TCU'S Mimir Chamber Music Festival amazes yet again

11:20 AM CDT on Friday, July 10, 2009

By SCOTT CANTRELL / The Dallas Morning News
scantrell@dallasnews.com

FORT WORTH – The Mimir Chamber Music Festival amazed again Thursday evening.

In its 12th year, the Texas Christian University festival is both a summer course for college-age instrumentalists and a concert series. Doubling as faculty members and performers are musicians drawn from the Chicago Symphony and Cleveland orchestras, the TCU faculty and elsewhere. But the concerts, at PepsiCo Recital Hall, always include some of the year's best chamber-music performances.

Thursday's account of Beethoven's B-flat major Quartet (Op. 18, No. 6) was as bracing as a dip in a cold stream. Violinists Nathan Cole and Stephen Rose, violist Kirsten Docter and cellist Brant Taylor whipped up that restless energy that seems so quintessentially Beethovenian, and they relished the scherzo's sheer mischief.

Tonal finesse was never in doubt; even fortissimos were never forced or raw. Unisons and octaves were tuned with uncanny accuracy. Cole, in particular, made vibrato a genuinely expressive device, deployed in apparently limitless nuances.

Beethoven's Third Razumovsky Quartet got a performance of matching sophistication. Here Cole and Rose switched places, Rose delivering the first-violin part with the polish and elegance you expect only on a heavily edited recording. And you'd be hard-pressed to match Docter and Taylor for finely honed contributions in the lower parts. The foursome maybe rushed their hurdles too much in the finale, taken at a hair-raising tempo, but the fury was coordinated with amazing precision.

The Dvorák A major Piano Quintet wasn't the justly beloved one that's such a staple of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. No, this was Op. 5, composed 15 years earlier. Dvorák was in his 30s by then, but he was something of a late bloomer. This is still juvenilia, uninspired ideas unimaginatively developed.

Pianist Alessio Bax and violinist Curt Thompson joined Rose, Docter and Taylor in a dedicated performance. Bax might have helped with more shape in the piano part. Or not.

PLAN YOUR LIFE

The Mimir Chamber Music Festival continues with concerts at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Tuesday and July 17 and 3 p.m. Sunday. at PepsiCo Recital Hall, University Drive and Cantey Street, Fort Worth. (But be warned that Interstate 30 will be reduced to one lane each way in Arlington for most of the weekend.) $25; discounts for seniors, students. 817-257-5443, www.mimirfestival.org. Read more!

Mimir Chamber Music Festival kicks off Thursday

Summer hasn’t stopped the usually exceptional music-making in the Metroplex. If it’s quality chamber music you want, then look further than the Mimir Chamber Music Festival in Fort Worth which is running strong during this 12th anniversary year.

Founded by violinist and Texas Christian University professor Curt Thompson, Mimir is named after the Norse god of wisdom. Savvy programming and an excellent roster of musicians have been trademarks of this festival, which is presenting five concerts this month at TCU’s PepsiCo Recital Hall. As in previous years, the festival brings together outstanding artists from the world’s leading orchestras and conservatories who share a passion for chamber music.

Pianist and 2000 Leeds Competition winner Alessio Bax is the star attraction for the first concert this season on July 9th. Bax will play the Dvorak Op 5 quintet in a program that features two Beethoven works as bookends – the early Opus 18, No. 6 quartet, followed later by the “Razumovsky” quartet Op. 59, No. 3.

String quartets by Debussy, Shostakovich, Janacek and Arvo Pärt are among the other highlights this season. You also don’t want to miss two free concerts featuring the festival’s promising young artists. They take place on July 12th and 13th. In addition, Sunday afternoon’s concert on the 12th includes a pre-concert chat with a few of the Mimir artists.

General admission for the regular concert series is $25. Tickets for seniors and students are $15. For more information, call 817-257-5443 or go to the web site http://www.mimirfestival.org/
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Mimir Chamber Festival gives students chance to learn from masters

Friday, Jul. 03, 2009
By CHRIS SHULL
Fort Worth Star-Telegram \ Go!


As the Mimir Chamber Music Festival gets under way Monday at Texas Christian University, classical music lovers will rightly focus on public recitals played by the festival’s artists beginning Thursday.

At PepsiCo Recital Hall, some of Fort Worth’s — and America’s — most accomplished musicians will play small ensemble pieces by Mendelssohn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and other beloved composers.

But most of the festival’s music is made away from public attention in TCU’s music studios and practice rooms. Eighteen college-age music students — formed into string quartets, piano quintets and other small groups — will learn classical chamber pieces under the guidance of experienced performers. The students will receive hands-on coaching for three hours a day and practice together for three hours more. They’ll also attend master classes and sit in on faculty rehearsals.

For the featured artists, coaching and concert preparation constitute 13-hour days that continue until the festival concludes July 17.

"It’s rapid-fire," said Curt Thompson, founder and director of Mimir and violin professor at TCU. "We’ve tried to create an intense chamber music experience for performers, students and audience."

Mimir is in its 12th summer season at TCU. The public face of the festival is the six recitals played by the teaching artists. The rotating lineup of musicians will include Fort Worth favorites Thompson, pianists José Feghali and Alessio Bax, soprano Allison Ward and Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra first cellist Karen Basrak.

Visiting players include renowned pianist John Novacek; violinists Nathan Cole (of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra), Erin Keefe (Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center) and Stephen Rose (the Cleveland Orchestra); violist Che-Yen Chen (San Diego Symphony) and Kirsten Docter (Cavani String Quartet) and cellist Brant Taylor, who is in the Chicago Symphony and the pop band Pink Martini.

The first recital Thurs- day will feature two string quartets by Beethoven and the Piano Quintet in A major, Op. 5 by Dvorak. ("People are going to think the Dvorak quintet we’re playing is the same one they heard at the Cliburn [competition semifinals]," Thompson said. "It isn’t. Same key, but this is an early work.")

With the performances come rehearsals, which the guest artists must schedule around student-coaching sessions and in the evenings.

"It is a grueling schedule," Thompson said. "On the other hand, there’s so much friendship and love and commitment, we experience a phenomenon we call Mimir time. The clock seems to slow. An hour seems like 6 hours; the level of attention is so intense, one day seems like a week. We get in such a zone hour by hour that it is some of the most productive few days any of us has throughout the year."

Many of the faculty performers return to Mimir year after year — cellist Taylor has worked the festival since its inception, violinist Rose for 11 summers.

That continuity and friendship helps solidify recital performances with comparatively short rehearsal time.

"Chamber music is classical music’s version of jazz," Thompson said. "There’s a lot of freedom within it, but there’s a lot of responsibility. There is a great deal of spontaneity in terms of phrasing and dynamics and balance and everything else. Much of that is ironed out ahead of time, but you have to be so responsive to what’s going on around you."

A consistently high level of musicianship elevates Mimir recitals. Most of Mimir’s performers also play at other prestigious music festivals around the world — pianist Bax, for instance, will perform this summer at the famous Verbier Festival in Switzerland.

"Because we know each other so well, a raised eyebrow tells you something’s up and you better pay attention," Thompson said. "Chamber music at its best certainly is telepathic to a degree, where you feel what the other person is going to do." Read more!