Mill Ave Chamber Players 2018-2019: Chef’s Choice
Chef’s Choice: /SHef CHois/: noun
1. a range of possibilities from which one or more may be selected
2. a chance for each member of MACP to program their own concert
Monica Anthony: Female Innovators
Valerie Coleman: Concerto for Wind Quintet
Amy Beach: Theme and Variations for Flute and String Quartet
Shulamit Ran: East Wind for Solo Flute
Hildegard von Bingen (arr. Monica Sauer Anthony): O vis eternitais
Meredith Monk (arr. Monica Sauer Anthony): Facing North: Hocket
Tom Breadon: 20th Century Serenades
Exploring the use of serenade form in chamber music through three composers of the 20th century.
Alfredo Cassella: Serenata
Carl Nielsen: Serenata in vano
Ferenc Farkas: Serenade
Nikolaus Flickinger: CLASSIC
L.V. Beethoven: Quintet
W.A. Mozart: Quartet for Oboe and Strings
G.P. Telemann: Quartet for Flute, Oboe Bassoon and Cello
J.S. Bach: Quartet for Oboe and strings
Katie Palmer: The Carribean Clarinet
Paquito D’Rivera: Aires Tropicales
Jorge Montilla’s: "Four for Four"
Selection of Venezuelan joropos with guitar, bass, and maracas.
Rose French: The Britten Serenade
Britten: Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings with Kenny Miller
Thomas Breadon: Impressions
Mill Ave Chamber Players 2017-2018: Old, New, Borrowed and Blue
The Music of Nielsen, Bach and Turner
Our first concert will include the Wind Quintet of Carl Nielsen, who composed this famous work in 1922 for the Copenhagen Wind Quintet. Composed with the members in mind, “the Wind Quintet composed deliberately for five friends” wrote biographer Robert Simpson, and we find it a perfect way to start our season.
For something borrowed, Rose chose a work that she has wanted to transcribe since starting MACP. The Chaconne in D minor by J.S. Bach was composed for solo violin and later transcribed for piano by pianist Ferruccio Busoni. Watch an engaging performance of the piece here.
Our first commission for the tenth season is by Kerry Turner. Mr. Turner composed “The Road to Tasartico” in Feburary 2017 in a co-commission by the Luxembourg Philharmonic and the Mill Ave Chamber Players. This work will be recorded by MACP for our third album in June 2018.
The Music of Ligeti, Ravel and Breadon
Arranged from his work Musica ricercata, Gyrogy Ligeti’s “Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet” was premiered in 1956, except, the last movement was censored by Soviet officials for being too “dangerous.” Ligeti used a compositional device that only used a limited amount of notes of the chromatic scale for each movement, and for the piano, starting with one single note and adding one additional note for each movement. The first movement of Six Bagatelles contains only four pitches, but is melodically incredibly interesting, shifting through rhythmic motives.
After performing transcriptions of string quartets over the past several seasons (including Shostakovich’s Eighth String Quartet and the American Quartet by Antonin Dvorak), Monica fell in love with the String Quartet in F major by Maurice Ravel.
New for this concert will be a composition by our very own Tom Breadon. Tom’s work for MACP includes a set of Aesop’s Fables for the quintet, which will be recorded in June 2017 and released as video on Youtube in English and Spanish.
The Music of Francaix, Stravinsky and Springer
“Achieving a success beyond my wildest dreams,” is what composer Jean Francaix wrote about his first Quintet. He wrote it for members of the Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion Française in 1948, recalling “Even though I am, by nature, a peaceable sort of person, I did my best to be nasty. And I seem to have succeeded, for these gentlemen had to closet themselves for six months in order to get through it."
Two seasons ago, we performed a new transcription of the Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky and this season Tom has chosen to transcribe Pulcinella for MACP. Composed as a ballet, Stravinsky later made a suite of the movements for orchestra, take a listen to selections of the suite conducted by Zubin Mehta.
Last on our program is our second commission by Robert V. Springer “Drawing upon personal experiences, local communities, and natural surroundings, his music depicts enduring and shared human concepts.” Robert composed STOGIKK in 2016 for MACP. This new work will be recorded by MACP for our third album in June 2018.
