Avedis hovering over the Legion of Honor (thanks to Photoshop)
Avedis artistic director Alexandra Hawley explains how it came about that the season is dedicated to the music of Jean-Michel Damase:
A few minutes before the final concert last season where we were performing a Damase piece, an audience member shared with me that the composer had passed on that very week. I was a bit shaken, and on the way home decided to honor him this season by performing one of his works on each concert, except on the Bach program.
Avedis had commissioned two pieces by him — Fantomes for Wind Quintet and Quatres Facettes for flute and guitar. I had met him here in San Francisco quite a few years ago and we kept up a correspondence by air mail. Damase wrote some 20 chamber music pieces including flute and Avedis has performed 14 of them during our 29 years.
Jean-Michel Damese
He writes beautifully for the flute — the music is always difficult but lies well for the instrument and he knows how to blend it well with the other instruments. For this concert we are exchanging his quartet 15 Minutes for his Trio for flute, viola and harp as it makes a better contrast with the Piston Quintet.
The Piston is a new one for us this season — a challenging work that integrates the flute into the quartet texture really well.
It is said that the best Spanish music was written by French composers and the Two Interludes of Ibert give a delightful taste of this — light, charming and just that — an interlude between the weightier Piston and the brilliant closer Francaix Quintet which is pure French.
The ensemble — Hawley, Emily Laurance (harp), Roy Malan (violin), Susan Freier (violin), Paul Hersh (viola), and Stephen Harrison (cello) — performs at 2 p.m. April 20, in Florence Gould Theatre, Legion of Honor, Lincoln Park.
