Intermezzo

Philippe Quint’s childhood dreams were to become a world-class chess player, soccer star, or perhaps a cosmonaut (he was born in what was then Leningrad, Russia) not necessarily a professional violinist. But at 13 – he began playing at the age of four – he went to Moscow to study at a school for talented young musicians, and there he found “the perfect ground” to develop his craft and a path to a musical career.

There’s a new music ensemble in Las Cruces, and they’re making their debut this weekend with one of the masterworks of the 18th century, the Stabat Mater by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. Ana Maria Quintero and Jessie O’Hara, both graduate students in violin at NMSU, co-founded Vox Vallis Women’s Ensemble to bring high-quality concerts to the region. The decision to begin with Pergolesi’s masterpiece came from Quintero, who has performed it several times, beginning when she was 15.

The enchanting words of Shakespeare, the beautiful music of Felix Mendelssohn, and the young, talented actors of the Starlight Theatre Company will come together to make some magic this month when the company presents “A Midsummer’s Night Dream” in several performances. With a wink to previous Starlight productions, there will be an added delight: a song by Gilbert and Sullivan.

“What’s Othello really about?” asks Julian Alexander about “Othello: The Remix,” the rap version of Shakespeare’s play that he and three other actors will perform this month with the Scaffolding Theatre Co. In this interview with KRWG’s Intermezzo host Leora Zeitlin, director Megan McQueen suggests that it’s “about how we treat people as “Others.” As she wrote in her director’s notes, “Othello challenges us to consider who we value and who we oppress, who we envy and who we sabotage, and why.”

Fairies, sprites, magic and love are all part of Shakespeare’s enchanting “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” This weekend, they’ll all be on stage when the Las Cruces School of Dance and Music presents the Shakespeare-inspired ballet, choreographed by founder and artistic director Monique Foster. Her goal for every ballet, she says, is “to tell the story. Yes, we have ballet technique, dance, and a vocabulary, but I’m always trying to make sure the story is told.”

Don’t be surprised if you see a lot of people walking around with ukuleles in Las Cruces this weekend. Ukulele enthusiasts, musicians, and teachers are gathering from around the country for the second Las Cruces UkeFest, with concerts, workshops, open mic, jam sessions and prize drawings all being part of the two-day festival. The festival is hosted by Las Cruces Ukes, a group that was founded five years ago by Cheryl Fallstead.

When he was growing up in Mexico, violinist Daniel Vega-Albela fell in love with the music of Mozart, and has been playing it ever since. This Sunday, he will perform Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 with the New Horizons Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Dr. Marianna Gabbi. “Mozart was probably my first love,” he said in this interview with Gabbi and Intermezzo host Leora Zeitlin. “I’ve been playing this concerto ever since I was a kid. It’s amazing to see that every time I pick it up again, I find something different. I can continue to grow with this concerto.”

As music students in Morelia, Mexico in the late 1990s, violist Jorge Martinez and pianist Alain Del Real often played together, became good friends, and promised they would continue making music together “in the near future.” Though 22 years have intervened, tonight the two musicians will make that dream a reality when they perform a recital in Las Cruces, joined by Radostin Konstantinov, principal clarinetist of the Juarez Symphony Orchestra.

What began as a simple conversation thirty years ago outside the NMSU Music Building has today become one of Las Cruces’ most beloved and enduring musical institutions, the Mesilla Valley Concert Band. Founded by band conductors and teachers Dr. Bill Clark and John Schutz, along with White’s Music Box owner Mike White, MVCB has grown from 30 players to more than 100 auditioned musicians who together have played for tens of thousands of people over the course of three decades.

Giuseppe Verdi knew how to create unforgettable drama on stage, not only in his almost forty operas, but also in his Requiem Mass, a work whose emotional power and range has been known to terrify, astound in its beauty and chilling effects, and bring one to tears. In a section meant to evoke heavenly trumpets calling from the next world, four trumpets play on stage and four off-stage. “It just raises the hair on the back of your neck, it’s so beautiful,” says Dr. Lonnie Klein, who will conduct the Las Cruces Symphony Orchestra in two performances of the Requiem this weekend.

Ask members of the Great American Trio to describe the music of American composer James Grant, and you’ll hear a string of praise: “warm”, “beautiful,” “lyrical,” “challenging,” “extravagant.” To pianist Dena Kay Jones, “there’s something about his compositions that sounds so human to me,” and to horn player Celeste Shearer, he’s one of “the greatest musicians/composers [whose music] I’ve had the opportunity to play.”

Flamenco dancer and teacher Frank “Paco Antonio” Gilpin first heard flamenco music when he was a dance student at UNM, and immediately enrolled in a flamenco class. “This was really hard,” he said, but he soon realized “this is my passion. I’m going to discover some way to do this.” Gilpin went to study with flamenco masters in Spain, and has been bringing his passion, talent and skill to the stage and to his students ever since.

The Beatles are coming to town—through a new “fab four” band called the Ladybugs. The new group is formed by four young Las Cruces musicians, all of whom graduated from Las Cruces High School some years ago and have pursued musical careers. The shows will include their own arrangements of 19 Beatles tunes, with a variety of instruments.

