Santa Barbara Music Club Free Concert Jan 11, 2025

The Santa Barbara Music Club celebrates its fifty-fifth season of serving the greater Santa Barbara community with free monthly concerts, Saturdays at 3:00. On Saturday, January 11, at 3:00 pm, it will present a delightful program of works for piano solo and piano with oboe.  Pianists Pascal Salomon and Eric Valinsky will give a world premiere performance of Valinsky’s four-hand version of Wisperfal, and oboist Adelle Rodkey will perform Richard Strauss’s Concerto in D Major for oboe and small orchestra or piano as well as young contemporary Czech composer Lukáš Sommer’s Impromptu  along with pianist Eric Valinsky.

Eric Valinsky’s Wisperfal, a four-movement fantasy based on Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, was originally commissioned by Ballet Santa Barbara (now the AD&M Performance Group) in 2010. Although originally intended for several instruments, budgetary considerations constrained the work to piano solo. The work was premiered at Santa Barbara’s Lobero Theater for over 1,000 elementary school children. The piano solo version never quite did justice to Valinsky’s musical ideas, and fourteen years later, he expanded the work to piano four-hands. Valinsky drew from Vivaldi’s use of ostinato, the repetition of musical patterns for musical effect, and sequence, the repetitive patterns that shift in pitch. Although the use of ostinato is a feature of minimalist music, Wisperfal is not minimalist music. Valinsky likes to think of it as a “maximalist” celebration of Vivaldi’s music.

The title Wisperfal is compounded from abbreviations for the seasons, Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall.  Each movement corresponds to one of the four concerti.  The composer changed the order of the movements to start with the joy of summer and end with the hope of spring. Wisperfal quotes Vivaldi liberally, but also includes quotes from other works by Valinsky.   Each of the movements uses a recurring motif, the carillon chime from Riverside Church in New York City, which the composer heard every hour when he was a doctoral student at Columbia University. The chimes mark transitions, as they do in real life.

Richard Strauss’s Concerto in D Major for oboe and small orchestra or piano is a three-movement suite that was among the last works that he wrote, and is harmonically rich with long soaring melodies, akin to the musical language in Rosenkavalier. It was commissioned by oboist John De Lancie, who was a significant player and teacher in the American oboe community.

Lukáš Sommer’s Impromptu – in memoriam Henri Dutilleux is a single movement work with multiple tempo changes, commissioned by Prague Spring Festival 2014.  It is a cheerful and energetic exploration of the many colors and emotions of the oboe. It also serves as a great introduction to some of the extended techniques for the oboe: tone bending, harmonics, flutter-tonguing, and timbral trills all make their appearance in the course of this light-hearted frolic.

The concert will be held at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, 4575 Auhay Dr., Santa Barbara 93110.  Admission is free.

ABOUT THE PERFORMERS

Adelle Rodkey, oboist, received her bachelor of music 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 for oboe and piano students.

Pascal Salomon, pianist, was born in Israel, reared in France, and has concertized as recitalist, concerto soloist, and chamber music pianist in Europe, Israel, China, and the U.S. He has been featured soloist with prominent European orchestras and has recorded three solo and chamber music CD’s. A dedicated teacher, Dr. Salomon taught piano for nine years at the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève, Switzerland, and has served as collaborative piano faculty member at Westmont College.

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 Doctor of Musical Arts degree 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.

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This and all concerts offered by the Santa Barbara Music Club are open to the public with free admission.

For more information about this concert as well as future and past concerts, see our website www.SBMusicClub.org

The mission of the Santa Barbara Music Club is to contribute to the musical life of our community through the following:

1.  Presentation of an annual series of concerts, free to the public, featuring outstanding

performances by Performing Members and invited guests;

2.  Presentation of community outreach activities, including bringing great music to

residents of area retirement homes;

3.  Aiding and encouraging musical education by the disbursement of scholarships to

talented music students whose permanent address is in Santa Barbara County.

For more information about programs, to join, or to donate, please visit our website,  http://sbmusicclub.org.