30 June 6 • 2019
jn
SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
W
hen violinist Kate Dreyfuss
appears at Temple Beth El in
one of many concerts sched-
uled for the Great
Lakes Chamber
Music Festival,
she knows she will
recall a unique
musical experi-
ence highlighting
her bat mitzvah
celebration.
One of her
religious class-
mates had been
soprano Marisa
Karchin, whose
father, composer
Louis Karchin, wrote a piece for the girls
to present together during services and
joined them at piano.
“That probably was the first piece I
premiered, and getting to play contem-
porary music in a similar setting will be
very meaningful,
” says Dreyfuss, a mem-
ber of the F-PLUS trio that includes clar-
inetist Andy Hudson and percussionist
Josh Graham championing the works of
today’
s composers.
The trio will be part of eight concerts,
among some 30, planned June 15-30 in
different city and suburban venues as the
festival spotlights award-winning musi-
cians as well as emerging talents.
F-PLUS will be at Temple Beth El
10:45 a.m.-1 p.m. Friday, June 21, as part
of a program that includes pianist Alessio
Bax, violinist Kimberly Kaloyanides
Kennedy and cellist Paul Watkins, fes-
tival artistic director, with pieces by
Beethoven, Marcello and Rachmaninov.
A light luncheon after the concert will
include a conversation with Paul Epstein,
scholar and program notes annotator.
Temple Beth El joined with St. Hugo
of the Hills Catholic Church and Kirk in
the Hills Presbyterian Church in 1994 to
launch this annual secular event admin-
istered by Detroit Chamber Winds &
Strings.
“My trio will be performing as one of
the Shouse Institute ensembles, which
provides opportunities for young profes-
sional groups to work with festival artists
and perform alongside our mentors,
”
says Dreyfuss, 27, who began studying
violin when she was 3, took a break from
scholarly music to get
a bachelor’
s degree
in French literature
from Princeton and
returned to music,
completing a master’
s
degree and working
on doctoral require-
ments at Stony Brook
University.
“This festival is a
unique opportunity
to spend a significant amount of time
among musicians of such a high caliber,
”
she says. “Our group’
s situation is unique
because we’
re a classical music ensemble
in nontraditional instrumentation.
”
F-PLUS instrumentalists, who met
in 2016 at the Bang on a Can Summer
Music Festival at the Massachusetts
Museum of Contemporary Art, started
out creating their own repertoire by ask-
ing composer friends to write music or
adapt pre-existing works for their slightly
different sound combinations. They
went on to commission about 20 works
by going to many concerts so they could
listen to pieces by diverse composers.
“For the first time, we just ran a call
for scores to discover music we might
not know about otherwise,
” Dreyfuss
says. “We learned about work by com-
posers from all over the world in a com-
petition of submitted scores.
“We didn’
t ask for composers to write
pieces to submit. They submitted previ-
ous works, and the winner will write a
new piece [to be performed and record-
ed]. We’
re going to announce our winner
June 15, once we get to
Great Lakes.
”
In applying for the
Great Lakes Festival,
F-PLUS submitted a list
of pieces they loved to
play and will be per-
forming five of them.
One existed before they
started the ensemble, but
the rest were either com-
missioned or adapted.
“There’
s actually a work being writ-
ten for us right now that we’
re going to
premiere at the festival,
” says Dreyfuss,
whose trio is making its Great Lakes
premiere. “The piece is by Matthew
Barnson, who teaches composition at
Stony Brook.
”
F-PLUS also is doing some combined
pieces with other festival artists and
other Shouse ensembles, ultimately per-
forming about a dozen works over the
two weeks.
Dreyfuss has widened her inde-
pendent career by also playing solo
and being a full-time member of
Contemporaneous, a chamber orchestra
of 22 musicians based in New York City.
As a substitute in the chamber group
ETHEL, she recently added her talents
to string quartets by Julia Wolfe at the
Jewish Museum in New York.
“I love all kinds of playing, but chamber
music is the majority of what I do,
” the
violinist explains. “It’
s the most rewarding
because playing music with other people
is a transcendent experience.
“I think every musician should play in
as many different contexts as they possi-
bly can because each kind of playing has
its own challenges and inspiration.
”
The trio, which has participated in
concert and instructional programs at
Central Michigan University and Grand
Valley State University, welcomes the
opportunity to return to Michigan stages
to join many people prominent in the
chamber music circuit.
“Violinist Philip Seltzer is on the fac-
ulty at Stony Brook, where I have studied
with him and worked on chamber music
with him,
” Dreyfuss says. “I’
ve appeared
with violinist Eugene Drucker at Stony
Brook, and we’
ll be on the same program
at Great Lakes.
“I’
ve never worked with Leila
Josefowicz, but I have admired her
for years. I’
m excited about the piec-
es she will be playing because one is
Stravinsky’
s Concertante. I just per-
formed this piece on one of my doctoral
recitals and gave a lecture on it.
“I’
m thrilled we get to open for her
recital. She is a champion for new works
for the violin, and she performs a lot of
contemporary works as well as classical
works. That’
s something I aspire to do
with my professional life.
” ■
arts&life
details
The Great Lakes Chamber
Music Festival will be presented
June 15-30 at various venues.
For a complete schedule and
pricing information, call (248)
559-2097 or visit
greatlakeschambermusic.org.
Great Lakes Chamber Fest
F-PLUS, a classical trio in nontraditional instrumentation,
to play in eight concerts.
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Violinist Kate Dreyfuss
Kate Dreyfuss, Josh Graham and Andy Hudson
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