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Agarita joins forces with Ilmar Gavilan of the Grammy-winning Harlem Quartet and Kimberly Sparr for a night of blockbuster classics by Mozart, Mendelssohn and Schumann, fresh works by Paul Wiancko, Aaron Jay Kernis, and Paul Coletti, and a scintillating Cuban work by Guido Lopez-Gavilan.
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P r o g r a m
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String Quintet no. 3 in C Major | Movement 1 | W.A. Mozart
Mozart en Route | Aaron Jay Kernis
Strange Beloved Land | Withered and Gone | Spring Dance | Paul Wiancko
Cuarteto en Guaguancó | Guido Lopez-Gavilan
Sarabande from English Suite no. 6 in D minor | J.S. Bach
Piano Trio in D Minor | Movement 1| |Felix Mendelssohn
Moonlight Journey | Paul Coletti
Piano Quintet in E-flat Major | Movements 2 and 4 | Robert Schumann
Take the A Train | Billy Strayhorn
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An innovative chamber ensemble dedicated to producing bold, collaborative musical events, Agarita offers a new way to experience classical and contemporary music. Founded by Daniel Anastasio (piano), Marisa Bushman (viola), Ignacio Gallego (cello) and Sarah Silver Manzke (violin), Agarita nourishes the local community through artistic collaborations, education, community engagement, and free, adventurous programming. With concise, eclectic performances that are “splendid – unified, spirited, [and] well prepared” (Greenberg, Incident Light), the young chamber group offers a new, open-armed experience for listeners.
Rooted in San Antonio, Texas, Agarita works intimately with local artists of various genres to weave cross-artistic narratives for each concert. One program with lighting artist Chuck Drew turned the Granary at historic Mission San Jose into a kaleidoscope of color set to music; another with PharmTable chef Elizabeth Johnson paired musical selections with dishes for the audience; another with the educational arts institution SAY Sí wove students’ spoken word into the program. Other partnerships and collaborations have included the McNay and San Antonio Art Museums, bass singer Cameron Beauchamp from the Grammy Award-winning vocal group Roomful of Teeth, poet Laura Van Prooyen, sculptor Danville Chadbourne, members of the Escher String Quartet, jazz pianist Aaron Prado, writer and Guggenheim fellow Oscar Casares, San Antonio poet laureate Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson, the Luminaria Contemporary Arts Festival, glassblower Gini Garcia, composer Nadia Botello (for a concert experienced inside of a pool), Clementine restaurant, the City of San Antonio, Opera San Antonio, and more. These concerts have taken place in 41 unique venues across all 10 San Antonio districts, all free of charge, making the music accessible to the whole of the San Antonio community.
In its 5th year, Agarita continues to expand its scope, reach, and impact. Between large-scale community concerts, outdoor shows with its portable concert stage the Humble Hall, and its new educational program Agarita Inspires!, Agarita is giving 46+ concerts across the year, including 30 educational programs for more than 15,000 young students— all free of charge.
As a nonprofit organization, Agarita believes that the arts should be accessible to everyone in its community. Agarita presents free public concerts, performs at local schools, and offers opportunities for other artists through its collaborations. Follow Agarita’s upcoming projects and future performances at www.agarita.org or for any questions, email agaritachamberplayers@gmail.com.
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Guest Artist
"Gavilan has the touch of a poet" -Santa Monica Magazine
Cuban-American Violinist Ilmar Gavilan, a native of Havana, Cuba has had a remarkable performing career that has taken him all over the world. This fascinating journey ranges from performing for world leaders such as President Obama at the White House and Queen Sofia of Spain at The Royal Palace of Madrid to performing with top stature artists of diverse styles such as Itzhak Perlman and Chick Corea.
As a soloist, Mr. Gavilan has performed violin concertos with the Atlanta, New Jersey, Baltimore, Detroit, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Hartford, Nashville, Ann Arbor, Santa Monica, Phoenix, Denver, Louisiana, Anchorage, Santa Fe, Havana, Mexico City, and Venezuela Symphonies and played recitals in England, Russia, Spain, and Portugal. Mr. Gavilan performed “Urban Legends” by Michael Ables for String Quartet and Orchestra with the New York Philharmonic as the first violinist of the Harlem Quartet. Mr. Gavilan won first prize at the Sphinx competition, as well as top honors at the Lipinsky-Wieniaswsky and the Henryk Szeryng International violin competitions.
