CLASSICAL VOICE OF NORTH CAROLINA
Zéphyros Winds Opened for the Rolling Stones?
William Thomas Walker
October, 2005
Zéphyros Winds Opened for the Rolling Stones? No, not really. But it was an irresistible conceit to steal oboist James Roe's quip, "I never thought I could say that we would be the opener for a Rolling Stones concert!" The "we" were the members of the Zephyros Winds, a wind quintet, and guest pianist Pedja Muzijevic. A rolling stone may gather no moss, but a Stones concert can play havoc with logistics and scheduling for other events of lesser mass appeal. The huge crowd and parking burdens of the October 8 "happening" at Wallace-Wade led to the opening concert of the 2005-6 Chamber Arts Society's season being moved to the afternoon. Members of the Reynolds Industries Theater audience who bought discounted parking passes along with their season tickets were very lucky. Those who hadn't came into the Bryan Center grumbling, "I can't get no satisfaction" because Dook's parking crew had hit them up for $15, triple the normal charge. (As if we needed to find yet another way to erect barriers to building audiences for the arts....)
Zéphyros Winds consists of flutist Jennifer Grim, oboist James Roe, clarinetist Marianne Gythfeldt, bassoonist Douglas Quint, and Patrick Pridemore on horn. Wind quintets are rarely heard locally and, more often than not, the performances that are given here involve ad hoc ensembles assembled by university music departments or drawn from regional orchestras. Having prepared as intensely as a professional string quartet, the Zéphyros players raised the bar of standards much above average. All five had seemingly effortless virtuosity with their instruments, solid intonation, subtly matched dynamics and phrasing, brilliant solos as needed but otherwise seamlessly blended, whether in pairs or playing as one. Listening to the almost peerless musicianship of pianist Pedja Muzijevic left the music lover in speechless wonder, grappling for apt superlatives. With the very well-tuned piano's lid fully up, he never covered any of his colleagues' lines, no matter how quietly they were playing.
The interpretation of Mozart's Quintet in E-flat, K.452, for piano and winds, had extraordinary clarity and was a model of the application of classical style. The composer's cunning craftsmanship was evident throughout, not least in his use of short phrases – because of players' need to breathe – and the dovetailing that masked this. Among the delights were bright piano trills and the mellow tone of the oboe, gorgeous stopped horn notes, ensemble so well blended that it glowed from within – and, of course, attractive melodies.
With fine duos for flute and keyboard available from composers ranging from Bach and Handel to Poulenc, I was mystified by the choice of a transcription of 14-year old Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Sonata No. 1, in f minor, Op.4. Beethoven's influence as a model, closely adhered to, is evident in all three movements. Fine breath control and clean articulation of very fast notes were among the virtues of Grim's approach, and she was ably supported by Muzijevic.
The eleven continuous sections of Samuel Barber's Summer Music, Op. 31, gave plenty of scope for the Zéphyros to strut their stuff as a traditionally-configured quintet. Although the composer wanted to evoke the languid days of summer, there are faster and louder sections within the piece. The ensemble heeded the composer's warning – "Don't play it too slowly" – so they maintained a steady, forward impulse even during the slower sections.
While I generally dislike transcriptions, some can provide new insights to well-known showpieces. That is certainly true for the astonishing arrangement by David Carp for piano and wind quintet of Richard Strauss' "Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche" ("Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks"), Op. 28. Despite the radical downsizing from a 100+-piece orchestra, all the major themes are present, usually played by the original "solo" instruments. The piano pretty much takes on all the string parts. All the impish insouciance of the original is retained and laid bare.
A hearty and long standing ovation was rewarded with rare fare, the "gavotte" from Ludwig Thuille's Sextet in B-flat, Op. 6 (1891). This well-crafted piece, with its catchy theme and bagpipe-like droning, deserves more frequent exposure.
A
Martha A. Fawbush
October 6, 2002
Special To The Citizen-Times
The Zéphyros Wind Quintet strains the reviewer’s ability to find just the right words to express the group’s superlative musical skills. Jennifer Grim, flute; Michael Aaron Bepko, clarinet; James Roe, oboe; Douglas Quint, bassoon; and Patrick Pridemore, horn represent the highest level of technical skills and musicianship. On Friday evening they brought their art to a large audience in Asheville’s Unitarian Universalist Church, an excellent venue for the performance and appreciation of chamber music, to present the first concert of the 50th year of the distinguished Asheville Chamber Music Series.
