2018-2019 Music Series Archive
Sunday, April 7, 2019 at 4 pm
Northminster Evangelical Presbyterian Church
106 Clearview Rd., Madison Heights, VA 24572
All photos of opus87 by Ken Yanagisawa Photography.
The aim of the opus87 piano quartet is to expose new and underappreciated facets of our instrumentation. We exist at the crossroad between two common ensemble types: the piano trio and the string quartet. Thus, we seek to emulate the best qualities of these groups, while also taking advantage of the flexibility and originality afforded by our configuration.
In seeking repertoire from the common practice period, we try to find less-familiar works that can shed new light on how composers have treated the piano quartet medium. The single-movement work on our program by Judith Weir is a beautiful distillation of the composer’s chamber style, while Walton's quartet presents an engaging dialogue between the early and late twentieth century, reflecting the disparate date of its writing and its revision. Throughout the program are interspersed movements from the famous ‘Dumky’ piano trio by Antonin Dvořák, with the bass part swapping between the cello and the viola, in altered tuning. We hope these three distinct and unusual works gives the audience a chance to get to know the piano quartet medium inside and out—and to enjoy some great chamber music! |
Violist Dudley Raine IV, who grew up in Lynchburg, VA, is a founding member of opus87 piano quartet, a New York-based chamber quartet of young professional musicians. Quartet members are Francesca Abusamra, violin; Dudley Raine IV, viola, Thea Mesirow, cello (guest artist for the 2018-2019 season) and Brian Daurelle, pianist and resident composer.
“I like being able to play chamber music with people who care as much about it as I do! It is great to bring a bit of New York flavor back to Lynchburg this April. We are happy to have the opportunity to work with Amherst Glebe Arts Response (AGAR) and with Northminster Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Madison Heights on April 7th.” --Dudley Raine IV |
Alicia Svigals, renowned worldwide as
the foremost klezmer Fiddler, comes to Lynchburg on March 2nd at 7:30 pm, with Grammy nominated jazz pianist Uli Geisendoerfer to introduce the passionate “BEREGOVSKI SUITE” in a public performance at ADUDATH SHALOM SYNAGOGUE 2055 Langhorne Road, Lynchburg. Tickets are $15/adults, $2 studewnts k-12 and $5 for college students. The concert is produced by Amherst Glebe Arts Response (season tickets will be honored) in collaboration with Adudath Sholom Synagogue. Alicia Svigals was one of the founders of the Grammy-winning Klezmatics in New York’s East Village in 1986 and performed with them worldwide until the beginning of the 21st Century. She is renowned for her collaborations with Itzhak Perleman, with Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant and Jimmy Page. |
Klezmer music is the highly emotional and exciting instrumental musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern Europe.
Moshe Beregovski was a Jewish Scholar from the Ukraine, who traveled through that country in the 1930s recording dance tunes, folk songs, and work songs. During the years of the Holocaust and the later years of Stalin’s rule in the USSR, the Beregovski recordings, made on wax cylinders, disappeared. Miraculously, in 1987, with the opening of the Soviet Union the cylinders were rediscovered in Kiev and musicians interested in this tradition have begun to bring them to us again. Alcia Svigals and Uli Geissendoerfer are proud to both reintroduce the Ukrainian Jewish music preserved by Beregovski, and to recontextualize it for our enjoyment in the 21st Century. Click here to learn more about Moshe Beregovski. |
The Performers ____________________________________________________________
![]() Composer/violinist
Alicia Svigals is the world’s leading klezmer violinist and a founder of the Grammy-winning Klezmatics, which she codirected for seventeen years. She has written for violinist Itzhak Perlman, the Kronos Quartet, playwright Tony Kushner, documentary filmmaker Judith Helfand, singer/songwriters Debbie Friedman, Diane Birch et al, and has collaborated with them as a performer and improviser as well as with poet Allen Ginsburg, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, Gary Lucasand Najma Akhtar, and many others. Svigals has appeared on David Letterman, MTV, Good Morning America, PBS’s Great Performances, on NPR’s Prairie Home Companion, Weekend Edition and New Sounds, and on the soundtrack for the L-Word. Her klezmer roots band, Alicia Svigals’ Klezmer Fiddle Express, plays at festivals around the U.S. and the