Ravinia Steans Music Institute review-Faculty Chamber Players’ fine concert

On July 6, 2024, The Ravinia Steans Music Institute Faculty Chamber Players, comprised of Artistic Director Midori, violin; Mihaela Martin, violin; Kim Kashkashian, viola; Frans Helmerson, cello; Clive Greensmith, cello; and Marc-Andre Hamelin, piano, presented a program of carefully curated pieces in The Martin Theater at The Ravinia Festival, Highland Park, Illinois. The concert showcased 2 newer works set between 2 older masterpieces of the classical chamber music repertoire, the whole event allowing the different virtuoso faculty members a fully realized opportunity to play together: a duet, 2 trios, and a quartet.

Japanese-born Midori is a much-honored educator, violinist, community activist, and a visionary artist. Romanian-born artist Mihaela Martin is one of the most outstanding violin virtuosos of her generation. Michigan native Kim Kashkashian, Founder and Artistic Director of “Music For Food”, a musician-led hunger relief initiative, has a universally recognized unique voice on the viola. Swedish-born cellist, pedagogue and conductor Frans Helmerson performs and records to great critical acclaim. Educator, performer and recording artist Clive Greensmith was for 14 years, until its final season, a member of the world-renowned Tokyo String Quartet; he’s collaborated with and performed with other great artists around the world. Canadian born Marc-Andre Hamelin, nominated for 11 Grammy’s, is a staggeringly talented classical pianist, known for his clarity and control. Together, these artists gave a penetrating presentation of memorable sound.

The afternoon opened with Ludwig Von Beethoven’s String Trio No. 4 in D major, Op. 9, No. 2, 1797-98, a 4-movement sonata-form piece largely dominated by the violinist. The opening allegretto has a restless feel, yet is still lyrically melodic. The second movement andante, by contrast, gives the sense of an ancient dance. The sparkly minuet that follows flows into the final rondo, initially led by cello, then taken over in the end by Midori. This was the most traditional piece of the afternoon’s program, subtle, fine, and conveying warmth and a slightly sad intimacy.

Pianist and composer Tino Andres’ Chamber Music, 2010, is a complex construction for dual violins and piano, described by Andres as “A free set of variations on a theme…an amalgamation of the sublime and the not-so-sublime”. The piece is an homage to a teacher and protégé, and as such, is both a testament to and an example of musical pedagogy, quite an apt choice for this superior faculty explication.

Carlos Simon’s where two or three are gathered in my name, 2017, harks back to the gospel music that informed the composer’s early life; he’s the son of a Pentecostal preacher. Commissioned by the Peabody Essex Museum, the atonal but still distinctly melodic piece for violin and cello was later included in the Grammy-nominated multi-instrumentalist/Kennedy Center Composer-In-Residence’s Requiem for the Enslaved, entitled Remember Me. As a strong advocate for musical as well as cultural diversity, Simon infused great beauty into this hymn-inspired genre-bending piece that melds both classical and distinctly jazzy textures

Robert Schumann, Piano Quartet in E-flat major, op. 47, 1841, revised 1851, has rightly been called “a wonder of clarity and concision.” This 4-movement composition is filled with intense and highly concentrated harmonics. The opening allegro has a slow, expansive introduction, bringing forth a clear dominant motif before introducing contrasting themes. Next, the peripatetic scherzo rushes swiftly by. A flowing adagio sings a simplistic song in the cello, joined by violin. Finally, a Baroque-inspired vivid lyrical highly-textured culmination, driven and satisfying, brought the piece- and the concert-to a close.

The Ravinia Steans Music Institute, founded in 1988 is an internationally lauded center where young professional classical pianists, string players, classical singers and jazz musicians hone their crafts and advance their talents as collaborative artists.

All photos by Patrick Gipson/Ravinia