The program included comparatively recent works by composers whose names are not household words: the Paul Hindemith’s composition was the only one most of the audience recognized. The Serenade for Wind Quintet by Karl Pilss (1942) revealed immediately the exciting, superb playing of all members of the Quintet. The lush, late 19th century Romantic harmony and melodic lines were perfectly suited to the warm, mellow sound of the instruments. The last movement, with its great sweeping lines driving the music to its final cadence, demonstrated the great virtuosity of all five instrumentalists.
The second piece, “La Nouvelle Orléans,” composed by Lalo Schifrin in 1987, was a delight, evoking a funeral procession in the best New Orleans style. The instruments allowed the audience to hear the trudging of many feet in the procession, but there was nothing lugubrious about any of the music, which soon broke into the sounds of the city’s street bands playing the great jazz melodies and rhythms audiences have come to expect. The gradually accelerating music gave all the members of the quintet chances to be heard playing the hot licks associated with New Orleans music.
Hindemith’s “A Little Chamber Music for Five Wind Instruments,” Op. 24, No. 2 (1922) allowed the quintet to play a more abstract style of music which sounds much more modern than the recent music on the program. Hindemith requires the players to move quickly from one mood—gaiety, sadness, bitterness—to another, and asks them to switch rapidly from staccato lines to long, extended lines. All members of the quintet were up to the composer’s technical demands and brought to the music a sparkle, liveliness, great wit, and a level of musicianship, which would have pleased Hindemith.
The last two pieces on the program showed no musical or emotional letdown among the quintet. Paul Pierne’s “Suite Pittoresque pour Quintette à Vent” once more found players and audience enjoying the musical scene-making of a clever composer evoking the sound of bees buzzing about a flower and a cat having a voluble disagreement with a group of birds. The brief four movements of Endre Szervanszky’s “Fuvosotos” (1953) was a tour de force for the French horn and featured brilliant allegro solos for the flute and oboe and exciting demonstrations of technical skill by all the players.
The concert was truly an exquisite musical experience and certainly gets the chamber music season off to a fine start.
T
April 3, 2001
This was the awkward position that Charles Yust was in as the announcer for Saturday evening's Zéphyros Quintet performance. The name of the French hornist, Patrick Pridemore, had been inadvertently omitted from the evening's program. With a little self-effacing humor, Mr. Yust pointed out the error and introduced the group.
As we would see later in their performance, the Zéphyros Quintet has a good sense of humor. Four players filed onto stage instead of the usual five. The empty chair for the French horn player was a hilarious sight gag and the audience howled with laughter.
Pridemore rushed onto the stage, horn tucked under his arm, and we were soon on our way toward a very enjoyable show.
The first thing you notice about this group is their beautiful overall tone. They opened the program with a piece by August Klughardt (Woodwind Quintet, Op. 79). This was a light, gentle piece, interspersed with periods of strength, and was perfect for introducing us to this group.
Beautiful sweeping passages with the flute and a clarinet solo that was fluid in style and pure in tone marked some of the highlights of this work.
James Roe, the oboist, introduced to us the second piece on the program, Wind Quintet No. 1 by Jean Francaix. "The jokes in this piece are obvious -- feel free to laugh." The statement in itself produced a chuckle from the crowd. "You don't seem like a shy audience," Roe added.
What a fun piece of music! The Allegro brought forth the first laugh from the audience. The muted blat of the French horn was almost circus-like in its comedy. "It sounded like cartoon music," mentioned Fran Silver.
Now, however fun this piece may be, make no mistake, it is a tremendous challenge for the players. Pages of arpeggiation coupled with challenging, syncopated rhythms kept the Zéphyros Quintet on its toes, and it triumphed.
Throughout the abrupt changes in tempi, throughout the many different moods, the group painted a picture of city life, with bustle, activity and even a dark underlying charm.
Summer Music, Opus. 31, by Samuel Barber is marked "slow and indolent." The only time that indolence is considered acceptable behavior is probably in the summer. Or when performing a piece of music about summer.
