Arts & Entertainment
Chamber Music Cello-bration
Cellist Steven Isserlis honors composers marking
anniversary years in CMSD concert.
Suzanne Chessler
Special to the Jewish News
C
ellist Steven Isserlis, who turned
30 before his chamber and orches-
tral performances came together
in a successful classical career, segments his
time between work for adults and children.
Isserlis, soon appearing in a sophisti-
cated celebration of musical anniversaries
with pianist Denes Varjon, is known for
special concerts, recordings and books
planned for young people.
The cellist, based in London, appears
Saturday evening, March 27, at the
Seligman Performing Arts Center in
Beverly Hills, where the program includes
pieces by Barber, Schumann, Chopin and
Dohnanyi. The concert is sponsored by the
Chamber Music Society of Detroit.
"I chose the pieces because all the com-
posers have important anniversaries this
year, and their music seems to fit together
very well: says Isserlis, who has played
with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
"I knew about Barber, who would have
been 100 this year, and I knew about
Schumann and Chopin, who would have
been 200. I went looking for another piece,
and I had it in the back of my mind that
Dohnanyi had died in 1960. I looked it up,
ews
low
and indeed he had. That made it the 50th
anniversary of his death."
Isserlis, 51, defines the concert as high-
energy.
"The Barber piece was written when
Barber was still a teenager, and it's sort of
teenage passion right from the first phrase,'
explains the cellist, grandson of composer-
pianist Julian Isserlis. "The Chopin sonata,
in contrast, is one of Chopin's last works,
full of dance rhythms and very strong.
"The Schumann piece actually is the
composer's last work in a major form and
wasn't published until 100 years after his
death. It's groundbreaking and pushes the
boundaries of what's possible in a short
sonata. The Dohnanyi piece is another
young man's piece. It's lighthearted, a
young man enjoying his own mastery."
Isserlis and Varjon will be doing this pro-
gram quite a few times this season. The two
met at a study program, where Isserlis was
teaching, and began working together.
"It's like we have a constant conversa-
tion in concert:' the cellist says. "We talk
to each other as we're playing, and we've
become great friends."
Isserlis began his interest in cello as a
child in England, when his parents chose
the instrument to round out family talents.
His mother worked as a piano teacher, and
Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News
oat Slacker Guy
lake Ben Stiller, 44, stars in the film
G
I Greenberg, opening Friday, March 26,
am as Roger Greenberg, a New York Jew
and former musician who finds himself
at mid-life without a career. A nervous
breakdown prompts him to move to
Los Angeles to housesit for his wealthy
brother. Labeling
anyone successful a
"sellout," his disdain
extends to just about
the whole world
(including himself).
In the film's only
overtly Jewish scene,
Ben Stiller
Greenberg meets up
at a barbecue with some successful
Jewish friends who enjoy bantering
about "Jewish things" like going to
one another's seders. The camarade-
rie appalls Greenberg, who doesn't see
its)
58
March 25 • 2010
himself connected to any "tribe."
Two women figure prominently in
the film: Greenberg's ex-girlfriend
(Jennifer Jason Leigh, 48, who
co-wrote the film) and Florence, his
brother's pretty young assistant (Greta
Gerwig). The ex-girlfriend has moved
on with her life; the assistant, some-
thing of a lost soul herself, enters into
a rocky romance with Greenberg.
The film is directed and co-written
by Noah Baumbach (The Squid and
the "Whale), 40. Baumbach and Leigh
have been married for five years and
are now expecting their first child.
Dragon Tale
Also opening on
Friday is the ani-
mated comedy How
to Train Your Dragon,
set on a mythical
island where Vikings
fight dragons.
One young Viking,
his father played amateur violin. His
sisters studied viola and violin.
After taking lessons in London and
Scotland, Isserlis went on to Oberlin
College in Ohio.
Steven Isserlis
"I played at little music clubs and
made my career by word of mouth
that I really liked. I started writing about
with other musicians:' says Isserlis,
Beethoven, and it got accepted. Later, I was
who this season appears with the BBC
commissioned for a second text. There are
Symphony Orchestra, Budapest Festival
about six composers in each book."
Orchestra, Orchestre Champs-Elysees and
Isserlis, who practices in a room filmed
the Hong Kong Philharmonic. "I was 25
with pictures of famous composers and
when I first recorded and 30 when I first
performers as well as family members,
played with a major American orchestra."
finds away-from-music enjoyment by read-
Isserlis, who considers himself cultural- ing and dining out at notable restaurants.
ly Jewish, has performed Bloch's Schelomo
"I love to give recitals with piano and play
with the Israel Philharmonic in Tel Aviv.
cello music on a larger scale,' Isserlis says. "I
A disc coming out in September, still
like to explore the slightly unusual side of the
untitled, will have two Jewish pieces, one
repertoire as well as the standard pieces.
by Bloch and another by Ravel.
"There's something very special about
The instrumentalist's recent recordings
giving a recital with piano. One can be
include works by Schumann and Bach. He
very intimate and play softer than one can
recorded the Children's Cello with pianist
with orchestra. I like the sense of compan-
Stephen Hough.
ionship, both musical and personal."
"I started writing children's books for
my son, who is becoming a filmmaker
Steven Isserlis performs 8 p.m.
in America," explains Isserlis, author of
Saturday, March 27, at the Seligman
Why Beethoven Threw the Stew and Why
Performing Arts Center, 22305 W.13
Handel Waggled His Wig.
Mile,
in Beverly Hills. $25-$75. (248)
"I wanted to buy him a book about clas-
855-6070;
www.ComeHearCMSD.org .
sical composers, but I couldn't find one
named Hiccup Haddock II (voiced
by Jay Baruchel, 27) captures and
befriends a dragon. Christopher
Mintz-Plasse, 20, does the voice of
Fishlegs Ingerman, Hiccup's friend,
and Jonah Hill, 26, voices Snotlout
Jorgenson, a mean and smelly Viking
who dislikes Hiccup.
Homer In
Jerusalem
"The Greatest Story
Ever D'Ohed," the
Simpsons episode
airing 8 p.m. Sunday,
March 28, on FOX,
includes scenes of
Julie Kavner
Homer and Bart
Simpson at the Western Wall with
their Israeli tour guide, Jacob (voiced
by Sacha Baron Cohen, 38), who also
exchanges barbs with Marge Simpson
(voiced by Julie Kavner, 59). In the
episode, Homer gets "Jerusalem
Syndrome" and thinks he's the Messiah.
Call Me 'Didi'
As I write this, Vered
"Didi" Benami, 22,
is still in the run-
ning to be this year's
American Idol, hav-
ing made it to the
Top 11. The pretty
Didi Benami
blond singer was
raised in Knoxville, Tenn. She was
working as a waitress in Los Angeles
before the Idol competition started.
Her given name (which means "Rose"
in Hebrew) was often mispronounced
down in Knoxville, so she says she
told everyone to call her "Didi."
Benami has real talent and charm,
so she may have a big career, wheth-
er or not she wins Idol. But her reli-
gious background is murky. A couple
of Jewish papers have reported that
her parents are Israeli. My research
indicates that her father is an Israeli
Jew, but her mother is probably a
non-Jewish native of Tennessee. ❑