For over 80 years, Chamber Music Cincinnati has brought world class music to local audiences.  With highlights including the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet and the Takács Quartet, as well as Wu Han and David Finckel, our 2010-2011 season is no exception.

We continue our commitment to rising star ensembles, and are proud to present the Escher and Harlem Quartets as well as Trio con Brio Copenhagen, winners of the 2005 Kalichstin-Laredo-Robinson International Trio Award.

Don’t miss out on what is sure to be an amazing season of live performance!  Call 859-581-6877 to purchase.

Join us!

Kayla Springer
President
Chamber Music Cincinnati Board of Directors

December 24, 2009 — The Grammy-winning sextet eighth blackbird, the nation’s top contemporary
chamber music ensemble, returns to Cincinnati for its 10th annual concert on Tuesday, January
12, 2010 at 8 p.m. with a highly varied five work program. The evening’s centerpiece will be
Steve Reich’s Pulitzer Prize winning Double Sextet in which eighth blackbird will be joined by six
hand-picked musicians from the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music (CCM).
Reich’s 22 minute Double Sextet was commissioned by eighth blackbird, funded in part by CCM’s
Music 08 Festival, and had its world premiere on March 26, 2008. It won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize
for Music. There will be a program discussion at 7 p.m. prior to the concert.

eighth blackbird debunks the myth that contemporary music is just for a cerebral few by making
new music accessible to audiences of all ages through a legendary virtuosity combined with
infectious enthusiasm and, occasionally, an appealing irreverence. January’s concert at CCM’s
Corbett Auditorium highlights the humorous side of some very different composers. It includes
Englishman Thomas Adés depiction of a hilarious musical seduction in Catch and LA-based
Stephen Hartke’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated Meanwhile, evoking a bizarre imaginary Asian court
theatre. In addition, eighth blackbird pays homage to the late George Perle with his Critical
Moments 2 and performs Missy Mazzoli’s Stiff Live With Avalanche. Emblematic of its stature and
virtuosity, all works on the program except Catch were written for the ensemble.

eighth blackbird has a closer association with Cincinnati than with any other city except Chicago,
where it is based. Following the group’s formation on graduation from Oberlin Conservatory
of Music, its members completed an Artists Diploma in Chamber Music at CCM from 1996-
1999. The ensemble has returned to Cincinnati to perform at least annually since 2000 and has
participated in UC’s Music X festival, which moved from Cincinnati to Glonay, Switzerland in 2009.
eighth blackbird is presented by Chamber Music Cincinnati as a part of its 80th season.
CMC’s President Joel Hoffman said of eighth blackbird, “This is inarguably the most exciting
contemporary chamber music group ever to visit Cincinnati. We are thrilled to have them back.”
eighth blackbird’s Tim Munro remarked, “Cincinnati is like our second home. We love playing for
the knowledgeable audience here. We are especially pleased to be performing the Reich Double
Sextet that CCM helped to fund.”

Tatiana Jarvi, violinist with concert:nova, Cincinnati’s leading contemporary ensemble, who last
heard eighth blackbird in Louisville this November, noted: “eighth blackbird has blazed the trail for
contemporary chamber ensembles. It is an inspiration to everyone who loves modern music.”
eighth blackbird derives its name from the eighth stanza of Wallace Stevens poem “Thirteen
Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”:

I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

eighth blackbird is Tim Munro, flutes; Michael J. Maccaferri, clarinets; Matt Albert, violin & viola;
Nicholas Photinos, cello; Matthew Duvall, percussion; and Lisa Kaplan, piano.
Upcoming Chamber Music Cincinnati concerts are the Atos Trio on February 16 and the Belcea
Quartet on April 27. All concerts are at CCM at 8:00 p.m. Pre-concert talks start at 7 p.m.

Purchase Tickets

Mozart: Fantasy f-minor KV 594 for a mechanical organ (arr. Hasel)
Danzi: Woodwind Quintet in E-flat Major, Op. 67, No. 3
Hindemith: Kleine Kammermusik Op. 24, No. 2
Barber: Summer music, Op. 31
Nielsen: Quintet Op.43

The Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet (Philharmonisches Bläserquintett Berlin) was founded in 1988, during the era of Herbert von Karajan, the first permanently established wind quintet in the famous orchestra’s rich tradition of chamber music.

