arts & entertainment
Great Lakes
Great Music.
Four Jewish musicians make Great Lakes
Chamber Musical Festival debuts.
Bill Carroll
Contributing Writer
M
usic with a distinct Russian
flavor will dominate the 19th
annual Great Lakes Chamber
Music Festival, running June 9-24 with 15
subscription performances and five non-
subscription concerts in venues across
the Metro Detroit area, including four
events June 12-15 at Temple Beth El in
Bloomfield Township.
In addition to Temple Beth El,
other subscription concert locations
are Seligman Performing Arts Center
in Beverly Hills; Kirk in the Hills
Presbyterian Church and St. Hugo of the
Hills Catholic Church, both in Bloomfield
Hills; and Grosse Pointe Memorial Church
in Grosse Pointe Farms. Three of the five
non-subscription concerts will take place
at the Kerrytown Concert House in Ann
Arbor and two at the Detroit Institute of
Arts.
Titled White Nights: A Musical Journey
Through Russia, the festival will present
music by Russia's greatest composers,
including Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff,
Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich.
Among the many world-class musicians
participating will be four Jewish artists
appearing in the festival for the first time:
composer Joel Hoffman, one of whose
works will have its world premiere; violin-
ist Itamar Zorman; and husband and wife
pianists Eugene and Elisabeth Pridonoff.
Returning Jewish performers include
violinist/violist Yehonatan Berick; cellist
Paul Katz; clarinetist Lawrence Liberson;
mezzo soprano Lauren Skuce and her
husband, baritone Daniel Gross (cantor
at Adat Shalom Synagogue); and some
members of the Israel-formed Ariel String
Quartet.
The festival will get off to a rousing
start at 8 p.m. Saturday,
June 9, at Seligman
Performing Arts Center
with Stravinsky's Les
Noces ("The Wedding"),
featuring soprano Molly
Fillmore, Skuce and Gross,
tenor Jason Wickson,
four festival pianists, the
Michigan State University
Chorale and eight MSU
percussionists. The per-
formance will be the larg-
est ever presented by the
Elisabeth and
festival.
Some of the Russian-themed music
will be performed by Russian artists,
including pianist Sofla Gulbadamova and
soprano Olga Orlovskaya, as well as by
cellist David Geringas; although not of
Russian descent, he grew up in Moscow.
In her native tongue, Orlovskaya also will
perform traditional Russian songs from
Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky.
Joining Geringas in Tchaikovsky's Piano
Trio in A Minor at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and
Wednesday, June 19-20, at St. Hugo of the
Hills, will be festival newcomer Itamar
Zorman, who received the Silver Medal
at the 2011 International Tchaikovsky
Competition in Russia.
"The Piano Trio is a long, but stirring,
piece with a tragic tone to it because
Tchaikovsky wrote it as a memorial to a
deceased composer',' said Zorman, born in
1985 in Tel Aviv into a family of musicians.
The Israeli native is now living and study-
ing in New York City. Considered a "vir-
tuoso of emotions;' he plays on a Pietro
Guarneri violin from 1745.
Zorman began playing the violin at
age 6, attended the Israeli Conservatory
of Music for 12 years and has completed
the fourth of his music degrees: an art-
ist diploma from the Juilliard School.
He earned a bachelor's degree from the
Jerusalem Academy of Music, a master's
from Juilliard and another artist diploma
from Manhattan School of Music.
Other Zorman performances are at
10:45 a.m. Friday, June 22, at Kirk in the
Hills; 8 p.m. Saturday, June 23, at Seligman
Performing Arts Center (subscription
series closing night); and 2 p.m. Sunday,
June 24, at Kerrytown Concert House.
Elisabeth Pridonoff, born in Louisiana,
is a first-generation American in her
Russian family. Her father, who lived
until 103, came to America to escape the
Russian pogroms.
Her mother was a
Holocaust survivor.
"I started play-
ing the piano at the
age of 4, and now
I've been teaching
it for 32 years:' said
Pridonoff, who studied
both piano and voice
at Juilliard. She and
her husband, pianist
Eugene Pridonoff,
both
are teachers at
Eugene Pridonoff
Itamar
Zorman is a founding member
of the "Israeli Chamber Project,"
which has toured internationally
across Israel and North America.
the University of Cincinnati's College-
Conservatory of Music and co-artistic
directors of the CCM Prague International
Piano Institute in the Czech Republic.
The couple — two of whose sons live
in Israel (one of them studying to be a
rabbi) — have performed together as
the Pridonoff Duo since 1982. Eugene
Pridonoff studied with Rudolf Serkin
at the Curtis Institute of Music and has
enjoyed an international performing
and teaching career for more than four
decades.
They will play Rite of Spring, regarded
as Stravinsky's most famous ballet, on
the same piano at 8 p.m. Saturday and
7:30 p.m. Sunday, June 16-17, at Seligman
Performing Arts Center.
"It will be different and very interest-
ing," said Elisabeth Pridonoff. "We're
looking forward to the challenge' The
Pridonoffs will accompany dancers from
the Eisenhower Dance Ensemble, with
new choreography by EDE artistic director
Laurie Eisenhower.
Elisabeth Pridonoff also will join
Zorman at St. Hugo of the Hills on June
19-20.
Composer Joel Hoffman, a native of
Canada and also a pianist, will serve as
the Stone Composer-in-Residence at
the festival. He attended Juilliard and is
a composition professor at Cincinnati's
College-Conservatory of Music.
Joel Hoffman
Hoffman will not
play at the festival, but
he will narrate Stone
Soup for solo violin and
narrator, one of eight
of his compositions
that will be performed
during the festival, at
11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.
Sunday, June 17, at the
Detroit Institute of
Arts.
"My music draws from such diverse
sources as Eastern European folk music
and bebop," he said. "I strive for lyricism
and rhythmic vitality."
His Piano Trio No. 4, called the
"Composer Concert:' will have its world
premiere at 7:30 p.m. Monday, June 18,
during an all-Hoffman concert of five
works at Kirk in the Hills.
Other performances of his works are at
7:30 p.m. Thursday and 10:45 p.m. Friday,
June 14-15, at Temple Beth El; 8 p.m.
Saturday, June 16, at Seligman Performing
Arts Center; and 8 p.m. Friday, June 22, at
Kerrytown Concert House.
The other world premiere at the fes-
tival, Songlines, by Stone Composer
Fellow Michael Ippolito of New York,
will be played at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and
Wednesday, June 12-13, at Temple Beth
El. Ippolito studied with Hoffman in
Cincinnati.
❑
Subscription series tickets are $90 (three concerts), $135 (five concerts) and
$170 (seven concerts). Single tickets are $40 at Seligman Performing Arts
Center/$35 all other venues/$10 students 25 years old and younger. Add $5
if purchasing at the door. For tickets, a complete schedule of events and more
information about repertoires, pre-talks and venues, call (248) 559-2095 or
visit www.greatlakeschambermusic.org .
Groups of eight or more, call (248) 559-2097.
For non-subscription tickets, call the Detroit Institute of Arts, 313) 833-
4005; or Kerrytown Concert House, (734) 769-2999.
May 31 • 2012
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