The oppressive weight of the very air in summer was painted around the Pollard Auditorium. With an exquisite oboe solo, and sensitive ensemble work, the atmosphere was deftly transformed and one could even feel a light breeze; nice, but not enough to lift the film and haze that permeates even the coolest days in a Southern summer.
I cannot imagine a more perfect rendering of this piece. It was summer on the front porch, with the sticky-sleepy feel of late afternoon. The members of the Zéphyros Quintet are fabulous artists at setting a mood, whether humorous and tongue in cheek, or a landscape setting.
"This is our greatest masterpiece," mentioned Roe.
Paquito D'Rivera is more familiar to us as a jazz musician than as a composer. The final piece on the program was his Aires Tropicales.
Different popular dances are blended in a classical setting, resulting in a mingling of different styles and flavors. Many nice solos abounded here, particularly the oboe solo in the Habanera. I had expected to hear plenty of French horn in the movement titled "Dizzyness," for the simple reason that the horn is a brass instrument, and "Dizzyness" is a tribute to Dizzy Gillespie. However, except for the nicely done final phrase, the winds carried the majority of the themes.
The show-stealer of this piece, however, is the folksy, playful "Contredanza." A thump on the floor startles the crowd into laughing, and then occurs again. This time, however, we see the players stomping in rhythm to the dance. The delighted audience laughed with each thump of the heel. The final movement, Afro, made use of alto flute and English horn. The warm, dark sound of the alto flute was echoed by the whole group and swirled into a rhythmic pulse, full of energy.
They ended their performance to curtain calls and a standing ovation. As an encore, the group revisited the Contredanza from Aires Tropicales. "You have to stomp along this time," said Roe.
The audience thoroughly enjoyed these excellent entertainers. They were an energetic end to a marvelous Chamber Series season, and a wonderful introduction to anyone who has not heard a woodwind quintet.
Deidre Hoffman is a music critic for The Oak Ridger
The Washington Post
John Pitcher
Monday, January 29, 2001
You can probably count the number of truly popular wind
quintets on the fingers of one hand. The reason, quite simply, is that this kind
of ensemble lacks an established canon -- a significant body of original works
that can support and sustain high-profile careers.
That said, the Zéphyros Quintet, which appeared with
pianist Charles Wadsworth at the Barns of Wolf Trap on Friday, has in recent
years attracted the kind of national -- and even international -- attention that
seems almost unprecedented. How many wind quintets, or string quartets or piano
trios for that matter, can boast of an Internet site filled with messages from
adoring fans living as far afield as Maine, California and Southeast Asia?
Indeed, the group's photogenic flutist, Nadine Jeong-Eun Hur, probably has
enough of a following to support a Web site of her own.
Zéphyros is a relatively youthful ensemble, and no doubt
its vigorous and enthusiastic approach to music -- and the lively banter with
which it entertains an audience between numbers -- has something to do with its
popularity. More important, though, Zéphyros is a virtuoso group. In Francis Poulenc's Sextet for Piano and Winds, for instance, the players created a vast
wall of brilliant sound that seemed almost orchestral in its power and
intensity. And yet they never lost sight of the music's inherent intimacy.
The high point of the concert came just before
intermission, in a performance of Samuel Barber's "Summer Music" for wind
quintet. Barber marked the opening of his music "slow and indolent," and that's
exactly how Zéphyros played it. It was a remarkably expressive and languid
account that clearly called to mind a cool breeze on a hot summer day. -- John
Pitcher
OSWEGONIAN
Zéphyros Quintet wows crowd, Waterman Theater
Rebecca Applebaum
November 12, 2000
This past Saturday night I attended a performance by the Zéphyros Quintet. Let me begin by saying that I am not a huge fan of classical music by any measure, but this performance blew me away.
I had read the reviews by different major newspapers, but I was skeptical. I read the biography on the group, which told me that all the members are graduates of the Julliard [sic] School of Music. They worked for a famous composer and performed with that orchestra and that Broadway show pit band, and all that other blah, blah nonsense. None of this mattered to me, I was only concerned if it was going to be boring or not. Luckily it wasn't and I was glad to be there.
