Summer in Alaska is typically a slow time for performances, particularly of classical music. Who wants to sit indoors with the weather we've enjoyed this year?
But there's only so much sun a body can stand. Fortunately, August is bringing a series of concerts and recitals that will see us into fall. I attended the "kickoff" concert of the Anchorage Chamber Music Festival on Monday and was happy to see a fairly good turnout, not all of us related to students taking part in festival workshops this week. The program was ambitious and the performances quite good.
Excerpts were presented from intriguing chamber works by Beethoven, Haydn and Mendelssohn. Tenor John Charles Pierce sang two well-received excerpts from Verdi's "Otello," accompanied by a string quartet, piano and bass. The bass player, Paul Sharpe, played "Aria" by Alfred Desenclos, accompanied by pianist Justin Bartlett.
The one complete, full-length work was Cesar Franck's monumental Piano Quintet, with violinists Eliot Heaton and Alan Tilley, violist Christine Harada Li and cellist Nathaniel Pierce. The pianist, Gulrukh Shakirova, had an animated presence that was hard to separate from the playing. Her primary way of addressing the keyboard was sort of a question mark posture, her chin and cheeks appearing to almost touch the keys at some points. A variety of intense facial expressions, often timed to the notes and always reflective of the mood, shifted with every nuance of the music. That said, her fingerwork was exemplary. In the Allegretto from Beethoven's Piano Trio No. 12, she had a sustained trill for several bars that could easily have turned into hammering, drowning out the melodies in the strings, but she maintained its subtlety.
Monday's performers will be joined by additional local and visiting artists for the final faculty concert at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Alaska Pacific University's Grant Hall auditorium. Guests will include Naumberg violin competition winner Yehionatan Berick and soprano Alice Pierce. The program includes a scene from "Madame Butterfly," Schubert's "Trout" Quintet and another monument in the literature, Brahms' late period String Quintet in G Major.
A concert by students will take place at 3 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 15, also at Grant Hall. Tickets and information are available at anchoragechambermusicfestival.org.
More upcoming concerts
The Chamber Music Festival is not the only thing of note this month. Tenor Luke Honeck, recipient of the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra's Mary and Lucian Cassetta Scholarship, will give a recital at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 20, at First Covenant Church, 1145 C St.
Honeck, a recent West High School graduate, has performed with local choruses and Anchorage Opera and is particularly noted for his singing of Handel. The program will include music from "Messiah," "La Boheme," "HMS Pinafore" and other works, including what's billed as the "World Premiere of Honeck Piano Sonata No. 1." The concert is free, but donations are welcome.
The Alaska Jazz Workshop Faculty Jazz Sextet Concert will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 15, at the UAA Fine Arts Building. The lineup includes Yngvil Vatn Guttu, John Damberg, Karen Strid Chadwick and Mark Manners.
If you're up early on that day, check out the rummage sale being held by Bel Canto Alaska. Doors open at 9 a.m. at Joy Lutheran Church, 10111 E. Eagle River Loop Rd. We can't promise music, but given the attitude of the Bel Canto singers it just might happen. What you can expect are some bargains. We're told the selection is "super awesome."
Looking ahead, the Anchorage Festival of Music Young Alaskan Artist of the Year, violinist Zachary Spontak, will present his winner's recital on Aug. 26 at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, 3900 Wisconsin St. We'll have more on him next week. In the meantime, tickets are available at centertix.net.
Endangered historic properties announced
The Alaska Association for Historic Preservation announced its annual list of "Alaska's Ten Most Endangered Historic Properties" last week. The roster for 2015, some of which have made previous lists, includes:
- Kake Cannery National Historic Landmark
- Igloo Hotel on the Parks Highway
- Hi-yu Mine near Fairbanks
- Ole Dahl Cabin No. 1 in Talkeetna
- Old Bering Hill Chapel in Adak
- Dexters Roadhouse in Golovin
- Alaska Railroad Water Tower at Montana Creek
- Ipuitak Archeological District at Point Hope
- Buckner Building in Whittier
- 4th Avenue Theatre in Anchorage
We hear there are efforts underway to determine whether the Buckner Building can be restored or will be torn down. Given the size and strength of that structure, it would likely be just as expensive to do one as the other. In the event that it can be brought back into use, one plan would be to house some city offices and the Prince William Sound Museum there.
Kayak will return to Kodiak
An Alutiiq kayak collected in the Kodiak area in 1868 will be coming to the Alutiiq Museum in that town to go on exhibit starting in the spring of 2016. The loan from Harvard University's Peabody Museum is made possible by a grant of nearly $50,000 from the Institute for Museum and Library Services.
The boat, which includes both the frame and the skin cover, was discovered at the Peabody by Alutiiq researchers in 2006 and was the centerpiece of a skin artifact conservation project at that institution in 2011.
"The Harvard kayak preserves a wealth of technological information on kayak construction," Alutiiq Museum Executive Director April Laktonen Counceller said in a press release, "especially in the ways that its skin cover was made and attached."
The Alutiiq Museum expects to keep the kayak on display for at least 10 years.