BRATTLEBORO — The Brattleboro Music Center will present “French Connection,” a concert of flute music by French composers, Friday, Jan. 19, at 7:30 p.m., at the Brattleboro Music Center Auditorium, 72 Blanche Moyse Way.
This concert is a tribute to Louis Moyse, co-founder of the Marlboro Music Festival and longtime Marlboro College faculty member.
Moyse was also a member of the successful Moyse Trio, in which his father, Marcel, played flute, Louis the piano, and Blanche Honegger Moyse the violin. The evening features Louis' leading protegé, Vermonter and Grammy-nominated flutist Karen Kevra, along with her longtime collaborator, Washington, D.C., pianist Jeffrey Chappell.
Kevra and Chappell will open the Jan. 19 concert with Michel Blavet's exquisite sonata “L'Henriette,” Poulenc's beloved sonata for flute and piano, and a short composition of Louis Moyse.
The second half of the program relies on audience participation.
At intermission, a menu/ballot of the 10 works from Louis Moyse's collection of flute music by French composers will be distributed. Based on written descriptions of each piece by such composers as Gabriel Fauré, Georges Enesco, and Cécile Chaminade, audience members will cast their ballots for the pieces they would like to hear during the second half of the program.
“Louis compiled and edited this collection of 10 virtuoso works in 1973, which is the most widely published collection of flute music,” Kevra said in a news release. “These are compact works in two parts, slow and expressive followed by demanding technical bravura. These brilliant and beautiful pieces were literally designed to prove the flutist's mettle."
Kevra has won attention as one of the country's outstanding flutists through her distinctive warm and extroverted performances as a soloist and chamber musician, and earned a Grammy nomination with her premier recording of works by Louis Moyse (Works for flute and Piano of Louis Moyse-CRI CD888), which earned accolades from numerous American reviewers.
Chappell has performed as soloist with major symphony orchestras, including those of Philadelphia, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Houston, and Indianapolis. His many appearances with the Baltimore Symphony include concerts at Carnegie Hall and Wolf Trap and, as a substitute for Claudio Arrau on four hours' notice, playing the Brahms Second Concerto.
He is on the faculties of Goucher College and The Levine School of Music. In addition to the flute and piano repertoire on the program, Chappell will perform Ravel's exquisite “Jeux d'Eau” for solo piano.