world: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-sXLevOXrE. Svigals was awarded the Foundation for Jewish Culture’s annual New Jewish Music Network Music Commission for her original live score to the 1918 film the Yellow Ticket, which she is currently touring, and a Trust for Mutual Understanding grant to bring that work to Poland. She has been a fellow at LABA — a non-religious house of study and culture laboratory at the 14th St. Y in NYC which every year invites a group of artists to consider ancient texts and create work that pushes the boundaries of what Jewish art can be; while at LABA she composed a song cycle based on Yiddish poetry; samples here: http://www.labajournal.com/2014/07/seduction-in-eynaim-a-maternal-song-cycle/. In 2014 Svigals was an NEA Macdowell Fellow. In 2018, Svigals released Beregovski Suite, an album of music from a long-lost archive of klezmer melodies, arranged and performed with a contemporary spin with jazz pianist Uli Geissendoerfer. |
![]() Jazz pianist, composer and scholar Uli Geissendoerfer
has worked with William Cepeda (a Grammy-nominated project), Groove Collective, Giovanni Hidalgo, Blood Sweat & Tears, Leslie Uggams, Tito Puente, Cirque du Soleil, Ute Lemper, David Cassidy, several symphonies, the Connecticut Opera and many more. His current projects include “Colors,” a World Jazz Quintet, “Bangalore Breakdown” and an Indian World Jazz project featuring multi-wind player Premik Russell Tubbs. In 2009 Geissendoerfer moved to Las Vegas where he was the conductor, pianist and bandleader with the Cirque du Soleil production “Viva Elvis.” He resurrected the Latin Jazz Ensemble at UNLV which has since won downbeat awards in 2013, 2014 and 2015 (1st place). Geissendoerfer also has initiated a lecture series at the university. Founder of the “Jazz Club at the Dispensary Lounge” (winning Best of Las Vegas) featuring Wynton Marsalis, Brandon Fields, Sam Most, Rick Margitza, Dick Griffin, Danny Gottlieb and more, he currently serves as curator for the Steinway Concert Series. |
AGAR AND EMMANUEL UNITED METHODIST CHURCH PRESENT
WINTERREISE (WINTER JOURNEY)
WINTERREISE (WINTER JOURNEY)
Amherst Glebe Arts Response, Inc. (AGAR) and Emmanuel United Methodist Church (EUMC) Amherst present tenor Scott Williamson and concert pianist Melia Garber in Franz Schubert’s Winterreise (Winter Journey) 4 p.m. Sunday, February 10, 2019. The concert takes place at Emmanuel United Methodist Church, 401 N. Main Street, Amherst, VA 24521. Following the concert EUMC is sponsoring a soup and salad supper for a voluntary suggested donation of $10 to benefit “Relay for Life” and the “Stepping Out to Cure Scleroderma Walk.” Concert tickets, available through LynchburgTIckets.com or at the door of the church 45 minutes before the concert starts, are $15 for Adults/Seniors; $2 for students K-12; and $5 for College Students.
Winterreise is a romantic song cycle for voice and piano. Composed in 1827 by Austrian composer Franz Schubert, it is set to 24 poems by German poet Wilhelm Müller. It is sung in the original German with an English translation provided in the program. According to EncyclopediaBritannica.com, “The poetry is written in the voice of a young man who, upon seeing his beloved marry another, sets out on foot in the deepest winter to escape memories of her. His heart is broken, and his life is a torment of memories, dreams, and present pain….The subject matter—a wanderer alone with his sorrows—was a popular theme of the Romantic era.” Scott Williamson has enjoyed a successful career as a tenor, conductor, director and artistic administrator. His performance repertoire ranges from Baroque oratorio to contemporary opera. In 2017 he made his Romanian debut at the National Opera House in Timisoara, reprising the leading role of Sorin which he created for Aaron Garber's opera, Romania: Revolution 1989, originally commissioned and produced by AGAR in 2014. Winterreise marks his fifth appearance with Amherst Glebe Arts Response. Williamson says, “Schubert’s Winterreise is an iconic song cycle. It has long been on my personal ‘wish list’ of great vocal works to perform. I’m humbled and excited to have the honor of sharing it with AGAR’s keen and discerning audience. Having worked with the gifted musician Melia Garber on other AGAR projects, I couldn't be more thrilled to collaborate with her on this great work.” As General and Artistic Director of Opera Roanoke from 2010-2018, Williamson created the company’s premiere Apprentice Artist program and produced notable company premieres, including The Flying Dutchman, Giulio Cesare in Egitto, The Abduction from the Seraglio, Floyd's Susannah and Rodgers’ and Hammerstein’s South Pacific. He