JAVS Fall 2012

At 3:00 p.m. Claudine Bigelow spoke about the Karen Tuttle collection, a recent donation to the Primrose International Viola Archive. Six boxes of materials from the noted pedagogue, including cards and letters, personal papers and notes, sheet music, reviews of performances, and press materials have been processed and are available for study. While working through the collection, Bigelow was surprised to discover that though Tuttle is so well-remembered as a teacher, much of the material demonstrates how highly regarded she was as a performer. Eastman alumni were up at 4:00 p.m., showing hometown pride for the host institution. Melissa Matson began with an attractive Sonata for Viola and Piano by Verne Reynolds, for many years the horn teacher at Eastman. Brett Deubner followed with an exuberant performance of Amanda Harberg’s Three Pieces for Viola and Piano , with the composer at the piano. This is a wonderful piece that should attract strong attention from violists. Next was Peter Minkler, who gave a uniformly excel lent reading of Schumann’s Märchenbilder , with a particularly lovely rendition of the final movement. Shelly Tramposh then impressed the audience with an introspective interpretation of Paul Chihara’s Sonata for Viola and Piano. Last up was Jerzy Kosmala, playing his transcription of Franck’s Violin Sonata with pianist Barry Snyder. Given the length of this recital, I was only able to hear the first two movements, but what I did hear was marvelous with Kosmala displaying a light, ethereal touch that was suitably evocative of fin de siècle France.

The evening concert at 7:30 p.m. was the first of two performances by the Rochester Philharmonic (the second was on June 2). In both concerts, the opening overture and concluding piece remained the same, but alternate viola works were heard on differ ent evenings. This evening’s work was Sofia Gubaidulina’s Two Paths (A Dedication to Mary and Martha) . Written for the “two leading ladies” of the New york Philharmonic, Cynthia Phelps and Rebecca young, the composer chose the biblical theme of Mary and Martha and elected to convey two different female personae through the solo writ ing. Phelps and young performed the work mar velously here, and the musical personae seemed so intertwined with those of these two soloists that it is somewhat difficult to imagine other performers playing the work. In the program notes, Gubaidulina wrote that “the orchestra plays the role of initiator; within it, a series of dramatic situations occur…. Each of these situations poses questions for the soloists that they must answer.” The lyrical writ ing for the solo instruments as well as the viola’s voice-like register reinforces this idea of a conversa tion. Since the dialogue extends not only between soloists and orchestra, but also between the two soloists, the concept of discourse functions on multi ple levels throughout the work. The congress’s first Viola after Dark concert at 9:30 p.m. featured electric violist Martha Mooke. Held in Miller Center’s Sproull Atrium, this performance yearned for a more intimate venue, as much of Mooke’s personal style was lost in the cavernous (and noisy) setting. Alternating between instru ments, Mooke began with a yamaha five-string viola (with an added E string). She used a loop generator for most, if not all, of the pieces, and the effects were mesmerizing. Most effective was her composi tion ICE 4 , which used pizzicato and other tech niques to evoke a wintry terrain.

Friday, June 1

On Friday morning, six former students of Karen Tuttle (Sheila Browne, Susan Dubois, Jeffrey Irvine, Kim Kashkashian, Michelle LaCourse, and Carol Rodland) spoke at 9:00 a.m. to a packed room

Cynthia Phelps and Rebecca Young hug after the con clusion of Gubaidulina’s Two Paths

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