Seattle Chamber Music Society
From conducting to composing is a step up, as everyone knows. So when Music of Remembrance premiered Gerard Schwarzs gorgeously brooding In Memoriam in 2005, I suspected that composition would make a great post-Seattle Symphony career shift for him whenever he decided to retire as music director. Since then, MOR has also presented his elegiac tone poem Rudolf and Jeanette, a tribute to his Holocaust-victim grandparents (and recorded these two works for Naxos). The Seattle Chamber Music Society secured his services next; for the past few years, theyve commissioned a work for each of their summer festivals, and tonight theyll unveil Schwarzs new trio, played by violinist Stefan Jackiw, pianist Adam Neiman, and SSO hornist Jeff Fair. Will this new trio be dark, rich, and nostalgic, like his earlier works? Vernal and open-airy like Brahms trio, the only major work for this uncommon combination? Or will Schwarz explore yet another path? Also on the bill: Bizets Jeux denfants and Tchaikovskys Souvenir de Florence. (Learn a little about the trio at a 7 p.m. preview recital.) GAVIN BORCHERT
Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays; Sat., July 17; Sun., July 18; Sat., July 24; Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays; Thu., Aug. 12. Starts: July 5. Continues through Aug. 13, 2010