An avid chamber musician, Mr. Gavilan has performed with Itzhak Perlman, Arnold Steinhardt, Ida Kavafian, Carter Brey, Paul Katz, Fred Sherry, Anthony McGill, and Misha Dicter. Mr. Gavilan has participated in numerous chamber music festivals including Tanglewood, Ravinia, and Angel Fire.
Currently a violin faculty at Manhattan School of music, Mr. Gavilan is engaged in a visiting residency at The Royal College of Music in London as the first violinist of the Harlem Quartet and a full-time residency position at Montclair State University. Mr. Gavilan is an experienced educator, having taught for six years at Juilliard School's Music Advancement Program.
Ilmar Gavilan studied at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow. Through the personal recommendation and royal scholarship of Queen Sofia of Spain, studies took him to the Reina Sofia School of Music in Spain where he studied with Zakhar Bron. In addition, Mr. Gavilan received private lessons from legendary Yehudi Menuhin, Isaac Stern and Ruggiero Ricci. Later studies brought Mr. Gavilan to the Manhattan School of Music in New York City where he studied with Glenn Dicterow and received his Master’s Degree. Mr. Gavilan was awarded a Graduate Diploma in Quartet Performance from the New England Conservatory in Boston. His mentors there included Donald Weilerstein and Miriam Fried. Mr. Gavilan completed his Doctor in Musical Arts Diploma from Rutgers University under the mentorship of Arnold Steinhardt.
Alongside his accomplished classical music career, Mr. Gavilan also performed and commercially released albums with Chick Corea, Gary Burton, Paquito D’Rivera, Eddie Palmieri, and Dafnis Prieto. Other Jazz collaborations include performing with Stanley Clark, John Patitucci, Lee Konitz, Henry Threadgill, and Doc Severinsen. The collaboration with Jazz legends Chick Corea and Gary Burton rendered earned him a Grammy for the recording of the “Hot House” album as a member of the Harlem Quartet. Mr. Gavilan’s U.S. Solo recording debut "Aires y Leyendas", and "Por el mar" featuring music composed by his father Guido Lopez-Gavilan including a violin concerto dedicated to him, are available on Amazon and iTunes. His latest solo album “Brothers” features his brother Aldo Lopez-Gavilan.
Ilmar and his brother Aldo, a world-class pianist and composer, were presented by Carnegie Hall in the featured PBS documentary “Los Hermanos/The Bothers” http://www.patchworksfilms.net/the-brothers.
Equally skilled as a soloist, chamber and orchestral violist, Kimberly Sparr has garnered praise for her versatility and virtuosity across the United States and beyond. She has performed with numerous orchestras and festivals on three continents, and currently serves as associate professor of viola at Louisiana State University, assistant principal viola of the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, principal viola of the Lubbock Symphony, and violist of the Atlantic Chamber Ensemble. In the summer, Dr. Sparr is on faculty at the Summer Strings Academy for Girls and the Renova Music Festival.
“Sparr’s warm viola sound was so sublime that is was difficult to face what was going on in the real world,” the Boulder Daily Camera said. Now Sparr is leading an effort to expand the repertoire of the instrument itself. Volt, for example, a piece she commissioned by composer Ned McGowan, features her improvisation in counterpoint with pre-recorded computer sounds. In a multi-media presentation of Rusty Banks’ Liquid Fire, Sparr’s electric viola responds to pulsating rhythms and sounds as images of molten lava play out on a video screen behind her. Other recent solo viola commissions include works by Molly Joyce and Caroline Mallonee. Sparr also recently spearheaded a major project with the Atlantic Chamber Ensemble, of which she is a founding member: Project Beck, which included collaborating with 20 composers.
In the meantime, her chamber music collaborations include performance with Lara St. John, Boris Allakhverdyan and Simone Dinnerstein; as well as for organizations including New Music Raleigh, Festival Mozaic, the Lake George Music Festival and Washington Musica Viva. She has also held artist residencies at the Avaloch Farm Music Institute where she has worked as both a soloist and with her partner in the Amistella Duo, cellist Natasha Farny. Sparr recently collaborated with European artists through “Expressions for Justice" in the Netherlands.
