Tonight’s performance has been made possible by the generosity of Jim Johnson. The Steinway grand piano has been provided by the Walla Walla Piano Group.

Violinist MingHuan Xu is a multi-faceted performer with unique communicative abilities. She has delighted audiences with her passion, incredible technique, sensitivity and charisma, and tonight will be no exception. With her husband and pianist, Winston Choi, MingHuan unleashes a program of violin masterpieces by Pärt, Kreisler, and William Grant Still, among others. The rolling hills and expansive vineyards of Pepper Bridge Winery afford the perfect setting.

Artists: Winston Choi, piano; MingHaun Xu, violin

Tonight’s performance is made possible by the generosity of Dick and Julie Swenson.

Back to Front: Hugo Wolf’s lone string quartet, Italian Serenade, is most often performed as an encore. Hence, we lead off Festival Series II with this energizing work. At the opposite end of the aesthetic spectrum is the spacial stillness of Arvo Pärt’s 1978 composition Spiegel im Spiegel (Mirror in the Mirror). Rounding out an eclectic first half is the masterpiece of both economy and virtuosity (a seeming contradiction) in the Ravel Duo, a sonata for violin and cello. At times, you can’t tell which of the two instruments you are hearing, as Ravel weaves melodic lines through shared musical heights. If you don’t know the cello term thumb position, you will. Finally, we present Ernst von Dohnanyi whose masterpiece, the Piano Quintet in C Minor, Op. 1, was his first published work. Rising quickly to the attention of luminaries like Brahms, Dohnanyi left Europe as 20th century gears for war turned, and finished his career in America as a professor of music at Florida State University. This program of interesting reversals lives neither at the beginning nor the end of the 2014 WWCMF Season.

Hugo Wolf (1860-1903)

Italian Serenade (1887) for string quartet

Arvo Pärt (b. 1935)

Spiegel im Spiegel for violin and piano

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Duo (Sonata for Violin and Cello) (1922)

I. Allegro

II. Très vif

III. Lent

IV. Vif, avec entrain

E. von Dohnanyi (1877-1960)

Piano Quintet in C minor, Op. 1 (1895)

I. Allegro

II. Scherzo. Allegro

III. Adagio, quasi andante

IV. Finale. Allegro animato

Artists: Jennifer Caine, Timothy Christie, Oksana Ezhokina, Andrew Jennings, Paul Kantor, Norbert Lewandowski, Christina McGann, Stephen Miahky, Maria Sampen, and Sally Singer Tuttle.

Saturday, June 14 — 7:30 p.m — Gesa Power House Theater, 111 N 6th Ave, Walla Walla, WA 99362