Chamber Music!

Sharon Robinson and Jaime Laredo

Chamber music -- traditionally well represented in Cincinnati -- will be in abundance again during the 2009-2010 season.

   Chamber Music Cincinnati (formerly the Cincinnati Chamber Music

Society) has a generous season on tap, as does the Linton Chamber Music Series.

   For Linton, it will the first season programmed by artistic directors Jaime Laredo and Sharon Robinson, who succeeded Linton founder/artistic director Richard Waller this spring.

Pacifica Quartet

Chamber Music Cincinnati opens Sept. 29 with one of the brightest young quartets performing today, the Pacifica Quartet.  Formed on the West Coast (thus the name), the ensemble is quartet-in-residence at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana.  In addition to winning both the Naumburg and Concert Artists Guild competitions, the Pacifica took the 2009 Grammy for Best Chamber Music Performance for their recording of Elliott Carter's Quartets No. 1 and 5 and was named 2009 Ensemble of the Year by Musical America.

Vogler Quartet

CMC continues Nov. 17 with Berlin's distinguished Vogler Quartet.  No strangers to Cincinnati, the group did part of their training with the LaSalle Quartet at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

8th blackbird

8th blackbird, another ensemble with a CCM connection, having spent a year here after graduation from Oberlin Conservatory, returns Jan. 12.  The Grammy-winning sextet, which enjoys worldwide fame for its vibrant, up to date programming, has performed several times with MusicX at CCM and will do so again in July for Music09 in its new location in Blonay, Switzerland.

Atos Trio

  The Atos Trio, winner of the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson International Trio Award, performs for CMC Feb. 16.  Comprising violinist Annette von Hehn, cellist Stefan Heinemeyer and pianist Thomas Hoppe, the group was a sensation at the 2007 Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition where they won four top prizes.

Belcea Quartet

CMC closes its 2009-10 season April 27 with the Belcea Quartet.  Founded at the Royal College of Music in London, the group won the 2001 Gramophone Award for best debut recording for the quartets of Debussy, Dutilleux and Ravel.  Their recording of the complete Bartok quartets earned them the title "Chamber Music Ensemble of the Year by Germany's Echo Klassik Awards.

   All concerts are Tuesdays at 8 p.m. in Robert J. Werner Recital Hall at CCM except eighth blackbird (Jan. 12) which will take place in Corbett Auditorium. 

   Subscriptions are $100 for the five concerts.  Checks should be sent to Chamber Music Cincinnati, 625 10th Ave., Dayton, Kentucky 41074-1542.  You may also subscribe online at www.cincychamber.org

    Repertoire and artists have been announced for Laredo and Robinson’s first season at the helm of the Linton Chamber Music Series.  It is an impressive lineup, with visits by the Miami String Quartet, violinist Pamela Frank, violinist/violist Ida Kavafian, violists Steven Tenenbom and Michael Tree, cellists Peter Wiley and Truls Mork, plus principal players from the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.  For Wiley, it will be a homecoming of sorts, since he was a co-founder of Linton when he was principal cellist of the CSO.

Ida Kavafian

The Linton season opens Sept. 20 and 21 with Laredo, Kavafian, Tenenbom and Robinson joining the Miami String Quartet in Mendelssohn’s Octet.  Also on the program are works by Mozart, Ginastera and Handel.

Randolph Bowman

Oct. 11 and 12, bassist Owen Lee, flutist Randolph Bowman, oboist Dwight Parry, clarinetist Richard Hawley, bassoonist William Winstead and French hornist Elizabeth Freimuth, all CSO principals, will perform Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” and Brahms’ Serenade No. 1 with Laredo and Liana Gourdija on violin, Kavafian on viola and Robinson on cello.

Steven Tenenbom

The viola will be well represented Nov. 15 and 16 with Mendelssohn’s Quintet in B-flat Major and Mozart’s Quintet in G Minor (both for two violins, two violas and cello) and Dvorak’s Terzetto in C Major for Two Violins and Viola.  Violist Tenebom and cellist Wiley will perform with John Dalley, Lily Francis and Tien-Hsin Cindy Wu, all of whom will alternate on violin and viola.

Pamela Frank

Concerts Feb. 7 and 8 will feature Brahms Sextet in G Minor and Boccherini’s Quintet in E Major with violinists Laredo and Frank, violists Kavafian and Tree and cellists Robinson and Wiley.

   Violinist Alexander Kerr, a Linton artist when he was concertmaster of the CSO, returns March 28 in a program to be announced with cellist Mork (CSO guest artist that weekend).

Alexander Kerr

Truls Mork

Kerr, now on the faculty of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University in Bloomington, was concertmaster of Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra after leaving the CSO.

    The Linton season will conclude May 2 and 3, 2010 with clarinetist Anthony McGill, former CSO principal now serving as principal clarinetist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.

Anthony McGill

(McGill captured the public eye in January when he performed with Itzhak Perlman and Yo Yo Ma for the inauguration of President Barack Obama.)  Also performing will be Laredo, Tree, Robinson and pianist Anna Polonsky,  The program will include Mozart’s Trio in E-flat Major (“Kegelstatt”), Faure’s Piano Quartet No. 1 in C Minor (piano, violin, viola and cello) and music by Schumann and Bruch.

   Linton concerts take place at 4 p.m. Sunday afternoons in First Unitarian Church, Linton and Reading Roads in Avondale and 7:30 p.m. Monday evenings in Congregation Beth Adam, 10001 Loveland-Madeira Rd. in Loveland.

   Season tickets are sold for six Sundays or five Mondays.  Single tickets go on sale in October.  For tickets and further information, call (513) 381-6868, or visit www.lintonmusic.org