See sabbatical-bound Tucson violinist at Bach Society season finale

St. Andrew’s Bach Society will close its 2024 summer concert series with a trio anchored by Tucson Symphony Orchestra Concertmaster Lauren Roth on Sunday, Aug. 25.

It will be the last time we see Roth before she sets out on a one-year sabbatical for the 2024-25 season from her TSO position to play with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in Georgia. She will return to Tucson in October for “Lauren Roth Plays Beethoven” on Oct. 5 and 6.

“There is no farewell here. Being on sabbatical is only that, I am on a sabbatical,” Roth, who joined the TSO in 2013, said in an email interview last week from Europe.

“The important thing is that I am performing a lovely concert on Aug. 25 with the St. Andrew’s Bach Society concert series, and I am excited to be in Tucson in October for the Beethoven violin concerto,” she added. “It’s one of the most incredible pieces ever written, and I get to perform it with my own orchestra.”

Sunday’s Bach Society concert pairs her with her TSO colleague cellist Juan David Mejia and Nogales-born pianist Evan Kory, who have performed a few times together, including a recital in Patagonia earlier this summer.

The program is bookended by Beethoven’s Piano Trio in E-flat and Dvorâk’s best-known Fourth Piano Trio “Dumky,” with Arvo Pärt’s Mozart-Adagio filling the middle.

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Dvorák’s “Dumky” deviates from the piano trio template with six movements of “dumkas” or Ukrainian folk songs, a contrast to Beethoven’s early career Piano Trio that adheres to the day’s prevailing traditions “while hinting at his rule-breaking tendencies,” Roth noted.

Those six movements “run the gamut of emotion and tempo often alternating from lamenting or sorrowful sections to cheerful and march-like ones,” she explained.

Pärt transcribes the most impactful movement of Mozart’s early Sonata in F major, balancing his interpretation with his signature Tintinnabuli style that Roth described as “a minimalist and meditative style which imitates the sound of bells.”

Sunday’s concert begins at 2 p.m. at Grace St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 2331 E. Adams St. Reserved seats are sold out; general admission is $16 through standrewsbach.org.