Quarteto Vivace Brazil on Itinerarios

San Antonio's venerable Tuesday Musical Club has a history of over 100 years. The Club was founded in 1901 by Anna Hertzberg, providing she and a group of her friends the opportunity to perform and discuss classical music. In October, 1923, Tuesday Musical Club presented the first of an annual series of concerts called Musical Teas. These "teas" are now known as the Artist Series Concerts.

The great thing about Tuesday Musical Club's Artist Series is that the musical spotlight is as likely to focus upon young ensembles as old, and long established artists. Such was the case last October when the fledgling Quarteto Vivace Brazil (at 4 years old the ensemble seems very young considering the 111 years of the Tuesday Musical Club) came to town with a varied program ranging from J.S. Bach to Astor Piazzolla.

The concert by the Quarteto parallels the programming criteria for Itinerarios. The music might be European, even American, but the performances are all rooted to Latin America by the nationality of the ensemble. As their name indicates, this is a Brazilian ensemble, which explains their inclusion of music by Heitor Villa-Lobos and Alfredo da Rocha Viana Filho, better known in Brazil as Pixinguinha.

A few words about Pixinguinha will perhaps underscore his importance in the evolution of Brazilian music. Pixinguinha was a flutist, saxophonist, composer and arranger born in Rio de Janeiro in 1897. He is one of the most important composers of the Brazilian musical form known as choro, shepherding the 19th Century form into the 20th Century by introducing a more contemporary harmony and a jazz-like improvisitory character to this popular music of the streets. Listen for one of Pixinguinha's most popular choros, Carinhoso, on this week's edition of Itinerarios.

In addition to Pixinguinha, other highlights from the Quarteto Vivace Brazil's San Antonio concert will be blended into this week's mix of music with Latin American roots. Itinerarios airs at 7PM every Sunday evening on KPAC-San Antonio (88.3fm). The program is hosted by James Baker.

Summer Showcase presented superior skill and youthful performers

by Valerie Cowan

 Young musicians showed off their skills on piano at this Sunday’s Showcase of Young Pianists at the Tuesday Musical Club. From the lively melody of the Rondo movement of Diabelli’s Sonatina in F performed by a nine-year-old to the drama of local composer Dr. Peter Petroff’s  Miniature No. 7 performed by a seventh grader, the showcase offered a wide variety of performers as well as musical genres.



 Performers of the 2011 Summer Showcase of Young Pianists


Each of the young musicians impressively demonstrated not only advanced technical skills on piano but also an understanding of sophisticated musical concepts like phrasing and style.

The showcase concluded with Rachmaninoff’s Etude, Op. 39 No. 1 executed flawlessly by Ellen Pavliska, a future music student of University of North Texas. Pavliska will perform later this summer as part of the Cactus Pear Music Festival in San Antonio.

The event was attended and sponsored largely by the surviving family members of Sheva Fisher, a longtime board member of the San Antonio International Piano Competition. The Fisher family hosts the event yearly in remembrance of her lifelong dedication to music, education, and especially young musicians.