FARMINGTON — The Arts Institute of Western Maine is sponsoring a Maine Mountain Chamber Music concert featuring flutist Lisa Hennessy and Maine Mountain Chamber Music co-directors Laurie Kennedy on viola and Yuri Funahashi on piano.
The concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, June 18, in Nordica Auditorium at the University of Maine at Farmington.
“Prélude,” “Récitatif et Variations for Flute, Viola and Piano” by Maurice Duruflé opens the program, setting the mood of mystery and passion. Rebecca Clarke’s “Sonata for Viola and Piano” follows and is a highly imaginative, accessible work which shifts moods quickly from impetuous to passionate to fantastical.
About his “Sonata for Flute and Piano,” Prokofiev wrote that the flute “had for a long time attracted me, and it seemed to me that it had been made little use of in musical literature. I wanted this sonata to have a classical, clear, transparent sonority.”
Commissioned by the Juilliard School, Bloch’s “Concertino for Flute, Viola and Piano” (1950) was premiered there in 1950. In the first movement, a mournful Jewish-style melody is sung by the viola, passed to the flute, and developed in unexpected ways before returning. By the end of the last movement everyone, except the pianist who has to play the part of a whole orchestra, is laughing at this serious music, and the work dissolves in a raucous polka.
Lisa Hennessy is principal flutist with the Boston Landmarks Orchestra, Portland Symphony and Boston Ballet Orchestra. She has been a featured soloist on WGBH radio’s Boston Performances and with Boston Landmarks Orchestra and Portland Symphony.
Principal violist and frequent soloist with the Portland Symphony Orchestra since 1981, Laurie Kennedy has performed at this Festival since 1977, and served as music director from 2000 to 2015.
Yuri Funahashi has performed in Japan, Australia, Canada and throughout Europe. She is a performing member of the Festival Chamber Music Society in New York City, has collaborated with the Verdehr Trio, the Brentano and Cassatt String Quartets, and has recorded for Musical Heritage Society and John Marks Records.
The concert is sponsored by the Arts Institute of Western Maine. Admission is $12 but free for those persons 18 and under and for students with an ID. For more information, call 207-491-0768.
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