Lauded for her elegant playing and vibrant tone, award-winning Jennifer Kloetzel was a founding member of the Cypress Quartet. Robert Koenig is a sought-after pianist and chamber musician. Both are currently on the music faculty at U.C. Santa Barbara.
The program will showcase the cello's “wicked versatility”, says Kloetzel. The first three works were not originally intended for the cello. Haydn composed his Divertimento in D Major for a baryton (an early string instrument), viola and cello trio. Two centuries later, renowned cellist Gregor Piatagorsky adapted it for himself with piano accompaniment. “We are making the sound of a trio with just two instruments,” says Kloetzel. In Beethoven’s Sonata for Cello and Piano in F Major, Beethoven lets the cello take over the role of the horn in conversation with the piano. In De Falla’s “Siete canciones populares espanolas,” piano and cello reconfigure the original voices of the soprano and accompaniment. “And I am tasked with extra things – a lot of strumming and plucking,” Kloetzel says.
Elena Ruehr wrote her cello sonata for Kloetzel. Ruehr, professor of music at MIT, is a prolific composer, who often finds inspiration in nature, art, poetry, literature and even the news, as she did for “Lift” (2013 – available on youtube) in the story of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai.