Pro Musica Hebraica: The Biava Quartet and friends

Pro Musica Hebraica

October 26, 2009, 9:00 pm

Founded by Charles and Robyn Krauthammer, Pro Musica Hebraica presents lost and neglected masterpieces of Jewish classical music in the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater. This concert explores the rich Jewish musical world of twentieth-century Russia, mixing the familiar and the forgotten. In particular, the works by Joseph Achron and Leo Zeitlin have been performed only a handful of times in the past 100 years.

For Leo Zeitlin’s “Five Songs from the Yiddish”, the Biava Quartet is joined by mezzo-soprano Rachel Calloway, baritone Alexander Tall, and pianist Konstantin Soukhovetski.

Featured performances:

• Dmitri Shostakovich: Quartet No. 4 in D major, op. 83 (1949)
• Joseph Achron: Four Improvisations, op. 63 (1927)
• Aleksandr Zhitomirskii: Dem rebens nigun (The rabbi’s melody) op. 3 (1910)
• Michel Michelet: Elegie, for String Orchestra, op. 4 (1923)
  Arr. for string quartet and piano
  The Biava Quartet with pianist Konstantin Soukhovetski
• Leo Zeitlin: Five Songs from the Yiddish (ca. 1913 - 1921)
  The Biava Quartet with mezzo-soprano Rachel Calloway, baritone Alexander Tall, and pianist Konstantin Soukhovetski.