The members are living musical witnesses to the hugely productive and influential musical partnerships of the Berlin Philharmonic not only with Karajan, but also with its two most recent Musical Directors: Claudio Abbado and Sir Simon Rattle. Naturally, as members of the Berlin Philharmonic, they have also enjoyed important collaborations with every other major conductor of their times, whether Leonard Bernstein, Carlos Kleiber, Sir John Barbirolli, Günter Wand, Carlo Maria Giulini, Bernard Haitink, Riccardo Muti, Pièrre Boulez, James Levine or Daniel Barenboim, to name only a few.

The Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet continues to astonish audiences worldwide with their range of expression, their tonal spectrum and their conceptual unity. Indeed many listeners and critics agree that the ensemble has succeeded in virtually redefining the sound of the classic wind quintet. Their repertoire covers not only the entire spectrum of the wind quintet literature but also includes works for enlarged ensemble, i.e. the Sextets of Janá?ek and Reinicke or the Septets of Hindemith and Koechlin. In addition, collaboration with pianists such as Stephen Hough, Jon Nakamatsu, Lars Vogt and Lilya Zilberstein have intensified in recent years.

The ensemble’s commitment to the wind quintet repertoire is passionate and in 1991 they found the perfect partner for their recording plans, the Swedish company BIS Records, already well known in its own right for its uncompromising standards. The results of this long and exclusive collaboration have received critical accolades worldwide – indeed many of these recordings are already widely held to be “definitive” or “reference” performances.

In addition to their concert appearances throughout Europe, North and South America, Israel, Australia and the Far East, the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet are also popular guests at international festivals such as the Berliner Festwochen, the Edinburgh Festival, the London Proms, the Quintette-Biennale Marseille, the Rheingau Festival and the Salzburg Festival. Their television productions and radio broadcasts are seen and heard throughout Europe, Asia and North America.

In recent years the members of the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet have intensified their teaching and coaching roles with youth; they give chamber music workshops and instrumental instruction in many countries, with a particular commitment, for example, to the youth orchestra programme of Venezuela.

Learn more about this ensemble at www.windquintet.com.

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Abrahamsen: Traumlieder
Beethoven: “Ghost” Trio, Op.70 No.1
Tchaikovsky: Trio in A minor

Trio con Brio Copenhagen was the recipient of the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson International Trio Award in 2005.This biennial award, one of the most coveted in the world of chamber music, honours in perpetuity the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio by encouraging and enhancing the career of an extraordinarily accomplished “rising” piano trio. The prize carries with it appearances on twenty major concert series across the USA including New York City’s Carnegie Hall; Trio con Brio Copenhagen was chosen by members of the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio as well as the eminent musicians Claude Frank (pianist), Michael Tree (violist of the Guarneri Quartet), and Peter Wiley (former cellist of the Beaux Arts Trio).

The American Record Guide wrote of the trio’s debut CD: “One of the greatest performances of chamber music I’ve ever encountered… What stands out from this ensemble is the range of tone and sound… They command an amazing range of timbres. Melodies sing with an aching sweetness, or seduce with wild eroticism, or haunt with impenetrable mystery.” And Gramophone Magazine wrote: “it’s easy to see what so impressed the judges…[the] performances can compete with the best available…airtight ensemble…a superb, greatly gifted chamber group.”

Founded in Vienna in 1999, the trio first drew attention with a sensational performance that took the highest prize at Germany’s prestigious ARD-Munich Competition in 2002. Since then, they won first prize in several more competitions: Italy’s Premio Vittorio Gui (Florence), Norway’s Trondheim Chamber Music Competition, and the Danish Radio Competition.They also won the “Allianz Prize” for Best Ensemble in Germany’s Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and second prize in the Vienna Haydn Competition and the Premio Trio di Trieste (Italy, 2002). Critics have praised the trio for their “sparkling joie de vivre” and “magic dialogue;” a review of their performance at the Salzburg Mozarteum said, “they cast a spell over their audience…so alive, so musical…ravishing.” Trio con Brio Copenhagen belongs unquestionably to the upper echelons of young chamber ensembles performing today.