The Aspen Music School honored Sparr with a three-year New Horizon Fellowship where she studied with Heidi Castleman and Victoria Chiang. She has also won fellowships at the Tanglewood Music Center of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Sarasota Music Festival.
As an orchestral violist, Sparr was the assistant principal violist of Virginia’s Richmond Symphony; and has performed with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Washington National Opera and the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in California, among others. Her festival participation includes New Hampshire Music Festival in Plymouth, N.H.; the Verbier Festival Orchestra in Switzerland; the Festival Mozaic and the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in California; Florida’s Sarasota Music Festival; and the Lake George Music Festival in New York. She has also toured Europe and Asia with both the Verbier and National Symphony Orchestras. Sparr has also soloed with the Amarillo Virtuosi, the Pittsburgh Civic Orchestra, the Texas Tech University Symphony Orchestra, and the Lubbock Symphony.
Sparr earned her Bachelor of Music degree from The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, where she studied with Martha Strongin Katz. She holds a Master of Music degree from the New England Conservatory, where she studied with James Dunham, and a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree from the University of Maryland, studying under Daniel Foster. During her graduate studies, she was named a Piatigorsky Foundation Artist and received the Gunther Schuller Award from New England Conservatory.
She lives in Baton Rouge with her husband, composer & guitarist, D. J. Sparr, their son, Harris, and two dogs. She is the violist for Scabaret (“three bad mamas and a microphone”), an all-female, blended style voice, keyboard and viola band based in West Texas.
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Program Notes
Mozart’s (1756-1791) String Quintet no. 3 in C Major was written in 1787, after the huge success of his opera The Marriage of Figaro and just before Don Giovanni. This large-scale, sophisticated work begins with a buoyant, joyful character; the first theme is mostly an arpeggio, playfully bouncing upwards. This glee gives way to a sweeter lyricism, but as the music grows more dramatic, Mozart creates an interruptive dialogue between the instruments. Intensifying counterpoint and a dominant pedal point mark the height of tension in the middle, development section. The first movement ends with a smile, as the movement began. This quintet inspired Franz Schubert’s quintet of the same key, which is regarded as one of the most sublime works of chamber music in the repertoire – the similarities in their openings are apparent.
In 1991, Aaron Jay Kernis was commissioned by the Bravo! Colorado Music Festival to write a string trio to pair with Mozart’s own K. 563 string trio, for a concert honoring the 200th’s anniversary of Mozart’s death. For Mozart en Route, Kernis took as inspiration one of Mozart’s letters, which complained about a particularly bumpy carriage ride from Salzburg to Munich: “For two whole stages I sat with my hands dug into the upholstery and my behind suspended in the air.” Kernis imagined Mozart traveling in a futuristic transport device (à la Star Trek) in the year 1991, being “brought face to face with diverse forms and sounds of music.” Besides a clear opening quote to the K. 563 trio of Mozart, according to Kernis there are hommages to “Richard Strauss, American folk fiddling, Hollywood curtain raising (or cartoon) music, blues, and funk.”
Paul Wiancko’s quartet Strange Beloved Land is a set of six scenes commissioned by the Great Lakes Chamber Festival for the Park Quartet and premiered in 2013. According to the composer, the quartet is inspired by and dedicated to his father, the late explorer and documentary filmmaker Gene Wiancko, whose films depict the culture and people of Romania and the Balkans during the 1950s and 60s. The emotional range of the six movements is vast, and the two performed on this concert, Withered and Gone and Spring Dance, capture very distinct spiritual environments. Withered and Gone has a somber, patient theme in a low register, full of sustained chords, dissonant suspensions, and rich lyricism. Spring Dance, is full of vibrant pizzicati, jagged rhythms, and extended techniques that involve percussive slapping on the instrument. Spring is a symbol for life, but if we have learned anything from Stravinsky, it can come with quite a bit of chaos.
