First Update In A While...

Firstly, we must make our apologies for not making an entry in our blog for over a month. This last month has been one of the busiest in RCO history, and we’ve been scrambling to keep up with everything. Now we’ve entered a calmer interlude, and there’s some time to review what we’ve been up to.

Our busy stretch began with the Nevada Chamber Music Festival at the end of December. While it is a logistical challenge to make the Festival happen, the music that results always make the effort worthwhile. And by all accounts, this Festival even topped the first two in musical thrills. Everyone will have his or her favorite performances, but I’ll put forward the three that moved me the most:

(1) Martin Chalifour and Meng-Chieh Liu performing Beethoven’s “Kreutzer” Sonata – an overwhelming, virtuosic performance of a richly diverse sonata.

(2) Elgar’s Piano Quintet, featuring Chalifour and Liu along with Ruth Lenz, Theodore Kuchar and Desmond Hoebig – one of the rare opportunities to hear (live or on recording) this late masterwork by one of the greatest of British composers.

(3) James Buswell and James Winn performing Shostakovich’s Violin Sonata – intense and moving music, stunningly performed, and greatly illuminated by Buswell’s very interesting pre-performance comments.

Festival attendance was up over the first two years, we got very favorable comments about our new venue, South Reno United Methodist Church, and it looks like we will at least break even financially. And although it’s still eleven months away, we’re already having conversations about the 2007 Festival.

The RCO’s official photographer, Stuart Murtland, also served as our stage manager during the Festival; you often saw him on stage moving chairs, music stands, pianos, and other furniture around. But in those moments when he wasn’t moving stuff or trying to track down missing musicians, he had time to take a few photos. Here are a few highlights:

A rehearsal at South Reno United Methodist Church


Martin Chalifour and Meng-Chieh Liu perform Beethoven's "Kreutzer" Sonata


Ellen dePasquale, Alena Ondrisikova, Desmond Hoebig and Derek Han play Schumann's Piano Quartet


Narrator John Tyson and the ensemble after their performance of "Carnival of the Animals"


James Buswell and James Winn perform Shostakovich's Violin Sonata


The NCMF musicians gather 'round to marvel at the piano eight-hands piece that concluded the Festival on New Year's Eve


The week after the Festival, we held the twentieth annual College Concerto Competition. Thirteen wonderful young musicians took part, and there was general consensus that, overall, this was the strongest field of competitors we’ve had in many years. Our first prize winner was pianist Jiyang Chen, a former student of James Winn who is now attending the Eastman School of Music. On March 10 and 11 he’ll return to Reno to perform the Piano Concerto No. 2 by Johannes Brahms, the work with which he won the Competition, with Maestro Kuchar and the Orchestra. That same concert will feature William Barton, the great master of the Australian didgeridoo, in World and American premiere performances. Demand for tickets for these concerts is likely to be high, so get yours soon at (775) 348-9413.

After the Competition, we had a week or so to prepare for the RCO’s January 20 and 21 concerts. Possibly our best attended concerts of the season to date, the performances featured the masterful cellist Alexander Ivashkin in the Cello Concerto No. 2 by Shostakovich, another of the composer’s late, bleak, but intensely moving and colorful works. The concerts opened with a lovely sonata by the early Baroque composer Giovanni Legrenzi, and concluded with Beethoven’s extraverted Symphony No. 8. We were all very happy with how the concerts went, and we got a rather glowing review from Jack Neal as well.

So now we have a few weeks to get geared up for the March performances. After I take a few days off to try to gather up the remains of my sanity, I will be starting to prepare the March concert program, as well as writing some foundation grant proposals for the 2007-2008 season, details of which we’re hoping to announce at the March concerts.

Scott Faulkner and I have committed ourselves to keeping this blog constantly active and updated, so look forward to more regular updates. And thanks for reading!