New chamber music fest for Northbrook

• Reprints

Angela Yoffe

North Shore
Chamber Music Festival

Village Presbyterian Church, 1300 Shermer Road, Northbrook

7:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 8, Friday, June 10, Saturday, June 11

Music by Arensky, Auerbach, Bach, Brahms, Chausson, Mozart, Milhaud, Prokofiev, Schumann and Stravinsky

Series tickets are $95 to $45, students and seniors $20; single tickets are $40 to $20, students and seniors $10

For complete schedule, visit www.nscmf.org/schedule/html

For tickets, call the festival office at 847-370-3984 or
e-mail office@nscmf.org

Article Extras

Updated: June 6, 2011 12:10PM

A star-studded new chamber music festival is coming up next week in Northbrook. The concept originated with internationally acclaimed violinist Vadim Gluzman and his wife, pianist Angela Yoffe, who are residents of the village.

Through their professional connections in the musical world, they have gathered such stellar soloists and chamber musicians as cellists Wendy Warner and Ani Aznavoorian; clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein; pianist William Wolfram; violinists Ilya Kaler and Lisa Shihoten, and violists Atar Arad and Rose Armbrust. Both Gluzman and Yoffe will also play.

“We know all of them very well,” Yoffe said. “They are our friends and colleagues.”’

Gluzman is artistic director of the festival, but it was his wife who first proposed the idea to him. “It was a kind of a ‘click’ moment,” the violinist said. “We’ve played in festivals all over. We knew what we liked about them, and what we didn’t. But it had never occurred to us to do something right here. There is certainly no lack of talent in the area.”

The couple and their daughter Orli, 7, have lived in Northbrook for years and found the ideal venue in the Village Presbyterian Church, which is five minutes from their town home. “The sanctuary is all wood and it has a slightly raised stage,” Gluzman explained. “It will be an intimate setting with the audience all around us.”

School days

Gluzman and Yoffe grew up together in Latvia. “We met when we were seven years old,” said Yoffe, with a lilt in her voice. “We went to a school for gifted children in Riga.”

In 1990 after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Gluzman’s family immigrated to Israel. Yoffe’s went the following year. “On Vadim’s last concert in Riga, I played with him,” she recalled, “and when my family got to Israel, I played with him in his first concert in Jerusalem.”

She paused, then added, fondly, “That was it.”

In 1993 the two young people traveled to Dallas to study at Southern Methodist University. “There were musicians there from all over the world,” Yoffe remembered. In 1995 they returned to Israel to be married, but later settled in New York City. Yoffe became a piano assistant to the legendary violin teacher, Dorothy DeLay. Gluzman coached with DeLay, while maintaining his world-wide concert career.

“We are playing music we like to play in this festival,” said Yoffe. “We had to balance the blockbusters and the unjustly neglected — rarely performed pieces that are very good and should be heard.”

She spoke with enthusiasm about Russian composer Lera Auerbach, whose Postscriptum for Piano Trio will be played Friday, June 10. “She writes very dark, very beautiful music,” Yoffe said, adding that she and Gluzman made a world premiere recording of the composer’s 25 Preludes for Violin and Piano.

The series also includes Stravinsky’s “Suite Italienne” June 8, Schumann’s Piano Quartet June 10, and Prokofiev’s Sonata for Violin and Piano June 11.

Long-time friends

The couple counts among their friends Moscow-born violinist Ilya Kaler, the only violinist to win gold medals at the Paganini Competition (1981), the Sibelius competition (1985), and the International Tchaikovsky Competition (1986).

“Vadim and Angela are great friends of mine and our family,” Kaler confirmed. “I have also been a great admirer of Vadim’s … (he is) both a wonderful artist and human being.”

Kaler now makes his home in Chicago and teaches at the De Paul University School of Music. In addition he is concertmaster of the Lake Forest Symphony and plays with the Ars Viva Orchestra.

He was more than happy to play in the festival. “It was only natural for me to accept the invitation to take part in the festival Vadim and Angela are starting,” he continued. “I could gladly fit it into my concert schedule. I had also a pleasure of performing with Angela before on a couple of occasions.”

In addition to the three concerts, the festival includes two bonus programs at 6 p.m., free to ticket holders. Friday the Betty Haag Academy of Music Magical Strings of Youth will present a program, and young cellist Daniel Kaler will also play. “When we asked him, his father Ilya volunteered to accompany him on the piano,” Yoffe said. “I don’t think many people know that Ilya is a fine pianist too!”

On Saturday the bonus will be a lecture-demonstration by the Stradivari Society of Chicago, Bein & Fushi, discussing the mystery surrounding the work of Antonio Stradivari and Guarneri del Gesu. Gluzman himself will demonstrate the difference between the sounds of the two instruments.

Many sponsors of the festival’s inaugural season are local. “We have had wonderful help from community businesses,” Yoffe said, obviously pleased.

Because all the players have played together before, Gluzman hopes that this festival will have a feeling of unity. “We all know each other, we have this bond,” he said. “We hope people will be able to feel that.

“And we have picked music that speaks to people’s hearts,” he concluded, “played by people who can touch their hearts.”