2008-2009 Musical Offerings 25th Anniversary Season Review

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Music on the MOve: Latin America opens in grand fashion

Left: Joan Christenson, Steven Zeserman, Marilyn de Oliviera, Matthew Dunne. Photos by Susan Riley

Musical Offerings opened its 25th Anniversary on January 25th with Music on the Move- an inno-vative series at the San Antonio Museum of Art. This imaginative concert had the audience and musicians move from gallery to gallery, enjoying music and art from the historic period on display in the gallery.

The concert opened in the atrium of the Latin American Center with Javier Alvarez’ Metro Cha-bacano, a rhythmically pulsating string quartet commissioned for the opening of a station in the Mexico City Metro system. The concert then progressed to the Folk Gallery, followed by the Spanish Colonial Gallery and culminated in the Contemporary Gal-lery, where the audience was treated to From Yesterday to Penny Lane, six brilliant arrangements of Beatles songs for guitar and string quintet by Cuban composer, Leo Brauer.

Featured musicians were Joan Christenson and Stephanie Wesney, violin; Allyson Dawkins, viola; Marilyn de Oliviera, cello; Steven Ze-serman, bass and Matthew Dunne as the guitar soloist.

275 people packed the Museum galleries and it was a thrilling opening to the 25th Anniversary. Two Music on the Move con-certs are planned for next season, including one in November. A number of works from the concert were repeated at the Insti-tuto Cultural de México on January 31.

Kaleidescope 2009 Musical Offerings and the San Antonio Metropolitan Ballet collaborated in celebration of our shared 25th anniversaries in the SA Met Ballet production, Kaleidescope 2009, a FIESTA event at the Carver Cultural Community Center on April 25. Karin Connally, Resident Cho-reographer, created a scintillating dance to Night Life, a pulsating work by Kenji Bunch de-picting the pace of life at night in New York City. A Musical Offerings trio made up of Brent Watkins on piano, Joan Christenson on violin and Trevor Fitzpatrick on cello also performed the legendary Allegro movement from the Mendelssohn Trio in F minor. The combination of live music with dance was exhilarating for the cultural arts! This production was not a presenta-tion of the Carver Community Cultural Center, or the Carver Development Board. L to R: Brent Watkins, piano, and Lane Alexander, tap dancer, perform Bach’s Partita in Bb Major. Photo by John Connally

On May 31 at the McNay Art Museum, JS Bach and fans kicked up their heels at the Java and Jive concert featuring the tongue-in-cheek Coffee Cantata and selections from jazz arrangements of Bach by Ward Swingle made famous by the Swingle Singers in the sixties. San Antonio singers Gail Wettstein, Chad Koehler and Owen Duggan were joined by violinist Joan Christenson, flutist Rita Linard and pianist Faith DeBow in a performance of Bach's only secular cantata.

Six classical singers including Gail, Chad, Owen and Faith as well as Claire Matecko and John Casey teamed up with local jazz singers Joan Carroll and Barry Brake with Darren Kuper on drums and Brandon Rivas on Bass to run down some wickedly tricky Swingle scores including Bouree, Invention in C and Fugue in Dm . The warm audience at the McNay showed their appreciation at hearing these rarely performed pieces with plenty of twisting and turning, Rubic-cube counterpoint.

Java and Jive: the lighter side of JS Bach “swingles” into action by Owen Duggan

L to R back : Owen Duggan, Gail Wettstein, Darren Kuper, Faith DeBow, Chad Koehler, Joan Carroll, Barry Brake, Claire Matecko, John Casey. L to R front: Rita Linard, Joan Christen-son, Brandon Rivas. Photo by Kevin Klossmer