Old First Concerts: January, 2021

As of this writing, Old First Concerts (O1C) has planned four performances for the first month of the new year. However, they will all take place in the last two weekends of the month. This will be a good month for Claude Debussy, whose music will be performed on three of the four programs. All events will continue to be live-streamed through YouTube. As usual, any changes in current plans will be updated through both this Web page and the Facebook shadow site. Specifics are as follows, including a hyperlink to each event which, in turn, will provide the specific link to the YouTube streaming page:

Friday, January 22, 8 p.m.: Pianist Samantha Cho will return to O1C to present a solo recital that will feature four compositions by Germaine Tailleferre, the only female member of Les Six. Her selections will be “Hommage à Debussy,” “Pastoral,” “Romanza,” and “Rêverie.” Her “call” to Debussy will be given a “response” with that composer’s two books of Images, each of which consists of three compositions. The recital will then conclude with Edvard Grieg’s Opus 7 piano sonata in E minor.

[updated 1/14, 1:45 p.m.: The following concert has been cancelled:

Sunday, January 24, 4 p.m.: The next return visit will be by the Ives Collection, whose core members and Artistic Co-Directors are violinist Susan Freirer and cellist Stephen Harrison. For this performance they will be joined by pianist Elizabeth Schumann to present a program of two piano trios. The first half of the program will be devoted to the Opus 15 trio in G minor by Bedřich Smetana. The second half will remain in Eastern Europe with a performance of Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 65 trio in F minor.]

Friday, January 29, 8 p.m.: The Ensemble 1828 piano trio was formed in June of 2019, beginning with a seven-concert tour of Northern California cities. The members are violinist Nicole Oswald, cellist Isaac Pastor-Chermak, and pianist Alison Lee. They decided to name their group after the year in which Franz Schubert died (on November 19); and their first program was oriented around music from the final year of Schubert’s life. They presented this program in San Francisco on June 28 as part of the Chamber Music series under the auspices of Sunset Music and Arts. Readers may also recall that, almost exactly a month ago, Lee performed a live-streamed solo recital as part of the weekly Piano Break series, presented under the auspices of the Ross McKee Foundation. The trio’s O1C debut will be an all-French program of two sonatas and one trio. Debussy will be represented by his cello sonata, which will be paired with César Franck’s A major violin sonata. The program will then conclude with Maurice Ravel’s trio in A minor.

Sunday, January 31, 4 p.m.: January will conclude, as the series began, with a solo piano recital. The recitalist will be Jason Chiu; and he will begin with his Debussy offering, “L’isle joyeuse” (the joyous isle). He will then present all four of Frédéric Chopin’s ballades, Opus 23 in G minor, Opus 38 in F major, Opus 47 in A-flat major, and Opus 52 in F minor. His program will continue with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 53 (“Waldstein”) sonata in C major. Less familiar will be the performance of Charles Tomlinson Griffes’ “Notturno,” the second in his Opus 6 collection entitled Fantasy Pieces. The program will then conclude with Maurice Ravel’s solo piano version of “La Valse.”