Guest post by Wintergreen Performing Arts Board Member Bobbi Dunn
The Adaskin String Trio played a diverse and fulfilling selection of music from Beethoven to Michael White - and even some Paul Simon and Stefane Grappelli.
On a sunny March Sunday afternoon, the internationally acclaimed Adaskin String Trio of violin, viola, and cello performed for a small audience in a renovated schoolhouse, now the Rockfish Valley Community Center. “Small” and “schoolhouse” are particularly significant. Invited by Wintergreen Performing Arts as guests to the concert were the children of the Nelson County Strings Program—the children, their siblings, parents, and the teachers in this small and fledgling program held during afterschool hours in the County’s public elementary schools.
WPA Artistic Director Erin Freeman points out the drama in the violin part of the Beethoven String Trio to Jasmin and Ivan.
Adaskin String Trio Violist (and Wintergreen Festival Orchestra Principal Violist) introduces the Villa Lobos String Trio (a piece that Jasmin particularly loved).
One fifth-grade 10-year-old violinist, Jasmin, who plays a ½ size violin, did, indeed, did bring the whole family—her 7-year-old brother Ivan, her mother, her father, and her very much younger twin brother and sister. Before the concert, Jasmin and Ivan sat with WPA’s Artistic Director Erin Freeman in the chairs, facing the music stands, where the Adaskin String Trio would play. They talked about chamber music and how important it is to musicians, about watching the musicians to see how they communicated with each other to know when to begin playing and stay together throughout the music, and about the three different instruments and their “voices”—from high on the violin to low on the cello. While Jasmin’s younger brother and sister enjoyed the outside playground, Jasmin and Ivan, insisting on sharing a chair in the front row facing the trio and next to Jasmin’s violin teacher, were mesmerized by the playing of the Trio. Together they clutched the program listing music by Beethoven, Adaskin, White, and Villa-Lobos; together they followed each piece with their index fingers, movement by movement as listed on the program. The joy of music, seen and heard through such young eyes and ears, made the event more special to all adults in the audience
GALLERY OF THE AFTERNOON. ENJOY PICTURES BY LEWIS DUNN.