Trio con Brio Copenhagen’s busy schedule includes major concert halls in Europe, USA and Asia, such as Tivoli Concert Hall (Copenhagen), the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Carnegie Hall (New York City), the Berlin Konzert-haus; the Mozart-Saal (Vienna), Herkulessaal (Munich), Beethoven-Haus (Bonn), the Musikhalle (Hamburg), the Mozarteum (Salzburg), the Seoul and Sejong Arts Centers (Korea), Bunka Kaikan (Tokyo), Teatro Olimpico (Vicenza, Italy), the Båstad Chamber Music Festival (Sweden), and the Bergen and Trondheim Chamber Music Festivals (Norway).

Trio con Brio Copenhagen performed all the Beethoven piano trios in a cycle of three concerts at the Tivoli Concert Hall in Copenhagen with great success. The trio was “Ensemble in Residence” in Copenhagen’s Rundetaarn (Round Tower), with five sold-out concerts in 2005 broadcast on the European Broadcasting Union and Danish Radio. The trio has also broadcast on the BBC, Korean Broadcasting Systems, Norwegian Radio, Swedish Radio, Radiotelevisione Italiana, and on the major German networks (ARD, NDR, Hessischer Rundfunk and Radio Berlin).

Trio con Brio Copenhagen is frequently featured as the soloists in Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with orchestras such as the Copenhagen Philharmonic, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra/DR, the South Jutland Symphony Orchestra, the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra, the Odense Symphony Orchestra, l’Orchestre Syrinx (France), and the Prime Philharmonic Orchestra (Korea).

Learn more about this ensemble at www.trioconbrio.dk.

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Beethoven: String Quartet in D Major, Op.18 No.3
Zaimont: The Figure
Strayhorn: Take the “A” Train (Arr. Paul Chihara)
Borodin: String Quartet No.2 in D Major
Corea: The Adventures of Hippocrates

The Harlem Quartet, comprised of First Place Laureates of the Sphinx Competition, has a unique and challenging mission: to advance diversity in classical music while engaging young and new audiences through the discovery and presentation of varied repertoire, highlighting works by minority composers.

Dedicated to education, community engagement, as well as to superb classical performance, this innovative and daring all-Black and Latino string quartet serves as Principal Faculty at the Sphinx Performance Academy at Walnut Hill School in Massachusetts, one of the premier independent arts preparatory schools in the world, and as Visiting Faculty at the Sphinx Preparatory Music Institute at Wayne State University in Detroit.

The Harlem Quartet made their acclaimed debut in the fall of 2006 at the Sphinx Organization’s Gala Concert at Carnegie Hall, earning rave reviews from The New York Times, as well as at the legendary Apollo Theatre in Harlem. In addition to being avid chamber musicians, each member of the Harlem Quartet is a seasoned solo artist, having appeared with the New York Philharmonic, the Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Sinaloa de las Artes (Mexico) and Baltimore Symphonies and the Boston Pops, among others. They are co-managed by Sciolino Artist Management (SAM) of New York City. and the Sphinx Organization.

To learn more about this ensemble, visit www.harlemquartet.com.

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Janacek: String Quartet No. 2, “Intimate Letters”
Zemlinsky: String Quartet No. 3
Dvorak: String Quartet in G Major, Op. 106

The Escher String Quartet has received acclaim for its individual sound, inspired artistic decisions and unique cohesiveness. The Quartet has performed at prestigious venues and festivals across the United States including Lincoln Center, the 92nd Street Y and Symphony Space in New York, Boston’s Gardner Musuem, the Ravinia and Caramoor Festivals, Music@Menlo and La Jolla SummerFest; and has collaborated with eminent artists such as Lawrence Dutton, Leon Fleisher, Lynn Harrell, Jeffrey Kahane, Joseph Kalichstein, David Shifrin and Pinchas Zukerman. Within months of its inception in 2005, the Escher was invited by both Pinchas Zukerman and Itzhak Perlman to be the quartet-in-residence at each artist’s summer festival: The Young Artists Programme at Canada’s National Arts Centre and The Perlman Chamber Music Program on Shelter Island, NY.

