If it weren?t for the July concerts of the Basically Beethoven Festival, Dallas would be completely bereft of classical music for most of the summer. Presented by the Fine Arts Chamber Players, an organization rather than an ensemble, the Sunday-afternoon chamber-music programs also give performance outlets to varied groups of area musicians.
Sunday?s program featured violinist Jing Wang, cellist Nan Zhang and pianist Jeewon Lee. A pre-concert Rising Star Recital, not reviewed, was performed by violinist Eleanor Dunbar and pianist Deborah Austin.
After three decades at Fair Park, mostly at Texas Discovery Gardens, Basically Beethoven has moved to the new Dallas City Performance Hall. Judging by quite a full house Sunday, having to pay for parking in the Dallas Arts District hasn?t discouraged the audience. If anything, the crowd looked bigger than those at the Fair Park concerts.
One could miss the former venue?s vast walls of glass looking out on gardens, but the new hall?s seats are far more comfortable than the former?s miserable folding chairs. The acoustics are well-nigh ideal, without the Fair Park building?s roaring air conditioning. One catch was a long line at a pay-a-machine parking lot across Ross Avenue.
The program was devoted to a single work, Tchaikovsky?s big A minor Piano Trio. That these were three accomplished musicians was never in doubt, and coordination was fastidious. Wang, who has been concertmaster of the Dallas Opera Orchestra, is leaving to take the same post with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, which shares Dallas Symphony music director Jaap van Zweden.
Zhang?s warm, unforced tone was particularly gratifying, although she was sometimes swamped by her colleagues. Not the most poetic pianist I?ve heard in the piece, Lee tended to be a little over-prominent, at least judging from my balcony seat; a not particularly ingratiating Yamaha piano didn?t help.
It?s great that these concerts tend to attract audiences without much experience of classical music. Since there are spoken comments at the start, this could be a great teaching opportunity?to ask the audience to withhold applause until the end of a whole piece. As it was, there was clapping not only after the first movement, but after some individual variations in the second.
Plan your life
The Basically Beethoven Festival continues with performances by cellist Yuri Anshelevich and pianist Steven Harlos (Sunday) and strings of the Hall Ensemble (July 28) at Dallas City Performance Hall, 2520 Flora. Main concerts at 3 p.m., Rising Star Recitals at 2:30 p.m. Free. 214-520-2219, fineartschamberplayers.org.
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