The Blue Concert
The blue concert...will be blue! Everything from bluegrass music to Folsom Prison Blues, Rhapsody in Blue to the Moody Blues, this summer MACP will be searching for works with "blue" in the title. Have a request? Drop us an email, tweet or facebook post this summer!
The Music of Hindemith, Ravel and Steinmetz
Considered to be one of the most important composers of the twentieth century, Paul Hindemith's Kleine Kammermusik (a small chamber piece) was composed shortly after his return from the first World War for his colleagues in the Frankfurt Opera Orchestra. Now regarded as one of the most performed works for woodwind quintet, this early work of Hindemith explores the technical and expressive capabilities of each instrument in his unique tonal language.
“The world is changing and contradicting itself as never before. I am happy to be living through all this and to have the good fortune of being a composer.” - Maurice Ravel
Spoken over one hundred years ago after the end of World War I, Ravel wrote La Tombeau de Couperin for solo piano in the style of a baroque suite.
Our last commission for the tenth season is from John Steinmetz, with whom we recorded our second album, "What the Birds Said" the Music of John Steinmetz, in 2016. This work will be recorded by MACP for our third album in June 2018.
Mill Ave Chamber Players 2016-2017: Time Travel
August 14: CD Release Concert
Three Pieces for Ten Winds - John Steinmetz
Quintet - John Steinmetz
Fits and Starts - John Steinmetz
October 2: Mozart's Vienna
Serenade in C minor - W. A. Mozart
Little Symphony for Winds - Franz Schubert
Caprice No. 24 - Niccolo Paganini
November 6: The Venetian School with Helios
Mill Ave Chamber Players are thrilled to collaborate with Helios: A Modern Renaissance for an innovative performance of music from the nexus of Renaissance music—the Republic of Venice. Our residence at Central United Methodist will provide the space and acoustic reminiscent of St. Mark's Basilica, while the florid melodies will inspire a sense of floating down one of the many Venetian canals. Monteverdi, Willaert, Andrea Gabrieli, and his nephew Giovanni Gabrieli are among the featured composers.
February 5: Coming to America
Cantos - Samuel Adler
Kleine Kammermusik - Paul Hindemith
March 5: Rock and Jazz Concert
MACP will perform some of its favorite jazz, rock and pop music with rhythm section, location TBA.
April 2: Modern Classics
Stoggik - Robert Springer
Island Prelude - Joan Tower
Quintet No. 3 - David Maslanka
Mill Ave Chamber Players 2015-2016: The Four Seasons
Summer Music
American String Quartet - Antonin Dvorak
Three Etudes on Themes of Gershwin - Paul Harvey
Summer Music - Samuel Barber
Autumn Music
Serenade - Andre Jolivet
Sonata for Flute & Guitar - Jean Francaix
Autumn Music - Jennifer Higdon
Winter Songs
Winter Songs - Brett Dean
with Kenny Miller, Tenor
Quintet - Anton Reicha
Spring
Rite of Spring - Igor Stravinsky
Dolly Suite - Gabriel Faure
Mill Ave Chamber Players 2014-2015 Season
CD Release Concert
Elegy - Andrew Thomson, arr. Rose French
Petite Suite - Claude Debussy, arr. Monica Sauer Anthony
Quartet No. 8, Op. 110 - Dimitri Shostakovich
Music from the French Salon
Suite d’après Corrette, Op. 161 - Darius Milhaud
Trois pièces for flute and oboe - Eugène Bozza
Sonatine for flute and clarinet - André Jolivet
Pièce for flute solo - Jaques Ibert
Arlequin, character piece for clarinet solo - Louis Cahuzac
Concert Champêtre - Henri Tomasi
Quatour - Jean Françaix
Music from the Czech Republic and Hungary
Quintet, Op. 42 - Zdeněk Fibich
Sextet in C Major, Op. 87 - Ernst von Dohnáyí
Richard Strauss 150th Birthday Celebration
Moonlight Music from the Opera “Capriccio”
Selection from solo repertoire
Til Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks
Made in America
Street Songs - Michael Tilson Thomas
Quintet - John Steinmetz
Comedy for Five Winds - Paul Patterson
Esprit Rude/Epsrit Doux - Elliott Carter
Navajo Mandala - Kerry Turner
