The stellar quality of this year’s Seattle Chamber Music Society Summer Festival (tickets here) continues at The Overlake School in Redmond for another week. For the last time.
Seattle Chamber Music Society put out a press release a few days ago to say that these five concerts at Overlake are the last to be held there, citing financial loss for the Redmond project in each of the seven years since the Festival’s eastside expansion began. “It was a long time in coming, not an easy decision,” says Connie Cooper, executive director.
This means the loss of all the outdoor ambience which was the hallmark of the Festival at Lakeside School and continued at Overlake, even more appreciated after the loss of Lakeside and the move indoors to Seattle’s Nordstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya Hall. This is also the second musical loss to the Eastside this year, after the lamented demise of the Bellevue Philharmonic Orchestra.
Nordstrom holds more people while still being an intimate space for chamber music, and the musicians love it. It has turned out that rather than losing Festival patrons who loved Lakeside, Nordstrom has increased audience, including out-of-town visitors passing through. The lobby outside, however is both noisy and crowded, and of ambience there is none.
Wednesday night’s concert opened the Overlake five with a capacity audience and fine performances, beginning with an insightful, expressive performance by pianist Anton Nel of Beethoven’s “Waldstein” Sonata. Nel touches the piano so lightly that his fingers almost bounce back off, giving great clarity and evenness to all the fast notes. It the slower sections his hands seem floating on the keys, giving the music a gentle quietness, but there’s plenty of power when needed.
The program of the concert proper comprised favorite composers and no surprises, except that the Stuecke im Volkston (“Pieces in Folksong style”) of Robert Schumann is rarely heard in concert halls, according to cellist Amit Peled, because it is usually regarded as a student piece. We non-cellists don’t get to hear it. I’m glad we did here. Peled with pianist William Wolfram gave it a performance of a caliber rare in students. Peled’s playing of the double stopping (playing on two strings at once) in the third piece, high on the strings, created a remarkable, almost otherwordly feel.
The Schumann was bracketed by Mozart’s Quartet No. 2 for piano and strings at the start, and Brahms’ great Quintet for piano and strings in F Minor at the end. Pianist Adam Neiman’s sensitivity and delicacy of playing gave the Mozart elegance along with his colleagues Ida Levin violin, Che-Yen Chen, viola, and Peled.
Many in the audience were fascinated to see that Neiman used, not a regular score (the pianist always has the entire score in chamber music, not only his own but a stave for each instrumental part with it), but an iPad. Watching to see if he turned pages with a finger touch (he didn’t) it became clear later he had a foot pedal where he could turn a page back or a page forward.
One lovely melody after another was brought out in the familiar Brahms work by violinists Scott Yoo and Emily Daggett Smith, violist Marcus Thompson (an oldtime Festival player who has not been here for some years), cellist Robert deMaine and pianist Nel. The eminently satisfactory performance brought the audience to its feet in applause.
The remaining four concerts–Friday this week, then Monday, Wednesday, Friday next week–include many favorites: Elgar, Schubert and more Brahms, Mendelssohn and Dvorak, Prokofiev and more Beethoven.
If you have loved the outdoor feel of the festival, the tall trees and soft breezes, sitting on the grass while watching the stars come out and listening to the music, then go and enjoy them for the last time.