During the 2008-2009 season the Escher debuts at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, the Louvre in Paris as well as in New Orleans, Orange County, CA, and San Jose. In addition, the Quartet continues its CMS Two residency at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and travels to the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. The Escher began the season with appearances at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Music@Menlo and the Gold Coast Festival in California.

Last season, the Escher began its Chamber Music Society Two Residency with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, served as the 2007-2008 Ernst Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence in Caramoor–where the Escher recently performed its first commissioned work by Pierre Jalbert–and joined the faculty of Stony Brook University as Visiting Artist-in-Residence in a unique relationship with the world-renowned Emerson String Quartet. The ensemble also performed at the Ravinia, Green, Great Lakes, Music @ Menlo and La Jolla Festivals. Additional 2007-2008 appearances included Symphony Space and the New School in New York; Boston’s Gardner Museum; Rhinebeck Chamber Music Society; Concordia College; and University of Idaho. The Quartet has also performed with guitar luminary Pepe Romero for a New Year’s Eve performance at the 92nd Street Y, and with pianist Wu Han at the Greenwich Library Concert Series. Nightclub engagements at Tonic and Union Hall saw the Escher in joint concerts with pop-folk singer-songwriter Luke Temple.

The Escher String Quartet takes its name from Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher inspired by Escher’s method of interplay between individual components working together to form a whole.

Learn more about this ensemble at www.escherquartet.com.

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Beethoven: Sonata for Piano and Cello in g minor, Op. 5 No. 2
Brahms: Sonata for Cello and Piano in e minor, Op. 38
Beethoven: 12 Variations in G major on “See the conqu’ring hero comes”
Brahms: Sonata for Cello and Piano in F major, Op. 99

Cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han rank among the most esteemed and influential classical musicians in the world today. The talent, energy, imagination, and dedication they bring to their multifaceted endeavors as concert performers, recording artists, educators, artistic administrators, and cultural entrepreneurs go unmatched. Their duo performances have garnered superlatives from the press, public, and presenters alike.

In high demand year after year among chamber music audiences worldwide, the duo has appeared each season at the most prestigious venues and concert series across the United States, Mexico, Canada, the Far East, and Europe to unanimous critical acclaim. Highlights include performances at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and Aspen’s Harris Concert Hall, recital debuts in Germany and at Finland’s Kuhmo Festival, their presentation of the complete Beethoven sonatas for cello and piano in Tokyo, and their signature all-Russian program at London’s Wigmore Hall. They have also been frequent guests on American Public Media’s Performance Today, Saint Paul Sunday, and other popular classical radio programs. Beyond the duo’s recital activities, David Finckel also serves as cellist of the Emerson String Quartet, which has won eight Grammy Awards including two honors for “Best Classical Album,” three Gramophone Magazine Awards, and the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize, awarded in 2004 for the first time to a chamber ensemble.

In addition to their distinction as world-class performers, the duo has established a reputation for their dynamic and innovative approach to the recording studio. In 1997, David Finckel and Wu Han launched ArtistLed, classical music’s first musician-directed and Internet-based recording company, which has served as a model for numerous independent labels. All eleven ArtistLed recordings have met with critical acclaim and are available via the company’s website at www.artistled.com. This season, ArtistLed releases its twelfth album, featuring contemporary works for cello and piano, composed for David Finckel and Wu Han, by Bruce Adolphe, Lera Auerbach, Pierre Jalbert, and George Tsontakis.

David Finckel and Wu Han have served as Artistic Directors of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 2004. They are also the founders and Artistic Directors of Music@Menlo, a chamber music festival and institute in Silicon Valley that has garnered international acclaim since its inception in 2003. In these capacities, they have overseen the establishment and design of The Chamber Music Society’s CMS Studio Recordings label, as well as the Society’s recording partnership with Deutsche Grammophon (which includes CMS concert downloads made available through the Digital DG Concerts Series); and Music@Menlo LIVE, Music@Menlo’s exclusive recording label, which has been praised as a “breakthrough” (Billboard) and “probably the most ambitious recording project of any classical music festival in the world” (San Jose Mercury News).

