2022 Performances
Stanford University CCRMA
The Knoll 660 Lomita
Thursday, 29 September, 2022 at 7:30 pm
Live audience and Livestream
Admission Free and Open to the Public
Karen & Ludmila perform a variety of Ukrainian music for violin & piano plus premieres of their own recent compositions for violin & electronics
Ukrainian composer/pianist Ludmila Yurina arrived in Palo Alto in mid March 2022 from Kyiv, where she met Karen Bentley Pollick in June 2018. Their first collaboration features two new works for solo violin composed by Ludmila in Palo Alto and at the studio of Stanford University’s CCRMA. DUMA is dedicated to the Ukrainian defenders. “Distant Lands” is for violin & electronics, with sounds recorded in the wagon of the Lviv-Warsaw refugee train, and prayers for the children of Ukraine.
Karen spent most of the pandemic in San Pancho, Nayarit where she experimented with vocal sounds and mermaid songs in her pool to depict the angst of the animals responding to the daily rockets during a 10 day celebration of Patron Saint Francis. Live violin and choreography will enhance the visceral experience alongside an ethereal video by Stuart Diamond. Her solo violin piece GEMINI FUNK is a virtuosic set of variations derived from a musical cryptogram of her mother’s name NAN BENTLEY.
The program features duos for violin & piano by Ukrainian composers Mykola Kolessa, Valentin Silvestrov, Virko Baley and Myroslav Skoryk, with the Georgian composer Giya Kancheli contributing the final lighthearted notes in solidarity with Ukraine.
Ludmila Yurina
DUMA for violin (2022)
Distant Lands for violin & electronics (2022)
Karen Bentley Pollick
Paean to St. Francis for violin & vocal trax with video by Stuart Diamond (2020)
GEMINI FUNK for solo violin (2021)
Three Kolomykas for violin & piano (1958)
“October 25, 1893 …… in memory of P.I.Ch.” for violin & piano(2004)
Intrada from Partita #3 (1999)
Song Without Words #7 Der Abschied for violin & piano (2003)
Melodiya for violin & piano (1981)
Rag-Gidon-Time for violin & piano (1995)
https://www.zalonarts.org/programs/september-18th-2022
Andrea Clearfield’s September 18th SZALON Anniversary program celebrates 36 Years of Sharing Music in Community!! This festive program features artists performing live in Philly and remotely from around the U.S., streamed in and out. Mark your calendars for an unforgettable evening at the Salon on 400 S. Sydenham Street or on Zoom!
36-YEAR SALON CELEBRATION PROGRAM!
1. Violinist Matvey Lapin and pianist Katya Kramer-Lapin perform Zyad and Ziri by Polina Nazaykinskaya and Celebration Etude by Leonardo Le San from their home studio in NYC
2. Mezzo-soprano Iris Malkin and pianist Daniel Gledhill perform songs in Catalan by Federico Mompou from Iris’s home studio in Los Angeles, CA
3. Violinist Karen Bentley joins Ukrainian pianist/composer Ludmila Yurina in Palo Alto, CA to perform duos by Mykola Kolessa, Myroslav Skoryk and Giya Kancheli
4. Pianist Kayoung An will perform “Graceful ghost” and “Poltergeist” from William Bolcom’s Ghost Rags from Andrea’s Salon in Philadelphia