also conducted the world premiere of The Three Feathers, a family opera by composer Lori Laitman and poet Dana Gioia. An internationally recognized tenor, the Times of London called his debut at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, “brilliant.” He led the professional chamber chorus, Virginia Chorale for three acclaimed seasons which featured over a dozen premieres, in addition to new collaborations with local schools, museums and arts festivals. Williamson has served on the faculties of Washington and Lee, Hollins University and Virginia Tech, and is in demand as a guest artist and presenter. His poetry has appeared in Atlanta Review and Tupelo Quarterly. Music Director of Temple Emanuel in Roanoke since 2014, he was named Program Director in 2018. He currently serves on the board of Roanoke’s historic Grandin Theatre, and is an artistic advisor to TOI (Tidewater Opera Initiative). |
His work has been praised in The New York Times and Sun, Opera News, and The Washington Post. His “Night by Silent Sailing Night: A Performance of John Cage’s STEPS: A Composition for a Painting,” was hailed upon its creation at the Taubman Museum of Art, where he is guest curator in music. It is featured in the new monograph The Mountain Lake Symposium and Workshop: Art in Locale.
Melia Garber is a native of Romania and has won numerous piano competitions, including first prize at the prestigious International Piano Competition in San Bartholomeo, Italy. In the United State she won Music Teachers National Association competitions in piano at the state and regional levels, and won the Concerto Competition while at the University of Tennessee, playing the Liszt Piano Concerto in E-flat Major. Mrs. Garber has performed concertos by Bach, Mozart, Liszt and Grieg with the Philharmonic Orchestra of “Banatul” Timisoara, Romania. She also premiered the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra by Ryan Garber in 2005 with the Salem Choral Society. Mrs. Garber played as a duo pianist with Noemi Szigeti Lee on the Virginia 2014 world premiere of Aaron Garber’s chamber opera Romania: Revolution 1989. She repeated this performance in the European premiere of the work at the Romanian National Opera House in Timisoara in December 2017. Recently she performed “24 Preludes” by Chopin in a solo performance in 2018 at Hollins University. Mrs. Garber is currently conductor for the Lakeside Singers in Moneta. She has been the choir director, pianist and organist at Heights Community Church in Roanoke since 2000 and has been a lecturer in piano at Hollins University since 2001. She holds a Master of Music in Piano Performance from the University of Tennessee and a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from West University of Timisoara, Romania. Composer Franz Peter Schubert (1797- 1828) was born to immigrant parents in a suburb of Vienna. His music is notable for its melody and harmony and he is “considered the last of the classical composers and one of the first romantic ones.” Schubert was noted to have demonstrated a gift for music at an early age, not only for his voice but also for playing the piano, violin and the organ. Schubert studied composition under Antonio Salieri and proved to be a prolific songwriter writing more than 600 vocal works. He also composed a number of piano pieces, produced string quartets, seven complete symphonies, and a three-act opera. Poet Johann Ludweig Wilhelm Müller (1794- 1827) was born in Dessau, Germany. Known today as a “German Romantic poet,” he garnered popularity for his translation of Christopher Marlowe’s The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. He also collected and edited Italian and modern Greek folk songs and “wrote impassioned lyrics in support of Greeks in their struggle for independence from the Turks.” He studied at the University of Berlin, then worked as a public librarian, publisher’s consultant, a teacher and authored travel books. In addition to Winterreise, Franz Schubert also set the lyrics of Müller’s Die schöne Müllerin to music. This program is funded in part by grants to AGAR from National Endowment for the Arts, Virginia Commission for the Arts, Greater Lynchburg Community Foundation and the Piepho Charitable Fund as well as gifts from individuals and corporations. |

The Staff and Board of Directors of Amherst Glebe Arts Response, Inc. (AGAR) remember fondly and with greatest respect our Board of Directors member Mary Lynn Brown who passed from this life on February 1, 2019. We extend our sympathy to her entire family, whom she loved so much. Mary Lynn was a devoted educator and humanitarian. We will always treasure her wisdom and compassion.
