Posted by admin on Jun 16, 2013 in News |

PRESS RELEASE – For Immediate Release Saratoga Chamber Players celebrates 150 years of music and art in Saratoga during concerts on Saturday June 8 at Tannery Pond Community Center in North Creek at 7:30, repeated on June 9 at 3PM in Zankel Hall on the Skidmore College campus. The Zankel performance will be accompanied by a show of 150 years of art in Saratoga curated by Beverley Mastrianni. For these concerts, Artistic Director Jill Levy will present Dvorak’s Cypresses for String Quartet, Mozart’s Sonata for Bassoon and Cello, Garfield’s Quartet for Bassoon, Violin, Viola and Cello and Brahms’ String Quartet, no. 2 in A minor. Saratoga audiences of 150 years ago would have listened to the Mozart, Brahms and Dvorak works. Recent SPAC attendees heard noted composer Bernard Garfield as principal bassoonist of the Philadelphia Orchestra prior to his retirement. Musicians participating in these concerts are part of the Saratoga Chamber Players family. Violinist Lucy Chapman last appeared in the SCP 25th anniversary concert in Zankel in December 2011. She chairs the New England Conservatory strings studio faculty, was Associate Concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony and is first violin of the Muir Quartet. She was a Grammy Award winner for her recording with clarinetist Richard Stoltzman and pianist Richard Goode. Violist Kathy Andrew and cellist Judith Serkin are both active musicians in Vermont. Andrew has been Concertmaster of the Berkshire Symphony and performs widely throughout New England. She toured the U.S. with Eric Clapton’s “Pilgrim Tour”. Cellist Judith Serkin comes from a distinguished musical family. She was a founding member of both the Guilford Quartet and the Mendelssohn Quartet. She regularly plays and has toured with Musicians from Marlboro. Her daughter, Natalya Rose Vrbsky, has played with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia as well as the Philadelphia Orchestra. She has participated in numerous music festivals including Tanglewood, Aspen and Marlboro. She is currently Principal Bassoon in the Sarasota Opera Orchestra. Violinist Jill Levy is now in her 18th season as Artistic Director of SCP. She has been Concertmaster of the Albany Symphony Orchestra since 1983 and solos frequently with them, including a recent performance with Jaime Laredo. The New York Times review of the ASO’s 2011 Carnegie Hall appearance praised the “graceful solo from the concertmaster, Jill Levy.” Former member of the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence, Italy, she is currently a regular member of the Sherman Chamber Ensemble. Holders of the Saratoga ArtsPass and children accompanied by an adult are admitted free. Tickets for all others are: Adults $18, Seniors $15, Students $12. The concert is sponsored in part by grants from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency, and from ArtsFest. To charge with Master Card or Visa call 518-584-1427. For further information on the concerts, musician bios and photos, see...

Posted by admin on Jun 15, 2013 in News |

To celebrate the Promise of Spring and Renewal, the next Saratoga Chamber Players concert on March 31 will offer an exciting program of works by Haydn, Chopin, Schoenberg and Brahms. The concert will be at 3PM at the United Methodist Church, 5th Avenue and Henning Road, Saratoga Springs. For this performance Artistic Director and violinist Jill Levy brings four other award winning musicians including the clarinetist, Romie de Guise-Langlois who wowed Saratoga audiences three years ago at the Skidmore residency of ACJW (Academy of Carnegie Hall, Juilliard and Weill Institute). Levy and De Guise-Langlois are joined by pianist Peggy Kampmeier, flutist Susie Rotholz and Eric Bartlett, cellist with the New York Philharmonic. After the Haydn Piano Trio in C# major, Hob. XV:16 with its playful teasing, the selections all offer musical reflections of survival and renewal. Chopin’s Nocturne, No. 20 in C # minor will showcase the talents of Margaret Kampmeier whose February appearance with SCP was highly praised by a local critic. The Nocturne provided salvation from extermination for Holocaust survivor Natalia Karp. Her dazzling rendition played for the Nazi camp commandant, Amon Goeth, was so impressive that he spared her life. More recently this Nocturne was featured in the opening and closing scenes of Roman Polanski’s “The Pianist,” which recounts the life of the talented Polish musician, Władysław Szpilman, who escaped capture and internment during World War II. Schoenberg’s Kammersymphonie no. 1 in E major, op.9 is a well known example of quartal harmony. It was composed for chamber orchestra in reaction to the romantic monumentalism of Brahms, Mahler and Wagner. The piece stands as a harbinger of the renewal of music and greatly influenced composers of the 20th century. His pupil, Anton Webern, arranged the version for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano to be heard at this concert. The final offering on the program is Brahms’ Trio in A minor, op.114 for clarinet, piano and cello. Brahms had ceased composing but was inspired to take up pen again and write this luscious piece after hearing Richard Mühlfeld, principal clarinetist of the Ducal orchestra in Meiningen. Complete bios for the musicians are on the website www.saratogachamberplayers.org. Tickets are $18 adults, $15 seniors, $12 students and free to children accompanied by an adult. To order tickets, call...

Posted by admin on Jun 14, 2013 in News |

Pianist Margaret Kampmeier returns to the Saratoga Chamber Players to present a concert with violinist Jill Levy on February 3 at 3:00PM in the United Methodist Church, 5th Avenue and Henning Road, Saratoga Springs. The two musicians have been frequent collaborators at recent Saratoga Chamber Players concerts. One reviewer called Margaret Kampmeier “a master of the keyboard… with perfect poise and sonorous variety….” She is a founding member of the Naumberg award-winning New Millenium Ensemble. She has appeared with the Kronos Quartet, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Colorado Quartet and Peter Schikele. Jill Levy is now in her 19th season as Artistic Director and violinist of the Saratoga Chamber Players as well as concertmaster of the Albany Symphony Orchestra. The New York Times review of the ASO’s performance at Carnegie Hall in the Spring of 2011 praised her “graceful and fluid” playing. The concert opens with Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No.4 in A minor, Opus 23, a piece warmly received by the composer’s contemporaries. Next will be Stravinsky’s Divertimento for violin and piano, one of a number of offspring from the composer’s ballet, “Le Baiser de la fée.” it is based on Tchaikovsky songs and evokes the latter’s sweet, delicate melodies but with Stravinsky’s own elements of unpredictability. Also on the program is the work of Estonian composer, Arvo Pärt, Fratres, written at a time when religion was frowned upon by the Communist state. The title means “brethren” or “Fraternity” and the music, described as a call to prayer, seems to express Pärt’s search for spirituality. The program ends with the the luscious, romantic piece by Robert Schumann, Sonata, No. 1 in A minor, Opus 105 written in 1851 and first performed a year later by Clara Schumann and violinist Ferdinand David. Tickets are $18 adults, $15 seniors, $12 students and free to accompanied children. The concert is sponsored in part by a grant from the new York State Council on the Arts, a state agency. To charge with Master Card or Visa call 518-928-9664. To learn more, please visit the SCP concert...