamp upon arriving in New York.
Chameleon will close this anniversary season with opus
10 on Saturday, May 17th, a lighthearted take on
the number 10: Ernst von Dohnányi's Serenade in C Major
for string trio, Op. 10, Nielsen's Wind Quintet FS 100, selections
from Richard Strauss' Acht Gedichte for soprano & piano,
Op.10, Robert Schumann's Piano Trio in g minor, Op. 110, and
the Boston Premiere of Kevin Puts' Ritual Protocol
for marimba & piano, composed ten years ago in 1998.
The May 17 concert is also a Benefit for the Boston Health
Care for the Homeless Program. Audience members who bring
new or gently used books for patients staying at the Barbara
McInnis House (BHCHP's 24-hour care facility) will receive
25% off ticket prices. Over the last 20 years, BHCHP's simple
but compelling mission to provide and assure access to the
highest quality health care for Boston's homeless, has evolved
as the largest and most comprehensive program in the country,
serving more than 9,000 men, women, and children last year.
For tickets or more information, concertgoers can call 617-427-8200
or visit www.chameleonarts.org. Subscription prices range
from $49 to $152, and individual tickets are $38, $28 and
$18. $5 discounts for students and seniors are available for
individual tickets. Goethe-Institut is a wheelchair accessible
venue.
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info@chameleonarts.org
