Northwestern Universty Chamber Music Fest offers respite from winter’s chill

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Cellist Lynn Harrell is on the bill Jan. 15 at the Northwestern University Winter Chamber Music festival. | Photo by Christian Steiner

Updated: January 13, 2012 3:26PM

While icy waves from Lake Michigan batter the shore of Northwestern University’s campus, Pick-Staiger Concert Hall beckons, warm and bright with the promise of the music of Mozart, Beethoven, Dvorak, Frank, Penderecki and Shostakovich, among others, played by top professional musicians from around the country and beyond in evening concerts Jan. 13, 15, 20 and 22.

This is the 16th annual Winter Chamber Music Festival, with programs and performers that are far from predictable.

On Jan. 15, high-profile cellist Lynn Harrell will make his third appearance with the festival, this time playing with the Chicago Symphony’s new associate concertmaster Stephanie Jeong and seven other CSO musicians. The program includes Villa-Lobos’ enchanting “Bachianas Brasileiras,” as well as music by Menotti, Beethoven and Dvorak.

More local talent takes the stage Jan. 20. The Lincoln String Quartet, consisting of four current and former members of the Chicago Symphony — violinist Lei Hou and Qing Hou, violist Lawrence Neuman and cellist Kenneth Olson, will perform.

“We started in 1997, and we’re almost a family quartet,” said Neuman. “Lei is my wife and Qing is her sister. We play with various cellists, but for this concert, we’re playing with Ken.”

Joining them will be pianist Alan Chow, clarinetist Steven Cohen, hornist Gail Williams and bassoonist Christopher Millard for a program that includes Quintet for Clarinet and Strings by British composer Sir Arthur Bliss and Janacek’s Concertino for Piano, Two Violins, Viola, Clarinet, Horn and Bassoon.

“Lei and I have a son who is 6,” Neuman added. “He’s studying piano and cello. If he takes up the cello seriously, then we will really have a family quartet.”

Concluding the 2012 Winter Chamber Music Festival on Jan. 22 will be the St. Lawrence String Quartet.

“The quartet originated in Canada,” said its cellist Christopher Costanza, but they now live and work at California’s Stanford University.

Players include violinists Geoff Nuttall and Scott St. John, violist Lesley Robertson and Costanza, who played with the Chicago Chamber Musicians from 1996 to 2003. As big fans of Haydn quartets, the four will play the composer’s fifth string quartet at the festival.

“Haydn really invented the string quartet,” Costanza insisted. “He distributed the prominent material among the players, so that the music is more interesting texturally.”

The St. Lawrence also will play a new string quartet written by Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov, whose “St. Mark Passion” and “Ainadamar” have been performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival.

The quartet has collaborated with the composer since they first met him at Tanglewood in 1992, and they have recorded his “Yiddishbbuk” for EMI Classics. “His music is not gnarly,” the cellist promised, reassuringly, “but he does tend to supply his score page by page until the last minute.”

“It may be a cliff-hanger,” said Blair Milton, NU faculty member, festival founder and a violinist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra since 1975. “Golijov is a very dynamic individual, and whatever he writes will be inspired and challenging, but the new work may be played in part, or in full, depending on when the composer delivers the pages.”

The Winter Chamber Music Festival was a success from the moment the first note was played.

“We were just putting up a trial balloon in 1997,” said Milton. “But we have a tremendously loyal and growing audience.

“There is a yearning out there for this kind of music, a hunger for it,” he continued. “People are quick to talk about the demise of classical music, but I can’t see it.”

There may be another reason why live performance is so irresistible, declared Neuman of the Lincoln. “Yes, the players are very good and the music is beautiful,” he said, “but I also think people enjoy hearing instruments generating sound without electricity. That’s pretty rare these days.”

The festival programs (all begin at 7:30 p.m.):

Jan. 13 : Bienen School faculty members perform Martinu’s Musique de Chambre No. 1 for Clarinet, Violin, Viola, Cello, Harp and Piano; Respighi’s Violin Sonata in B Minor; Respighi’s “Io sono la Madre,” “In alto mare” and “Nebbie” for voice and piano; and Beethoven’s Quintet in E-flat Major for Piano and Winds. Tickets, $20; $10 students.

Jan. 15 : Cellist Lynn Harrell and guest artists perform Villa-Lobos’ “Bachianas Brasileiras” No. 1; Menotti’s Suite for Two Cellos and Piano; Beethoven’s Sonata No. 3 in A Major for Cello and Piano; and Dvorak’s Piano Trio No. 4 in E Minor (“Dumky”). Tickets, $28; $10 students.

Jan. 20 : The Lincoln String Quartet peforms Bliss’ Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet; Janacek’s Concertino for Piano, Two Violins, Viola, Clarinet, Horn and Bassoon; and Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 6 in B-flat Major. Tickets, $22; $10 students.

Jan. 22 : The St. Lawrence String Quartet performs Haydn’s String Quartet No. 5 in F Minor; Golijov’s new String Quartet; and Dvorak’s String Quartet No. 14 in A-flat Major. Tickets, $26; $10 students.

Dorothy Andries is a local free-lance writer.