Chamber Music Series attracts world-class musicians

International musicians will visit Bloomington in the Chamber Music Series this summer as part of IU's School of Music Summer Music Festival. The music series began June 25 and will run until July 21.\nJerzy Kaplanek, an associate professor who teaches violin and chamber music at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada, will perform at the Summer Music Festival for the fifth time. His group, the Penderecki Quartet, will share its music with the String Academy, who teaches private and group lessons in violin, viola, cello, double bass and electric bass as well as theory and master classes and chamber music.\n"We love playing in Bloomington especially for the String Academy which is a very young audience," Kaplanek said. "The Chamber Music Series provides us with the opportunity to work with such talented kids."\nFormed in Poland in 1986, the world-renowned Penderecki Quartet recently performed in New York, Amsterdam, St. Petersburg, Paris, Poland and Venezuela. \nThe Quartet played at the music series' first recital Friday and have another performance scheduled for Tuesday at Auer Hall.\n"We loved playing on Friday with Luba Dubinsky," Kaplanek said. "On Tuesday, we will start the evening with Philip Glass followed by Tan Dun and Brahms."\nDun's music combines Western and traditional Chinese elements to create a new style.\n"We are attempting to imitate the original Chinese instruments and the sound of the Pekinese Opera," Kaplanek said.\nThe Penderecki Quartet will explain their repertoire to the audience the day before the performance.\n"This helps our audience understand the music better," Kaplanek said. \nCellist David Cole, who will accompany The Penderecki Quartet Tuesday with violist Evelina Chao, performs with his wife Carol, a violinist, in the Cole Duo at Auer Hall tonight. The couple has been performing together for 30 years.\nThe duo will play two short piano pieces from the Baroque period before playing works on cello and violin including 19th century works by by J.S. Bach and the Eastern European composers Zoltan Kodaly and Maurice Ravel.\n"Ravel was influenced by jazz colors and Kodaly was influenced by the folklore of Eastern Europe," Carol said. "Even though only the two of us are performing, it sounds like many people are playing."\nShe said she likes performing in Bloomington and Eastern Europe because the audiences are very educated about music.\nThe music series also features the Borromeo String Quartet on July 6. The Quartet, which was formed at the Curtis Institute of Music in 1989, has performed in Berlin, Tokyo, Prague, Paris and London. \nInternational soloist and chamber musician Nicholas Kitchen will play violin for Borromeo.\n"There is a strong and sincere interest in music in Indiana and Ohio," he said. "Bloomington has a healthy balance of a strong interest for music in the community and a specialized music school."\nThe group will play music by Michael Ellison and Brahms.\n"We are playing two brilliant movements by Ellison that have strains of Middle Eastern music," Kitchen said.\nHoward Klug, professor of clarinet and chair of the woodwind department at IU, performed Saturday. Klug plays music that is originally intended for the viola, bassoon, French horn, cello and voice. \n"I am trying to prove that the bass clarinet is a recital instrument rather than merely an opera instrument," he said. "The bass clarinet has a larger range than the soprano."\nKlug, who will also perform at the CAP Faculty Recital on July 25, played music by Bach, Rachaminoff and Brahms.\n"Good music transcends being played on another instrument," Klug said. "Also, the composers intended their music to be played on several instruments."\n-- Contact staff writer Sheeba Madan at smadan@indiana.edu.