Classical Music
More chamber delights in Seattle, Leavenworth

By Melinda Bargreen
Seattle Times music critic

FRANK W. OCKENFELS Pianist Max Levinson plays tonight and Wednesday as part of the Seattle Chamber Music Society's Summer Festival.

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Can the Seattle Chamber Music Society's Summer Festival really be heading into its final week? Yes, the summer is really scooting by — but there's still time to catch some of the concerts, which have been selling out regularly.

Tonight's free pre-concert recital at 7 p.m. has violinist Scott St. John and pianist Jeremy Denk playing Prokofiev (the F Minor Violin Sonata). The main-event concert displays the smooth sound of the Seattle Symphony's new principal oboe, Nathan Hughes, in the Op. 166 Saint-Saëns Oboe Sonata, with Denk at the keyboard. Following that: one of the festival's longtime favorite artists, cellist Ronald Thomas, plays the F Major Brahms Cello Sonata — an arch-romantic piece — with pianist Max Levinson.

The finale is the tuneful Schubert Octet for Strings and Winds, with St. John joining Aloysia Friedmann, Geraldine Walther, Bion Tsang, Jordan Anderson, Frank Kowalsky, Arthur Grossman and William VerMeulen.

Keyboard fans are in luck on Monday, when Anton Nel arrives to play the all-Beethoven pre-concert recital: one famous work (the "Les Adieux" Sonata) and two less-heard ones (Five Variations on "Rule Britannia" and the G Major Rondo, Op. 51, No. 2). The main concert has a charming Jolivet suite for flute, viola and harp, a Chausson Piano Quartet and finally the C Minor Mendelssohn Trio (with Nel at the piano).

More keyboard at the Wednesday recital: Max Levinson plays Mikhail Pletnev's dazzling piano arrangement of Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker" Suite, a work that practically oozes charm. The main concert offers a Piston duo, a Brahms piano trio (the C Minor) and Dohnányi's Piano Quintet. Get moving fast on tickets for any of these; they'll disappear quickly.

Creekside concerts

Classical music previews Seattle Chamber Music Society's Summer Festival, through next Friday, Lakeside School, 14050 First Ave., N.E., Seattle; $16-$35 (206-283-8808 or www.scmf.org). Icicle Creek Chamber Music Festival, through Aug. 1, Chapel Theater of Sleeping Lady Mountain Retreat and Canyon Wren Recital Hall on Icicle Creek Campus, Leavenworth (877-265-6026, ext. 408, or www.icicle.org). "Lohengrin," Seattle Opera, July 31-Aug. 21, McCaw Hall, Seattle Center; $47-$123 (206-389-7676 or www.seattleopera.org).

Up in Icicle Creek near Leavenworth, the Icicle Creek Chamber Music Festival also is in full swing. A program intriguingly titled "Discoveries, Lost and Found" is the weekend offering at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow and 2 p.m. Sunday, with Haydn's C Major Cello Concerto as its centerpiece. Steven Doane, an impeccable cellist who also has been playing the Seattle Chamber Music Society's festival, is the soloist in the Haydn; you'll also hear him with three other cellists (Rosemary Elliot, John Michel and Sally Singer) in two rare works for cello quartet: Putz's "Tango" and Fitzenhagen's "Spinnerin." Assisting artists include violinist Carrie Rehkopf, violist Scott Hosfeld, pianist Oksana Ezhokina and the Institute Chamber Orchestra.

Ezhokina, the festival's resident pianist, is heard in a recital called "Fantasies and Variations" tonight at 7:30. This Russian-born artist will play Beethoven's Op. 101 Sonata in A Major, Knussen's Op. 24 Variations, the Weber Fantasy (Op. 25), and Schumann's "Fantasie" in C Major, Op. 17.

Looking ahead

We know, it seems impossible to think about anyone's 2004-05 season starting already. But Seattle Opera's first season production, "Lohengrin," opens just a week from tomorrow (July 31) in McCaw Hall, and it looks like a show not to miss, with popular Asher Fisch returning to conduct and staging by Stephen Wadsworth, one of today's top directors. It's also Jane Eaglen's debut as a nasty, scheming sorceress — quite a change from the operatic heroines who usually fill her calendar. Seattle Opera's Web site, www.seattleopera.org, is a great source of background and production detail. And look for a detailed preview in this Sunday's Seattle Times, in the Entertainment & the Arts section.

Melinda Bargreen: mbargreen@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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