About his father Guido Lopez-Gavilan’s Cuarteto en Guaguancó, violinist Ilmar Gavilán writes:
Guaguancó is both a dance and a distinctive rhythmic pattern. Like most Cuban music, the rhythmic foundation for Guaguancó is based on the clave – a rhythmic ostinato that can be arranged in several ways. Guaguancó is known for its characteristic delay on the third clave accent. This delay creates what is known as a rumba clave pattern, the rhythmic underpinning for the Cuban rumba style. The orchestral version of Guaguancó is unique among string orchestra repertoire not only for these Cuban rhythmic elements, but also for the way it traces its sonority back to melodic chanting of the West African Yoruba tradition. Guaguancó was written in 2005 for chamber orchestra and arranged for Harlem Quartet in 2016.
The English Suites of J.S. Bach (1685-1750) are dance suites similar to his Partitas, French Suites, etc., and the Sarabande is one of the expressive dances that Bach always included. Typically with the unusual emphasis on beat two, the sarabande is a slow, stately dance derived from Central America (“zarabanda”) that allows quite a bit of ornamentation and flourishes from the dancer. Bach’s Sarabande from his English Suite no. 6 in D minor indeed begins stately, with full, vertical chords in a dramatic minor key. The second half is an ornamented version of the first, with flowing melodies interwoven inside the inevitable harmonic rhythm.
Like Mozart, Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) was a musical prodigy whose gifts were noticed and nurtured by his musical family. His contemporary Robert Schumann even called him “the Mozart of the nineteenth century.” By all accounts he was a phenomenal pianist and organist, and revered the masters of old, particularly J.S. Bach. In 1829 he arranged and conducted the then all-but-forgotten St. Matthew Passion in Berlin, greatly helping to revive an interest in Bach throughout Europe that would last through today. With its explosive passion, virtuosic piano writing, soaring melodies and rich colors, Mendelssohn’s first piano trio, the Piano Trio in D Minor (1840) was immediately deemed a masterpiece by Schumann:
“This is the master-trio of our time, even as Beethoven’s in B-flat and D and Schubert’s in E-flat were the masterpieces of their day; it is an exceedingly fine composition that, years hence, will still delight our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.”
Paul Coletti’s (b. 1959) Moonlight Journey is an impressionistic work for the unconventional instrumentation of two violas. A highly acclaimed violist himself, Coletti premiered the piece with Juan Miguel Hernandez in 2016. It begins with the descending moonlight; minor, arpeggiated harmonies under a rich, singing melody. The music eventually shifts out of its passionate romanticism into a much more visceral, stormy character, unbound. The work ends unexpectedly with pizzicatos– the journey departs as quickly as it arrives.
Take the A Train was a famous jazz standard written by Billy Strayhorn in 1939. Duke Ellington had hired him to be part of his organization, and needed to give him directions for a job that involved traveling to his house in New York City by subway. The directions started, “Take the A Train,” at the time a newly-built subway service. Ellington helped bolster the popularity of the tune by performing it throughout his career, and it became the signature song of his big band. This quartet version of the tune was arranged by composer Paul Chihara (b. 1938). It is the title track of the Harlem Quartet’s debut album.
The program ends with another all-time great piece of chamber music, Robert Schumann’s (1810-1856) Piano Quintet in E-flat Major. Until this quintet, which is scored for piano plus string quartet, the piano quintet referred to a work for piano, violin, viola, cello, and double bass. The success of Schumann’s in 1842 led to a change in the instrumentation, and Brahms, Dvorak, Shostakovich and others would go on to create tremendous works in this genre. Schumann had just finished composing three string quartets; this work seemed to be an opportunity to experiment blending his newly gained quartet experience with his native instrument, piano. Schumann dedicated the work to his wife Clara, a renowned pianist who performed for the premiere. The second and fourth movements are performed on this program. The second, In Modo d'una Marcia, begins solemnly with a funeral march, but then enters heavenly realms with sweet, transcendent passages in major keys. A more determined, stormy, resilient section morphs the theme into something driven, until a more impassioned version of the earlier major passage returns. Ultimately fatalistic, the movement ends with the march it began. The fourth movement, Allegro, ma non troppo, is a brilliant finale that begins with striking percussiveness and verticality in the surprising key of C minor. The movement has moments of concerning stillness, but mostly drives forward exuberantly, particularly in its ending, which includes a celebratory fugue with the theme from the first movement.
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117 Inslee Avenue, San Antonio, TX 78209 agaritachamberplayers@gmail.com 310-980-4971