"Polusmiak and Friends" Anchor Chamber Music in Northern Kentucky

   Music in Greater Cincinnati just got richer with the debut of Northern Kentucky University’s “New Beginnings” Sunday afternoon in Greaves Concert Hall.
The series, three chamber music concerts a year featuring pianist/NKU artist-in-residence Sergei Polusmiak with local and international artists, is the first ongoing chamber music series in Northern Kentucky.
   Sunday’s “Sergei Polusmiak and Friends” featured the Miami Wind Quartet, ensemble-in-residence at Miami University in Oxford, clarinetist Ronald Aufmann and cellist Daniel Culnan of the Cincinnati Symphony, mezzo-soprano Maria Markina from Houston Grand Opera Studio and Polusmiak.
   The wide-ranging program included Mozart’s Quintet for Piano and Winds, K.452, Brahms’ Trio in A Minor, Op.114, for piano, clarinet and cello and “Vignettes” for piano, oboe and bassoon by William Grant Still. Markina, winner of HGO’s 2006 Eleanor McCollum Competition for Young Singers, gave the concert an Eastern European flavor with songs from her native Russia by Glinka, Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky.
   Ukrainian born Polusmiak plans to invite artists from Russia and Eastern Europe to perform regularly on the series as part of an NKU initiative to further communication and exchange with Eastern Europe.
   Miami Quartet oboist Andrea Ridilla, clarinetist Michele Gingras, bassoonist John Heard and French hornist Gregory Phillips joined Polusmiak in a bright, precise reading of the Mozart Quintet, a closely collaborative work that kept everyone on their toes. Brahms’ Clarinet Trio brought Aufmann and Culnan to the fore in a performance that glowed with romanticism and tonal beauty.
   Still’s aptly named “Vignettes” featured Ridilla, Heard and Polusmiak in six charming miniatures based on folk songs of the Americas, including “Winnebago Moccasin Game” (short, staccato), “Carmela” (lilting Spanish song from California), “Inca Melody” (chant-like from Peru), “Clinch Mountain” (Appalachian), “Hela Grand-Pere” (Haitian Vodou melody) and “Garde Piti Mulet La” (New Orleans Creole song).
   Markina, blonde and twenty-something in a strapless purple gown, displayed a large, lush voice that portends a significant operatic career. There was anger and despair in her “Hopak” (Mussorgsky) and joy after a long separation in “First Meeting” (Tchaikovsky). “Night,” a bittersweet hymn to darkness, and “The Sun Has Set” welcoming a night of love (both Tchaikovsky) made a nice contrast.
   Markina’s skills were demonstrated further in encores by Rossini (from “L’Italiana in Algieri”), Alexander Dargomizsky and Prokofiev.
   NKU’s 2007-08 “New Beginnings” will be announced in September.
(first published in The Cincinnati Post April 2, 2007)