The Zéphyros Quintet is composed of Nadine Jeong-Eun Hur flute, James Roe oboe, Michael Aaron Bepko clarinet, Douglas Quint bassoon, and Patrick A. Pridemore French horn. However, Mr. Pridemore was absent at this performance and his place was taken by Nancy Billman. These are individuals who came together to form a well-oiled musical machine. They played with a kind of gusto and personality that is rare to these kinds of groups. Their sound quality was magnificent and sharp. It was apparent to me that they love to play music with each other.
The first piece presented was "Quintet in E-flat Major Op. 4 (1797)," composed by Ludwig Van Beethoven. The movements of this piece were quick and dancing. There was a certain section in the first movement that had an impressive call and answer section between all the different instruments.
The second movement showcased Jeong-Eun Hur, the flutist. She played with an inspiration and quality of tone that I have never heard. The piece had different sections where the music would stop suddenly and begin again. They would end together and then take a deep breath and begin playing again as if they were one person rather than four [sic] separate people.
The second movement was "Quintet for Wind Instruments" by Paul Hindenman [sic]. This piece ranged from a jovial first movement to a strange waltz in the second movement, which James Roe, the oboe player, called a "memory of a waltz". Roe explained that the piece was composed in between the two major wars and I found that it had echoes of wartime sentiment in the different movements.
The third piece was "Quintet for Wind Instruments Op. 95 (1909)" composed by Josef Bohuslav Foerster. Roe said that the Zéphyros Quintet enjoys playing pieces by forgotten composers and Foerster "is as forgotten as any composer can be." I didn't think that it mattered though, as I found this piece to be very beautiful. It reminded me of a Renaissance carousel ride and a movie soundtrack all in one.
The fourth and final piece was by far my favorite. It was "Quintet en Forme de Choros (1928)" by Heitor Villa-lobos. In Roe's introduction to this piece he said that it uses "every single note on the flute" which was apparent. This piece seemed to be technically very difficult. It was kind of an ethereal tango with Brazilian jungle noises mixed in. The piece was the most outstanding of the evening as it was the most radically different out of the four. The musicians obviously enjoyed playing this piece, as they played until their faces were red, and during some sections they seemed to lose themselves completely in the music and lift out of their chairs. The piece ended with the flute playing the highest note and the oboe playing the lowest note in their respective registers. This brought the quintet thunderous applause.
The audience that attended the performance ranged from young children to senior citizens, although it was lacking in students.
"It was inspirational. Their musical ability inspired me to inquire about learning how to play a musical instrument," said Jennifer Kanaris, a student who attended the performance.
Paul Mosbo, a math professor at SUNY Cortland who saw the show said it was, "wonderful. They're excellent, and although I wasn't familiar with the pieces I thoroughly enjoyed it. I play the violin and had never heard a wind quintet, but I really enjoyed the sound. Absolutely captivating."
Sara Siembor, a little girl who saw
the show, said it was "really good. I play the clarinet and now I'm more
interested in listening to this kind of music. My mom dragged me here but I'm
glad I came."
The Shelter Island
Reporter
B. Lethbridge
Thursday, September 9, 1999
With its chosen name of Zéphyros, the wind quintet that performed last Sunday at
the Presbyterian Church must be used to reviews that include such descriptive
words as "breezy," "gusty," and "breath of fresh air" et. al. But this young
musical ensemble also deserves such superlatives as "brilliant," "stunning,"
"masterful."
The concert, presented by the Shelter Island Friends of Music got off to a boisterous start with a work by the 19th century Italian, Giulio Briccialdi, a noted flutist in his day who now is chieflyknown for the special lever he devised for the instrument. His Quintuor opus 124, had the lively spirit and sounds of an old time town band, often suggesting- as the Zéphyros oboist James Roe put it- an amalgam of Italian opera and Gilbert & Sullivan.
Far more innovative was Paul Hindemith’s Kleine Kammermusik composed in 1922 when the virtuoso musician was 27. This is a wonderful work, full of expressive dissonances and varied moods, which allow each instrument to convey its distinctive voice. This reviewer still remembers hearing Kammermusik for the first time in college during a performance of "Alice in Wonderland," where the majestic, melancholy third movement was used to introduce the lugubrious Mock Turtle. The music still resonates.
