Secrest Series Opens With “Marcel Proust’s Paris”
Da Camera of Houston will open Wake Forest University’s Secrest Artists Series on Saturday, Oct. 25, with a program that weaves together chamber music and passages from a novel by celebrated French author Marcel Proust. “Marcel Proust’s Paris,” recreates the refined world of a turn-of-the-century Parisian literary salon.
The concert begins at 8 p.m. in Brendle Recital Hall.
Framed around Proust’s novel, “In Search of Lost Time,” the musical program features the Muir String Quartet, pianist Sarah Rothenberg and violinist Peter Winograd, and tenor John Aler. The musical program includes Faure’s First Violin Sonata, Franck’s String Quartet and songs by Debussy and Reynaldo Hahn. Richard Howard, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and English professor at the University of Houston, is the reader. Rothenberg doubles as Da Camera’s artistic director.
“Proust’s world offers the perfect setting for such a concert,” said Rothenberg in an interview with the New York Times. “Although the idea of our event is much more creative than historically reconstructive, it also has a real base in what Proust actually experienced in his own life.”
Founded in 1987, Da Camera of Houston brings together leading American and international artists, selected specifically for each program. Since Rothenberg became artistic director of Da Camera in 1994, the group has gained international attention for programs connecting music to literature, art and social issues. As a pianist, Rothenberg has performed more than 75 American and world premieres by many of today’s leading composers, including Gunther Schuller, Joan Tower and Nicholas Maw. She also co-founded the Bard Music Festival with Leon Botstein.
Aler performs regularly with the New York and Berlin Philharmonics and several other major symphonies. He has won considerable acclaim for his recordings and is featured on two Grammy-winning recordings. The Muir String Quartet, its members all graduates of the Curtis Institute of Music, is known as one of the world’s most powerful and insightful ensembles. The string quartet performs in major cities across North America and Europe. Winograd was a founding member of the Julliard String Quartet. He was first-prize winner of the Paganini Competition at the Aspen Music Festival and was a top prize winner in the 1988 Naumburg International Violin Competition.
The day after its Wake Forest appearance, Da Camera will perform at the Kennedy Center in Washington.
Tickets for the concert are $17.50 for adults, $12.50 for senior citizens and non-Wake Forest students. They are available in advance by calling 910-758-5757 or 758-5295. Tickets can also be purchased at the door.
Categories: Arts & Culture, Happening at Wake
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