Park City’s Beethoven Festival Teams up with Utah Valley University School of the Arts for the second event of the season:

This week the Beethoven Festival and Utah Valley University bring together an international crew of artists for their annual Spring Chamber Music Festival. Attendees will hear artists from Hong Kong, Poland, Korea and the United States.

This year’s festival features lively and vibrant virtuoso works. The concerts will be held at the Gallivan Center Hall in SLC, Temple Har Shalom (Park City) and the Orem Public Library in.

The music:
Shostakovich Piano Trio No. 2: Steinway Artist Hilary Demske will be joined by violinist Blanka Bednarz and cellist Cheung Chau to present the Shostakovich Piano Trio No. 2 as the centerpiece of the program and a masterpiece of chamber music. Shostakovich dedicated the work to his friend Ivan Sollertinsky, a Russian polymath and avid musician, who had recently died at age 41. The four movement piece is filled with striking contrasts, wild dances and exotic melodies.
Milhaud “Suite” for Clarinet, Violin and Piano: Clarinetist Russell Harlow will join violinist Blanka Bednarz and Hilary Demske for French composer Darius Milhaud’s “Suite”. Composer Aaron Copland is said to have commented that Milhaud “wrote music to celebrate life itself”. This Suite is described as “brightly-colored”, has four contrasting movements and was originally written for a play by Jean Anouilh called “The Traveler Without Luggage.” The work is playful, with one movement called “Jeu” (Game) and another entitled “Divertissement”. The whole work is filled with melodies and engaging rhythms.
Milhaud Duo for Two Violins: Violinists Donna Fairbanks and Yeagi Kim Broadwell will present Milhaud’s “Duo for Two Violins”. Milhaud was friends with the great violin master Yehudi Menuhin and is said to have composed the first two movements of this work after dinner at Menuhin’s California home as a gift for Menuhin and violinist Roman Totenberg, also a dinner guest that evening. The two violinists performed it immediately after Milhaud took 40 minutes to write the piece. The next morning Milhaud is said to have composed a third movement to complete the workd, and the next week it was premiered by Menuhin and Totenberg at another dinner party at the Milhauds’ home. The first movement is titled “Gai” (cheerful). The second movement title is “Romance” and the third movement returns to a fast dance style contrasted by a song like section: a gigue (jig) section, a “musette” section and back to the “gigue”.
Erwin Schulhoff Duo for Violin and Cello: To be performed by violinist Fairbanks and cellist Cheung Chau, the Duo finds its inspiration in rhythmic and ecstatic folk music with underpinnings of counterpoint along the lines of Bach. The work is in four movements, all contrasting in styles.
Handel Oboe Concerto in G Minor: One of the most beautiful and beloved works in baroque literature, with clarinetist Russell Harlow performing the lyrical solo part on clarinet. During Handel’s time, the clarinet was not yet used as a solo instrument, though Handel did write a work for two clarinets and horn. Violinist Cynthia Richards will lead the string quartet with Russell Harlow performing the oboe part.
Quintet for Clarinet and Strings by Carl Maria von Weber:  This quintet holds the  coveted place as one of the most virtuosic chamber works for clarinet. Russell Harlow describes the quintet as a “clarinet tour de force” with a lovely and improvisatory character. Von Weber took three years (1811-1815) to compose the work. It is comprised of a brisk scherzo framed by two energetic and virtuosic movements. Von Weber was the cousin of Mozart’s wife Costanza and was very proud to be related to Mozart, so, naturally, he wrote a clarinet quintet that was the first one after Mozart’s to become famous. At the time, the clarinet quintet combination was relatively new. The quintets of Mozart and von Weber established the combination of clarinet and string quartet as a standard ensemble in chamber music. Violinist Blanka Bednarz will lead the strings in this work.

