I atttended a free concert last night given by the New York Classical Players, soloists and a brilliant orchestra of strings created by musical director and conductor Dongmin Kim in 2010. It’s main objective is to provide high-quality classical music to the public without charging admission. This is especially significant these days when money is tight and the cost of concerts is out of sight. The concerts are given in various locations in the metropolitan area making them readily accessible to music lovers and hopefully creates soon-to-be music lovers.
The program began with Lars-Erik Larsson’s Concertino for double-bass, performed by bassist Milad Daniari. It was the first time I heard it, and a rare treat hearing s solo bassist. The performance of this exciting piece was beautiful and made me wonder how Maestro Kim was able to make me not miss the missing brass and woodwinds. Concerts with double bass solos are rare and Mr. Daniari convinced me that there should be more of them.
It was followed by a relatively new work, Credo by Kevin Puts. It’s a string quartet in four movements written in 2007 and arranged in 2023 for quartet and string orchestra. His description is that each movement is his impression of a thing or event. Entitled in sequence, The Violin Guru of Katonah, Infrastructure, Intermezzo Learning to Dance and finally CREDO which, by itself, was a beautiful musical dessert.
Following an Intermission, the Brahms masterpiece, the Double Concerto for Violin and Cello was performed but not with a full orchestra. It was arranged by Yoomi Paick to use a string orchestra instead of the full complement Brahms wrote it for. The arrangement and the masterful performance by the soloists, violinist Kyung Sun Lee and cellist Clive Greensmith.made me forget that it was a string orchestra.
I already have my tickets for one of three performances of Handel’s Messiah on December 6th in Englewood NJ.
The programs for the rest of this season are as follows:
- Handel's Messiah, December 4-6.
- Dark Drama,(Beethoven String Quartets) December 12-14
- Elgar and Beethoven, February 11-14, 2027
- Roots and Revolution, (more Beethoven String Quartets) February 25, 27, 28, 2027
- Final Statements, (even more Beethoven String Quartets) April 7,8,10,11, 2027
- Copland and Haydn, May 6-9, 2027
You can get details on the concerts, locations and obtain free tickets by going to www.nycpmusic.org