5. Valentin Kovalev will perform a soprano saxophone solo entitled “Sillage” by Vincent David from the Salon in Phila.
6. Bandoneonist Heyni Solera performs Los Sueños, Margarita Gauthier and Flores Negras by Piazzolla from the Salon
7. Ensemble Transcontinental: Christopher Nichols, clarinet; Guillaume Combet, violin; Michal Schmidt, cello; Marie Christine Delbeau, piano perform Velocity of Rotation (II.) by Ofer Ben-Amots from the Salon in Philadelphia
8. Bill Koutsouros and members of ANIMUS perform exciting original world fusion music from Andrea’s Salon in Philadelphia
9. Megnot Toggia, soprano and Sira Jittapirom, pianist will perform selections by Carlos Guastavino from the Salon
10. Teagen Faran, violinist and Leo Sussman, flutist will perform works by Carlos Simon, CPE Bach and a celebratory tango arrangement from the Salon in Philadelphia
11. Lev ‘Ljova’ Zhurbin will perform selections from his album “Enter The Fadolín” featuring original music for the six-stringed fadolín from his studio in New York City
MahlerFest XXXV – What Mahler Tells Me*
May 17-22, 2022
An avid hiker, Mahler felt a profound connection to nature, a topic he explores in his epic Third Symphony.
MahlerFest XXXV investigates “what Mahler tells me” by looking to the boundaries between the interior and exterior in a festival week that features Mahler’s Symphony No. 3. The schedule of events also includes the world premiere of Symphony No. 10 by British symphonist and film composer Christopher Gunning, a chamber orchestra arrangement of Bartók’s haunting Bluebeard’s Castle, “Mahler and the Movies” (a FREE celebration of the music of the silver screen), a thought-provoking symposium, two chamber music concerts, a film, and more.
We are excited to welcome a group of acclaimed Festival Artists this year, including our concertmaster, violinist Zachary DePue, former concertmaster of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and Parry Karp of the Pro Arte String Quartet, as well as favorite local pianists David Korevaar, Jeremy Reger, and Jennifer Hayghe. We hope you will join us for this unique week of music, community, and learning.
Click here to see a pdf of our ticket brochure.
Sunday, January 30, 2022 at 7:00 pm EST
My 10 minute program begins at 1:07:21 and runs until 1:23:20 with Andrea Clearfield’s introduction and greeting from Lithuanian composer Zibuokle Martinaityte.
Sunday, October 10, 2021 at 5:00 pm Pacific Time: ZOOM livestream and chat with composers and performers
Info on livestream here: http://www.albanyconsort.com/kbp-js/
Sunday, September 5, 2021 at 5:00 pm: Live concert
First Presbyterian Church of Palo Alto
Karen Bentley Pollick, violin
Jonathan Salzedo, harpsichord
Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber: Sonata Representativa (1669)
Charles Norman Mason: Go,Dog. Go! (2021) world premiere
John Henry Kreitler: Danc? a micro suite for Violin & Harpsichord (2021) world premiere
Karen Bentley Pollick: Gemini Funk (2021) world premiere
Romanian lautari by Grigoraș Dinicu and George Enescu
With Special Guest Viviana Guzman on flute:
Antonio Vivaldi: Il Gardelino
Saturday, October 2, 2021
7:00 pm
(Heroes from the Past and Hopes for the Future)
A musical expedition from the Arctic regions of the North and South.
Commissioned by the Arctic Philharmonic and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, the world’s northernmost and southernmost professional symphonic orchestras.
I am inspired by the romanticism inherent in the voyages of the great explorers Scott and Amundsen and the many adventurers who faced the unknown with an unquenchable thirst. I am also inspired by my musical heroes from the Romantic era to whom the great explorers were exposed growing up.
PIETÀ: LAMENT AT THE EDGE OF THE ABYSS For Violin solo, Chamber Orchestra and Prerecorded Sound by Jerry Mader, Montana native now residing on Whidbey Island, WA
World Premiere Video of Pietà with The Sound Ensemble
Bobby Collins, director
Karen Bentley Pollick, violinist
Reflections on a work in progress (Page 128) by Jerry Mader
EXTRACTION: Art on the Edge of the Abyss
POSTPONED UNTIL SEPTEMBER 2022
House concerts in Portland, Oregon & Seattle, Washington
Karen Bentley Pollick, violin & viola
John Halle, piano
Preludes & fugues by Johann Sebastian Bach, Waldstein Sonata by Ludwig van Beethoven, jazz inspired solo piano pieces by John Halle, ragtimes for violin/viola & piano by John Halle, solo violin works by Karen Bentley Pollick & others TBA.