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Event
Astoria Music Festival Portland Preview
Door 7:00pm - All Ages Show - Bar with I.D.
The Old Church Concert Hall is proud to welcome back for the 5th year, Astoria Music Festivals only performance in the city of Portland, Oregon. This years preview features Gold Medal winner of the XIII International Tchaikovsky Competition, Sergey Antonov cello, celebrated virtuoso Elizabeth Pitcairn violin, and Director of Chamber Music, Cary Lewis piano. The program includes Grieg Sonata, Mendelssohn Sonatas, and Dvoraks beloved Dumky Trio.
Elizabeth Pitcairn will play the legendary 1720 Red Mendelssohn Stradivarius, which is said to have inspired the 1999 Academy Award-winning film, The Red Violin.
The historic violin was crafted in 1720 by Antonio Stradivari, who manufacturered his instruments in his small shop in Cremona, Italy centuries ago, and remains the most famous violin maker of all time. Not long after its creation, the instrument appeared to vanish; no one knows where or to whom the violin belonged for more than 200 years, spawning any number of historians, writers, journalists, critics as well as Canadian filmmaker, Francois Girard, to speculate on the violins mysterious history. Girards imaginative speculations became the narrative for his beloved film, The Red Violin.
Known as the Red Stradivarius and owned by legendary violinist Joseph Joachim, the 1720 Red Mendelssohn Stradivarius would eventually surface in 1930s Berlin. It had been purchased by an heir to the great composer, Felix Mendelssohn. In 1956, it was purchased by a New York industrialist who kept the instrument in impeccable performance condition. Much of its original burnished red varnish remains on the violin today, and it is thought to be one of the best sounding and most beautiful of Stradivaris remaining violins. Then on Thanksgiving Day in 1990, the instruments fate would once again be triggered when the industrialist opted to put the Red Stradivarius on the auction block anonymously at Christies of London. While some of the worlds most powerful sought to win the coveted instrument, it landed in the hands of then sixteen year old American solo violinist, Elizabeth Pitcairn. Pitcairn would remain silent about owning the violin until her rapidly burgeoning solo career brought her into the public eye on international concert stages after nearly three decades of rigorous training by the worlds most esteemed violin teachers.
Pitcairn would come to view the violin as her lifes most inspiring mentor and friend. Many have said that the violin has finally found its true soul mate in the gifted hands of the young violinist who is the first known solo artist to ever bring it to the great concert halls of the world, and who has made it her goal to share the violins magical beauty of sound with people of all ages, professions and cultures. Today, Pitcairn and the Red Mendelssohn Stradivarius violin continue to foster one of classical musics most compelling partnerships.
Cellist Sergey Antonov enjoys a versatile career as a soloist and chamber musician. Critics throughout the world have hailed him as destined for cello superstardom -Washington Post, combining formidable technique and an incredibly warm, penetrating and vibrant tone to a romantic musical sensibility to create music - making of a highest caliber - Budapest Sun. After one of the Newport Festival concerts in RI, a critic wrote ... a performance with soaring phrases and a tone to die for. Sergeys performance of the Elgar concerto drew the critic of the Moscows Daily Telegraph to write: [;;;he];;; is a musician who has his own inner space, where he submerges himself from the very first soundwho turns each phrase, every deeply felt sound into an event of his own inner monologue. The theme of this monologue is existential suffering; a change of intricately noted emotions, directly related to the unexplainable condition known as Spiritual Life. A Canadian critic wrote: Antonov conveyed ...a world of expression from plaintive hope to existential pathos.
One of the recent reviewers wrote, No virtuosic challenge is more than his equal.
After winning the Gold Medal in the 2007 International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, Russia, Sergey has been touring extensively throughout Europe, Asia, North and South America performing in halls ranging from the Great Hall of Moscow Conservatory to Suntory Hall in Tokyo. He has collaborated with musicians such as Denis Matsuev, Bernadene Blaha, Kevin Fitz Gerald, Ekaterina Mechetina, Harve A Kaoua, Carl Ponten, Dora Schwartzberg, John Lenehan, Colin Carr, Cynthia Phelps, Martin Chalifour, David Chan, among others, as well as his permanent piano partner Ilya Kazantsev. The duo has recorded several CDs of traditional cello-piano repertoire as well as their own transcriptions, recorded in their CD album Elegy.
Sergey is a member of the acclaimed Hermitage Piano Trio with Ilya Kazantsev and violinist Misha Keylin.
Pianist Cary Lewis, Director of Chamber Music at the Astoria Music Festival, is in frequent demand as a collaborative pianist for soloists and chamber music groups. He joined William Preucil (concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra) and his wife, cellist Dorothy Lewis, to form the Lanier Trio, whose recording of the complete Dvorak Trios was honored by TIME Magazine as one of the Ten Best Recordings in 1993. With degrees from the University of North Texas as well as a doctorate and Performers Certificate from the Eastman School of Music, he was a Fulbright scholar for two years in Vienna. His teachers included Eugene List, Brooks Smith, and Dieter Weber. He has performed at Carnegie Hall, Bargemusic, the Library of Congress, the White House, the Kennedy Center, Wigmore Hall in London, the National Philharmonic in Warsaw, and in other music capitals of the United States and Europe. Dr. Lewis is retired from the faculty of Georgia State University in Atlanta and is now based in Portland, Oregon. In recent years he has participated in festivals in Montana, Colorado, Michigan, Maine, Hawaii, St. Croix and Turkey, and has recorded over three dozen albums featuring works from the standard literature as well as music by American composers.
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LocationThe Old Church Concert Hall (View)
1422 SW 11th Ave at Clay St
Portland, OR 97201
United States
Categories
| Kid Friendly: Yes! |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
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