Mayfest 15: Cornell’s International Chamber Music Festival Opens Friday May 17 – ithaca.com

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Cellist Zvi Plesser returns to Mayfest for the eighth time this year. Photo by Michael Pavia. 

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Cellist Zvi Plesser returns to Mayfest for the eighth time this year. Photo by Michael Pavia. 
Cornell’s annual International Chamber Music Festival, and arguably the finest musical experience of the season, opens Friday, May 17, offering five concerts on successive days. It features outstanding performers, some local, but mostly from away. The founders and artistic directors, Xak Bjerken and Miri Yampolsky, from Cornell’s music department and with international performing careers and musical friends everywhere, started this festival in 2008.  
All the concerts but one will be in Barnes Hall, starting at 7:30 pm. The splendid and historical A.D. White House is the venue for the special third concert, “Brunch with the Schumanns and Brahms,” on Sunday morning, where one can have pre-concert coffee (from Copper Horse) and treats from Paris Baguette.  
Some performers will be familiar faces for Mayfest lovers. Old-timers cellist Zvi Plesser and violinist/ violist Xiao-Dong Wang (known as “X”) have played at the festival in seven previous years. Second-timers are baritone Jean Bernard Cerin, director of the vocal program at Cornell; saxophonist Steven Banks; violinists Roi Shiloah and Maria Ioudenitch, violist Kyle Armbrust, and cellist Ariel Tushinsky. In addition, violinist Guillaume Pirard (Ithaca College faculty and Cayuga Chamber Orchestra conductor candidate) plays in two concerts. Several musicians who have appeared before will participate in the Bach concerto on the final program. 
As for repertory, Xak and Miri are “thrilled to have oboist Dudu Carmel back after his stunning and overwhelming playing in Mayfest 2019.” Every program includes a work for oboe, which helped them to choose the rest of the music. 
Concert I opens with an oboe quartet by Mozart, and includes music for violins and piano by Shostakovich, a Hindemith viola sonata, song selections by Fauré (a tribute to the admirable French composer who died in 1924), and a piano trio by Mendelssohn.  
Concert II presents three works, not known to the general public, the first a Divertimento for oboe and strings by Finnish composer Bernhard Henrik Crusell; then a suite for solo cello by Spanish composer Gaspar Cassadó (who was a touring cellist), and a piece called “Night Paths” by Joseph Phibbs (who studied at Cornell with Steven Stucky). Also included are a  Schumann violin sonata, and the beloved Piano Trio in B major by Brahms. 
Concert III will be the Sunday morning special at the A. D. White House, which features works by Robert and Clara Schumann and their dear friend Johannes Brahms. By Robert we will have a beautiful Romance for piano solo, plus 3 Romances for oboe and piano. Clara’s pieces are an arrangement for oboe, cello and piano; and the Andante movement from her G minor Trio for piano, violin, and cello. From both Schumanns are song sets. Music by Brahms includes a song and the Adagio affettuoso movement from his Sonata for cello and piano in F major, Op. 99. 
Concert IV starts with Temporal Variations by Benjamin Britten, followed by a song set by Hildegard von Bingen and Caroline Shaw (the medieval and the contemporary), played by instrumentalists. Then come Beethoven’s Violin Sonata in Eb major, Op. 12, no. 3, and his popular Archduke Trio.  
Concert V is a true grand finale starting out with the J. S. Bach Concerto for Oboe and Violin in C minor, BWV 1060. A small orchestra includes regulars, first-time and several-time players, including Xak and Miri’s son, double bassist Misha Bjerken, his violinist colleague Isabella Gorman, and harpsichordist William Cowdery. Then comes the world premiere of a Piano Quintet by Christopher Stark, a work started before the pandemic and postponed until now. Stark has a DMA from Cornell and the quintet has a backstory about trees and their life cycle. The composer mentions Arvo Pärt as a model for this work that has a beautiful simplicity. 
Closing this special 15th Mayfest is the best piece of chamber music ever written, in the view of many. The Schubert Cello Quintet in C major captures your heart and imagination from beginning to end. Two violins, one viola, and two cellos make up the ensemble .  
Here is what Xak and Miri want to say to their audiences about this year’s Mayfest.  
“Since its beginning in 2008, Mayfest has been a festival of joy, music, friendships, and deep connections among musicians, along with the loyal and supportive audiences who have come to enjoy the music. In this year, people are hurting and desperately needing this outlet of music and its personal and musical connections. Good music is always the answer when you doubt where you stand. It elevates us and brings all to a shared humanity—that we are all in this together. This feeling has been behind the choices of repertory, especially the final program with the Schubert and Bach. After a very difficult year, it is an honor for us to just deal with the notes on a page.” 
Their message is one that was expressed by Leonard Bernstein: “Our response to violence will be to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.” 
 
Mayfest 
Cornell International Chamber Music Festival 
Fri. May 17-Tues. Mat 21 
Sunday Concert 10:30 a.m. at White House 
All others 7:30 p.m. at Barnes Hall 
mayfest-cornell.org 
 
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