Catherine Bost, Lillian Burks, Melodie Fletcher,
Lynn A. Hanson, Edward E. Kable, Lynn Kable, Donna Meeks,
Julia Paris, Adam Pettyjohn, Ellen Pettyjohn, Linda Zabloski.
Catherine Bost, Lillian Burks, Melodie Fletcher,
Lynn A. Hanson, Edward E. Kable, Lynn Kable, Donna Meeks,
Julia Paris, Adam Pettyjohn, Ellen Pettyjohn, Linda Zabloski.
AGAR’s Second Evening of Coffee and Jazz

At Second Stage Amherst,
194 Second Street, Amherst, VA 24521
Saturday, January 26
featuring
Quintana
Glen Buck, keyboards • Ernest Deane, trumpet • Al Mallet Jr, alto and Soprano saxophone • Ed Mikenas, bass • Patrick Ragland, drums
194 Second Street, Amherst, VA 24521
Saturday, January 26
featuring
Quintana
Glen Buck, keyboards • Ernest Deane, trumpet • Al Mallet Jr, alto and Soprano saxophone • Ed Mikenas, bass • Patrick Ragland, drums
Quintana plays traditional jazz including works by Miles Davis, “Duke” Ellington, Horace Silver, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and Rodgers and Hart. They have performed in various local venues such as the Community Market, Riverviews Artspace, and the University of Lynchburg. As a community service Quintana often plays for Senior dances and residences.
Coffee, sandwiches, deserts, soda, available for purchase.
Cover Charge $10, includes one free cup of coffee.
AGAR season ticket holders need not pay cover charge.
Coffee, sandwiches, deserts, soda, available for purchase.
Cover Charge $10, includes one free cup of coffee.
AGAR season ticket holders need not pay cover charge.

Peace and Joy to the World Featuring the LIYA String Quartet
Christi Salisbury, Violin
Domenico Luca Trombetta, Viola
David Feldman, Cello
Special Guest Joseph J. Nigro, Violin
And choir members of Amherst area churches with audience participation
Performance at Ascension Episcopal Church, 253 South Main Street, Amherst, Virginia 24521
Saturday, December 15, 2018 at 7 pm
Dinner in parish hall at 5:30 pm for donation to Ascension furnace fund.
Christi Salisbury, Violin
Domenico Luca Trombetta, Viola
David Feldman, Cello
Special Guest Joseph J. Nigro, Violin
And choir members of Amherst area churches with audience participation
Performance at Ascension Episcopal Church, 253 South Main Street, Amherst, Virginia 24521
Saturday, December 15, 2018 at 7 pm
Dinner in parish hall at 5:30 pm for donation to Ascension furnace fund.
As you know we are all trying very hard to help our friends at Ascension Episcopal Church get their badly needed new furnace. Towards that end, on this Saturday, December 15th, Nell Kinnier and her trusty cooks are spearheading an Episcopal Church Women's Dinner at 5:30 pm for a donation for the furnace.
At 7 pm Amherst Glebe Arts Response (AGAR) is sponsoring "Peace and Joy to the World" featuring the wonderful Lynchburg Liya String Quartet playing such seasonal favorites as selections from Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker." Pachelbel's "Christmas," Handel's "Messiah" and international carols, They will be joined by choir and chorus singers from around the community and also the audience in singing familiar Advent and Christmas carols and Handel's "HALLELUJAH!" chorus from Messiah. Rehearsal for the community singers will take place at 5:30 pm on December 13th in the Sanctuary of Ascension Episcopal Church, 253 South Main Street, Amherst, 24521. Singers will be admitted free to the concert on December 15THin the Ascension sanctuary. Please note : CHOIR AND CONCERT SINGERS WILL BE ADMITTED FREE TO CONCERT ON DECEMBER 15TH. We particularly need men singers at this time. The dinner contribution is up to you, but an anonymous friend is matching with $5 any chorus or choir singer’s dinner donation. The Menu is planned, according to chef Nell Kinnier to include: Lemon Sweet cucumbers with dill and onion, broccoli salad, citrus marinated chicken, shrimp and grits, peas with caramelized shallots, mashed potatoes with chive butter, rolls and butter, gooey chocolate fudge cake, brown sugar pie and apple pie, and beverages. Dinner reservations should be made if you are coming by calling 434-946-9064. |
We have planned this event to be a good one for Amherst residents to invite and bring older or frailer neighbors who may not be able to drive to or attend concerts in Lynchburg or Charlottesville. Please consider bringing such an individual from your family, neighborhood and church. The concert will end by 8:30 pm. Concert tickets for NON-SINGERS are $24 for families of up to six persons, $15 for adults, $2 for students K-12 and people with disabilties, $5 for college students. They can be purchased in advance from LynchburgTickets.com or at the Ascension church door on the 15th. There are wheelchair accessible spots in the sanctuary but please call in advance to make sure they are not already reserved.