ABOUT THE FESTIVAL: The Beethoven Festival always provides audiences with opportunities to hear a variety of instrumental combinations and compositional styles. The programs are also designed with both first time concertgoers and seasoned chamber music fans in mind.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS: Utah Valley University is one of Utah’s fastest growing educational institutions and the School of the Arts Music Department has been steadily adding to its distinguished faculty roster each year. Beethoven Festival founder/director Leslie Harlow serves on the faculty at UVU and was asked by Department Chair Dr. Donna Fairbanks to collaborate on developing the Spring Chamber Music Festival.
Violinist Donna Fairbanks has been instrumental in bringing together the exceptional artists that form the faculty. Dr. Fairbanks is a member of the Atma String Quartet and the Aurora Duo and maintains an active concert schedule. She has soloed with the Charleston and Utah Symphonies, the Orquestra Sinfônica de Londrina in Brazil, the Utah Valley Symphony, the Utah Valley University Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra, the Eastern Arizona College Orchestra, and the Sun Valley Festival Orchestra and her recent chamber and recital venues include the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, the Rotterdam Conservatory in the Netherlands, the Schumann in Zwickau Festival in Germany, the Hungarian National Gallery in Budapest, the Ghent Festival in Belgium, the Hagibor Center in Prague, and the Nanjing Normal University in China. As a member of the Aurora Duo with harpist Lysa Rytting, her recordings include Melodie (MSR Classics), and The Aurora Duo (4TAY Records).  She received a Doctor of Musical Arts in Violin Performance from the University of Arizona, a Master of Music from the Eastman School of Music, a Bachelor of Music from Brigham Young University, with additional studies at the Juilliard School, the University of Cincinnati and the University of Missouri–Kansas City, having studied with the noted artists Zvi Zeitlin, Varujan Kojian, William Harroutonian, Tiberius Klausner, Percy Kalt, and John Ferrell and received chamber coaching from members of the Cleveland Quartet and legendary violist William Primrose.
Steinway Artist Hilary Demske has joined the faculty during Dr. Fairbanks tenure and will be performing the Shostakovich and Milhaud trios for the Park City concert. She serves as Assistant Professor and Director of Piano Studies at Utah Valley University. She holds a Doctorate in piano performance from the University of Michigan, a Master’s degree from The Juilliard School and a Bachelor of Music degree from The Peabody Conservatory of Music. She also studied at the Hochschule für Musik in Munich, Germany (the Munich Conservatory), where she earned the highest graduate degree offered, the Meisterklasse Diploma in performance. Her principal teachers include Julian Martin, Logan Skelton, Margarita Höhenrieder, and Sam Wong. She has been a Steinway Artist since 2010. Hilary’s debut album ‘Henry Martin: Selected Piano Music’ has received wide-spread critical acclaim. American Record Guide described it as full of “splendid panache and assurance”, Deseret News wrote that she is “a pianist of rare technical finesse and musicality”, and Fanfare noted that “a composer couldn’t ask for more committed or convincing performances”. Hilary has an active international performing career. In China she was recently named an Honorary Professor at Xi’an International University and invited to perform and teach at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, Shenyang Conservatory, Shenyang Conservatory- Dalian Branch, the Inner Mongolia University and the China Inner Mongolia University for the Nationalities. Her notable solo recitals in Europe include the Mendelssohn House and Schumann Museum in Leipzig, the Carl-Maria-von-Weber-Museum in Dresden, the Richard-Wagner Museum in Pirna, the Rococco Saal in Augsburg, Steinway House Munich, and additional venues across Italy, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Slovakia, Poland, and Hungary.
Violinist Cynthia V. Richards, also an author and teacher
, began her study of the violin at age eight. She has maintained a successful private teaching studio since 1964 and performs as a free-lance violinist. She pursued performance and teaching skills in America and Europe, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in violin performance from Brigham Young University (BYU). Her teachers include David Dalton, Percy Kalt, Elaine Richey and Franz Samohyl. A faculty member at BYU from 1996 to 2005, Cynthia taught violin and the innovative String Pedagogy class for teaching young children, based on Kodály principles of music education. She continues her teaching at Utah Valley University and in the Provo School District. Her first book, How to Get Your Child to Practice… Without Resorting to Violence, has received wide popular acceptance. She recently co-authored The Complete Musician — Violin Books One, Two and Three and The Complete Musician — Cello Book One with Jerry L. Jaccard and Monica Call. She is the mother of eight children, all successful musicians, who served as her laboratory subjects in preparing this book.

