30th Tucson Winter Chamber Music Fest honors co-founder

Jean-Paul Bierny would be thrilled by the party his colleagues at Arizona Friends of Chamber Music are throwing in his honor next weekend.

On Saturday, March 9, the chamber music presenter is hosting a celebration at the tail end of its 30th anniversary Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival that will honor Bierny’s legacy as co-founder of the event. Bierny, who led the group as its president for 35 years, died in October at the age of 85.

The March 9 Festival Celebration at Leo Rich Theater, which replaces the gala dinner and concert, will feature most of the festival artists including headliners Dover Quartet performing works by some of Bierny’s favorite composers, said Randy Spalding, the longtime Arizona Friends of Chamber Music board member and chairman of the festival committee.

The celebration program will include Schubert’s Cello Quintet with the Dover Quartet and its cellist Camden Shaw; Greig’s somber “Dereinst, Gedanke mein” (One day, O my mind) with baritone Randall Scarlata making his festival debut; a solo piano work by Ross Edwards with longtime festival pianist Bernadette Harvey; Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet with clarinetist Romie de Guise-Langlois and the Dover; and Dvorák’s “Terzetto” with violinists Axel Strauss and Jennifer Frautschi — another festival newcomer — and violist Masumi Per Rostad.

Bierny and cellist Peter Rejto created the festival, which launched in 1994; Rejto continues to be the festival’s artistic director, bringing in musicians from around the country and beyond to perform in various ensembles.

“Peter Rejto loves mingling groups together and having you play genuinely with friends that you don’t often get to work with,” said Dover’s founding cellist Shaw. “It always feels very positive and fruitful.”

The Dover Quartet is making its third festival appearance including headlining the 2022 event and being on a lineup in 2018 with the legendary Romero Guitar Quartet and Germany’s Morgenstern Trio.

“We love this festival,” Shaw said from a tour break last week in New York City. “I think Peter’s direction and understanding of what it’s like to be a performer, because he was one, one feels very understood.”

The Dover and clarinetist de Guise-Langlois on March 10 will perform the world premiere of Pierre Jalbert’s Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, which was the last work commissioned by Bierny and his widow, Chris Tanz, for the Friends and the fourth time the Friends have commissioned Jalbert.

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This is the first time Tucson will see the Dover with its new violist Julianne Lee of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, who officially joined the group last September. Lee replaced founding violist Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, who left in 2022.

The Dover formed while its members — Shaw, Pajaro-van de Stadt and violinists Joel Link and Bryan Lee — were undergrads at Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia in 2008. Shaw said that the four were teens, just finding their musical voices, which they developed together, each sharing the same approach to music, from finger choices to bowing style.

“You really get this oneness that I do think can be quite powerful,” Shaw said of the group’s performances.

Their unity on stage has earned them legions of fans and comparisons to some of the country’s top ensembles including the Emerson String Quartet, which ended its 47-year run in 2023.

“They are an exceptional group,” Spalding said. “They are one of the premiere quartets in the country ... and not only are they great musicians but they are very nice people.”

Tucson got to see the Dover five years after their breakthrough win at the prestigious Banff International String Quartet Competition in 2013, which makes returning for their third festival feel like a homecoming, Shaw said.

Other highlights of the 2024 festival, which will present five concerts in addition to the festival celebration from Sunday, March 3, to March 10, includes Randall joining Harvey for Ravel’s song cycle “Don Quichotte a Dulcinee” on March 3, and selections from Mahler’s “Des Knaben Wunderhorn” on March 6. The festival also continues its tradition of presenting a youth concert with festival artists on March 7.

But the highlight for Spalding will be the festival celebration honoring Bierny, with whom he worked closely in his 27 years on the Friends board.

“For me, it’s a very emotional (festival) in that ... we’ve had this festival 30 years. And though Jean-Paul is not physically here to enjoy it, his spirit lives on in the music,” Spalding said.

Concerts are at 3 p.m. Sunday, March 3, and March 10 and 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday at Leo Rich Theater, 260 S. Church Ave. Tickets are $45 for single concerts, $12 for students, or $170 for a festival pass that covers all five concerts. Admission to the March 9 festival celebration, which starts at 6 p.m., is $150, which includes food and drinks afterward. Tickets are available through arizonachambermusic.org.