The duo’s repertoire spans virtually the entire literature for cello and piano, with an equal emphasis on the classics and the contemporaries. Their modern repertoire includes all the significant works, from Prokofiev and Britten to Alfred Schnittke and André Previn. Their commitment to new music has brought commissioned works by Bruce Adolphe, Lera Auerbach, Gabriela Lena Frank, Pierre Jalbert, Augusta Read Thomas, and George Tsontakis to audiences around the world.

David Finckel and Wu Han have achieved universal renown for their passionate commitment to nurturing the careers of countless young artists through a wide array of education initiatives. For many years, the duo taught alongside the late Isaac Stern at Carnegie Hall and the Jerusalem Music Center. They appeared annually on the Aspen Music Festival’s Distinguished Artist Master Class series and in various educational outreach programs across the country. This season, under the auspices of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, David Finckel and Wu Han have established chamber music training workshops for young artists in Korea and Taiwan, intensive residency programs designed to bring student musicians into contact with an elite artist-faculty comprising such luminaries as pianist Leon Fleisher, violinist Arnold Steinhardt, and others. David Finckel and Wu Han reside in New York with their fifteen-year-old daughter, Lilian.

To learn more about this ensemble, visit  www.davidfinckelandwuhan.com.

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Haydn: String Quartet Op. 74 No. 3
Bartok: String Quartet No. 2
Mendelssohn: String Quartet Op. 13

Recognized as one of the world’s great ensembles, the Takács Quartet plays with a unique blend of drama, warmth and humor, combining four distinct musical personalities to bring fresh insights to the string quartet repertoire. Commenting on their latest Schubert recording for Hyperion, Gramophone magazine noted; “The Takács have the ability to make you believe that there’s no other possible way the music should go, and the strength to overturn preconceptions that comes only with the greatest performers.”

Based in Boulder at the University of Colorado, the Takács Quartet performs ninety concerts a year worldwide, throughout Europe as well as in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea. The 2009-2010 season includes cycles of the complete Beethoven Quartets in London, where the members of the Quartet are Associate Artists at the South Bank Centre, and in Madrid. The quartet will play a series of two Beethoven concerts in Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and give their first concert in St.Petersburg. At Carnegie’s Zankel Hall a series of three concerts will feature the Schumann Quartets and works that were composed last year for the Takács by Wolfgang Rihm, James Macmillan and John Psathas. The quartet will perform over 40 concerts in North America and open the season of the San Diego Symphony with performances of Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro and Handel-Schoenberg’s Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra.

The Quartet’s award-winning recordings include the complete Beethoven Cycle on the Decca label. In 2005 the Late Beethoven Quartets won Disc of the Year and Chamber Award from BBC Music Magazine, a Gramophone Award and a Japanese Record Academy Award. Their recordings of the early and middle Beethoven quartets collected a Grammy, another Gramophone Award, a Chamber Music of America Award and two further awards from the Japanese Recording Academy. Of their performances and recordings of the Late Quartets, the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote “The Takács might play this repertoire better than any quartet of the past or present.”

In 2006 the Takács Quartet made their first recording for Hyperion Records, of Schubert’s D804 and D810. A disc featuring Brahms’ Piano Quintet with Stephen Hough was released to great acclaim in November 2007 and was subsequently nominated for a Grammy. Brahms’ Quartets Op. 51 and Op. 67 was released in the Fall of 2008 and a disc featuring the Schumann Piano Quintet with Marc-Andre Hamelin will be released in late 2009.  The complete Haydn “Apponyi” Quartets, Op. 71 and 74, will be released in early 2011.