YOU are invited to be part of the choir and chorus, to rehearse for one hour on Thursday December 13thand to participate in the sing-along on December 15th. Please RSVP to this invitation to sing and to eat – let us know about whether you can do both, either or neither. Please pass this information and the concert poster attached to anyone you think would like to participate or attend. If anyone has been left out, the omission was inadvertent -- all are welcome to participate and to attend. We hope to see and hear you (and watch you eat) on the 15th of December at Ascension Episcopal Church.! Merry Christmas and Happy New Furnace! See our poster attached. |
ALKEMIE in “Love To My Liking”
![]() Amherst Glebe Arts Response, Inc. (AGAR) and Amherst Presbyterian Church present early music virtuosi musicians ALKEMIE in “Love To My Liking” a program of 13th-century secular music and dance.
ALKEMIE musicians are Sian Ricketts, soprano and recorders; Elena Mullins, soprano and percussion; Tracy Cowart, mezzo-soprano and harp; David McCormick vielle, and Niccolo Seligmann vielle and percussion. The program was created and arranged by Elena Mullins, who lectures on medieval music history at Case Western Reserve University. She collaborated with Tracy Cowart on the dance choreographies, which are based on descriptions and images of dance from the time. Elena Mullins describes the program as: "a plunge into the 13th-century French world of musical merrymaking. The vocal pieces on the program all deal with the topic of love, but from a variety of perspectives. On the one hand we get a taste of what scholars call courtly love, in which a man of noble spirit expresses an almost religious devotion for an unattainable lady. Our program closes with a story-song that parodies courtly love, in which a knight is made to look like a buffoon, and the shepherd Robin wins the day and gets the girl. We get a variety of female perspectives on love as well, from the devastation one woman feels over a lover killed in battle, to the frustration of a young woman stuck in a nunnery. So much of the vocal music written in northern France at this time was influenced by dance, so this program really came alive once we added the element of choreographed dances. They were a real pleasure to bring to life with Tracy Cowart, who in previous years has been a collaborator on baroque dance choreographies." |
The musicians in Alkemie hail from as far away from Ohio and New York, and as close as Harrisonburg, the home of vielle player David McCormick. “The Vielle was a very early violin, and is sometimes called ‘the medieval fiddle,’ ” says McCormick. “Just like our modern violins, vielles were played in both folk music and in sacred and more formal contexts. At this concert you will hear medieval vielle players sounding a bit like one of our country fiddlers at times. This was the pop music of the day. I think the dance and the music in this program will especially resonate with audiences in our area who are into folk and line dancing.
According to Sian Ricketts of Alkemie, “Trouvères and troubadours of 13th-century Northern France created the works of song and poetry on the programs. Like the troubadours in the South, the trouvères of Northern France wrote some of the most captivating vocal music of the 13th-century. In an age long before Spotify, these poet-composers penned the music they wanted to hear and share. Their songs of public and private adoration wove together allusions both sacred and secular – creating mystical and spicy meditations on love and longing.” The program is funded in part by grants to AGAR from National Endowment for the Arts, Virginia Commission for the Arts, Greater Lynchburg Community Foundation and the Piepho Charitable Fund as well as gifts from individuals and corporations. The concert will take place on November 4, 2018, at 4 pm at Amherst Presbyterian Church, 163 Second Street, Amherst, VA. Concert tickets are $15 for adults and seniors, $2 for students K-12 and $5 for college students. All tickets can be ordered through lynchburgtickets.com or may be purchased at the door starting 45 minutes before each performance. The concert will be followed by a supper and meet the artists reception for a donation to benefit the church music program. For further information call 434-989-3215. ![]() To hear Alkemie's music or watch a video performance, please click on their logo. |

LIYA String Quartet
Amherst Glebe Arts Response, Inc. (AGAR) and Emmanuel United Methodist Church, 401 North Main Street, Amherst, will present the LIYA String Quartet at the church on Sunday, October 21 at 4 pm.