With the next work, by Hindemith’s French contemporary, Darius Milhaud, we were carried back to the renaissance, though with modern overtones. La Cheminée du Roi Rene was composed in 1939 but its seven movements reflect a vibrant era of jugglers, jousts, serenades, and hunts, all dazzlingly conveyed by the Zéphyros musicians.
The concert came to a rousing end with what was virtually an unknown work by an unknown composer, the Hungarian Endre Servánsky. His quintet, Fúvósotos, was written in 1953 under the strict edicts ("good melodies, nothing strange or subversive") of a repressive government. Despite such injunctions, Servánsky created an exuberant and impressive work which Zéphyros presented with brilliance and precision.
We are deeply indebted to the following outstanding performers: Nadine Jeong-Eun Hur (flute), Douglas Quint (bassoon), Michael Aaron Bepko (clarinet), Patrick A. Pridemore (horn) and Mr. Roe (oboe).
THE DAY (New London, Connecticut)
Pianist's Award And Performance Strike The Right Chord
Milton Moore, Days Arts Editor
Sunday, February 7, 1999
Old Lyme- The biggest ovation of the evening came Saturday night when Music
Masterworks president John A. Hargrave announced that chamber series Artistic
Director Charles Wadsworth is to receive an honorary doctor of fine arts when
the concert is repeated at Connecticut College today.
But at the sold-out concert at the First Congregational Church Saturday,
Wadsworth earned his ovation the old-fashioned way: in performance. As pianist
in four of the six works played by the Zéphyros Quintet, Wadsworth demonstrated
that despite his worldwide success as a chamber music impresario, his acclaim
was born in the keyboard.
Playing with the young, gifted wind players, Wadsworth revealed a deep personal
affinity for the music of Francis Poulenc. In the three Poulenc pieces
performed, his expressive powers and his knack for executing Poulenc's hairpin
turns of mood and tempo were the rock upon which
fine performances were built.
The centerpiece of the program was Poulenc's most popular chamber piece, his
disarmingly mercurial 1939 Sextet for Piano and Winds.
But the most intriguing was his 1952 Elégie for Horn and Piano, written
after the death of British hornist Dennis Brain.
Playing with Zéphyros hornist Patrick Pridemore, Wadsworth cast an almost
hypnotic spell with the work's tolling, stepwise piano figures. Pridemore's
creamy legato and tone throughout the range were ideal for the alternately
somber and angry elegy.
Similarly in the well-known sextet, Wadsworth highlighted the work's quick
contrasts of exuberance and introspection from the very start with a moving
reading of the reflective central section of its first movement.
But the sextet was an equal opportunity performance, for both individual voices
and the wind ensemble, which created a near-symphonic sound in the wind unisons
of the finale.
Flutist Nadine Jeong-Eun Hur had plenty of opportunities to explore the timbres
of her gold flute, with some remarkable flutter-tongue playing. And as he would
all evening, oboist James Roe played with a glorious, rich sound and infallible
sense of line.
Bassoonist Douglas Quint clearly enjoyed his soft-voiced instrument's prominence
in Poulenc's 1928 Trio for Piano, Oboe and Bassoon. The most Jazz Age of
the works performed, bursting with odd accents and dance rhythms that vanish in
two bars, the trio was a delightful romp, with the lovely oboe/bassoon duet of
the central movement as intermezzo.
Two lively, but fairly non-descript movements by long-forgotten composers were
performed, with host Charles Wadsworth noting that when Giuseppe Maria Cambini
died in 1825, "his reputation followed him right into the hole."
The other major work of the program, which will be performed at 3 p.m. today at
Connecticut College, was Samuel Barber's 1959 "Summer Music" for Wind Quintet.
Barber marked some of its tempos as "slow and indolent". And Zéphyros did a fine
job of weaving a lazy summer mood, ever aware of the nuance beneath the surface
of this charming piece.
The Washington Post
At La Maison Francaise, The Perils of Poulenc
Edmund Morris
Monday, January 11, 1999; Page C01
As the musical memoirist Ned Rorem remarked on WETA-FM's "Performance Today"
last week, Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) was "the sum of his contradictions."
France's subtlest composer since Ravel, Poulenc had the misfortune to look like
a lumpish comedian and sound like a brass instrument, at least when he talked.
This, plus his love of musical horseplay, has often caused him to be
misperceived as something of a clown. A spate of Poulenc performances around the
world, in honor of his centennial on Jan. 7, should help correct that injustice.
