In its fifth year, Brightstar's chamber concert series will stretch out over two weekends and offer four virtuosic programs.Can you remember the last time a classical string quartet with national stature played on Tryon Street? We can't either. But this Friday and Saturday, the Johannes String Quartet will stride onto the McGlohon Theatre stage. Boasting stints on NPR's Performance Today and St. Paul Sunday Morning, the Johannes will fire three volleys from the core of the literature.
With festival veteran Soovin Kim fronting the quartet, alternating between first and second violin, the 2003 Concert Series will open with Ravel's String Quartet in F. Then after intermission, the JSQ returns with their namesake Brahms' Quartet #3 in B Flat. Between our two quartet courses, pianist Jeremy Denk makes his Charlotte debut, serving up the last of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas.
While expanding the chamber series to four concerts over two weekends, Brightstar has made a subtler move: starting their chamber summit a week later.
"We realized that a lot music festivals happen where people go for their vacations," Sperry explains. "Ours happens where people live. So we decided to have ours after people come home. And we're having them on Friday and Saturday nights at the end of the work week when they can relax and kick back and enjoy."
The extra week of separation between Charlotte's chamber fest and established brand name festivals in vacationland also gives Brightstar a better run at the prime talent. As Sperry attests, Brightstar is a nice quick stop for musicians on their way home from other festivals.
After playing Mozart's Quartet #19 in C ("Dissonance") this Saturday, Kim's JSQ cohorts will disperse to their elite posts at orchestras in Philadelphia, Chicago, and LA. Meanwhile Denk will lay over for Brightstar's second weekend after teaming with Sperry on Saint-Saens's 1921 Sonata in D for Oboe and Piano and anchoring Saturday's finale, Schumann's Piano Trio #1.
Sperry feels fortunate to have Denk as the festival's house pianist for both weekends. "Most pianists that I've run into have been tagged as Chopin specialists or great Mozart players or they really like to stick with the Germans -- Schubert, Schumann, that whole genre," Sperry observes. "You very rarely find someone who makes anything they play sound like that's their genre. That would be Jeremy. He's really one of the great pianists right now."
He'll be joined on Weekend Two by violinists Chee-Yun and Sheryl Staples, cellist Andres Diaz, clarinetist Mark Nuccio, and viola hotshot Paul Coletti.
Look for more info on programs, prices, and packages at www.brightstarfestival.org.