The quartet will play String Quartet No. 23 in F Major (“Prussian 3”), K. 590 composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), and String Quartet No. 1 in e minor, “From My Life” by Czech Composer Bedřich Smetana.
Amherst Glebe Arts Response, Inc. (AGAR) and Emmanuel United Methodist Church, 401 North Main Street, Amherst, will present the LIYA String Quartet at the church on Sunday, October 21 at 4 pm.
The quartet will play String Quartet No. 23 in F Major (“Prussian 3”), K. 590 composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), and String Quartet No. 1 in e minor, “From My Life” by Czech Composer Bedřich Smetana.
![]() Featured on the program is an unusual piece, Smetana’s String Quartet No. 1 in E minor “From My Life.” This work is said by music writer John Palmer in allmusic.com to have been the first autobiographical work of chamber music. It was also said to have influence on other Czech composers such as Janacek.
Smetana himself described the first section of this piece in a letter to his friend Czech music historian and critic Josef Srb,(also known with pseudonym Debrnov), "The first movement depicts my youthful leanings toward art, the Romantic atmosphere, the inexpressible yearning for something I could neither express nor define, and also a kind of warning of my future misfortune.” The second section uses polka dance themes, and references the overture of Smetana’s still-performed comic opera, The Bartered Bride. The third section, said Smetana in the same letter, “Reminds me of the happiness of my first love, the girl who later became my faithful wife." The final section both celebrates national Czech music and also brings out a single, held note, signifying the beginning of Smetana’s own deafness. The members of LIYA String Quartet are violinists Christi Salisbury and Yevgeniy Dovgalyuk, violist Domenico Luca Trombetta, and cellist David Feldman. Violinists Yevgeniy Dovgalyuk is the recently appointed concertmaster of the Lynchburg Symphony and is an assistant Professor of Violin at Liberty University. He also serves as a substitute violinist with the National Symphony Orchestra, with whom he toured Russia in 2017. LIYA String Quartet is named for his late sister, Liya. Mr. Dovgalyuk was born in Riga, Latvia, and came to the United States as a child. He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree in Violin Performance from the University of Maryland. Cellist David Feldman performs frequently as a soloist, orchestral and chamber musician. Mr. Feldman has been a member of the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra since 2008 and has performed as a concerto soloist with the Boise State University Orchestra, the New River Valley Symphony, and the Shenandoah Conservatory Orchestra. His popular music ventures include appearances with Liza Minnelli, Art Garfunkel, and the Trans Siberian Orchestra, where he was a featured soloist in 2011. Mr. Feldman has been Assistant Professor of Cello at Liberty University since 2015. |
Violinist Christi Salisbury studied music at Rutgers University, Eastman School of Music and Manhattan School of Music before becoming a violin teacher at violin teacher at the Monmouth Conservatory of Music in Red Bank, New Jersey in 2001. Christi came to Lynchburg in 2007, where she is active as a performer and teacher. She is an adjunct violin teacher at Lynchburg College and has private studios in Lynchburg and Charlottesville, Virginia. She is concertmaster of the James Chamber Players, and performs often with the Roanoke Symphony, the Charlottesville Symphony Orchestra, and Lynchburg Symphony Orchestra .She also performs on baroque violin with North Carolina Baroque Orchestra.