A three-day Poulenc Festival was offered by the Washington Embassy Series at La
Maison Francaise Thursday through Saturday. It confined itself to songs and
chamber compositions, all of them delicately proportioned, and thus gave little
indication of Poulenc's larger mastery, as exemplified, for example, in his
darkly powerful church music.
Still, there was enough poised melody (Poulenc's particular gift), to enchant
the ear, not to mention silken textures and harmonies whose sweetness, like that
of Northern French apples, was always tinged with acid.
Nadine Jeong-Eun Hur's performance of the 1956 Flute Sonata on Thursday evening
captured this piquancy. There is a little codetta (Poulenc had Mozart's ability
to end with perfect promptness) in which the flute flickeringly arpeggiates the
triad of E major, while the pianist's left hand does the same in E minor. The
shivery discord dissolves in less than a second, but the precision with which
Hur and her partner, the mercurial James Lent, brought it off was exemplary.
Precision was less evident in a rendition, by Jennifer Montone and Lent, of the
plangent Elegie for French horn and piano (1957). To be fair to this intense
young artist, she was playing an instrument of notorious difficulty, and the
anguish inherent in the music (composed in memory of the great cornetist Dennis
Brain) perversely benefited from her struggle. The horn's final subsidence into
a sort of snarling exhaustion, pianissimo, while the piano delicately floated an
unresolved B-flat, was poignant.
Hur and Montone are members of the Zéphyros Wind Quintet. Their three young
colleagues, Michael Aaron Bepko (clarinet), Douglas Quint (bassoon) and James
Roe (oboe) did stellar work Thursday evening, before a black-tie audience.
Bepko's flawless tone in the Clarinet Sonata (1962) persuasively suggested that
his instrument, of all others, is the one best suited to Poulenc's
characteristic cool arches of melody.
© Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company
The Washington Post
Zéphyros Wind Quintet at Strathmore Hall
Joseph McLellan
Saturday, January 17, 1998
After an evening spent with the Zéphyros Wind Quintet, in concert at Strathmore
Hall, one begins to doubt the reports of harps and massed choirs beyond the
Pearly Gates. This brilliant young ensemble (formed four years ago at the Curtis
Institute in Philadelphia) could convince you that the sound of music in Heaven
is a delicately blended and balanced ensemble of flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and
bassoon.
Except for Franz Danzi (1763-1826), whose Quintet in F had a nearly Mozartean
charm, the program Thursday night was dedicated entirely to music of the 20th
century, and it demonstrated that even in this musically troubled time, writing
for a woodwind ensemble brings out a mellow streak in most composers.
Most mellow of all was the relaxed, melodious "Summer Music" of fellow Curtis
alumnus Samuel Barber, composed in 1956 and long established as an international
classic of wind chamber music. Gunther Schuller, who played horn before becoming
a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, distinguished music educator and proprietor
of his own small but prestigious record company, was represented by his Suite
for Woodwind Ensemble (1957). Schuller is also well known as the inventor of the
"third stream" style, which merges jazz and classical techniques. The bluesy
slow movement of his Suite exemplifies what this concept means and how good the
results can be. The Zéphyros players, being young and American, knew exactly
what to do with it.
Two living Hungarian composers completed the program. Gyorgy Ligeti's Six
Bagatelles- music richly varied in mood and flavor- were originally composed for
piano four-hands but are even more attractive in his arrangement for woodwinds.
Gyorgy Orban's Wind Quintet is moody in the manic-depressive style familiar
since Liszt wrote his Hungarian Rhapsodies, well-crafted in its sound-texture
and emotional shadings and superbly fitted to the sound of a wind quintet.
© Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company
The Daily Freeman (Kingston, NY)
Youthful Performer of Zéphyros Quintet ride their winds
Kitty Montgomery
February 18, 1997
Members of the Zéphyros Quintet look so young and innocent, rock club bouncers
would
probably card them at the door.
The other-worldly beatitude of these recent graduates, who performed Sunday
afternoon at Holy Cross Church as part of the Hudson Valley Philharmonic Ulster
Chamber Series, reflects lifetimes spent taking deep breaths and exhaling
harmonious music al sounds.
