Chamber Series

The sinuous sound of the oboe and the throatier timbre of its cousin, the English horn, seem to always send composers in search of their most imaginative color palettes. NEPP’s Karen Blundell will beguile you with both instruments in American Impressionist Charles Loeffler’s languorous 2 Rhapsodies, Michael White’s temperamental and irresistible Introduction and Dance, and more. Violist David Creswell and pianist Matthew Graybill blend their own intriguing colors into the musical canvas.

Violinist Sasha Margolis teams up with lutenist/guitarist Michael Leopold for a highly eclectic program full of nostalgia, virtuosity, and humor. With Leopold playing the picturesque lute known as the theorbo, the pair move from austerely expressive sonatas from early 1600s Italy to soulful folksongs and whirlwind dances from lost Jewish worlds of Eastern Europe. To round things out, there will even be some 1950s-style French jazz—and a little singing.

Celebrate the advent of Spring with Astor Piazzolla’s thrilling Primavera Porteño and Schubert’s gorgeous String Trio in B-flat Major, performed by NEPA Philharmonic violinist Emily Garrison and violist Sharon Gunderson, together with cellist Sasha Ono. Alongside Piazzolla and Schubert come undiscovered gems by the Dutch Emmy Frensel Wegener, Auschwitz victim Hans Krása, and one of the best composers you’ve never heard of, Leo Weiner, known as the “Hungarian Mendelssohn.”

NEPP flautist Pat Zuber and violist Chris Souza are joined by soprano Jamie Jordan for Impressionist masterpieces by Debussy and Ravel, along with music of Arnaud Petit and Gabriel Fauré, who died one hundred years ago this year. This feast of French delicacies is accompanied by works of American visionary George Crumb, and young American Sakari Dixon Vanderveer

First Presbyterian Church, Wilkes-Barre
97 S. Franklin Street, Wilkes-Barre, 18701