Sundays @ Four Concert Series
Crowden presents chamber music to the public with our Sundays @ Four concert season, a series of low-cost concerts featuring distinguished professional musicians.
$12 general admission, FREE to children ages 18 and under. For more information, contact concerts@crowden.org.
All concerts take place at the wheelchair-accessible Crowden Music Center, just two blocks from the North Berkeley BART station!
2008-2009 Season
May 17, 2009
Crowden Alumni Concert
David McCarroll, violin, and Roy Bogas, piano
Silver medalist at the 2007 Klein International Competition,The Crowden School alumnus David McCarroll has received numerous prizes and awards and given performances in Switzerland, Tunisia, Thailand, England, Wales, Scotland, and the United States. He has performed as a soloist with the London Mozart Players, Santa Rosa Symphony, Marin Symphony, North State Symphony, Symphony of the Redwoods, and the Yehudi Menuhin School Orchestra. An active chamber musician, he has collaborated Miriam Fried, Anthony Marwood, Paul Katz, Bonnie Hampton, Natasha Brofsky, Katherine Murdock, Maria Lambros, and Seth Knopp. He has participated in masterclasses and lessons with musicians such as Mstislav Rostropovich, Zakhar Bron, Dora Schwartzberg, Arnold Steinhardt, Midori, Robert Mann, Jamie Laredo, Pamela Frank, Gerhard Schulz, Ferenc Rados, Ida Kavafian, Zvi Zeitlin, Mauricio Fuchs, Robert Masters, Maciej Rakowski, Berent Korfker, Paul Kantor, Gilbert Kalish, and Ruggiero Ricci. David is continuing his studies with Donald Weilerstein and Miriam Fried at New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. He is the recipient of the Presser Foundation Scholarship Award and the Vernon Scholarship.
Roy Bogas made his debut with the San Francisco Symphony at fourteen and was a prizewinner at the second Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1962. He has performed as soloist with virtually every orchestra in Northern California and is an active chamber musician. He is the founder of the MasterGuild Series of chamber music on the campus of Holy Names University in Oakland, where he is Professor of Music, and of the Gualala Summer Festival of Chamber Music. Roy is also performance pianist for San Francisco Ballet and has just completed a tour of the U.S. and a series of performances at the Opera House that included Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto and Rachmaninoff’’s Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini. In May, he will appear as soloist with the Fremont Symphony, playing the Schumann piano concerto.
Program: J. S. Bach Ciaccona (from Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004); Bartok Solo Sonata; Debussy Sonata for Violin and Piano; Gareth Farr Wakatipu; Ysaye Sonata No. 5; Bartok Romanian Folk Dances
Photo © Susan Wilson
Past 2008-2009 Sundays @ Four concerts
October 5, 2008
Afiara String Quartet
Update: Congratulations to the 2008 ARD International Music Festival second prize winners!
Founded in 2006, the all-Canadian Afiara String Quartet is the Morrison Fellowship Quartet-in-Residence at the International Center for the Arts, San Francisco State University, where they serve as teaching assistants to their mentors, the world-renowned Alexander String Quartet. The San Francisco Classical Voice calls the Afiara Quartet "a terrifically unified, versatile, and moving ensemble" with "startling intensity" and a "powerful, keen-edged collective sound" and Guelph Mercury says, "As if cued by telepathic forces, they wove separate roles into a cohesive and elegant musical fabric." They have performed at Carnegie Hall in the "Kronos: Signature Works" series, taught as faculty ensemble at Chamber Music of the Rockies and Canada's Southern Ontario Chamber Music Institute, and, in their New York debut, were presented by Chamber Music America and the Kronos at St. Luke's Church.
This concert is dedicated to the memory of Kent Hammarstrand, a longtime member of the Sundays @ Four audience who left a generous bequest to the Crowen Music Center.
Program:
Schubert's Quartetsatz, Berg's Lyric Suite, Beethoven's String Quartet No. 8 in E minor, Op. 59, No. 2, "Rasumovsky."
November 16, 2008
Artiste-A Portrait of Django Reinhardt
Hot Club of San Francisco
The Hot Club of San Francisco is an ensemble of accomplished and versatile musicians celebrating the music of Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli's pioneering Hot Club de France. The ensemble borrows the all-string instrumentation of violin, bass, and guitars from the original Hot Club, but breathes new life into the music with innovative arrangements of classic tunes and original compositions from the group's superb lead guitarist Paul Mehling. Hearing the ensemble live, or on any of their ten albums, carries the listener back to the 1930s and to the small, smoky jazz clubs of Paris or the refined lounges of the famous Hotel Ritz. Often called gypsy jazz, the music of The Hot Club of San Francisco has entranced audiences around the globe for over 15 years. Critics have hailed the group's playing as "intricate, scorching and often brilliant." Acoustic Guitar. From festivals in Mexico and France to concert halls across North America, The Hot Club of San Francisco keeps this historic music fresh and alive.
Program: Works by Price, Debussy, Poulenc, Reinhardt, Jellyroll Morton, and Villa Lobos.
March 1 , 2009
New Esterházy Quartet
Photo © Randi Lynn Beach and Kent Young
Founded in 2006, the New Esterházy Quartet takes its name from the Hungarian estate where Joseph Haydn lived and worked for nearly three decades, and from the noble family who were his employers and patrons. The members of the New Esterházy Quartet are internationally-known period-instrument and chamber music specialists. As individuals, the players perform in the top echelon of early music ensembles such as Orchestra of the 18th Century, the Bach Ensemble, Artaria Quartet, Smithsonian Chamber Players, Arcadian Academy, the Göttingen Festival Orchestra, and Musica Angelica. In addition to many years of musical collaboration in Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, American Bach Soloists, and a long list of renowned chamber ensembles, these four Bay Area players have enjoyed decades of friendship and shared experience.
The New Esterházy Quartet has embarked on a performance voyage featuring all 68 of the string quartets of Franz Joseph Haydn. The concerts will span three seasons, culminating in 2009, the 200th anniversary of Haydn’s death. This is the first complete period-instrument Haydn cycle ever performed in North America.
All-Haydn String Quartets Program: Op. 2, No 1 in A Major; Op. 54, No. 3 in E Major; Op. 9, No. 6 in A Major; Op. 64, No. 5 in D Major "The Lark"