Tag Archives: Andrew Irvin

The ASO River Rhapsodies series continues tonight

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The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra continues the 2019-2020 River Rhapsodies Chamber Music season with Musical Images, Tuesday, January 28th at 7:00 p.m. at the Clinton Presidential Center.

ASO’s Quapaw String Quartet, along with other musicians will perform Golijov’s Tenebrae; Kinan Azmeh’s The Fence, the Rooftop, and the Distant Sea; Paul Reade’s Suite from The Victorian Kitchen Garden; and Elgar’s Violin Sonata in E minor, Op. 82. 

River Rhapsodies Chamber Music Concerts are held in the intimate setting of the Clinton Presidential Center’s Great Hall. A cash bar is open before the concert and at intermission, and patrons are invited to carry drinks into the concert. The Media Sponsor for the River Rhapsodies Chamber Music Series is UA Little Rock Public Radio.

General Admission tickets are $26; active duty military and student tickets are $10 and can be purchased online at www.ArkansasSympohny.org; at the Clinton Center beginning 60 minutes prior to a concert; or by phone at 501-666-1761, ext. 1.

Artists
Quapaw String Quartet
–Meredith Maddox Hicks, violin
–Charlotte Crosmer, violin
–Timothy MacDuff, viola
–David Gerstein, cello
Kiril Laskarov, violin
Andrew Irvin, violin
Kelly Johnson, clarinet
Katherine Williamson, violin
Stephen Feldman, cello
Alisa Coffey, harp
Jason Pennington, piano

Clarinet Quintets Old and New tonight at St. Luke’s Festival of the Senses.

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Five musicians from the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra will play a free Festival of the Senses concert at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, January 14, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church.

Clarinetist Kelly Johnson, violinists Andrew Irvin and Meredith Maddox Hicks, violist Katherine Williamson, and cellist Stephen Feldman will play Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet in A Major and contemporary Syrian composer Kinan Azmeh’s “The Fence, the Rooftop, and the Distant Sea.”

The concert, which is free and open to the public, is the fourth in the 2019-20 season of the Festival of the Senses performing arts series sponsored by St. Luke’s and will be followed by a reception in the church’s parish hall.

Written in 1789 and sometimes called the Stadler Quintet, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s only completed clarinet quintet is one of his most admired works. His Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K. 581, has four movements: Allegro, Larghetto, Menuetto, and Allegretto con Variazioni.

Image result for the fence the rooftop and the distant sea“The Fence, the Rooftop, and the Distant Sea” by Syrian composer Kinan Azmeh is a work in five movements inspired by memories of his Damascus birthplace in a distant view of the Syrian coastline seen from a rooftop in Beirut. Azmeh has achieved worldwide fame as a clarinetist and composer with a distinctive voice across diverse musical genres.

A graduate of the Julliard School with a doctorate in music from the City University of New York, he has taken his music around the globe as a soloist, composer and improviser.  His album “Uneven Sky” with the Deutsches Symphony Orchestra won the OpusKlassik Award in 2019, and he is a member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silkroad Ensemble, whose 2017 Grammy Award-winning album “Sing Me Home” features Kinan as a clarinetist and composer.

Festival of the Senses presents Music for the Holidays on December 10 at St. Luke’s

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sheet music with holiday ornaments, ribbons and evergreen branchesOn Tuesday, December 10, at 7:00 p.m., Festival of the Senses will present a holiday concert of music by Sant-Saens, Brahms, Yon, and traditional carols played by May Tsao-Lim at the piano, Andrew Irvin on violin, and David Renfro on French horn.

The concert, which is free and open to the public, is the third in the 2019-20 season of the performing arts series sponsored by St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, 4106 JFK Boulevard. A reception with holiday treats will be held in the church’s parish hall following the performance.

The program will be as follows:

  • Caprice in the Form of a Waltz, Opus 52, No. 6, for Violin & Piano by Camille Sant-Saens;
  • Trio for Horn, Violin & Piano, Opus 40, by Johannes Brahms;
  • Gesu Bambino, by Pietro Yon;
  • A selection of traditional carols to be sung by the audience.

