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Westside
Connections 3, the third in a series of concerts at the Broad Stage in Santa
Monica, went culinary on Thursday, April 5th with a festive blend of
chamber music featuring members of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra with the
spicy theme of “music and the culinary arts.”
 Curator and host
Margaret Batjer along with special guest Susan Feniger of Border Grill fame
drew parallels between two different disciplines - music and the culinary arts
- and the result was a delicious evening of conversation about how creating
cuisine and composing music have similar creative pathways.The evening began
with Susan Feniger’s thoughts on how music has inspired her and continues to
inspire her from the her early morning visits to the fish market to the frenzy
of Saturdays at her restaurant where the guiding mantra is, “Does this dish
sing?”
Directly
following Feniger’s rather entertaining and spirited discussion, was a
performance of Saint-Saëns’ Fantasie
for Violin and Harp, Op. 124 (1907) with impeccable performances by Tereza
Stanislav on violin and JoAnn Turovsky on harp. “Absolute perfection!”
exclaimed a patron as the accomplished duo stood before an appreciative
audience granting a lively round of applause at the completion of their
performance.
For the second
piece, Chris Stoutenborough on clarinet, Kenneth Munday on bassoon, Darren
Mulder on trumpet, Katia Popov on violin, Trevor Handy on cello and Robert
Thies on piano took to the stage to perform La
Revue de Cuisine, Jazz Suite for Clarinet, Bassoon, Trumpet, Violin, Cello
and Piano, H. 161 (1927) by Martinů. The entire work was a cinematic wonderment
of sound that evoked images of a chef vigorously chopping and mixing away in a
craze of cooking from the dynamic prologue ‘allegretto’ style to the Tango and
Charleston.
To round off the
evening was a lively performance of Ravel’s String Quartet in F major (1903)
performed by host Margaret Batjer on violin, Maia Jasper on violin, Roland Kato
on viola and Andrew Shulman on cello. Maia Jasper on violin gave an intriguing
performance – one that appeared as thought she was having a heart-felt
conversation between close friends through her impassioned eye contact and
vigorous playing.
The Westside
Connections series received its support by a grant from The James Irvine
Foundation as well as the Faucett Family Foundation, Ann Moore Mulally, a friend of LACO, Allan
& Muriel Kotin and K. Eugene Shutler.
Westside Connections is currently seeking supporters for its next session. For
more information about the series, visit www.laco.org or call 213.622.7001 x1.
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