The Quartet has also made sixteen recordings for the Decca label since 1988 of works by Beethoven, Bartok, Borodin, Brahms, Chausson, Dvorak, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and Smetana. The ensemble’s recording of the six Bartok String Quartets received the 1998 Gramophone Award for chamber music and, in 1999, was nominated for a Grammy. In addition to the Beethoven String Quartet cycle recording, the ensemble’s other Decca recordings include Dvorak’s String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 51 and Piano Quintet in A Major, Op. 81 with pianist Andreas Haefliger; Schubert’s Trout Quintet with Mr. Haefliger, which was nominated in 2000 for a Grammy Award; string quartets by Smetana and Borodin; Schubert’s Quartet in G Major and Notturno Piano Trio with Mr. Haefliger; the three Brahms string quartets and Piano Quintet in F Minor with pianist András Schiff; Chausson’s Concerto for violin, piano and string quartet with violinist Joshua Bell and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet; and Mozart’s String Quintets, K515 and 516 with Gyorgy Pauk, viola.

The quartet is known for innovative programming. In 2007 it performed, with Academy Award–winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, “Everyman” in Carnegie Hall, inspired by the Philip Roth novel. The group collaborates regularly with the Hungarian folk ensemble Muzsikas, performing a program that explores the folk sources of Bartok’s music. The Takács performed a music and poetry program on a fourteen city US tour with the poet Robert Pinsky.

At the University of Colorado, the Takács Quartet has helped to develop a string program with a special emphasis on chamber music, where students work in a nurturing environment designed to help them develop their artistry. The Quartet’s commitment to teaching is enhanced by summer residencies at the Aspen Festival and at the Music Academy of the West, Santa Barbara. The Takács is a Visiting Quartet at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London.

The Takács Quartet was formed in 1975 at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest by Gabor Takács-Nagy, Károly Schranz, Gabor Ormai and András Fejér, while all four were students. It first received international attention in 1977, winning First Prize and the Critics’ Prize at the International String Quartet Competition in Evian, France. The Quartet also won the Gold Medal at the 1978 Portsmouth and Bordeaux Competitions and First Prizes at the Budapest International String Quartet Competition in 1978 and the Bratislava Competition in 1981. The Quartet made its North American debut tour in 1982. Violinist Edward Dusinberre joined the Quartet in 1993 and violist Roger Tapping in 1995. Violist Geraldine Walther replaced Mr. Tapping in 2005. In 2001 the Takács Quartet was awarded the Order of Merit of the Knight’s Cross of the Republic of Hungary.

Learn more about this ensemble at www.takacsquartet.com.

Though they belong to the world now, the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music can still rightly consider eighth blackbird one of its own.

Members of the Grammy-winning contemporary music sextet, who used to sit cross-legged on the floor of CCM professor Joel Hoffman’s office and study scores for performance on Hoffman’s innovative “Music X” series, earned their graduate degrees in chamber music at CCM, and were in residence at the school for three years.

The ensemble remains a regular participant in “Music X,” which has now re-located to Switzerland after being canceled by CCM in 2008 in response to budgetary woes.  They have many friends in Cincinnati and CCM’s Corbett Auditorium was nearly full for their concert Tuesday evening (January 12) for Chamber Music Cincinnati.

Eighth blackbird — Tim Munro, flutes; Michael Maccaferri, clarinets; Matt Albert, violin and viola; Nicholas Photinos, cello; Matthew Duvall, percussion; and Lisa Kaplan, piano, all original members except Munro — was in the vanguard of the sea change now taking place in “classical” music.  They perform only new and contemporary music and incorporate all of the streams now flowing into the art form from popular and world music, multi-media and so on.

They brought examples with them by Steve Reich, Missy Mazzoli, George Perle, Thomas Ades and Stephen Hartke, all but the Ades commissioned by or for eighth blackbird.  The crowd, which included listeners of all ages, loved it, demonstrating the vitality and “unstuffy-ness” of the chamber music idiom.

Casually attired — shirt sleeves and trousers for the men, Lisa Kaplan’s short dress and black boots being the only thing approaching “dressed up” — the musicians took turns introducing the music on the program.  It made for the kind of intimate, up-close experience much to be desired in the concert hall today.

