Oregon Music News

Although the young artists featured at the Chamber Music Northwest Summer Festival were called protégés, they played as skillfully and artistically as most veterans on Thursday evening (July 22). I really enjoyed how they went for the gold, took plenty of risks, and delivered an exciting concert that resonated with the nearly full house at Kaul Auditorium.

The concert began with a very emotive performance of Charles Martin Loeffler’s Rhapsody No. 2 for Oboe, viola, and Piano. Oboist James Austin Smith plumbed the heights and depths of this work with gusto. He excelled in the dark-hued, almost woodsy passages as well as those that soared skyward. Together with violist Toby Appel, Smith created the collapsing heave of a bagpipe, and pianist Hyeyeon Park was absolutely terrific with florid playing. She never overstated her part, but always found the center of the piece.

Next on the program came the Sextet for Strings by Richard Strauss from his opera “Capriccio.” This piece received an outstanding interpretation by violinists J. Freivogel and Sae Niwa, violists Sam Quintal and Toby Appel, and cellists Rachel Henderson Freivogel, and Fred Sherry. The synergy, synchronization, and mind-melding sensitivity between the Freivogels was a thing of beauty. Evocative playing by Quintal and Niwa was also of the highest caliber. Appel and Sherry took the back seats in supporting roles that they seemed to enjoy tremendously.

With Romie de Guise-Langlois and David Shifrin on clarinet, Alana Vegter and William Purvis on horn, and Adrian Morejon and Milan Turkovic on bassoon, the quirky Serenade for Winds by Hungarian composer Mátyás Seiber received an engaging interpretation. This piece was not for the timid, and Guise-Langlois, as the lead player, superbly negotiated a minefield of treacherous phrases in which rhythms changed and notes went willy nilly all over the place. Morejon and Turkovic executed some brief, goofy-sounding measures impeccably. Another audacious section was a fugue-like passage in the third movement that paired up the horns, then the bassoons, and finally the clarinets. I’m not sure where Seiber was going with this piece, but I’d like to hear it again.

The concert concluded with Franz Schubert’s Quintet in A Major for Piano and Strings, also known as the “Trout Quintet.” The ensemble for this work consisted of pianist André Watts, violinist Sunmi Chang, violist Rebecca Anderson, cellist Rachel Henderson Freivogel, and double bassist Aleksey Klyushnik. Despite some balance issues, the ensemble got into the spirit of the piece and played it with verve. The audience responded with a long ovation, which provided a nice segue that brought all of the members of the protégé project onto the stage for recognition.

It’s great to hear new voices in the chamber music world. Most of the members of the protégés project are members of chamber music ensembles that performed in alternative venues for the past five weeks. This is a wonderful idea that deserves support, and I hope that Chamber Music Northwest continues to bring some of the very best young talent to Portland.