A late bloomer, in the midst of these former prodigies, Patrick Pridemore of
Georgia didn't start blowing horn until he was 10.
What separates Zéphyros from other wind quintets, and likely accounts for it's
unprecedented win of the 1995 Fischoff Competition, is that the ensemble retains
the expressive voicings of the individual players. They search and sing with
supple, incidental virtuosity, in a consensual performance.
There's no sitting back to enjoy lines, toodling along in pretty synchronized
precision when Zéphyros plays. The group doesn't please and content it's
audience but engages our passionate curiosity in the unfolding of a composition.
Michael Bepko's clarinet clarinet carries the haunt of infinity's abyss in his
lower register (a mysterium that marks the play of Stoltzman and other great
wind players) in the the performance of Taffanel's "Quintet for Winds" and
Hindemith's "Kleine Kammermusik." Both French romantic composer and the Teutonic
father of the 12-tone are united in the evocation of gentle zephyrs.
Pridemore's horn carried the "gloire" of a full-voice Wagner player in brief
phrases of Barber's "Summer Music" and Villa-Lobos' "Quintet" in the form of a
choros.
Giving vent to primal Brazilian passions in this work, flutist Nadine Hur was
briefly sharp, a contrast to the seductive, lyric innocence of her lines
elsewhere in the concert.
Chicago Sun-Times
Young Quintet Shines at Newberry
Wynne Delacoma
November 1, 1995
As long as people like Sarah Zelzer and organizations like Mostly Music are
around, talented young artists will have opportunity to perform in Chicago.
For decades, Zelzer, with her late husband, Harry, one of Chicago's late
impresarios, presented the world's major classical musicians under the banner of
their Allied Arts series. Mostly Music has a shorter, less glamorous history.
But in its 23 busy seasons, it has presented chamber music all over the Chicago
area, from private homes in the city and North Shore to Smart Museum in Hyde
Park and Northeastern Illinois University on the northwest side.
Mostly Music artists range from young ensembles to established stars such as the
Vermeer Quartet.
Zelzer recently established a prize in conjunction with the prestigious Fischoff
National Chamer Music Competition to encourage young talent. On Tuesday night,
she and Mostly Music teamed up to sponsor a concert at the Newberry Library by
the Zéphyros Quintet, a woodwind group based at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute
of Music. The young players won both the 1995 Fischoff and Zelzer top prizes.
Without question the quintet are excellent players. Their meaty program was a
deft sampling, with the emphasis on easy-to-assimilate 20th century works. Most
traditional were the classical amiability of a late 18th century work, Giovanni
Cambini's Wind Quintet No. 2, and the smooth, high-spirited romanticism of
Theodor Blumer's 1924 Wind Quintet.
Samuel Barber's "Summer Music," composed in 1956, was an evocative blend of
nocturnal brooding and airy lyricism, while Gyorgy Ligeti's "Six Bagatelles,"
composed in 1953, was more edgy.
The concert closed with the shifting moods of John Harbison's 1978 Quintet for
Winds. The Zéphyros played with impeccable precision and, when called for, a
rapt lyricism that is a hallmark of chamber players who truly listen to each
other.
Chamber Music America
Time Travel
Carol Wincenc
July/August 1995
(Excerpt)
...I am now sitting in South Bend, Indiana, judging the 1995 Fischoff National
Chamber Music Competition. A precious assemblage of "junior winds" have
presented their beautifully prepared programs and there is an inner satisfaction
dancing inside of me. I ask: "How can these 16-year-olds play a complex
Villa-Lobos trio so well?" With the "seniors" I hear a wonderfully diverse and
exciting display of wind playing; there are groups with a real statement to
make, ensembles loaded with pizzazz, and groups that are more conservative and
not quite getting across a much-needed imaginative musical statement. I'm
feeling exhilaration as I listen to an eager and spiffy brass group, then
amazement whilst listening to the dizzying technical display of yet another
saxophone quartet. How will we decide? In the end, I am greatly gratified when a
brilliant woodwind quintet gives a stunning performance of Barber's "Summer
Music" quintet as well as that memorable third movement from the Hindemith
quintet I so loved as a young player. Their artistry is everywhere evident and
sure enough they take the grand prize: the Zéphyros Quintet from the Curtis
Institute.