Department of Music

The Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival, presenter of international musicians in performances of music for ensembles smaller than an orchestra, opens its 25th season with a FREE CONCERT on March 8th at the Dickinson Fine & Performing Arts Center at Piedmont Virginia Community College. The concert is one stop on a tour that includes Columbia, Beaufort and Charleston, SC; Macon, GA; and New York City.

The six musicians, all renowned instrumentalists, have active orchestral, ensemble and solo careers with engagements in the U.S. and abroad. Cellist Raphael Bell, the Festival's co-artistic March 8, 2024 Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival concert www.cvillechambermusicfestival.org 434-295-5395 info@cvillechambermusic.org director, joins Andrew Armstrong, pianist; Alexander Fiterstein, clarinetist; Matthew Lipman, violist; R. J. Kelley, French hornist; and Amy Schwartz Moretti, violinist.

Highlights of the program include Sergei Rachmaninoff's soulful Trio élégiaque No. 1 in G minor for piano, violin and cello, and Ernő Dohnányi's Sextet, Op. 37 for all six musicians. Other short works will showcase individual musicians.

House doors will open at 7pm. The concert will last approximately 75 minutes, with no intermission. No tickets are necessary for this general admission concert.

Since its founding in 2000, the Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival has established itself as one of the premier classical music events in the region. The Festival's founders and Artistic Directors, violinist Timothy Summers and cellist Raphael Bell, are Charlottesville natives and Juilliard graduates who currently reside and work in Berlin, Germany, and Antwerp, Belgium, respectively. Since its inception, they have invited their friends and colleagues from the US, Canada and abroad to come together in Charlottesville for several weeks in September for intensive rehearsals and performances. Unlike their regular work in orchestras and established groups performing the same pieces on tour, the Festival offers the excitement of compressed rehearsal time and playing with new partners. During the year, the Festival offers occasional concerts such as this one.

Of the evening's program, Festival co-founder and co-artistic director Raphael Bell says, "Everyone shines, and the audience get to hear all the instruments separately. And, it’s such a colorful and beautiful program." Rachmaninoff's Trio élégiaque No. 1 in G minor for piano, violin & cello, a passionate single-movement work, opens the evening's music; Dohnányi's rarely performed Sextet in C major, op. 37, with its rollicking finale, will conclude the concert. In between there will be shorter works for various instrumental combinations, including pieces by two 19th-century female composers whose music has lately received renewed attention: Florence Price and Rebecca Clarke.

PVCC Parking and visitor information https://www.pvcc.edu/fine-arts-and-performance/visitor-information

This free concert is sponsored by The Joseph and Robert Cornell Foundation and the Ruffledog Fund, in celebration of the Festival's 25th season.

PROGRAM

Trio élégiaque No. 1 in G minor for piano, violin & cello Sergei Rachmaninoff 1873-1943

Romance, Op. 36 for French horn & piano (1874) Camille Saint-Saëns 1835-1921

Morpheus for viola and piano (1917) Rebecca Clarke 1886-1979

Adoration (1951) for clarinet and piano (arr. by Elaine Fine) Florence Price 1864-1935

Prelude No. 1 in B-flat, arr. for clarinet and piano (1926) George Gershwin 1898-1937

Sextet in C major, op. 37 for piano, violin, viola, cello, clarinet & horn Ernő Dohnányi 1877-1960

PERFORMERS
For complete biographies of musicians, go to: https://www.cvillechambermusic.org/musicians-2024.html

American violist Matthew Lipman has been praised by the New York Times for his “rich tone and elegant phrasing,” and by the Chicago Tribune for a “splendid technique and musical sensitivity.”

R.J. Kelley is recognized as America's foremost player of horns of every historical era, from the hunting horn of the Baroque through today's super-mechanized triple horn.

The Washington Post has described Alexander Fiterstein's playing as “dazzling in its spectrum of colors, agility, and range. Every sound he makes is finely measured without inhibiting expressiveness." “The amount of expression that Andrew Armstrong is able to draw out of the material is remarkable.” The Tennessean

Amy Schwartz Moretti is recognized as a deeply expressive artist and known for her musical career of broad versatility.

Raphael Bell has a varied career as principal cellist, chamber musician, teacher, and festival creator. He is principal cellist of the Antwerp Symphony in Belgium, co-Artistic Director of La Loingtaine in Montigny-surLoing, France, and co-founder and co-Artistic Director of the Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival

More Information:  www.cvillechambermusic.org • 434 295-5395