Pianist Peter Serkin with Violinist Madalyn Parnas and Cellist Cicely Parnas
Sunday, April 25, 4 pm, Centre Congregational Church, Brattleboro, VT

BMC Founder Blanche Moyse was one of world-renowned pianist Peter Serkin’s early teachers. Mr. Serkin continues the tradition of mentoring exceptional young talent with his tutelage of the granddaughters of legendary cellist Leslie Parnas. Violinist Madalyn Parnas, 18, and cellist Cicely Parnas, 16, join Peter Serkin for this Brattleboro performance.

Debussy: Sonata for Violin and Piano (1916)
Chopin: Sonata for Cello and Piano, Op. 65 (1846)
Ravel: Piano Trio in a minor (1914)

Tickets $30, $20, $10;
Purchase on-line at BrattleboroTix.com
Or call the BMC at 802-257-4523.

This concert is part of the Brattleboro Music Center Chamber Music Series.

STORY:

On Sunday, April 25, the Brattleboro Music Center Chamber Music Series presents the Parnas/Serkin Trio, 4 pm at Centre Congregational Church in Brattleboro, VT.

There are three magnificently intertwined reasons to come on Sunday afternoon: Peter Serkin, the Parnas sisters, and a fine program of masterworks. The Brattleboro Music Center is honored to present an unusually well connected slate of performers, sure to inspire and captivate.

Peter Serkin really needs no introduction. Serkin’s rich musical heritage extends back several generations: his grandfather was violinist and composer Adolf Busch and his father pianist Rudolf Serkin. In 1958, at age eleven, he entered the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where he was a student of Lee Luvisi, Mieczyslaw Horszowski and Rudolf Serkin. He later continued his studies with Ernst Oster, Marcel Moyse and Karl Ulrich Schnabel. In 1959, then twelve years of age, Mr. Serkin made his Marlboro Music Festival and New York City debuts with conductor Alexander Schneider and invitations to perform with the Cleveland Orchestra and George Szell in Cleveland and Carnegie Hall and with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Eugene Ormandy in Philadelphia and Carnegie Hall soon followed. He has since performed with the world’s major symphony orchestras with such eminent conductors as Seiji Ozawa, Pierre Boulez, Daniel Barenboim, Claudio Abbado, Simon Rattle, James Levine, Herbert Blomstedt and Christoph Eschenbach. Also a dedicated chamber musician, Mr. Serkin has collaborated with Alexander Schneider, Pamela Frank, Yo-Yo Ma, and the Budapest, Guarneri and Orion string quartets and TASHI, of which he was a founding member.

BMC founder and violinist Blanche Moyse was one of Peter Serkin’s early teachers. Mr. Serkin continues the tradition of mentoring exceptional young talent with his tutelage of violinist Madalyn Parnas, 18, and cellist Cicely Parnas, 16.

As Peter Serkin began his career early, born into the type of musical family most of us can only imagine, so is true of the Parnas sisters. Their grandfather, world-class cellist Leslie Parnas was a founder of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and their uncle Richard Parnas was the principal violist for the National Symphony Orchestra for 35 years. Born in 1991, Madalyn Parnas has performed more than thirty concerti with orchestra, making her debut at age twelve and collaborating with the great master musician and conductor Jaime Laredo last season. With equal passion Madalyn has devoted her energy to the study and performance of chamber music. Collaborating for twelve years with sister cellist Cicely as duo parnas, extraordinary achievements include winning 1st prize in international chamber music competition at Carnegie Hall, releasing two internationally acclaimed CDs, and performing 21st century compositions written for them by award-winning composers and earning rave reviews.

Born in 1993, cellist Cicely Parnas is one of the finest young artists performing today and easily recognized for her uniquely sincere musical voice and highly individualized sound. Her exquisite tone and spontaneous creativity are fueled by a limitless generosity and fearlessness making for exciting performance. Cicely began studying the cello at age four, and made her orchestral debut at nine. Since then Cicely has performed over two dozen times as guest soloist with orchestra, including the New York String Orchestra conducted by master musician and conductor, Jaime Laredo, and David Alan Miller’s Albany Symphony. Three of Cicely’s concerto performances have been presented on WQXR’s "McGraw Hill Young Artist Showcase" in New York. Cicely has also claimed six 1st prizes in national and regional soloist competitions.

This exceptional groundwork in chamber music for the Parnas sisters included formal study of piano trios beginning in 1999 and laid the foundation for meetings that began with Peter Serkin in the summer of 2007. Mr. Serkin, impressed with the duo’s “rich, thoughtful approach…” and the “purity of their playing,” began performing numerous concerts with them as the Parnas/Serkin Trio beginning in the 2008-09 concert season. This very successful collaboration of a master artist and new musical talents, learning and exploring great chamber music together, is a trademark of the summer Marlboro Music Festival in which Peter Serkin and many other beloved musicians have taken part.

The collaboration seems mutually enjoyable. Mr. Serkin spoke of the Parnas’ as playing with a “professionalism that is not glossed or layered for effect. They are teaching me with their attitude.” Madalyn said that he told them to “consider our meetings as friends getting together to play music. We have learned to listen at a much higher level.” Serkin adds, “Both of them have a rich, thoughtful approach. There is a purity to their playing.”

The program the Parnas/Serkin Trio has chosen to perform in Brattleboro includes the Debussy violin sonata in g minor, the Chopin cello sonata in g minor, and the Ravel piano trio in a minor.

The Debussy violin sonata was Debussy’s final work; composed third in a planned series of six sonatas, and its premiere was actually Debussy’s final public performance. It is a richly harmonic work in a neo-classical style, with each instrument declaring a motif and sometimes challenging the other, also declaring its own counter-motif. The piece ranges widely in moods, from melancholy to very spry, light, and joyful passages.

Similarly, the cello sonata was Chopin’s last major work, and was also the last piece that Chopin performed publicly. Further, Chopin took care to balance the piano and cello parts, so that a variety of collaborations emerge, with one or the other taking the lead.

Ravel’s trio was written in 1914, long before the composer’s death in 1937, finished hurriedly so he could enlist in the French army at the outbreak of World War I. Ravel’s superb talents for arranging are quite evident in this work, as he uses the instruments’ wide range of sonorities to create very rich textures, with the violin and cello parts spaced very wide apart, and the piano in between. This trio is one of the best loved and technically difficult in the trio literature.

Madalyn plays on a violin made in 1687 by Gioffredo Cappa, and Cicely plays on a 1790 William Forster cello. Peter Serkin will be playing the BMC’s Steinway concert grand piano.

The Parnas/Serkin Trio concert will take place on Sunday, April 25, 4 pm, at Centre Congregational Church, 193 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT. This concert is part of the Brattleboro Music Center’s Chamber Music Series.

Tickets $30, $20, $10;
Purchase on-line at BrattleboroTix.com
Or call the BMC at 802-257-4523.