Reed Tetzloff plays Ives’ Concord Sonata as the final statement of Sunday’s program at Maverick Concert Hall — not a curtain call, but a considered ending that places one of the most demanding works in American piano literature as the logical destination of an afternoon that begins with Schumann. In a season Maverick has framed around the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the American composers it inspired, the placement is less a postlude than a thesis.
About the Show
The American Chamber Music Society — founded by violinist Eric Gratz, described by the ensemble as “the youngest concertmaster of all the major orchestras in the United States” — builds its Maverick program as a deliberate conversation between German Romanticism and American chamber music. Schumann’s String Quartet No. 1 in A minor and Mendelssohn’s String Quartet No. 6 in F minor give way to Chester Biscardi’s Piano Quintet and Arthur Foote’s Piano Quintet in A minor, the latter two works drawing Tetzloff in as a full partner. The quartet features Gratz and Isabelle Ai Durrenberger on violin, Matthew Cohen on viola, and Joshua Halpern on cello.
Tetzloff’s résumé is not a quiet one. Russian media at the XV International Tchaikovsky Competition called him “the lyric hero of the competition” in 2015; The Cincinnati Enquirer has praised his “magical tone”; critics have noted his balance of “artistic intelligence, immaculate technique, and daredevil bravura.” His Beethoven Piano Concertos recordings with the Prague Philharmonic earned five-star reviews in Diapason and Classica, and he has recorded Grieg and Schumann concertos with Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Luxembourg Philharmonic for Aparté, with Prokofiev and Bartók concertos to follow later this year. He is currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts at the Peabody Institute under Richard Goode. The Concord Sonata at the close of this afternoon is as much a statement of intent as a performance. The program is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Venue & Logistics
Maverick Concert Hall sits at 120 Maverick Road in Woodstock, built in 1916 by Hervey White as part of the Hudson Valley‘s Maverick Colony. The hall’s heavy timber framing and wide plank walls produce acoustics that have served chamber music well across more than a century of Sunday concerts — Maverick describes itself as “the oldest ongoing summer chamber music festival in the United States.” The concert begins at 4:00 p.m.
Tickets
Reserved hall seats are priced at $55 and $35 ($30 and $27 for partial-obstruction views). General admission outdoor seating is $20; students pay $10. Buy tickets