As for the international “crew” of performers, violinist Blanka Bednarz is frequently traveling between her native Poland and the U.S., performing and teaching in Pennsylvania at Dickinson College, performing with the Baltimore Symphony, and traveling to Utah where she travels to perform with her cellist husband Cheung Chau, who serves on the faculty of Utah Valley University. Violinist Blanka Bednarz is an avid chamber musician. With the Atma Trio, which includes cellist Chau, she participated in prestigious festivals, such as International Festival Chopin and Friends in New York City, the “Days of Karol Szymanowski” in Zakopane, “Chopinesque Confrontations”,  “International Festival of Organ and Chamber Music” in Slupsk, Mozart Festival in Poznan, Poland, International Wieniawski Festival in Szczawno-Zdroj, and Chanterelle Festival in Goluchow (Poland), Chopin Festival in Miami, FL, Highlands-Cashier Chamber Music Festival in NC, on invitations from organizations such as the Chopin Foundation of the United States, Kosciuszko Foundation, Karol Szymanowski’s Society, Polish Embassy in Beijing and Polish Embassy in Berlin, and many others. There trio has performed in Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Sweden, Poland, throughout the United States and China. In 2011, Bednarz and Dobrzanski presented Szymanowski’s works at Beijing Concert Hall, under the auspices of the Szymanowski Festival in Beijing, an event of the cultural programme of Poland’s presidency of the EU, under the patronage of the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. The trio has been heard on Radio Merkury and Radio Emaus, as well as television stations in Poznan and Wroclaw. Atma Trio’s CD, on the leading Polish label Acte Préalable, was highly praised in Muzyka 21:  “Excellent piano trios by Mendelssohn and Ravel in masterful rendition.”
Cellist Cheung Chau began cello lessons at age seven and soon received top prizes at the Hong Kong Schools Music Festival, including first prize at the Commercial Radio Prize Competition at age twelve – the youngest musician ever to receive this prize.  At fourteen, he was invited to perform as soloist with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. The Sing Tao Daily described him as “a rare gem in the musical field”.  Mr. Chau was a full scholarship recipient from the R. D. Colburn School of Performing Arts in Los Angeles, the Harid Conservatory and the Yale School of Music.  He won the first prize in the “Artist of Tomorrow” competition in Los Angeles, among others.  He holds the first double doctorate awarded from the New England Conservatory in Boston in wind ensemble conducting and cello performance.  Dr. Chau performs as a soloist and chamber musician in USA, Hong Kong, Macao, China, Germany, Poland, Italy, Lithuania, Sweden and Finland and has soloed with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Macao Chamber Orchestra, Hemet Symphony Orchestra, Brentwood-Westwood Symphony Orchestra and recorded for Hong Kong Radio and Television Corporation, China Central Television,  Norddeutscher Rundfunk, Acte Préalable,  Irish Radio and was heard on Polish Radio Merkury and TVP Poznan. He performed in Merkin Hall and Yale Club in New York,  Jordan Hall in Boston,  Fine Arts Recital Hall in Ambassador College and in Miami, Providence, Salt Lake City,  Stockholm, Warsaw, Beijing and in Sardinia.
Heralded for her “perfect performance” on Korean Times of Utah, violinist Yeagi Kim Broadwell has a unique international background. She has performed and studied in Korea, Russia, the Netherlands, Belgium, England, Czech Republic, and the United States. She has collaborated many artists including Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Eugene Ugorsky, members of Calefax Reed Quintet, Jenny Oaks Baker, Bryn Terfel, Michael Bublé, members of Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, and members of Utah Symphony. Ms. Broadwell has also been featured in master classes with David Kim, the concertmaster of the Philadelphia Philharmonic, and Igor Frolov, resident composer and professor of music at the Moscow Conservatory. A native of Busan, South Korea, Ms. Broadwell demonstrated talent and passion for music at an early age, studying piano with her mother at the age of five and taking up the violin at seven. She won the Dongpaek Young Musicians Regional Competition, Open Siberian Competition for Young Composers, and Riverton Metropolitan Orchestra Competition for Young Artists and has performed with International Festival of Twentieth-Century Young Musicians in Moscow, Idyllwild Music Festival, and Killington Music Festival in the US. Ms. Broadwell’s list of prestigious international venues, includes the Concertgebouw Hall, the Doelen in the Netherlands, Queen Elizabeth Hall in Belgium, and the University of Cambridge in England.
Clarinetist Russell Harlow is well-known to Utah audiences through his many years of performing and presenting chamber music concerts, first for twelve years as founder/director of the Nova Chamber Series, then with 28 more years as co-Director of the Park City Chamber Music Society’s Beethoven Festival. Known beyond Utah as one of this generation’s finest chamber and solo clarinetists, Mr. Harlow performs frequently in New York City on the Bargemusic Series and worldwide at international clarinet events. Concentrating his efforts on the Beethoven Festival, Harlow quit the Utah Symphony three years ago, and now dedicates himself exclusively to performing chamber music and solo repertoire. Russell Harlow is a native of Los Angeles where he grew up surrounded by the rich musical atmosphere fostered by UCLA and USC’s dedication to bringing the finest international classical solo artists to serve on their faculties. World-renowned violinist Jascha Heifetz lured his colleagues violist William Primrose and cellist Gregor Piatigorsky to California. The Heifetz Master Classes and the Piatigorsky Master Classes were filmed and broadcast from California and Russell Harlow was able to attend the Piatigorsky class and was coached in chamber music by Piatigorsky at his home. The Hollywood movie industry drew many of the finest classical performers to California where film score recording required highly-trained artists to make up the studio orchestras. Fine composers also flocked to California to write for film. In this atmosphere, Russell Harlow first studied with famed studio clarinetist and saxophonist Gary Foster, then continued studies with clarinetist Mitchell Lurie. Like Russell Harlow, many of his student colleagues from those days have gone on to perform in the major orchestras around the country and teach at the major music schools. After joining the Utah Symphony at age 21, Harlow continued to study with great artists. He sought out Boston Symphony Principal Clarinetist Harold Wright and traveled to Tanglewood for summer study with Wright. He also approached the virtuoso violinist Charles Libove after hearing him perform at the Claremont Festival in California and asked to study with him. This was the beginning of their lifelong friendship, so when Harlow joined the Beethoven Festival as co-Director, he invited Charles Libove to Utah to perform with the festival for many years until Libove’s death.

