18 March, 2024, 7:30PM (In-Person Event)
Nickelodeon: Norfolk Chamber Consort Double-Nickel Anniversary
Michel-Barthélémy Ollivier, Festival Given by the Prince of Conti to the Prince of Brunswick-Lunebourg at l’Isle-Adam (1777)
Click here to purchase tickets for this in-person event on 18 March, 2024.
The word “Odeon” once described the most refined performance spaces of the Greco-Roman world. At the turn of the 20th century, with the advent of Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope, a novel device that would, often for the price of a nickel, show an individual viewer a brief loop of motion picture film, some anonymous entrepeneur coined the term “Nickelodeon” to denote the small arcades in which these and other coin-operated machines were arranged. Intimate musical works in intimate settings, just a part of the enduring legacy of the Norfolk Chamber Consort, will again be on offer at the Consort’s upcoming 55th-anniversary concert. The bill of fare includes Invencia Piano Duo, comprised of the Consort’s Co-Artistic Directors, Andrey Kasparov and Oksana Lutsyshyn, along with other guest artists, in the suitably bijou-like Chandler Recital Hall at Old Dominion University. So put another nickel in, in the Nickelodeon, and join the Consort for what is sure to be a memorable evening of music, music, music!
According to Dr. Allen Shaffer, the Norfolk Chamber Consort’s former Co-Artistic Director, “the Norfolk Chamber Consort was founded in 1969 by Kay Gardner, who was a flutist with the Norfolk Symphony (now Virginia Symphony) and adjunct instructor of flute at Norfolk State College (now University).”
“… The new group’s earliest seasons were played at the Norfolk Theater Center on Freemason Street. The second floor featured a large room with a thrust stage like a theater-in-the-round. The piano was an old and occasionally out-of-tune spinet. Admission was $3.00.”
“… Early venues for the Consort included the Unitarian Church on Yarmouth Street and the Chrysler Museum Theater. In the mid-1980s Walter Chrysler invited the Consort to become Artists in Residence at the [Chrysler] Museum, but Norfolk Chamber Consort leadership chose to remain independent. In 1991 Chandler Recital Hall at Old Dominion University was completed and the Consort moved in.”
Since Oksana and Andrey became Co-Artistic Directors, they have striven to maintain the Consort’s themed, diverse and adventurous programming. Having showcased such a rich and variegated roster of musical talent, it would be unreasonable to assume the Norfolk Chamber Consort could somehow hope to encapsulate its entire history in the course of one recital. Therefore, this program should be considered merely as representative of the Consort’s past 55 years.
To open, Oksana Lutsyshyn will present works for piano by Olivier Messiaen, including two movements from his Petites Esquisses d’Oiseaux (1985) which was dedicated to his wife, Yvonne Loriod, and the “Premiere Communion de la Vierge” from Vingt Regards sur l’enfant-Jésus. Next on the bill, Oksana, Dr. Kasparov, and ODU Professor John Toomey will divide and conquer Ludwig van Beethoven’s Six Ecossaises for Piano, WoO 83 (ca. 1806). The work consists of six short fragments in the key of Eb Major and was first published in 1807. Next, in a collaboration between pianist Oksana Lutsyshyn and violinist Ànnika Jenkins, the concert continues with Maurice Ravel’s Violin Sonata (1923-1927). Concluding the first half, Duo Thalassa, comprised of flutist Wayla Chambo, Associate Artistic Director of the Consort, and guitarist Todd Holcomb, will perform two movements from Astor Piazzola’s Histoire du Tango (1985): “Café, 1930,” and “Nightclub, 1960.”
Oksana Lutsyshyn and Andrey Kasparov (Photographer, Molly Carey)
Following a brief intermission, Dr. Kasparov will conduct Dietrich Buxtehude’s Cantata in C minor, “O Gottes Stadt,” BuxWV 87, with soprano Bianca Hall, violinsts Ànnika Jenkins and Gretchen Loyola, violist Shirley Smith, cellist Elizabeth Meszaros, and Oksana Lutsyshyn at the harpsichord. The program will conclude with Andrey and Oksana as Invencia [Harpsichord] Duo for the Concerto in F Major for Two Harpsichords, Orchestra and Continuo, Wq 46 (1774), of C.P.E. Bach. With the addition of Ellen Polachek and Christine Foust on French Horn, Tyler Austin will conduct the evening’s grande finale.
The Chamber Consort’s Co-Artistic Directors, Andrey Kasparov and Oksana Lutsyshyn, hope you will join them for this next installment of what has, thus far, been an exciting 55th season of live performances.
The program will begin at 7:30PM, with a pre-concert discussion from 7:15PM.
Tickets at the door: $30.00 (students FREE).
Click here to purchase tickets for this in-person event on 18 March, 2024.
E-mail invenciaduo@gmail.com for further details.
Click here for the Norfolk Chamber Consort’s 2023-2024 performance schedule.
© Old Dominion University, Norfolk Chamber Consort, Invencia Piano Duo
Invencia Piano Duo 