arts & life

Triple Play

Three nights of
piano trios come
to Michigan.

1-details

The Kalichstein-Laredo-

Robinson Trio will perform

at 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 6, at

the Music Box at the Max M.

Fisher Music Center, Detroit;

8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 7, at

the Seligman Performing

Arts Center, Beverly Hills;

and 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 8, at

Varner Recital Hall, Oakland

University, Rochester. $10-$60.

For details: (248) 855-6070;

chambermusicdetroit.org .

Celebrity Jews

Nate Bloom

Special to the Jewish News

AT THE MOVIES
Opening this week: Still
Alice was co-written and co-
directed by Richard Glatzer,
62, and his husband, Wash
Westmoreland. Julianne
Moore stars as Alice, a
Columbia linguistics professor
who is diagnosed with early-
onset Alzheimer's disease.
Moore has already received
a Golden Globe award (best
actress, drama) for her
nuanced portrayal of Alice's

54

February 5 • 2015

Suzanne Chessler
I Contributing Writer

ianist Joseph Kalichstein
is used to thinking in
threes as part of the
Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson
Trio.
But in his return to Michigan,
there is even more emphasis on
the number.
His chamber group will be
performing a three-part festival
over three days using three differ-
ent venues in a program hosted
by the Chamber Music Society of
Detroit (CMSD).
The Beethoven Festival runs
Feb. 6-8, starting at the Music
Box at the Max M. Fisher Music
Center in Detroit, then moving
on to the Seligman Performing
Arts Center in Beverly Hills and
concluding at Varner Recital Hall
in Rochester.
"This series encompasses the
entire trio literature of Beethoven
played on piano, cello [Jaime
Laredo] and violin [Sharon
Robinson]," says New Jersey-
based Kalichstein. "It's a journey
through Beethoven's entire life,
and it's a fantastic opportunity to
travel with him.
"The piano trio, just like the
string quartet, was a favorite
[form] for him so he wrote them
throughout his life. They're all
masterpieces, and they're all dif-

p

struggle to stay connected
and is a favorite to win the
best-actress Oscar. Glatzer, a
University of Michigan grad,
has long battled ALS and this
struggle might have informed
his work on this highly praised
film.
Jupiter Ascending, a sci-fi
flick, was written and directed
by "the Wachowskis" (best
known for the Matrix series).
The complex plot posits that
an aristocratic alien group has
harvested living creatures all
over the universe. Channing
Tatum plays an alien warrior
who comes to Earth to protect
Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis,

ferent from each other because he
was constantly experimenting"
Aside from connecting with
the music, which the trio has
performed many times on stage
and recorded, there are strong
emotional connections.
Kalichstein's trio had been
scheduled to perform the three
concerts Sept. 10-12, 2001, at the
Kennedy Center in Washington,
D.C. They heard about the terror-
ist attacks as they were heading to
rehearsal for their second concert.
After that event was canceled,
they went ahead with the series'
third program, after calling to
include ticket-holders for the can-
celled program.
"We don't do this series many
times, but it's always very emo-
tional and exhilarating" says
Kalichstein, 69. "It's sort of a
catharsis for us to be able to play
the three concerts:'
The trio, in its 38th year with
many international appearances,
has performed 10 times for the
CMSD. Kalichstein also has per-
formed in solo appearances with
the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
Leonard Slatkin, symphony music
director, attended the Juilliard
School with Kalichstein, who now
teaches there.
The pianist started studying
at Juilliard after finishing high
school early in Israel, where he
often returns to teach and has

31), a house
cleaner who
is unaware
that she
is seeded
genetic alien
royalty and
royal heir to
the Earth.

SHORT TV TAKES
I only recently found out that
actress Genevieve Angelson,
28, a relative newcomer, is
Jewish. She co-stars in the
Fox series Backstrom, which
premiered on Jan. 22 (new
episodes air Thursdays at 9
p.m.). Angelson plays Nicole

Kalic hstein, center, is joined by Laredo and Robinson

been active with the America-
Israel Cultural Foundation.
"I don't have much time to
teach so I have a very small class
at Juilliard," Kalichstein says. "I
find it fantastic because I believe
people learn as they teach.
"A teacher is forced to listen in
a very acute way and has to think
why something is not working
or not good, and that helps with
[one's own performance]:'
The trio first worked together
at festivities for the presidential
inauguration of Jimmy Carter
in 1977. The idea for the three
instrumentalists working together
came after Kalichstein filled in for
a pianist who had to bow out of
an event planned by Laredo.
Kalichstein credits their long
association to seeing music in the
same way and having strong feel-
ings for the pieces they choose to
perform.
"We feel innately comfortable
together, but we also know how
to work together, even when it
gets very intense and emotional,
without losing perspective and
respect:' he says.

"We plan two years in advance
what we will play in a particular
year and offer a few possibilities
to venues. Very often, a venue will
ask us to exchange a certain piece,
and we try to accommodate that"
In an extensive repertoire,
the trio's most recent record-
ing, Passionate Diversions, is
dedicated to the work of Ellen
Taaffe Zwilich, the first woman
composer to win a Pulitzer Prize
for music. The recording, on the
Azica label, includes her quintet,
septet and trio. The CMSD co-
commissioned the quintet and
the septet, and both have been
performed in CMSD series.
Music is in the family for
Kalichstein: His wife, attorney
Rowain Kalichstein, and two sons,
one in design and the other in
finance, are hobbyist musicians.
And he is the grandson of a can-
tor killed in the Holocaust.
"There's hardly a season
when we don't play at least one
Beethoven program" Kalichstein
says. "It's nice every once in a
while to come back and do all of
the pieces"

Gravely, a po-
lice detective
who is paired
with Det. Lt.
Everett Back-
strom (Rainn
Wilson), an
acerbic but
brilliant inves-

Cohen, 53) as a spy. They
fall in love and are allowed to
move to America, provided
they become a "sleeper cell"
and obey any future orders
from Moscow. They have two
adult children: Their daughter,
Natalie (played by Russian-
born Margarita Levieva, 34),
knows her parents are spies;
their son, Alex, is an idealistic
CIA analyst who doesn't know
his parents' secret. Things
suddenly change when Mos-
cow orders the parents to turn
Alex into a Russian spy and to
aid a Russian terrorist attack
within America. What will they
do? Tune in. ❑

Angelson

tigator.
The NBC series, Allegiance,
which premieres on Feb. 5 at
10 p.m., is based on an Israeli
series and set in the present-
day. The premise: Years ago,
Russian-born Katya (Hope
Davis) is tasked by the KGB
to recruit American business-
man Mark O'Connor (Scott

❑