Julian has been a part of the Ferris Burtis Music Foundation program for the past five years. It has been a pleasure to know him and watch him grow into the competent, wonderful performer he is becoming.
Their program opened with Julian playing the Bach Suite for Cello No. 1 in G Major. His sense of musicality and style are simply beautiful, his enormous technique completely at his service.
This was followed by Julian and Mayumi performing Schubert's Sonata for Arpeggione and Piano in A minor, D.621.
According to Wikipedia 'The arpeggione is a six-stringed musical instrument, fretted and tuned like a guitar, but bowed like a cello, and thus similar to the bass viola da gamba. The body shape of the instrument, is however more similar to a medieval fiddle than either the guitar or the bass viol.'
Their performance was stunning in this amazing work, their collaboration perfect.
Mayumi then presented Chopin's Ballade No. 1 in G Minor Op. 23 with the bravura and sensitivity the work deserves. What a fine pianist she is!
Together they continued with Olivier Messiaen's Louage à l'éternité de Jésus pour Quator pour la fin du temps, an ethereal work composed while Messiaen was in a concentration camp during World War II. This evocative work was performed with deep emotion bringing back the horrors of that event.
They closed the program with the Brahms Sonata for Piano and Cello in E minor, Op.38, one of my favorites, which I used to perform with Scott Kluksdahl in the days when my right hand still worked. Brilliant,exciting, and perfect!
My 83 year old Steinway M was made to sound very young indeed with Mayumi's musical and technical expertise. It is three years younger than I and sounds a lot better! Of course it has had the advantage of being rebuilt a few years ago by the World's best piano technician,Marvin Cech, while I am still the original model having had bronchitis-sinusitis for the past week and a busted right hand for the last ten years or so. But I carp!
My special thanks must go to my partner David who arranged the house for the concert while I mostly sat in a chair, giving orders and wheezing!
Never having had children, it is these wonderful young musicians of the Ferris Burtis Music Foundation, as well as the myriad of talented students in voice, piano, organ and harpsichord I have worked with since I was 17 years old who are my progeny.
Whew! That's a long time.
Many have gone ahead to have fine careers of their own in music as performers and teachers. Seven of my singers have sung at the Met and other venues world wide.
Not bad for an old man with a bum right hand!
Tax-free gifts to the Ferris Burtis Music Foundation may be sent to Maeve O'Dea, Berkshire Taconic Foundation, 800 North Main Street, Sheffield, MA 01257 with checks made out to Ferris Burtis Foundation.
Hearing these wonderful young artists, as I did last night, is my reward, and John's, for having started the Foundation years ago. At my death my entire estate will go into the work of the Foundation.
http://ferrisburtisfoundation.blogspot.org
