Charles Wetherbee, Violin | Pro Musica: San Miguel

Violinist Charles Wetherbee, called “a consummate artist… with flawless technique” by The Washington Post, will grace the stage in San Miguel for one unforgettable concert, accompanied by outstanding pianist David Korrevar. Delight in the sumptuous sounds of Wetherbee’s renditions of Respighi, Schubert, Chausson, Sarasate, Albéniz, Paganini, and more on Sunday, October 7, 2018 at 5 pm at St. Paul’s Church on Calle Cardo.

A child prodigy and international violin superstar, Charles Wetherbee has performed all over the world with international orchestras and his own chamber music ensembles, Carpe diem, where he plays first violin, and Opus 3, of which he is a founding member. Faculty at CU Boulder, his passion for current music has led him to premiere several major contemporary works in international venues as well as on national media, such as NPR’s “Performance Today”.

Sunday’s concert will take listeners on a magical journey through some of the greatest works ever written for the violin. Paganini famously set the bar higher than anyone before him for violin composition. We will hear his Twenty-Four Caprices, a rite of passage for aspiring solo violinists. Paganini’s works require more than spectacular technique: they demand a level of emotive quality few artists can express fully, but which Charles possesses in abundance. Respighi  is best known for his hyperbolic orchestra works but his Sonata is at the other end of the spectrum. It’s as if all the trappings have been stripped away and the composer has left us with only the cleanest, most magnificent lines of the work. Schubert was a famously prolific composer, despite his tragically short life, and he might compose as many as 8 songs in a single day, dashing some of them off in an hour or so. Fantasy is certainly one of those, and it is written at a time of such dazzling productivity that the master at times struggled to recognize his own works! Knowing that he was terminally ill, he created an opus of otherworldly masterpieces, of which Fantasy is certainly one.

Chausson’s Poème was inspired by a Turgenev short story – love, mysticism, treachery and ultimately murder, were the elements of this powerful piece. Composed and performed in honor of Belgian violinist, conductor, and composer, Eugene Ysaÿe –  an enormously admired character with a large presence and personality – his energy captured the magic of the story.  Sarasate was one of the greatest violinists who ever lived; a spectacular virtuoso..  Also a well known composer of exquisite, but fiendishly difficult, virtuoso violin works, he created Caprice Basque to stretch even his extraordinary technical muscles, so to speak, and also to present an authentic version of himself through the art of his music. Inspired by Spanish music, his influence can be seen in the off-beat accents reflective of flamenco dance. Albéniz’s Suite España, including the Tango, was originally written for solo piano but this arrangement for the two instruments charms and delights audiences wherever it is played.  Like Charles Wetherbee, the composer was a child prodigy, from the age of four, but even he did not reach Charles breathtaking record of playing his 1,000th concert before the age of 16!

To reserve your tickets for this concert, please respond directly to this newsletter, or you can email us atpromusicasma@aol.com. If your membership level allows you reserved seats, you must reserve tickets in advance in order to take advantage of this benefit.

Sincerely,
Michael Pearl, President, Pro Musica