It was in a shoe store that Sara Sant’Ambrogio’s destiny as a cellist emerged. She had begged her parents for a cello, but they thought she was too small. Then the five-year-old went to get her first pair of school shoes, and discovered her feet were bigger than her older sister’s, Sant’Ambrogio told Intermezzo host Leora Zeitlin. When her mother told her father, he said, “'Really, hold your hands out,' and I held my hands out and he realized how massive my hands were – they looked like ET – and the next day, I got a cello. And I was so happy.”

There may be magic in the air when the Mesilla Valley Concert Band performs this Sunday. One of the featured works is “Concerto for Horn and Sorceress,” a new work written by local attorney and composer David Beasley for his horn-playing wife, Kim Beasley. Dr. William Clark, conductor of the ensemble of 101 players said of the work, “it has an energy… it’s indescribable until you hear it.” Clark came to KRWG to talk with Intermezzo host Leora Zeitlin about the program, which will also include music by Rossini, Eric Whitacre, and Mark Camphouse.

As every performer and conductor knows, you have to be prepared for the unexpected: a slip of the memory, a violin string snapping, or a last-minute cancellation by a soloist. That’s what conductor Dr. Marianna Gabbi faced this week, when her long-time friend, acclaimed classical guitarist Javier Calderon, was suddenly hospitalized and had to cancel his concert this weekend with the New Horizons Symphony Orchestra.

Valentine’s Day is over, but you can still share the love this weekend with the Scaffolding Theatre Company’s latest production, a five-course meal and theatrical romp called "Five Course Love." The musical by Gregg Coffin requires three actors to perform five characters each, taking the audience into five different restaurant settings, eras, and stories.

Mezzo-soprano Kirstin Chavez has been called “the Carmen of a lifetime,” and has performed the renowned opera by Georges Bizet in some 40 different productions worldwide. This weekend, she returns to Las Cruces to present her one-woman dramatic concert version, which intersperses Bizet’s music with original monologues that offer new insights into the famously fiery character. Chavez said she hopes “to set the record straight” about Carmen, who frequently is portrayed as a mean, even vulgar, woman of questionable morals.

What makes busy musicians want to start a new ensemble? For Venezuelan cellist Horacio Contreras, who teaches in Wisconsin and performs frequently around the world, it was a yearning to play with his old friend Simon Gollo, who teaches violin here at NMSU. They had met “more years ago than I want to say,” and later, he met pianist Ana Maria Otamendi in Venezuela. “I’d like to pay with Simon again, and what about playing with Ana Maria?,” he thought, as he recounted in this interview at the KRWG studios with Leora Zeitlin.

Beethoven is coming to Las Cruces this Sunday to help celebrate the completion of major renovations at First Presbyterian Church. A special concert will feature musicians from the Las Cruces Symphony Orchestra and pianist Stephen Helmreich, performing Beethoven’s Wind Quintet in E-flat, Op. 16 and the ever-popular Septet in E-flat, Op. 20.

There’s a new professional chamber orchestra in town – Camerata del Sol, a 15-member string ensemble that will make its debut this weekend in concerts in Las Cruces and El Paso. Made up of players from Las Cruces, El Paso, Ciudad Juarez and elsewhere in the country and the world, the group will perform works that aren’t played by large symphony orchestras, and that lend themselves to the more intimate sound of a chamber group.

For a conductor and music teacher, it’s a special thrill to perform with a student long after he or she has set out on a career far from home. “I can’t tell you how exciting it is for me,” says Dr. Marianna Gabbi, conductor of the New Horizons Symphony Orchestra, who will conduct the orchestra and cellist Lawrence Stomberg in Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto on October 29. Stomberg grew up in Las Cruces, and participated in special summer string programs that Gabbi led. “We had master classes, concerts, it was fabulous. Not only was the music wonderful, but the camaraderie was just great.

Concert season is in full swing this week at NMSU, and swinging is just what will happen when the Jazz Ensembles, directed by Dr. Frank “Pancho” Romero, perform on Friday night. The concert is called “Big Phat Band: The Music of Gordon Goodwin” and will feature the music and arrangements of the acclaimed composer, conductor, and leader of the “Big Phat Band.” Romero came to KRWG to talk with Intermezzo host Leora Zeitlin about Goodwin, the upcoming concert, and jazz activities at NMSU. The concert is part of the ‘Autumn Overture” series this month that showcases top NMSU student ensembles.

It’s fall and there’s music in the air – particularly at New Mexico State University. This week and next, audiences can hear NMSU’s premier music ensembles perform in a series of concerts called “Autumn Overture,” the third annual such showcase of the university’s student musicians.

Misha Dichter has had an illustrious career spanning more than 50 years – performing with the world’s great orchestras and musicians, making dozens of recordings, and all the while delighting in repeatedly analyzing each piece of music to discover something new. “It’s so exciting – you’re having a conversation every day with the composer,” he told Intermezzo host Leora Zeitlin.

From her earliest childhood in Santa Rosa, NM, Dr. Lucy Scarbrough played piano, along with her nine siblings. In her teens, she discovered the music of Frederic Chopin. “Chopin is the composer who inspired me to be a musician,” she told Intermezzo host Leora Zeitlin. “His music fits my hands naturally.”