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As his bow struck the strings of his cello, Alexander Hersh made his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, all string players, to Beethoven, Mozart, Mahler, Elgar, Dvoria Works by Gram and many other heavyweights have been performed thousands of times in the standard repertoire.
But in his case, it’s an ongoing legacy for cellist Hersh, 29, and his father, violinist Stefan, 59, who are featured soloists for the Vallejo Symphony Orchestra. Season 90 plays (another heavyweight) Brahms’ Double Concerto Saturday and Sunday at the Queen’s Theater in Vallejo for the opener.
Alex, who likes to be called on Tuesday in a phone interview from his Chicago residence, noted that his grandfather taught viola and piano for 40 years at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. His great-grandfather, Ralph Hersh, and great-grandmother, Marianne Hersh, helped create the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra, and Ralph Hersh joined Stevenson in New York City. Quartet.
Asked if he had met anyone who remembered a relative performing or taking a class, Alex quipped: “It’s a curse and a blessing, depending on how you look at it. It happens all the time.”
Alex, who was born in Minneapolis and raised in Chicago, will give a recital at Carnegie Hall later this month, and has a BA and MA from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. Then, he said, he received an “amazing grant” that allowed him to study and perform in concerts in Berlin, which he called “the epicenter of classical music.”
“However, most of my (performance) work is in the United States,” Alex said, adding, “I’m really immersed in the German aesthetics of string playing.”
He performs 45 to 60 times a year, but, he says, “I do a lot of other things.”
At the height of the pandemic, he dabbled in making short films while also working on a new album. He describes his filmmaking on YouTube as “a combination of classical music, narrative and short stories. Getting a whole new generation interested in classical music is my grassroots.”
One example: “Pasta-Making Studies,” which he called “a kind of comedy of errors. It’s just that I’m making pasta and playing music in the background.”
Alex, who describes himself as a “big fan of old records”, said he and his father had played Brahms at previous concerts, an 1887 work by the German composer The family’s last orchestral work. They begin rehearsals ahead of the Friday and Saturday concerts, when they will review rhythm, the speed at which a piece of music is or should be played, with conductor Marc Taddei.
It turns out that Alex met Mark in New Zealand and “I just came up with the idea” not only as a soloist, but as a homecoming from his father, who was the principal of the Vallejo Symphony, he 19 years old.
When asked if the special magic of a vocal family’s beautiful, natural harmony also applies to relatives who play instrumental music together, he said it comes down to “priorities and value systems.”
“I grew up with my parents and listened to them practice all the time, and then I went to study,” Alex said. “You never forget where you came from. We were independent, but we were always swayed by each other.”
When the conversation turned to music, he raised the question of why Brahms’ double concerto did not receive acclaim for the composer’s violin concerto or his two piano concertos.
“I don’t know,” Alex said. “Whenever you ask two soloists to do something, it’s a little awkward.”
Still, “it’s great Brahms, it’s heroic,” he said, adding that the 33-minute piece was originally a cello concerto. “Finally, I’m excited to share an article with my dad and audience.”
In the first part of the double concerto, the listener might think that the two solo instruments feel like consolation prizes for the sound, but they end up making a lot of vibrant music as the music ends. The second slow section presents a sweet fall, with the soloists getting attention. The third and final part is a lively dance. In most concertos, the soloist is not the star of the performance, but is essentially the bellwether of a fast-paced orchestral play with echoes of folk songs.
Although his father — who directs the String Chamber Music program at Roosevelt University’s Chicago School of Performing Arts — practiced Brahms every day for 18 months, “I have a busier schedule than he does when it comes to playing,” He says.
Using a sports analogy, Alex said that preparing for a concert is “as much a mental thing as it is a kinesthetic thing.” I started with scales and etudes – the same as I did when I first started. It’s kind of like a player practicing hitting the ball and practicing his swing. “
Alexander, who has performed with the Houston Symphony and the Boston Pops, is Co-Artistic Director of NEXUS Chamber Music, an international group of artists dedicated to performing chamber music.
The orchestra will also play Rossini’s “Barber of Seville” Overture, a cheerful seven-minute piece written in 1816 that musically sums up what is considered the greatest comedy of all time opera. The overture was widely performed in the concert hall.
Besides Brahms, another attraction of the concert is Stravinsky’s “Jeu de Cartes” (The Game of Cards) ballet, a 24-minute production in 1936 for the American Ballet Theatre Company (then by led by the young George Balanchine), sometimes described as “three ballets.”
While not as famous as the Russian composer’s “Firebird” and “Rite of Spring” ballets, it is considered a neoclassical masterpiece, inspired by his favorite card game: poker. Symphony spokesman Tim Zumwalt noted that it gleefully cited Beethoven, Johann Strauss, Ravel, Delibs, Tchaikovsky and even Rossini. Quote from The Barber of Seville, and added: Your orchestra is to take away. “
if you go
Vallejo Symphony Orchestra
Saturday 8pm
Sunday 3pm
Queen’s Theatre
330 Virginia St., Vallejo
Tickets: $45-65
(707) 643-4441
www.vallejosymphony.org
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