Opening work was “Still Life with Avalanche” (2008) by New Yorker Missy Mazzoli, a self-described “indie classical” composer who still loves triads (as she told online interviewer Hilary Hahn).  It begins serenely enough with “a pile of melodies” (Mazzoli) before turning agitated with hard strokes on tenor drum and dissolution into chaos.  According to Mazzoli’s program note, she was writing it when she learned about a death in her family.

This was followed by George Perle’s “Critical Moments 2″ (2001), a work that harks back to the 20th-century Second Viennese School (Schoenberg, Berg, Webern).  It is a set of nine, aphoristic movements (the shortest is 44 seconds), each conveying a satisfying sense of structure.  It is delicate, colorful music: slow, with dark timbres in numbers III and VIII  (bass clarinet, alto flute), light and frisky in V (clarinet and cello played with the stick of the bow), slow and reflective with a surprise ending in IV (a big tam-tam blow), wood percussion in VII, and finally, what sounded like a popped balloon in IX, with cello “snap” pizzicato followed by airy filigrees passed through the ensemble to a quiet end.  Astonishingly, this was all played from memory by eighth blackbird.

British composer Thomas Ades’ “Catch” (1991) brought the element of theater to the program.  His title refers to the children’s game “pig in the middle” where players in a circle try to throw a ball to each other without it being caught by the player in the center.  It unfolds like a mini-tone poem.  Following Ades’ instructions, clarinetist Maccaferri (heard offstage at first) walked on and crept into the center of the ensemble as it played tranquil music.  There he sounded the familiar, five-note children’s taunt (NA, na, na, NA, na) before “escaping” and running offstage again.  The music continued softly after that, breaking into a little jig at one point with Photinos gleefully plucking the strings behind the bridge of his cello.

Alas, it was not over.  Maccaferri suddenly reappeared stage left, arousing “screams” by the other instruments and what sounded like a threnody that turned suddenly, mournfully tonal.  Maccaferri quietly rejoined the group, as if to  make peace, Photinos responded with a pizzicato glissando and everyone seemed happily reconciled.

Stephen Hartke’s colorful “Meanwhile: Incidental Music to Imaginary Puppet Plays” (2007) was a highpoint of the concert.  Eighth blackbird also performed it from  memory and with their own staging.  The work is divided into six parts, each incorporating elements of various types of Asian puppet theater.  The opening “Celebrations” utilized an instrument called the flexatone gamelan fashioned by Hartke of three flexatones (“gamelan” refers to the percussion-rich orchestras of southeast Asia, the flexatone is a flexible metal sheet struck by wooden knobs to produce wavering pitches).  Kaplan was the performer, maintaining a steady beat to accompany the other musicians.

“Fanfares” conjured a puppet and his puppeteer, with Munro on piccolo and Maccaferri on bass clarinet.  Photinos strummed his cello like a guitar in “Narration,” while Maccaferri on bass clarinet was the narrator stage left.

“Spikefiddlers” featured violist Albert and Photinos in a kind of Asian hoedown, with Duvall on vibraphone and puppet and puppeteer Munro and Maccaferri playing face-to-face.

“Cradle-songs” was a beauty, featuring soft harmonics by the strings, Kaplan playing with mutes on the piano strings and Duvall on “water gong” (a small Chinese gong struck, then dipped up and down in a tub of water).  “Celebration” opened with Duvall shaking tiny rattles, followed by exuberant piano (unmuted), strings, flexatones (played by Munro and Maccaferri) and a fadeout roll on wood percussion.

The best known work on the program, Reich’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Double Sextet, made up the second half.  Joining eighth blackbird here were members of the CCM Chamber Players, a professional-level, graduate ensemble directed by Rodney Winther.  Flutist Shauna Hodgson, clarinetist Jeff Carwile, violinist Nick Naegele, cellist Amy Gillingham, percussionist Erica Drake and pianist Mark Tollefsen were integrated with eighth blackbird, three players from each group performing in each sextet.  The two ensembles stood facing each other vertically on the stage, with the pianos, one with its lid removed, in the back.

Co-commissioned by CCM in 2007, the work can be performed by a dozen players live or by one sextet playing against a recording of itself.  The second version was performed by eighth blackbird on the final concert of “MusicX” in the Great Hall of UC’s Tangeman Center in June, 2008.  It was a Cincinnati premiere then, and it was a Cincinnati premiere Tuesday night in the version for 12 live musicians.

