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Volume CXXXIII, Number 14 |
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Brahms Trio provides lunchtime culture
JULIE THOMPSON
STAFF WRITER
After a full semester of practicing, waiting, and practicing a few more
times, the Bowdoin Brahms Trio will finally perform at this Friday's Lunchbreak
Concert at 12:30 p.m. in Gibson 101.
Composed of Samantha Altschuler '04, Andrew King '04, and David Sohn'04,
the three will perform the second movement of Brahms' Trio for cello,
piano, and clarinet. This is a piece the group has rehearsed together
for months, and now they are finally getting the chance to display their
talent in front of an audience. Says Altschuler of the piece, "We
decided that we'd worked on it hard enough and wanted to perform."
Altschuler, who has studied the cello since age four, has performed in
several chamber ensembles at Bowdoin and will play a Copland sextet in
the spring with several other string players.
King's 12 years of experience on the piano has enabled him to play a
wide variety of composers and pieces, and he is enthusiastic about the
selection and the composer. "It's really kind of heartwrenching…it's
very pretty. It's a chamber piece, so we're all kind of interacting musically
with each other." On Brahms he noted, "He tended to play a lot
with rhythms. This is one of the last pieces he wrote…it was written
in the 1890s at some point."
The Music Department's Lunchbreak Concerts provide many opportunities
for Bowdoin students, faculty, and outside performers to put their talents
on display. Past concerts have included student performances on instruments
from guitar to piano to tuba, as well as selections from faculty compositions
and student recitals. This Friday's concert will feature, along with the
Trio, Professor Jim McCalla performing several of Professor Elliott Schwartz's
piano compositions. Also, Lana Klemeyer '02 will sing several selections
as a preview for her upcoming March voice recital.
One of the appealing aspects of the Lunchbreak Concert is the informality
of the affair. Audience members often bring bag lunches and Gibson 101,
typically used as a rehearsal room, is a laid-back space in which students
can perform without the pressures of more formal venues. However, in terms
of opportunities for musicians to showcase their talents, many students
and faculty members have voiced the clear need for a concert hall on Bowdoin's
campus. While Pickard Theater is wonderfully equipped for the uses of
dramatic productions, it has some of the worst acoustics on campus-especially
for vocal groups. The building that houses Curtis Pool has long been targeted
as the site for Bowdoin's next concert venue, but these plans have yet
to come to fruition.
In the meantime, the Bowdoin Music Department has done an excellent job in making use of other spaces around campus for performances. It has also created ample opportunities for Bowdoin's student musicians to share their talents with the community.