Join us on Sunday, January 15 at 2:00pm at Zion Lutheran Church, 439 3rd Ave S in Clinton, to enjoy chamber music featuring members of the Clinton Symphony Orchestra. Tickets are available online or at the door. Learn more about the musicians and the music in the following program notes:
Gabriel Fauré……………………..“Pie Jesu” from the Requiem
arranged for Violas by Tracey Rush
Elaine Fine……………………..Three Dances for Five Violas
Habanera
Saltarello
Rigadoon
Jotham Polashek • Ann Duchow • Natalie Delcorps • Hana Velde • Tracey Rush
Vasyl Barvinsky……………………..Piano Trio in A Minor
Second Movement – Andante
Nadia Wirchnianski, piano • Asa Church, violin • Avery Kerley, violoncello
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart…………………………………….Piano Quartet in G Minor
Allegro
Andante
Allegro (Rondo)
Nadia Wirchnianski, piano • Asa Church, violin • Julie Marston, viola • Avery Kerley, violoncello
JANTH Quintet
The quintet of violists on today’s program are all residents of Dubuque and active musicians in the area.
Jotham Polashek is from Ames, and attended University of Northern Iowa. He
teaches strings in the Dubuque Schools.
Ann Duchow has a teaching studio and teaches strings in the Dubuque area
colleges. She serves as principal second violin with Clinton Symphony.
Natalie Delcorps is from the Chicago area, and attended Luther College. She
teaches strings in Dubuque Schools, and is a regular member of Clinton Symphony’s
viola section.
Hana Velde is a native of Seattle, and regular in the Symphony’s violin section. She
holds a degree from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, and teaches
mathematics at University of Dubuque
Tracey Rush is founder of the Northeast Iowa School of Music and the Dubuque
Community String Orchestra, has taught in the public schools, and is presently
conductor of the University of Dubuque String Ensemble. She is a widely recognized
composer.
Piano Trio and Quartet
Pianist Nadia Wirchnianski has been an enthusiastic contributor to our chamber
music programs, and is pianist for Clinton Symphony. She is a native of Chicago with
degrees from DePaul University and Northwestern University. She lives in Lanark and
teaches in Dixon Schools and Highland Community College in Freeport.
Violinist Asa Church is a member of Clinton Symphony’s violin section, and a native
of Normal, Illinois, where he graduated from Illinois State University. He is an orchestra
teacher in the Sterling Public Schools.
Violist Julie Marston is an orchestra teacher in the Clinton Schools and a graduate
of Eastern Michigan University. She is a violinist with Clinton Symphony and performs
with other area orchestras and ensembles as well.
Cellist Avery Kerley is new to Clinton Symphony, a resident of Dixon, Illinois, and teaches
music classes in the Amboy, Illinois schools. He is a graduate of Southern Illinois University and
a native of Vienna, Illinois.
“Pie Jesu” from REQUIEM
by Gabriel Fauré
arranged for Violas by Tracey Rush
Gabriel Fauré was a French composer, renowned organist and teacher, one of the
most influential composers of his generation.
This much-loved movement from Fauré’s magnificent Requiem is known for its
profound feelings of hope and loss depicted with simplicity. Fauré eliminated the
traditional movements of a requiem which depicted hell and damnation in favor of an
emphasis on the hope of eternal peace for the loved one.
The Pie Jesu is arranged here for violas by Dubuque comoser/arranger Tracey Rush.
THREE DANCES for Five Violas
by Elaine Fine
Playing violin and flute, Elaine Fine graduated from Julliard, playing and teaching in
Austria before eventually relocating to Eastern Illinois University where she found a
vibrant artistic community in the small collegiate town. She made a career in music
performance and instruction, volunteering for benefit concerts to ensure public music
accessibility. Performing with the LeVeck String Quartet from 1994 to 2005, she began
composing over 70 pieces of chamber music, 3 operas and many arrangements, which
she has made available in the public domain to help other musicians.
“Andante” from PIANO TRIO in A Minor
by Vasyl Barvinsky
Composed in 1910 when Barvinsky was only 21, the Piano Trio illustrates the
composer’s late romantic and impressionistic style underscored with local folklore,
marking him one of Ukraine’s first composers to receive worldwide recognition. Referred
to as “the composer without notes” he was brutally imprisoned for 10 years by the
Soviets who burned his scores in public in 1948. Now known for his music of resilience
despite repression, he was able to reconstruct some of his lost works, and many others
were rediscovered after his death in 1963.
PIANO QUARTET in G Minor
by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart himself loved to play viola with small chamber groups, and added this
instrument to the usual piano trio of his time. Filled with complexity, drama and operatic
conversations between the instruments, his composition was initially deemed too difficult
for most casual musicians. The stormy G minor key, his famous “key of fate”, was one
Mozart reserved for his most turbulent music.
The work consists of 3 movements, beginning with a large sonata form as the
instruments play in unison. A melodious slow movement follows with an exuberant rondo
finale.
Program notes by Karin Anderson-Sweet