The Vivace! series at the Pennsylvania Academy of Music’s new building on Prince Street wound up with student performances, with two sets of recitals Friday and Saturday, June 27 and 28, and a cabaret performance Saturday evening. I couldn’t make it to the Saturday performances, but here’s my report on the Friday night “Grande Finale!” concert.
For the Friday concert, the students were grouped in various duos, trios, quartets and quintets. Two pairs of piano students performed: Duo-piano performers Shihan Lin and Liang Wang, in Johannes Brahms’ Variations on a Theme by Josef Haydn, navigated the piece’s ringing bell-like chorales, romantic diversions and Bachian complexities with great spirit and synchronicity. Pianists Hexin Qiao and Lanjiabao Ge performed Debussy’s “Petite Suite” on one piano, a fascinating sight and a delight to hear.
Clarinetist T.J. Wissler delivered a standout performance, with violinists Qing Fan and Fei Xia, violist Lulu Liu and cellist Jeufei Wang, in the entertaining and athletic Allegro Moderato from Giacomo Meyerbeer’s Clarinet Quartet. The same quartet of string players appeared with Niannian Jiang on piano in a forceful performance of the Scherzo from Shostakovich’s Quintet to conclude the concert on a fiery note.
Other highlights included Kurtis Copley on flute and Chris Orr on piano in a movement from Paul Hindemith’s Sonata for Flute and Piano, a clean bit of musical modernity that calls to mind Bauhaus architecture or a painting by Piet Mondrian. Copley and fellow flute players Mary Beth Seitz-Brown, Evangeline Krajewski and Claire McRee took the stage for two short pieces from Jacques Casterede’s “Flutes en Vacances” and Catherine McMichael’s “A Gaelic Offering.” (Where else are you going to get a chance to hear a flute ensemble?)
Weighing in with more mainstream fare were Valerie Horst on violin and Liang Wang on piano in the Allegro Moderato from Beethoven’s “Spring” Sonata; violinist Amy Hess, cellist Karen Lau and Lanjiaboa Ge in the Adagio-Vivace from Dvorak’s “Dumky” Trio; and violinist Eva Dove, violist David Houck, cellist Ellen Hartshorne and pianist Christin Cooper in the Allegro from Mozart’s Piano Quartet in G Minor. Less familiar pieces (to me, anyway) were the Scherzo from Anton Arensky’s Trio in D Minor, played by violinist Melody Brubaker, cellist Nathan Doan and pianist Shihan Li, and the Moderato from Gioachino Rossini’s Quartet, played by violinists Melody Brubaker and Claire Jordan, cellist Kathryn Westerlund and Claire McRee on flute.
The new performance space is a wonderful place to hear music (the only thing lacking is some art in the lobby), and I’m looking forward to many more outstanding concerts.