Violist Domenico Luca Trombetta is a native of Catania, Italy, and studied in conservatories in Rome, Milan and Lugano before moving to the United States. Luca has appeared as featured soloist in solo concerts and recitals and has performed around the world with numerous chamber ensembles, orchestras, and world- renowned conductors such as Riccardo Muti, Yuri Temirkanov, Marc Soustrot, Ennio Morricone, Nicola Piovani (Music ofLife is Beautiful),Lu Ja, and Steven White. He holds a DMA from James Madison University and is currently Assistant Professor of Music and Coordinator of the String Programs at Liberty University. Mr. Trombetta is also a frequent performer with Opera on the James and in concert with his wife, American soprano Adelaide Muir Trombetta. The concert will be followed by an artist reception for a donation to Emmanuel UMC. Concert Tickets are $15 for adults and seniors, $2 for students K-12, and $5 for college students, and can be purchased in advance online through LynchburgTickets.com or at the doors of the church 45 minutes before the concert by cash or check. AGAR is a non-profit arts and humanities organization in Amherst County. Its concert season in 2018-2019 is supported in part by: Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts/Art Works, Greater Lynchburg Community Foundation and The Piepho Charitable Trust, as well as local corporations and individuals. |

AYREHEART
AGAR AND SECOND STAGE AMHERST BRING
GRAMMY-NOMINATED RONN McFARLANE
AND AYREHEART BACK TO AMHERST
At Second Stage Amherst,
Sunday, September 23, 2018, at 4 pm
In between appearances in Richmond and Washington, DC, Ronn McFarlane and the Ayreheart Trio have made time to return to Amherst for a 4 pm performance on Sunday, September 23, 2018, at Second Stage. Food and beverages will be sold during the performance.
For centuries, the lute was considered the “prince of instruments,” and lute players were celebrities in royal courts across Europe. Ayreheart, a progressive folk trio founded by lutenist Ronn McFarlane, seeks to restore the instrument to its former glory – but in a modern context. Ayreheart’s concert in Amherst will stress their current fascination with Celtic music of Ireland, the United Kingdom and Brittany, as well as Ronn McFarlane’s recent original songs and tunes from the Renaissance. During the Renaissance and Baroque eras, lute players were songwriters and pop stars who weren’t afraid to improvise. In a manner not so different from their predecessors, the three members of Ayreheart – McFarlane on lute, Willard Morris on fretless bass, violin and colascione, and Mattias Rucht on percussion – all show in their energetic performances their backgrounds in rock and jazz. RonnMcFarlane’s original compositions draw influence from Celtic music, American folk, jazz, and bluegrass, making a case for the lute as a versatile instrument worth incorporating into modern popular music. With Ayreheart, McFarlane is reinventing the lute, giving the instrument its own renaissance, and bringing it to contemporary audiences with eclectic tastes. BIOGRAPHIES FROM THE AYREHEART WEBSITE 2018 RONN MCFARLANE (LUTE) GRAMMY-nominated lutenist, Ronn McFarlane strives to bring the lute - the most popular instrument of the Renaissance - into today’s musical mainstream and make it accessible to a wider audience. At thirteen, upon hearing “Wipeout” by the Surfaris, he fell wildly in love with music and taught himself to play on a "cranky sixteen-dollar steel-string guitar.” Ronn kept at it, playing blues and rock music on the electric guitar while studying classical guitar. He graduated with honors from Shenandoah Conservatory and continued guitar studies at Peabody Conservatory before turning his full attention and energy to the lute in 1978. The following year, Mr. McFarlane began to perform solo recitals on the lute and became a member of the Baltimore Consort. Since then, he has toured throughout the United States, Canada and Europe with the Baltimore Consort and as a soloist. McFarlane was a faculty member of the Peabody Conservatory from 1984 to 1995, teaching lute and lute-related subjects. In 1996, Mr. McFarlane was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Music from Shenandoah Conservatory for his achievements in bringing the lute and its music to the world. He has over 35 recordings on the Dorian/Sono Luminus label, including solo albums, lute duets, flute & lute duets, lute songs, recordings with the Baltimore Consort, the complete lute music of Vivaldi, and Blame Not My Lute, a collection of Elizabethan lute music and poetry, with spoken word by Robert Aubry Davis. Recently, Ronn has been engaged in composing new music for the lute, building on the tradition of the lutenist/composers of past centuries. His original compositions are the focus of his solo CD, Indigo Road, which received a GRAMMY Award Nomination for Best Classical Crossover Album. WILLARD MORRIS (MANDOLIN, COLASCIONE, VIOLIN, FRETLESS BASS) If you rose into high school with a desire to keep your hard-won violin skills as an active part of your academic life but found no options for strings, what would you do? I found myself in just this situation. Looking through the list of music class options available, jazz band was the only class in which I could play a string instrument, the bass. But I’d never played bass. And I had no real experience playing traditional jazz either. What to do? I got it stuck in my mind that I’d take up the bass and take that class, but the jazz band members are the top players of the school and new students had to audition to take the class. How could I possibly make the cut in a music style I’d no experience with, on an instrument I’d never played before with barely two months to prepare? I borrowed a neighbor’s amplifier and rented an electric bass that summer and by my determination, taught myself to read the bass clef and relate it to playing the bass. The bass strings are the familiar E, A, D and G tuned in intervals of fourths, the reverse order to the violin’s fifths I’d grown up with - it was like entering a weird backwards world. |
