CMS of Lincoln Center comes to Purchase

CMS of Lincoln Center comes to Purchase 

The highlight every year in Westhchester’s classical music scene is the four-part series that the Performing Arts Center (PAC) at Purchase College presents with the Chamber Music Society (CMS) of Lincoln Cente – celebrating their 5oth Anniversary. CMS of Lincoln Center, one of eleven constituents of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, draws more people to chamber music each year than any other organization of its kind.

They perform a full season at Alice Tully Hall, are broadcast nationally on PBS’ Lincoln Center Live, and tour nationally and internationally. And they travel up the Hutch four times a year to play at PAC for a fraction of the cost of a ticket in the city. Here’s this year’s schedule.

CMS of Lincoln Center at PAC: Great Innovators: Sat., November 23: 5pm 

For their first 2019-20 PAC concert, CMS of Lincoln Center will perform works from classical music’s Great Innovators. The program features Beethoven’s Clarinet Concerto, the first of its kind when he wrote it in 1797. Followed by a trio version Igor Stravinsky’s A Soldier’s Tale for clarinet and piano. Followed by Mendelsohn’s Song Without Words for Piano, and Smetana’s Piano Trio for violin and cello, the first major chamber work from the Bohemian region. The players include: Anne-Marie McDermott, Piano / Ida Kavafian, Violin / Gary Hoffman, Cello / Jose Franch-Ballester, Clarinet. (735 Anderson Hill Rd., Purchase; www.artscenter.org)

CMS of Lincoln Center at PAC: French Enchantment: Sat, January 25: 5pm

Here CMS presents the grace, wit, and charm of French music. The program begins and ends with early works by Saint-Saëns (piano, violin, cello) and a quartet by Fauré that recreate the elegant atmosphere of 19th century Parisian salons. In between, the Ravel sonata, written soon after World War I, uses just two string instruments to produce a composition of unique, austere beauty. These three inimitable works capture the essence of pure melody in its most delightfully fundamental form. The players feature Wu Han, Piano / Paul Huang, Violin / Matthew Lipman, Viola / Clive Greensmith, Cello. (735 Anderson Hill Rd., Purchase; www.artscenter.org)

CMS of Lincoln Center: Milestones at PAC: Sat., March 14: 5pm

CMS celebrates milestones in chamber music beginning with Bartók’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion – widely considered an ingenious creation in chamber music literature. Also on the program: Dohnányi’s “delectable” Serenade, the 20th century’s first string trio. And Tchaikovsky’s String Sextet ne plus ultra, “Souvenir de Florence” that was used in the score for Boris Eifman’s 2005 ballet Anna Karenina. The players include: Alessio Bax, Piano / Lucille Chung, Piano / Erin Keefe, Violin / Cho-Liang Lin, Violin / Hsin-Yun Huang, Viola / Paul Neubauer, Viola / Dmitri Atapine, Cello / Colin Carr, Cello / Ayano Kataoka, Percussion / Ian David Rosenbaum, Percussion. (735 Anderson Hill Rd., Purchase; www.artscenter.org)

CMS of Lincoln Center: Masterworks: Masterworks: Sat, April 25: 5pm

Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet holds a rightful place in the line of great piano quintets going back to Schumann’s of 1842. Combining the rigor of Bach with the powerful energy and extreme irony of Soviet era music, the work is a milestone not only of chamber music but also of Shostakovich’s career: it won him the coveted Stalin Prize. This essential quintet is accompanied by a youthful Beethoven sonata and Mendelssohn’s appropriately tempestuous First Piano Trio. The players include: Inon Barnatan, Piano / Alexander Sitkovetsky, Violin / Angelo Xiang Yu, Violin / Paul Neubauer, Viola / Paul Watkins, Cello (735 Anderson Hill Rd., Purchase; www.artscenter.org)

See the full 2019-20 PAC season here