Culture for Understanding & Tolerance Classical Music Concert Series #3

61 Nassau Street,Princeton NJ 08542

12 May, 2023

Description

About the Concert Series #3Collegium Musicum of New Jersey announces its 2023 Concert Series, "Culture for Understanding and Tolerance." The history and development of music in different cultures and nationalities around the globe will be revealed through multiple performances throughout New Jersey. The music of Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia, North and South America will be represented and selected from Baroque, Classical, Romantic periods, as well as contemporary music and 21st century compositions by living composers. In addition to performances by chamber orchestra, soloists, and small chamber music groups, each event will include a short lecture illustrating its musical connections to its history and cultures. We strongly believe the 2023 Concert Series "Culture for Understanding and Tolerance" will enable our communities to better understand and enjoy each other's unique national culture, traditions and historical development through the performance of music along with presentations of other art forms. About the ComposersMykola Lysenko - short bio and String quartet in D minor: Mykola Lysenko (1842-1912--sometimes transliterated as Nikolai or Nicolai Lysenko or Lissenko) is considered the father of Ukrainian chamber music much the way that Glinka is for the Russians. He was the first Ukrainian composer to write chamber music. In 1904, he founded the first music conservatory in the Ukraine in Kiev, which today bears his name. Lysenko was born in the Poltava district of the Ukraine. He first studied piano with his mother, then formally with teachers in Kiev. After taking a degree in the natural sciences at the University of Kiev, he attended the world famous Leipzig Conservatory where he studied composition with Carl Reinecke. An admirer of the Ukrainian poet Shevchenko, Lysenko became a nationalist for the Ukrainian cause as a student. He remained one for his entire life and was imprisoned for the cause as late as 1907 after composing a song in support of the Revolution of 1905. The bulk of Lysenko's music is for piano or for voice in one form or another such as opera, hymns, or chorales. His piano music often shows the influence of Chopin whereas his vocal music is almost always based on Ukrainian folk music such as his opera Taras Bulba. Lysenko spent considerable time trying to demonstrate the differences between Ukrainian and Russian folk melody. The only chamber music he is known to have composed is this string quartet and a string trio. The quartet dates from 1868 when Lysenko was finishing his studies with Reinecke in Leipzig. The big, opening movement, Allegro non tanto, begins in a rather dramatic, somewhat operatic fashion. The themes bear some resemblance to those of Glinka's opera Ruslan and Ludmilla. Despite the movement's length, the drama and forward motion are almost never relaxed. The simple but charming melody of the following Adagio is in the form of a chorale. The manuscript only has three movements and it is not known whether there was a fourth movement or whether the third movement was meant as the finale. It is an engaging Minuetto, allegretto scherzando. A collected edition of Lysenko's works, including this quartet, was published in 70 volumes between 1950 and 1959, however, a performance edition of the parts and score were never separately published. Myroslav Skorik: Carpathiam Rhapsody - MelodiaMyroslav Skoryk, born in Kviv on 13 July 1938 is probably best remembered for composing the musical score to the 1964 Ukrainian film “Forgotten Ancestors,” directed by Serge Paradjanov. Prior to the 1960s, Moscow had “crippled the culture’s ability to communicate directly with the rest of the world by bestowing or withholding its approval.” However, the generation of the 1960s in Ukraine produced two distinct styles. Firstly, music “of a highly abstract nature grew out of the experience with the European avant-garde, known as the Kyiv avant-garde.” A second stream developed that has been described as the “new folklorism, the precursor of a movement that reached its full development in the 1980s.” Scholars have declared Myroslav Skoryk the “undeclared leader of this form of musical expression in Ukraine. His music, specifically from the mid-1960s through the mid-1980s is “wedded to folklore, as Skoryk fully realized his style of building a work from a short melisma, derived by synthesizing idiomatic folk rhythms and melodic gestures.” Skoryk was awarded the titles of Peoples’ Artist of Ukraine and Hero of Ukraine, and he received the Shevchenko National Prize for his Cello Concerto. Our PerformersAlexei Yavtuhovich - 1st ViolinNelly Fedorova - 2nd ViolinDennis Krasnokutsky - ViolaElina Lang - CelloPlan Ahead - Tickets & ParkingLimited seating engagement. We Recommend advance purchase of your tickets. Plan ahead as parking is on the street parking. We can't wait to see you there!