Spending hours a day with the bass and growing accustomed to the new order of finger placements that present themselves by playing arpeggios and scales, it was easy to see the predictable patterns that naturally occur. Besides learning the mechanics of the bass, I gave myself a deep immersion into improvisation by playing along with with the radio, anything that would be broadcast - jazz, rock, funk, country, without reservation or judgement of the music, just playing along because I so desperately needed experience. This was the birth of my bass life. I could’ve been easily cut from jazz band by the well-established seniors, but I managed to pass audition just well enough to keep a position in the class. I practiced every day, taking home all the charts that were in our folders and playing through on my own as my daily, self-assigned, homework. It wasn’t easy, there were some very difficult professional level charts. Sometimes with written out bass parts sometimes just chord symbols, sometimes a mixture of both. I’d enjoyed listening to jazz as young kid but only had classical music as my way into music making, so that freshman year was how jazz was cultivated into my musical life. In subsequent years, I’d play with other friends and form rock bands as was common for kids at the time. All good education albeit in nontraditional form. Throughout high school, I continued formal violin studies and was fortunate to have found an instructor whose philosophy of music teaching was to give the student all the means needed for the student to learn for themselves. When I first started lessons with him, he actually told me that his job was to obsolete himself. That was amazing to me. It was this rare gift that has given so much to me, not just in music, but in many aspects of life. By way of this, I simultaneously learned to play mandolin, piano, guitar, saxophone, flute and banjo in my teen years. It wasn’t long before I brought my newly found jazz improvisation to the violin and developed a flair for nonclassical music styles on an otherwise very classic instrument. At the time it was uncommon and didn’t have a easy place to fit in, so playing bass provided many more money making gigs than did the violin but playing the classics remained a staple of my life, even if by myself in the solo sonatas and partitas by J.S.Bach. While pursuing electronics engineering during college, I was determined not to let my music education go dormant. I’d read books, talked with other music professionals and asked many questions, read more books and was knowledgeable enough to tutor my music major peers in their theory classes. But the greatest music education was gained by my desire to compose. It was through this exercise that I learned the most about the crafting of music. Performing and recording with a wide variety of music acts over the years had shaped my take on music, and bass playing in particular, into a well suited match to accompany Ronn McFarlane’s modern lute music. When asked if I could take up the colascione to enable Ayreheart’s performance of early music, as well as acoustic versions of McFarlane’s contemporary music for lute, I blindly embraced the opportunity even though I’d never played a colascione before. Even though its similar to playing a standard bass, the nuance of making music with it is quite different. I’ve enjoyed this most recent addition to my quiver of instruments ever since.
MATTIAS RUCHT (FRAME DRUM, CAJON, UDU DRUM, VARIOUS PERCUSSION) Mattias Rucht has been immersed in music his entire life. His father was a symphony conductor and his mother was a pianist. His first playground was in the midst of the orchestra and behind the stage. He started playing the drum-set at the age of twelve and began playing in southern rock bands at the age of fifteen. By college, he had advanced to jazz fusion. Mattias has been involved in multimedia development for many years. He has composed music for animation, games, film & video and has had a computer-based studio since 1984. At one point, all the instruments that he used were MIDI and electronic. Around 2002, Mattias started listening to some of the masters of world percussion and what they were doing with acoustic instruments. A simple tambourine or djembe could be more expressive than a rack of electronic instruments. This sparked his interest in world percussion and getting back to basics. Since then, he has discovered the joy of ethnic percussion and world music, bringing a wide range of influences to his playing style. Mattias Rucht has been active in the Washington DC music scene for over 25 years as a drummer/percussionist, playing in various rock, jazz, folk and world ensembles. He has also performed in theatrical productions and accompanied dancers and storytellers. |