Come to the Desert Botanical Gardens to hear The Dover Quartet, Zorá String Quartet, Ida Kavafian, Peter Wiley, Nokuthula Ngwenyama, and Peter Lloyd
perform
Mendelssohn – String Symphony No. 10
Grieg – Holberg Suite
Tchaikovsky – Serenade for Strings
Nokuthula Ngwenyama joins The Dover Quartet for the world premiere of Primal Message:
It’s 1974. What would you like to put in humanity’s first message in a bottle sent 25,000 light years away to globular star cluster M13? Pink Floyd’s proverbial “Is Anybody Out There?” Great scientific minds included an understanding of number systems and organization, a map advertising to anything between here and there our place in the universe, our DNA structure, and a pictograph with height measurements in meters cleverly embedded. The message was an esteemed testament to humanity’s drive to think, dream, solve and connect existences. But what of the intangible things that make us essentially human, how our zeniths and nadirs tie us in concert with universal celebration? Was that message effectively communicated? How might we be rendered today more efficiently and completely with fuller understanding, and what content might be necessary to imbed? This is the launching point of Primal Message.
Composer’s Choice
Paul Brill, Raven Chacon, Gardner Cole, and Anna Vivette join Phoenix Chamber Music Society’s composer in residence Nokuthula Ngwenyama for an evening of world premieres, sharing and insight into 21st century music in concert, television, film and beyond.
On May 9, “Two Glorious Sextets of Brahms” will feature BMC artistic directors Jaime Laredo on violin and Sharon Robinson on cello, with Pamela Frank, violin; Nokuthula Ngwenyama, viola; Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, viola; and Keith Robinson, cello.
Six premier chamber musicians and lifelong friends unite to perform a pair of seminal works by Brahms. The B-flat Major Sextet offers an astonishing wealth of melody and masterful sense of proportion while the G Major Sextet is quieter and more reflective: a work of austere beauty.
Pamela Frank, violin; Jaime Laredo, violin; Nokuthula Ngwenyama, viola; Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, viola; Keith Robinson, cello; Sharon Robinson, cello.
One cannot find six more marvelous artists to do justice to the pure romanticism of the two great Brahms Sextets. They also happen to be friends who love making music together, as well as being PSC friends. Thula played at Town Hall a few seasons ago; Milena is the violist of the Dover Quartet; Keith, a member of the Miami Quartet; and, of course, Pam, Jaime and Sharon gave us wonderful concerts this past season. It’s a great treat to hear these two magnificent works with this sterling cast.