The Willy Street Chamber Players have launched a series of Friday concerts at Immanuel Lutheran Church.
A group of terrifically talented young musicians has created a welcome addition to Madison’s summer musical scene, the Willy Street Chamber Players.
The players, most of whom are recent UW School of Music grads, launched the project with their first concert on Friday, June 10 at Immanuel Lutheran Church on Spaight Street.
They offered a one-hour, early-evening program that began with an instrumental version of Mozart’s late motet, “Ave verum corpus,” played suavely by violinists Paran Amirinazari and Eleanor Bartsch; violas Rachel Hauser and Beth Larson; and cellos Mark Bridges and Lindsey Crabb.
Then Amirinazari and Hauser ripped into Johan Halvorsen’s fiercely difficult “Passacaglia for Violin and Viola,” adapted from a set of keyboard variations by Handel.
Finally, for the main course, the ensemble played the second of the two string sextets by Johannes Brahms, that in B-flat, Op. 18. The piece is a rich combination of Classical form and Romantic expression as only the young Brahms could devise — superlatively beautiful and engaging music. Violinist Suzanne Beia, of the Pro Arte Quartet and more, joined in as a collegial gesture. They played their hearts out in a performance that would make any chamber ensemble proud.
If this concert is any indication of the future, this ensemble is off to a rousing start.
Willy Street Chamber Players has scheduled a series of Friday performances at Immanuel. The next, on July 17, will be at noon. The other two, on July 24 and 31 will be at 6 p.m.
