The trio Sequenza, comprised of violinist Mark Kaplan, cellist
Colin Carr and pianist Yael Weiss, aren’t subject to the
typical boundaries of chamber music. In some parts of
tonight’s performance, Yael Weiss, Sequenza’s pianist,
will approach her instrument in a rather unconventional way.
“Bright Sheng’s (piece) requires me to play inside
the piano ““ to actually play on the strings,” Weiss
said. “It’s something you’re never going to find
in music written before 1950.”
At 8 p.m. tonight in Schoenberg Hall, Sequenza will perform a
program of two parts. The first section features chamber music by
the German composers Franz Joseph Haydn and Johannes Brahms. The
second part of the program showcases music by the Chinese-American
composer Bright Sheng and French composer Maurice Ravel’s
China-inspired “Trio in A Minor.”
The dual cultural nature of the program is a conscious choice on
the part of Kaplan, Carr and Weiss, who thought it would be
interesting to bring European and Chinese classical music together
in one program.
A highlight of the performance will be the music composed by
Sheng, an innovative composer known for his ability to traverse
conventional boundaries of classical music, according to the
trio.
“He uses traditional western instruments like the violin,
cello and piano to achieve sonorities which are very similar to
those that one would achieve with traditional Chinese
instruments,” Kaplan said. “It’s an amazing
compositional feat.”
Sequenza will perform Sheng’s “Four Movements for
Piano Trio.” The piece moves from a Chinese folk style to a
wild dance, finally ending in a calm, nostalgic tone.
Sheng’s talent in creating Eastern classical music with
Western instruments does not fail to impress cellist and former
UCLA music professor Colin Carr.
“It’s really remarkable; it’s unlike anything
we’ve ever played,” he said. “It’s like
being dropped into rural China.”
Sheng’s trio will be followed by Ravel’s “Trio
in A Minor.” Despite the fact that Ravel had limited
knowledge of Chinese music, the members of Sequenza opted to
perform his trio because of the French composer’s fascination
with music from the Far East.
“What Ravel was doing was based more on a few bits of
information supplemented by a lot of imagination,” Kaplan
said. “Bright Sheng’s music is based on a very thorough
knowledge of Chinese music, but the two are closely related in
intent.”
As a music professor at UCLA, Kaplan hopes that Sheng’s
pieces will pique interest among the large Asian population he
observes in his classes and on campus.
Sequenza, which means “following” in Italian, is a
new ensemble formed out of the Golub-Kaplan-Carr Trio, one of the
foremost trios of its kind for 18 years. After the unexpected death
of pianist David Golub, Kaplan and Carr searched for another member
who would fit well into the dynamic of the trio and found Weiss, a
young Israeli pianist.
Though they are technically a trio, the members of Sequenza
aren’t limited to pieces written exclusively for trios. In a
recent performance at Princeton University, Sequenza performed all
Brahms works. They selected many pieces that were not trios and
thus were able to show their musical flexibility by breaking up
into pairs and also by performing solos. They also perform with
guest artists and sometimes expand into larger groups.
“This is the sort of thing we’d like to do more
of,” Carr said. “We like to do things that other trios
don’t do because we are all soloists and we can mix and match
like that. It’s fun to do.”
Sequenza performs tonight at 8 p.m. at Schoenberg Hall. Tickets
are $30, $15 for students. For more information, call the CTO at
(310) 825-2102.