Although the Double Sextet’s minimalist heritage is evident in the ostinato motion set up by the pianos and vibraphones, it defies that label through the interweaving of the instruments and by division into three, multi-part movements.  The rhythms set up by the piano and vibes in the first movement had a jazzy, Bernsteinian flavor that set off the slow motion of the two sextets playing both with and against each other.  The slower middle movement had an ethereal cast, as blocks of chords faded in and out, but excitement and propulsion were quickly restored as the work drew to its pulse-quickening conclusion.

With eighth blackbird a virtual ensemble-in-residence with “MusicX” in Switzerland each year, it would behoove CCM to make every effort to bring “Music X” back to Cincinnati, at least for a portion of its program.

View this article on musicincinnati.com

By Anne Arenstein
Printed January 4, 2010 in CityBeat

The new year for Chamber music opens with strings. And flutes. And clarinets, prepared piano, flexatones, harmonicas, bongos and cowbells.

That’s standard operating procedure for eighth blackbird, the wildly innovative, Grammy-award winning sextet acclaimed as the country’s premier contemporary music ensemble. Acknowledges flautist Tim Munro, “We like to wreak havoc in a creative way.”

The group makes a welcome return to Cincinnati with Meanwhile…, a program of five works by established masters and exciting young composers, all but one commissioned by eighth blackbird. Expect that grand diversity of sound to be accompanied — literally — with eye-catching details, wit and irreverence, and performed with consummate artistry.

Meanwhile… gets its name from Stephen Hartke’s Meanwhile: Incidental music to imaginary puppet plays (2007). Munro describes both the program and the composition as “a magical mystery tour.” Each of the six movements “open onto different landscapes with different tonalities and different combinations of instruments. That’s our program as a whole.”

Missy Mazzoli’s “Still Life with Avalanche,” from 2008, “is a pile of melodies collapsing in a chaotic free fall,” according to the composer. Just shy of her 30th birthday, Mazzoli is widely sought after as a composer and soloist throughout the world. Indie Rock is a major influence on her music, she says.

George Perle’s “Critical Moments 2” (2001) pays tribute to the doyen of new music who died in early 2009. Munro recalls that Perle was the first eminent composer to write for them, and the nine short, highly individualist pieces will be played from memory. Although eighth blackbird has played the work since 2001, Munro admits that “it’s a hard knot.” But what’s missing on the music stands is more than made up for by “the intensity of our interactions.”

Also performed from memory is Thomas Ades’ “Catch” (1991), a musical game of monkey-in-the-middle for four performers, one of whom really gets into the action.

The program highlight is Steve Reich’s “Double Sextet” (2007), co-commissioned by the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music’s “Music X” series and awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2009. Originally written for a sextet playing against a recording of themselves, six CCM students will join eighth blackbird for the local premier of the live version.

“Collaborating with other musicians — the next generation of Chamber musicians — is an enormous rush,” Munro says, “and this piece is 500 percent better live.”

Midway through its 14th concert season, eighth blackbird returns to familiar territory. They met as undergraduates at Oberlin Conservatory and honed their ensemble skills in CCM’s Artist Diploma program from 1996-99. Munro joined in 2006. A native of Australia, he also studied at Oberlin.

Having played all over the world, eighth blackbird spends more than half the year on tour. Since 1997, they have commissioned more than 80 compositions, recorded four albums and racked up major prizes, commission grants and a Grammy in 2008.

What counts for the group’s burgeoning audiences is the unique performance art. The performers’ sheer exuberance and affection for the music is as much a draw as the music itself. The two are inextricable, Munro asserts, the Down Under persona emerging.

“That’s our reason for existence,” he says, “incorporating drama and movement into it. People apologize for new music: You’d bloody well get it or you’re an idiot. We want everyone to love it.”

Munro adds that eighth blackbird is taking baby steps in fulfilling its mission to make new music experiences relevant and entertaining to all audiences. Major strides is more like it.

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