Festival of the Senses is a performing arts series created in 2011 by St. Luke’s Episcopal Church as a gift of the arts to the community to entertain, enlighten, and inspire.

May Tsao-Lim, who played in the Eric Hayward memorial concert for Festival of the Senses in September, teaches applied piano and piano pedagogy at Henderson State University, where she is Assistant Chair of the music department and Director of International Music Festivals. She has also taught at Iowa State University and Malaysia’s University College Sedaya International

ASO concertmaster Andrew Irvin is well known to Festival audiences as a member of the duo ARmusica. He also plays in the Camino Trio and recently was heard as substitute concertmaster with the Omaha Symphony. He has concertized across America and throughout Europe on his 1765 Gagliano violin, and his recordings are available on the Potenza and Naxos labels.

Since 2005, David Renfro has been the ASO’s principal horn player and also serves as the orchestra’s chief development officer. He is a member of Etesian Winds, a woodwind quintet, and the ASO Brass Quintet, and has taught at Ouachita Baptist University and Henderson State University. He was previously the principal horn in the Texarkana and Missouri Symphony Orchestras.

Free concert by ASO musicians this afternoon as part of Ruth Marie Allen Concert Series at UAMS

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The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra presents the fall concert in the Dr. Ruth Marie Allen Concert Series at UAMS. Musicians from the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra are featured in the UAMS Hospital Lobby Gallery on Wednesday, November 20 at 4:30 p.m.

The free-to-the-public performance showcases the Rockefeller String Quartet, ASO Concertmasters Andrew Irvin and Kiril Laskarov, and ASO musicians; Jordan Coleman, bass, and Leanne Renfro, Lorraine Duso Kitts, and Beth Wheeler, oboes performing a program of music by Michael Fine and Mozart.

“It is my hope that these concerts will promote the beautiful music of the ASO,” said series founder Dr. Ruth Marie Allen. The concerts also aim to provide the opportunity for celebration and renewal to hardworking UAMS students, staff, and faculty, according to Allen.

Concerts in the Dr. Ruth Marie Allen Concert Series at UAMS are free and open to the public. Parking is available for a fee in Parking Deck 1. For more information please contact the ASO Box Office at (501) 666-1761, ext. 1.

Program
MOZART – Quartet for Oboe and String Trio, K. 370
Leanna Renfro, oboe; Linnaea Brophy, violin, Katherine Reynolds, viola, Jacob Wunsch, cello

FINE, Michael – Double Violin Concerto with String Quartet and Bass
Andrew Irvin, Kiril Laskarov, violin; Rockefeller String Quartet, Jordan Coleman, bass

FINE, Michael – Concerto for Oboe Section with String Quartet and Bass
Lorraine Duso Kitts, Leanna Renfro, Beth Wheeler, oboe; Rockefeller String Quartet, Jordan Coleman, bass

HANDEL – Passacaglia for Violin and Cello
Linnea Brophy, violin and Jacob Wunsch, cello

Artists
Andrew Irvin, violin
Kiril Laskarov, violin
Jordan Coleman, bass
Leanne Renfro, oboe
Lorraine Duso Kitts, oboe
Beth Wheeler, oboe
Rockefeller String Quartet
-Trisha McGovern Freeney, violin
-Linnaea Brophy, violin
-Katherine Reynolds, viola
-Jacob Wunsch, cello

