Reflections In Music: Opus One, Bruce Wolosoff, Artistic Director
The Church
The Reflections in Music series, led by artistic director Bruce Wolosoff, returns for a program that considers the ‘Opus One’ – the first published work by a composer. From Beethoven’s assured early chamber writing and Paganini’s brilliant self-portrait as a violin virtuoso, to Rachmaninoff’s expansive lyricism and Alban Berg’s late-Romantic intensity breaking through into modernism, each work performed in this invigorating concert reveals a composer defining a public voice. Wolosoff will play piano and introduce music with his signature spoken commentary, joined by violinists Max Tan and Deborah Buck, and cellist Amy Barston.
“An ‘opus one’ is a moment of arrival, when a composer steps forward and declares ‘this is who I am,” according to Wolosoff. The program also includes first published works by Bach and Vivaldi, as well as Wolosoff’s own Opus One, the piano trio Bodhisattva. The Washington Post wrote that the work, “Drawing on the starkness of Beethoven’s late quartet language and the sorrowful language of the blues, is a moving, well-crafted piece that offers accessibility without being simple-minded.”
