Ladies Morning Musical Club 133rd Season – Part II

After a break over the holidays, the Ladies Morning Musical Club 133^rd Season gets underway again on January 26 with a performance by soprano Karina Gauvin. Here’s an overview of the five remaining concerts for this season. Performers and audiences alike are enjoying the Oscar Peterson Concert Hall on the Loyal Campus of Concordia University.

Karina Gauvin, soprano – January 26

Karina Gauvin
Photo: Michael Slobodian

Born in Repentigny, Quebec to parents who were both professional opera singers, soprano Karina Gauvin has been called “the incarnation of a Cleopatra through songs with haunting modulations” (Diapason). At the age of eight she was already singing in the Canadian Children’s Opera Chorus. Her repertory spans three centuries, but she is known above all for her striking interpretations of characters in 18^th-century operas and oratorios by Vivaldi, Handel, Gluck, Mozart, and others.

Whether performing with period instrument ensembles like the Akademie für alte Musik Berlin, Toronto’s Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Quebec’s Violons du Roy, or with modern orchestras like the New York Philharmonic and Chicago Symphony, Gauvin is adept at riveting an audience. Her voice “is like a clear, refreshing and inexhaustible spring that darts and sparkles around any ornamental obstacle in its way,” wrote Opera News. Her extensive discography focuses on Baroque repertory, but she is also renowned for Mahler, Debussy and Barber. In 2017 Gauvin was named an Honorary Director of the Art Song Foundation of Canada. From 2020 to 2023 she was Mécénat Musica Artiste en residence. Her artistic partner of many years, pianist Michael McMahon, is renowned as one of Canada’s premier accompanists.
The January 26 concert will be Ms. Gauvin’s fifth LMMC appearance.

Goldmund Quartett, Strings – February 23

Florian Schötz and Pinchas Adt  –  violins; Christopher Vandory – viola, Raphael Paratore – cello

Goldmund Quartett
Photo: Gregor hohenberg

The Goldmund Quartett is widely regarded as one of the most exciting string quartets of the younger generation, renowned for its beautiful sound, fine intonation, and homogeneity of musical approach. The Goldmund Quartett perfected its artistry in studies at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich, and with members of the Alban Berg, Hagen, Borodin, Belcea, Ysaÿe, and Cherubini Quartets. Among the high-profile competitions at which the Goldmund has won prizes are the 2018 International Wigmore Hall String Competition, the 2018 Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition, and the ARD Munich Competition.

In recent years the quartet has given debut recitals at the Philharmonie in Paris, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and the Konzerthaus in Vienna. The Quartett’s discography includes standard repertory by Haydn, Schubert and Shostakovich, but also off-the-beaten-track material under the rubrics of Prisma and Travel Diaries. The musicians perform on the so-called “Paganini Quartet,” four instruments once owned by the legendary Niccolò Paganini. The Goldmund is the first German quartet to have the honour of using these priceless instruments, on loan from Japan’s Nippon Music Foundation. This will be the quartet’s second LMMC concert.

Fauré Quartett, piano quartet – March 16

Erika Geldsetzer – violin, Sascha Frömbling – viola, Konstantin Heidrich – cello; Dirk Mommertz – piano

Fauré Quartett
Photo: Ben Wolf

The Fauré Quartett was founded in Karlsruhe, Germany in 1995, the 150^th anniversary of the birth of composer Gabriel Fauré. In the three decades since then, the founding members are all still in the group, which has established itself as one of the world’s leading chamber ensembles and as one of the few for the instrumental combination of piano, violin, viola and cello.

The Quartett has appeared in most of the world’s leading concert halls, including Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, the Berlin Philharmonie, and the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. In addition to mainstream classics, the Fauré Quartett is devoted to discovering new and unusual repertory. In 2009, it expanded its repertory with modern arrangements of selected songs from pop history, published by the Deutsche Grammophon label under the title Popsongs.

The Quartett’s visionary, experimental approach has attracted considerable attention, as for example in its collaborations with artists like Rufus Wainwright and Sven Helbig, and in appearances at clubs like Le Poisson Rouge in New York. The Quartett’s mainstream discography includes works by Mozart, Schumann, Brahms, Mendelssohn, and of course Fauré, in addition to its own arrangements of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and Rachmaninoff’s Etudes-Tableaux. This will be their seventh LMMC appearance.

Leonkoro Quartet, strings – April 6

Jonathan Schwarz and Amelie Wallner – violins, Mayu Konoe – viola; Lukas Schwarz – cello

Leonkoro Quartet

The Leonkoro Quartet, founded in Berlin in 2019, takes its name from the Esperanto words meaning “lion” and “heart,” and from a children’s book by Astrid Lindgren about two brothers (the Leonkoro’s first violinist and cellist are brothers).

The Quartet came to international attention in mid-2021 when, as the youngest ensemble participating, it won second prize (no first prize was offered that year) and the Audience Prize at the renowned Premio Paolo Borciani International String Quartet Competition. In 2022, barely three years after it was founded, the Quartet won a whole host of prizes and awards, one after the other. Starting in March, it received the Jürgen Ponto Foundation Music Prize. Next month, the ensemble collected not only first prize but nine additional special prizes at the prestigious Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition, where it was again the youngest quartet competing. In May it won the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition as well as the Audience Prize. In November the Quartet received the MERITO Award.

Also that year the Leonkoro Quartet was invited to join the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists program for a two-year period. As if all this weren’t enough to distinguish this young group, all but the cellist perform standing. Notable mentors include members of the Artemis Quartet, Günter Pichler of the Alban Berg Quartet, and pianist Alfred Brendel with whom the Quartet maintains a regular collaboration. This will be the Leonkoro Quatrtet’s LMMC debut concert.

Trio Wanderer, piano trio –  April 27

Jean-Marc Phillips-Varjabédian – violin; Raphaël Pidoux – cello; Vincent Coq – piano

Trio Wanderer
Photo: Marco Borggreve

Acclaimed for its extraordinarily sensitive style, almost telepathic understanding of each other, and technical mastery, the Trio Wanderer is a French ensemble that has been performing in major halls on six continents for over three decades.

The members are all graduates of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris. In addition, they studied at Indiana University, Juilliard, and with members of the Beaux Arts Trio and the Amadeus Quartet. The name “Wanderer” pays homage to Schubert, and more widely to German Romanticism, which is often suffused with the theme of the wandering traveler. Indeed, these three musicians are avid open-minded, wandering travelers, who explore a musical world spanning the centuries from Mozart and Haydn to the present day.

In 1988 the Trio won the ARD International Music Competition in Munich, and in 1990 the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition in the U.S. In 2015, the three musicians were recipients of the Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters (Chevalier dans l’ordre des Arts et Lettres). The Trio has recorded more than twenty CDs, mostly on the Harmonia Mundi label, but also on Sony Classical, Accord, Cyprès, Capriccio, and Mirare. This will be the Trio Wanderer’s LMMC Debut.

All performances take place on Sunday afternoons at 3:30pm at Oscar Peterson Hall, Concordia University (Loyola Campus) 7141 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, Quebec H4B 1R6. Tickets are $60, and student tickets (max. 26 yrs.) are $25, Non-refundable – Taxes included.
Please call: 514-932-6796, or E-mail: [email protected]. www.lmmc.ca