Image: Ludwig van Beethoven
On SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24 at 3 the SANTA BARBARA MUSIC CLUB will present another program in its popular series of concerts of beautiful Classical music at Faulkner Gallery in the downtown Public Library.
One of the highlights of Santa Barbara Music Club’s concerts is the opportunity for audiences to hear great music from a variety of historical periods, with a diversity of musical forms, performed by excellent artists. This concert features two works from the classical era, by Beethoven and Mozart, and a ragtime-inspired composition by a Santa Barbara pianist-composer.
Program Details
(1770-1827)
- Allegro
- Andante
- Scherzo: Allegro assai
- Rondo: Allegro, ma non troppo
(1756-1791)
- Allegro aperto
- Adagio non troppo
- Rondo: Allegretto
Mandee Sikich, piano
(b. 1952)
Notes on the Program
by Betty Oberacker
The program opens with pianist Eric Valinsky performing the Sonata No. 15 in D major, Op. 28 (“Pastoral”), of Ludwig van Beethoven. The nickname “Pastoral” was appended to this marvelous work not by the composer but by his publisher, akin to the titles “Moonlight” for Op. 27, No. 2 or “Tempest” for Op. 31, No. 2 (indeed, Beethoven’s publishers tended to name his sonatas without consulting Beethoven himself!).
In this case as well, the adjective is most befitting the sonata’s atmosphere of bucolic calm, simplicity and lightness of character. A remarkable feature of this composition is that each of the four movements – Allegro, Andante, Scherzo: Allegro assai, and Rondo: Allegro, ma non troppo – establishes its own insistent, pulsating rhythm at its very outset, setting the tone for the composer’s uniquely fresh and often startling development of its musical ideas. In fact, Mr. Valinsky cites the tonal playfulness of the final movement as follows: “Thus, despite the overwhelming beauty of this piece, we are given a healthy serving of Beethoven’s whimsy.”
Next, oboist Adelle Rodkey and pianist Mandee Sikich interpret the sparkling Concerto in C major, K. 314, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart when he was just 21 years old. One of the most important concerti in the oboe repertoire, it was composed in 1777 for Giuseppe Ferlendis, celebrated Italian oboist and composer who was appointed to the Court Chapel of Salzburg – at a yearly stipend higher than that accorded Mozart. The work is in three melodious movements, each expressive, charming, and perfectly idiomatic: the Allegro aperto being spritely and generously paced, the Adagio non troppo suggestive of an eloquent opera aria, and the Rondo: Allegretto quite the “preview” of the composer’s future opera overtures. The concerto was later re-worked by Mozart as his Flute Concerto in D major.
Concluding the program, Pianist Eric Valinsky returns to present one of his own compositions: Rag, written in New York City in 1994. The work was composed in conjunction with a dance being choreographed by his wife, Carrie Diamond. In the composer’s words, “… this piece attempts to recreate a gracious piano rag of the turn of the 20th century, but only serves to evoke snatches of a nostalgic past. By some stretch of the imagination, the piece is actually in rag form, but the unsettled first section doesn’t bode well and things quickly get out of control and eventually devolve into chaos. The coda, a return to the first section, serves as a reminder of what might have been.”
The Performers
A native Manhattanite, Eric Valinsky has, for more years than he would like to admit, maintained dual careers in computer systems architecture and music. He was educated at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the University of Illinois, finally achieving his DMA in music composition from Columbia University. He studied composition with Walter Aschaffenburg, Salvatore Martirano, Jack Beeson, and Darius Milhaud; piano with Sara Crawford Drogheo and Emil Danenberg; and conducting with Harold Farberman. While living in Los Angeles, he became music director and composer-in-residence for The Storie-Crawford Dance Theatre Ensemble. Returning to New York, he served in a similar capacity for Danny Buraczeski’s Jazzdance, Uris Bahr and Dancers, and The New American Ballet Ensemble as well as composer-in-residence for The Rachel Harms Dance Company, Opera Uptown, and the Dance Department at City College of New York. He is currently Music Director for the American Dance & Music Performance Group and moonlights as founder and partner of Inlineos LLC, a strategic Internet consulting company.
Adelle Rodkey, oboist, received her BM Degree in Music Pedagogy, magna cum laude, from Wheaton Conservatory of Music (Illinois), where she studied oboe with Carl Sonik. A native of Santa Barbara, she was an oboe student of Anne Anderson and a piano student of Lana Bodnar and Marilyn Clemons. Honors accorded her have included the President’s Award from Wheaton College, as well as awards from the Music Teachers National Association and the Pillsbury Foundation. Adelle performs frequently in several orchestras and chamber music ensembles, and is Instructor of Oboe at Westmont College. As a member of the Suzuki Association of the Americas, she maintains a private studio of oboe and piano students.
Mandee Sikich completed her MM degree in Collaborative Piano in 2014 with Robert Koenig at UCSB where she was the recipient of a full-tuition music department fellowship. She also studied chamber music with Yuval Yaron. Mandee is the recipient of various awards including the Musician of the Year award (The Master’s College), the Christopher Parkening Scholarship for Excellence in Musical Performance, and the Estella Mays Memorial Award for Piano Performance. She has toured extensively to Italy, Germany, Israel, and Russia as a choral accompanist and served as the Westmont College Choir pianist from 2011 to 2014. She has maintained a private teaching studio in Santa Barbara since 2010 and is serving as the vice-president of the Santa Barbara Branch of the MTAC for the 2015-2016 season. Mandee has also worked as a music director for various theater companies in Santa Barbara including Elements Theatre Collective and Out of The Box Theatre Co. Her music direction credits Tom Greenwald Andrew Lippa’s John and Jen, Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins and Duncan Sheik’s and Steven Sater’s Spring Awakening for which she received an Indy Award for Music Direction in May 2012. She has spent the past eight years accompanying various opera productions in the Los Angeles area and has also collaborated with numerous vocalists and instrumentalists for recitals, competitions, and recordings. This summer she studied for six weeks in Austria as a Lieder Studio pianist for the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz.
This project is funded in part by the Henry W. Bull Foundation and by the Community Arts Grant Program using funds provided by the City of Santa Barbara in partnership with the Santa Barbara County Arts Commission
