music

Ending
With A
Crescendo

Suzanne Chessler | Contributing Writer

The CMSD wraps

up its season

with high-profile

performers.

details

The Ariel Quartet and
Alon Goldstein will perform
at 8 p.m. Saturday, May 14, at
the Seligman Performing Arts
Center in Beverly Hills. $16-
$64. Goldstein will play at 8
p.m. Friday, May 13, at Schaver
Recital Hall in Detroit. $15-$30.
(248) 737-9980; cmsdetroit.org.

M

usicians raised and
schooled in Israel
will be spotlighted at
this season’s closing concert for
the Chamber Music Society of
Detroit (CMSD) — string players
in the Ariel Quartet and pianist
Alon Goldstein.
The collaboration of these
international performers is not
new.
At the end of last year, they all
appeared together in New York,
presenting a Mozart program. For
Michigan, they chose the Brahms
Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34
and will be playing it Saturday
evening, May 14, at the Seligman
Performing Arts Center in
Beverly Hills, where the quartet
also will be featuring works by
Haydn, Webern and Bartok.
The evening before, Goldstein
will present a solo recital for
CMSD to close the 2015-16
Midtown Series at Schaver Recital
Hall in Detroit. “Orchestral Music
@ the Piano” will include selec-
tions by Bach, Schubert, Liszt,
Ligeti and Debussy.
Ariel violinist Gershon
Gerchikov looks forward to the
experience of joining instru-
mental forces. He has performed
with the Jerusalem Symphony
Orchestra, Yad Harif Chamber
Orchestra and the St. Petersburg
Radio Orchestra.
“A quartet has a closed, inti-
mate dynamic so it’s an interest-
ing process working with a fifth
member,” says Gerchikov, 31, in
a phone conversation from the
quartet’s base in Ohio. “We need
to preserve the integrity of the
quartet while working with this
fifth person.

“Collaboration always becomes
a refreshing and rewarding pro-
cess because it forces us to open
up our chamber antennas, not
relying on things we’ve worked
on for weeks and months and
years. Things have to happen
right at the moment.
“Normally, collaborations have
one or two rehearsals, which cre-
ates a different circumstance as
far as the familiarity with one
another established as a quartet
working together every day.”
Three members of the quar-
tet — Gerchikov, violinist
Alexandra Kazovsky and cellist
Amit Even-Tov — have been in
the same group since they were
13. A recent member, violist Jan
Gruning (married to Even-Tov),
is from Germany.
“We started together as part
of a chamber music class at the
Jerusalem Academy Middle
School of Music and Dance,”
Gerchikov explains. “Very
quickly, we realized what a magi-
cal medium this is. We clicked
together as friends and loved the
process of spending hours in a
room exploring amazing music.
Our performances, first inside
Israel and then outside Israel,
were gradual and natural.”
The foursome, based in
Cincinnati while serving as
quartet-in-residence at the
University of Cincinnati College-
Conservatory of Music, has trav-
eled to Michigan for programs
in Metro Detroit and Ann Arbor.
Goldstein has appeared at the
Gilmore International Keyboard
Festival in Kalamazoo.
All appear regularly in Israel,
where they also teach.

Alon Goldstein

The Ariel Quartet

Goldstein, who made his
orchestral debut at 18 with the
Israel Philharmonic as directed
by Zubin Mehta, described his
performance approach to the
Jerusalem Post.
“I never try to be different for
the sake of it, but I try to pres-
ent a premier performance of a
piece,” explained Goldstein, who
recently recorded Mozart con-
certos.
“You have to become three per-
sons — one does the homework;
the second performs, while the
third sits among the audience to
tell the first if the second played
as he planned it. This ability
to detach from oneself and ask
questions is essential for self-
learning.”
Gerchikov explains that the
quartet’s approach is playing only
music members absolutely love.
“The Haydn ‘Sunrise’ is one
of the first quartets we had a
chance to hear live, and it holds
a very special place in our hearts
because of that,” he says. “We

haven’t been playing this piece for
many years, but we’ve been living
with it for a very long time.
“If there’s one piece I can play
every day, any day, for the rest
of my life, it’s the Brahms ‘Piano
Quintet.’ It’s Brahms in his glory
and rounds everything out.”
All four quartet members
studied at the New England
Conservatory of Music, where
cellist Paul Katz was an important
mentor. Ariel also is associated
with the American Israel Cultural
Foundation, participating in ben-
efit concerts.
“We put a big emphasis on
bringing integrity to a score,”
Gerchikov says. “We believe our
job is to internalize and translate
the drama of the narrative on the
page.
“We put big energy on stage
presence and the way to engage an
audience. I would hope others are
trying to do that, all with a differ-
ent perspective and angle.”

*

May 5 • 2016

53