Camerata to perform with young chamber players

By JAMES D. WATTS JR. World Scene Writer
Published: 2/24/2011 2:28 AM
Last Modified: 2/24/2011 7:10 AM

The Tulsa Camerata is less than a year old, but this confederation of local musicians has already started doing much more than putting on concerts.

"When we started thinking about putting this group together," said Liza Villarreal, one of the founding musicians, "we had all sorts of big plans for things we wanted to accomplish. But we realized that, at least for our first year, we had better focus on something we thought we could accomplish most easily."

That would be a chamber music competition for young players, which the Tulsa Camerata held in January.

The prize for the contest was the chance to perform as part of the Tulsa Camerata's February concert, which will take place Thursday at the Cascia Hall PAC.

"There are a lot of opportunities for young musicians to play in orchestras," said Villarreal, who in addition to performing with the Tulsa Symphony and Signature Symphony as a violinist teaches music at Tulsa's Madison Middle School.

"And there are organizations such as the Barthelmes Conservatory that offers kids the chance to play chamber music," she said. "But we wanted to raise the stakes just a bit and provide young musicians with the chance to perform in a high-profile setting, sharing a stage with and being coached by professional adult musicians."

Six groups took part in the competition, which was held recently at the University of Tulsa's Tyrrell Hall. The members of TU's chamber ensemble in residence, Trio Tulsa, served as the judges.

"We all were just blown away by the talent we saw," Villarreal said. "The judges spent about 45 minutes trying to come up with a winner because the level of playing by these young people was so high."

In the end, the judges selected two winners: a string quartet from Holland Hall, coached by Debra Morgan, and a cello quartet made up of students from the studio of Tulsa Camerata cellist Krassimira Figg.

"One of the interesting things about the winners is that one is a group that has worked together for some time, who attend the same school," Villarreal said, "while the other group is made up of four people who attend different schools and probably would have never had a chance to play chamber music together had it not been for our competition."

"That is something we hope to encourage in students for next year's competition - to form their own groups and experience the joy of playing chamber music together," she said.

Because of scheduling conflicts, however, the Holland Hall quartet is unable to take part in Thursday's concert.

"We tried all sorts of ways to work out how they could perform with us, but we could not get all the pieces to fit together," Villarreal said.

The cello quartet, however, will be featured as part of the concert, performing Julius Klengel's Pieces for Four Cellos, Op. 33.

The Tulsa Camerata will perform the Trio for Flute, Cello and Piano by Bohuslav Martinu, an arrangement by Arnold Schoenberg of Johann Strauss' Emperor Waltz, Op. 437; and Brahms' Clarinet Quintet in B Minor, Op. 115.

Featured musicians for this concert will be clarinetist David Carter, flutist John Rush, pianist Allyson Eskitch, violinists Liza Villarreal and Winona Fifield, violist Phil Wachowski and cellist Krassimira Figg.

Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/scene/article.aspx?subjectid=272&articleid=201...