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Event
Ukiah Symphony presents The Milou Trio
Milou Trio Comes to Ukiah January 29, 2017 by Roberta Werdinger The Milou Trio, featuring Bay Area musicians David Michael Goldblatt (cello), Diane Nicholeris (violin), and Gwendolyn Mok (piano), will grace the Ukiah area on Sunday, January 29, at 2 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church. On the program are Maurice Ravel's Piano Trio in A Minor and Dmitri Shostakovich's Piano Trio in E Minor. Written in 1914 and 1944 respectively, both pieces are powerful responses to the individual and collective tragedies of war. Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) wrote his Piano Trio in A Minor not as a far-off observer of war but as someone who leaped into the midst of it. The French composer and pianist was already working on the Piano Trio in A Minor when war broke out in Europe in August of 1914; hastening to finish it, Ravel tried to enlist in the army, only to be told that he was too famous to risk his life. He ended up an ambulance driver, which meant he had to pick up dead or wounded bodies; this piece is dedicated to one such fallen friend. The music replicates the elation, grief, and despair that war evokes. First, we hear a delicate, wistful sonata, followed by a dazzling scherzo which uses coloristic techniques (including harmonics, glissandos, and arpeggios) to create effects in each of the three instruments so resonant that they sound like a full orchestra. The third movement is build around a bass chord progression called "passacaille" (French for the Italian "passacaglia"), a mournful soundscape where each instrument seems to strain upward separately and then together to find harmony. The last movement picks up the pace, the instruments seeming to quiver with excitement as they convey the rush of the composer as he prepares to go off to war. Dmitri Shostakovich (Russian, 1906-1975) was in midlife and mid-career when he wrote the Piano Trio in E Minor in 1944, while Russia was suffering catastrophic losses to the Germans in World War II. The piece was written for his close friend Ivan Sollertinsky, a noted musicologist who died in a wartime evacuation. It was also a response to the slaughter of European Jews in the Holocaust, news of which was trickling in. The composer continued to break ground that Ravel had before him by beginning the first movement with almost 30 bars of harmonics, which create a high whistling sound on the cello. Gwendolyn Mok comments that the piece "starts off haunted. You're experiencing the loss in the cemetery." The second movement is a whirling waltz, joyful but with a frantic edge underneath. The third movement is somber and slow, again using a passacaglia bass pattern to create a somber note. The fourth movement introduces rhythms and melodies from Jewish music. The violin and the cello play a mournful melody on top of a rippling piano that seems to express panic. This gives way to a grim march rhythm played by piano while the violin strings are plucked, before bursting out in emotional chords. "Right now being a musician is a very powerful profession for me," says Mok, who has helped curate spoken word and music events that respond to war at Old First Church in San Francisco. "Our world is in turmoil without question. Sometimes when people are at their worst-- whether it's assassinations, people killed by trucks or refugees--it's artists who can respond with the best message." Composers and the musicians who play their music are able to channel emotions in a universal language that may otherwise feel inexpressible. Moreover, music has an ability to unite people who may otherwise be divided by war. The two pieces the Milou Trio has chosen are rich in resonance for their own time and for our own, encouraging listeners to express sadness and fear, to find meaning and to heal. Mok encourages the audience to listen to both pieces of music before they attend. "Both break new ground with techniques for string players," she notes, pointing out how Shostakovich was aware of and built on Ravel's earlier innovations. A Juilliard graduate who has recorded for major labels and performed with orchestras worldwide, Mok is currently Coordinator of Keyboard Studies at San Jose State University School of Music and Dance. Through the tutelage of the Lithuanian musician Vlado Perlemuter, who was a firsthand student of Ravel, she was able to absorb and pass on an intensified knowledge of Ravel's oeuvre. Mok will be joined by her longtime friend and collaborator, Diane Nicholeris, whom Mok met when they were both in a music school at Tanglewood, and then re-encountered when Nicholeris showed up as an adjunct faculty member at San Jose State. Nicholeris has been a violinist with the San Francisco Symphony for over 30 years and is a coach for its Youth Orchestra. Completing the trio is cellist David Goldblatt, who is also a longtime member of the San Francisco Symphony as well as of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. Goldblatt was introduced to Mok through Nicholeris; the three enjoyed each others' company so much they decided to form a trio, named after Mok's dog, Milou (pronounced "Mee-lew"). Tickets for the Milou Trio go on sale December 30. Tickets are available at www.ukiahsymphony.org or the Mendocino Book Company in Ukiah. Prices are $30 for adults and $5 for children under 18 or those with ASB card. Student/children's tickets will be sold at the door on January 29. For further information please call the Ukiah Symphony hotline at 707 462-0236. The First Presbyterian Church is at 514 W. Church Street, corner of Perkins and Dora, in Ukiah.
Note: The Ukiah Symphony Association has a no exchange policy for bought tickets.
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LocationFirst Presbyterian Church in Ukiah (View)
514 W. Church Street
Ukiah, CA 95482
United States
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Kid Friendly: Yes! |
Dog Friendly: No |
Non-Smoking: Yes! |
Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
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