While the weather outside was unusually frightful this February, we still managed to fill every week of this month with something exciting. Winter doldrums? No such thing!
From February 16-19, 47 students from Davidson Fine Arts Magnet School in Augusta, Georgia ascended our campus for Garth Newel Piano Quartet’s High School residency. All students play violin, viola, or cello in the school orchestra directed by Laura Tomlin, running from middle to high school in age. While this was not the first time we have hosted Laura’s students, this was certainly the largest group that’s come to participate. The school’s previous visits were in 2017 and 2018, and Garth Newel Piano Quartet has also twice gone to Augusta to perform and teach. We’re glad to have renewed the relationship after the enforced hiatus of the pandemic.
For three days, the Garth Newel Piano Quartet gave masterclasses, sectionals, rhythm and technique classes, as well as career talks and musical olympics games. It wasn’t all hard work though – the students also got a chance to experience the Jefferson pools and took a snowy hike up Warm Springs Mountain.
We were all impressed by how the students supported each other and how enthusiastic they were to learn. They gave a public performance in Herter Hall on the 18th of February, playing a well-executed program of pieces without a conductor. Students of GNMC’s Allegheny Mountain String Project (AMSP) were also able to attend the concert and interact with the Davidson students.
Our first Pub Concert on February 1st was a collaboration with Staunton-based artist Robert Stuart. The project was born from a piece we had programmed by Frederick Frahm, a Composition Competition entry from 2017. The piece is entitled Four Panels in a Gallery, so naturally the thought of exhibiting paintings during the performance was enticing! Robert was kind enough to lend us not four but five of his paintings for this special concert. His meditative paintings of abstract depictions of light paired nicely with our program of works all by living composers. We concluded the program with our 2024 Composition Competition winner, Roberto Sansuini’s evocative Piano Quartet. Read more about this project in our previous blog post HERE.
On February 8th, the violinist Wanchi performed a solo violin recital of new works by American composers Adolphus Hailstork, Judith Shatin, and Meira Warshauer, as well as Bach’s Chaconne in D minor. Judith Shatin’s piece For the Fallen featured recordings of the Capana del Cauditi (bell for the fallen), a bell that was cast from melted cannons after WWI. It is one of the largest ringing bells in the world. The program ended with a violin duet by Miklós Rózsa, where she was joined by Teresa Ling.
The last pub concert on February 15th was a program of two piano quartets, by film composer Danny Elfman and Pēteris Vasks.
Because of how prolific Danny Elfman is with his soundtracks for popular movies, you may not know that Danny Elfman composes a new work each year that is free from cinematic influence. His piano quartet is made up of inventive little pictures inspired by the idea of warped variations on a children’s schoolyard taunt.
It was cathartic for us as well as the audience to experience Vasks’ piano quartet, a monumental piece that journeys through six movements without stopping, 36 minutes of wakening, despair, turmoil, and ecstasy that finally resolves into a serene and healing balm. The communal experience of intensity and beauty reminded us of why Garth Newel’s shared space of music is important, no matter the unsavory conditions of the winter weather.
A group of our AMSP students met at Garth Newel on Saturday, February 22 for a breakout session and pizza lunch. Advanced violin students had a master class with Teresa Ling, intermediate students played around with creative harmonies with Jaime Blees, while the cellists took ‘a journey’ with Kelley Mikkelsen. The pizza lunch with homemade cookies and treats was enhanced by an impromptu open mic where students shared music they were working on with each other, ending with a fantasy rendition of Saint-Saëns’ Romance performed by AMSP instructor Madison Barnett.
by Fitz Gary and Jeannette Fang