ARmusica to play ‘Devilish Delights’ for Festival of the Senses on October 29

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Image result for irvin cheek little rockThe instrumental duo ARmusica—pianist Julie Cheek and violinist Andrew Irvin—will perform a program of spooktacular music in celebration of All Hallows’ Eve at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, October 29, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, 4106 JFK Boulevard. The event is part of the church’s free Festival of the Senses performing arts series featuring outstanding Arkansas artists. The concert will be followed by a reception in the parish hall. All Festival of the Senses events are free and open to the public.
The program will include the “Devil’s Trill Sonata” by Italian Baroque composer and music theorist Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770), who claimed he was inspired by a dream in which the devil appeared at the foot of his bed playing the violin. The piece, a solo violin sonata in G Minor (1713)—also known as “Tartini’s Dream”—is his most famous work and is noted for its difficulty of execution.
“The Devil’s Dance,” the theme from film composer John Williams’s score for “The Witches of Eastwick,” written in 1987, is one of the renowned composer’s lightest and most comedic works. It is also known as “The Dance of the Witches.”
Two pieces by French composer Camille Sant Saens (1835-1921) round out the program. “Danse Macabre” (1872-74) began as an art song for voice and piano and was later reworked with a solo violin part. ARmusica will also perform his “Caprice Brilliant” (Opus 52, No. 6) for violin and piano, an etude in the form of a waltz known as the Ysaye Caprice.
Little Rock native Julie Cheek is well known to Arkansas audiences as a versatile keyboard artist who made her debut at age 14 as a soloist with the Arkansas Symphony Chamber Orchestra and has been featured often with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra (ASO) and other ensembles across the U.S. She has taught at UALR, the University of Colorado, Interlochen, and Vienna’s Hochschule, and continues to teach privately. For many years has sailed around the globe as a favorite performer aboard several popular cruise lines. Her many media appearances include National Public Radio, BBC Radio, PBS, and A&E.
Violinist Andrew Irvin, ASO concertmaster, has played his1765 Gagliano violin in concerts throughout North America and Europe. He studied at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, the Eastman School of Music, and Arizona State University before moving to Arkansas. In 2012 he and Julie Cheek formed the duo ARmusica, which appears regularly for Festival of the Senses. He is also a member of the Irvin/Christopher Duo and the Camino Trio and has recorded on the Potenza and Naxos labels. Highlights of his chamber music career include performances with the Ying Quartet and the Audubon Quartet.

Artober – Behind the Scenes. An Arkansas Symphony Orchestra rehearsal in 2017

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Image may contain: 2 people, people sittingOctober is Arts and Humanities Month nationally and in Little Rock. Americans for the Arts has identified a different arts topic to be posted for each day in the month. Today’s focus is “Behind the Scenes.”

In 2017, I had the rare privilege of sitting on the stage during an Arkansas Symphony Orchestra rehearsal. These are some of the photos I took from that time.  It was exciting to not only hear the music up close but the see the musicians interact with each other on breaks. My appreciation for the ASO musicians (which was already high) grew even more so that evening.

As I was seated next to the violins, most of the photos are of the strings section.  I tried to be as subtle as possible in taking the photos.

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ARmusica in concert at 7pm tonight

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ArMusicaFestival of the Senses, the free performing arts series sponsored by Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church at 4106 JFK Boulevard, again presents the ARmusica duo of Julie Cheek on piano and Andrew Irvin Tuesday, April 2, at 7:00 p.m. in a program of “Spring Surprises”: music by composers Arvo Pärt and Ludwig von Beethoven, plus a selection of beloved musical themes from the movies by Ennio Morricone and John Williams.

Julie Cheek, a Little Rock native who made her professional debut at age 14 as a soloist with the Arkansas Chamber Orchestra, has performed and held master classes with orchestras across America and Europe and has traveled around the world as a popular entertainer on several cruise lines. She continues to teach at Interlochen and elsewhere and to concertize throughout the U.S.

Violinist Andrew Irvin, concertmaster of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra (ASO), has played his 1765 Gagliano violin in concerts throughout North America and Europe. In addition to being a cofounder of ARmusica in 2012, he is a member of the Irvin/Christopher Duo and the Camino Trio and has recorded on the Potenza and Naxos labels.

This season marks the eighth year of Festival of the Senses, with nine events spotlighting some of the region’s most distinguished and dedicated musicians and artists. Designed as a gift of the arts to the community to entertain, enlighten, and inspire, all events are free and open to the public. The performance will be followed by a reception in the parish hall for attendees to meet and greet the performers.