Norfolk’s Kim Scharnberg will also premier commissioned work

By Sarah Garrison

What a varied feast of chamber music awaits us this summer at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. The 2007 season will celebrate the 30^th anniversary of the Tokyo String Quartet in Norfolk, and will also offer audiences their last chance to hear the acclaimed Vermeer Quartet, now in its final year of performing as an ensemble. The season opened the night of June 30 with a recital by the distinguished mezzo-soprano, Frederica von Stade.

The Tokyo, which has served on the faculty of the Yale School of Music as quartet-in-residence since 1976, is deeply committed to coaching young string quartets. It also is dedicated to performing new works as well as the classical repertoire. This season, audiences will hear it perform the great Schubert Cello Quintet in C with guest cellist Ole Akahoshi, and the rhapsodic Schubert Octet for strings and winds with the renowned clarinetist, Richard Stotzman.

The Tokyo’s program also will include the “Harp” and “Serioso” quartets of Beethoven, a new work by Lera Auerback and a U.S. premier of  “Blooming,” by Toshio Hosokawa. This last work will be performed on August 11, when the Festival will honor Koichiro Harada, the quartet’s founding first violinist, who will return to Norfolk to perform in Brahms’ Viola Quintet.

A second premier of a specially commissioned work by Norfolk composer Kim Scharnberg be presented on July 14 as part of the traditional all day open house at which all events are free.

In late July, the Vermeer will give us an evening of Janacek and Dvorak, including the Dvorak piano quintet, with pianist Peter Frankl. The Vermeer  will participate in a program of chamber music for voice with the acclaimed tenor, James Taylor, and in their final appearance in the Music Shed on Saturday, July 28, they will perform quartets by Beethoven, Bridge and Mendelssohn.

Coincidentally, the Tokyo and the Vermeer quartets were each formed in 1969, the Tokyo at the Julliard School of Music, the Vermeer at Marlboro, Vermont. Both groups have performed throughout the world and have made landmark recordings for which each has won numerous awards and Grammy nominations.

Clive Greensmith, a soloist and former principal cellist of London’s Royal Philharmonic, joined the Tokyo String Quartet in 1999, and in 2002, Martin Beaver, a prominent Canadian chamber musician, became first violinist.  Second violinist Kikuei Ikeda violist Kazuhide Isomura, are original members of the quartet. The two came from the Toho Academy in Japan to the Julliard School of Music in the 1960’s.

The Tokyo performs with Stradivarius instruments owned and used by the 19^th century virtuoso Niccolo Paganini. The four instruments, valued in the millions of dollars, are known as the “Paganini Quartet.” They have been on loan to the ensemble from the Nippon Music Foundation since 1995.

Under the leadership of Artistic Director Paul Hawkshaw, the Festival continues to add more programs of vocal music, as well as continuing the series of informal lectures and the popular Young Artists Recitals. Other notable performances this summer include Kavafian-Schub-Shifrin Trio, (violin, piano and clarinet), and a group called “Music and Dance in New-France.” They will perform the music of Lully, Couperin, Monteclair and Rameau for Baroque ensemble, voice and dancers.

The final concert of the summer will close a weeklong workshop for  chamber choir and choral conducting led by King’s Singers founder Simon Carrington.