Violist Leslie Harlow founded the Beethoven Festival in 1984. Prior to moving to Utah, Ms. Harlow completed two masters’ degrees in viola performance at the Juilliard School in New York and Texas Tech University in her hometown of Lubbock, Texas. While studying music at Texas Tech, Ms. Harlow also studied computer science at alongside her mother Margaret Ann Blackburn who became a professional programmer. Chamber music has always been her first love.

WHY CHAMBER MUSIC? Why do classical musicians love to play chamber music? Devoting so much energy into performing some of the most challenging classical music written to be enjoyed by smaller, intimate audiences might not seem practical, but the sense of close communication with the audience is a key element in its appeal. After more than 30 years experience performing both with orchestra and performing chamber music, Beethoven Festival Director Leslie Harlow describes the difference in feeling from the performer’s perspective, “Looking out into the audience from the stage during a symphony concert, I find myself looking for familiar faces. On the symphony stage, we are able to see audience members in the first few front rows and in the tiers. Being able to see the effect of the music reflected in the faces of those audience members is essential to my feeling of worth as an artist. However, I can only see part of the audience, and I know from having been in the audience myself in a very large hall, the distance from the performers changes the experience for the listener. The listener becomes more of an observer rather than a participant.”
“In a chamber music concert, we the performers are acutely aware of the audience, making every listener part of the performance. I don’t want to scare listeners away by saying this, but they really do matter more than just as observers.”
“Also, to me, symphonic music, in its grand scope and blended sounds, is a more abstract experience. Chamber music is more personal, with only one voice or instrument on each part – there is so much more emphasis on individual expression.
After all that explanation, I would really like to say that playing chamber music is just more fun. Each player has a say in how the music is to be played and we do argue, negotiate and experiment with different approaches while we are rehearsing. Spontaneity is encouraged and there is much more freedom to be as expressive and impressive as possible. Nothing is more satisfying to a musician than consensus after the group experiments to find the right interpretation. Ultimately, we are considering how the music is going to engage the listener and the emotion the composer conveying with each gesture, melody and harmony.”

Saturday APR 5 CONCERT / 7:30PM 
GALLIVAN CENTER HALL
in Downtown Salt Lake City
Address: 239 S Main St, Salt Lake City, UT 84111
Admission Free for this Concert!
Schulhoff Duo for Violin and Cello
Handel G Minor Oboe Concerto
Weber Quintet for Clarinet and Strings

Sunday APR 6 CONCERT / 3PM at TEMPLE HAR SHALOM (Park City)
On HWY 224, across from the Catholic Church
3700 N Brookside Ct, Park City, UT 84060
Admission $20 Regular Admission/ $15 for Students and Seniors 62+
Milhaud Suite for Violin, Clarinet and Piano
Schulhoff Duo for Violin and Cello
Milhaud Duo for Two Violins
Shostakovich Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano

Monday APR 7 CONCERT / 7PM at the Orem Public Library
58 N State St, Orem, UT 84057 
(801) 229-7050
Admission Free

Schulhoff Duo for Violin and Cello
Milhaud Duo for Two Violins
Weber Quintet for Clarinet and Strings
Shostakovich Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano

The Saturday and Monday concerts are free of charge. Tickets for Sunday’s concert are $20 regular admission, $15 for students and seniors 62+ and music students are admitted free. Purchasing tickets in advance is not necessary and tickets are available at the door and credit cards are accepted.