Emory Wheel Review of Carlos Museum Trio

Review

Music Sounds Better at Noon
By Tamme Smith

Beginning the Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta’s Noontime Concert Series with Easter and Passover wishes, William Ransom, professor and director of piano studies, rang in Good Friday with holiday greetings and the gift of music.

Friday’s Noontime Concert Series at the Michael C. Carlos Reception Hall showcased the talents of violinist Karen Bentley Pollick, who has performed with Paul Dresher’s electro-Acoustic Ensemble since 1999. The concert also featured cellist Charae Krueger and Ranson on the piano.

The first three songs of the concert came from the musical West Side Story, providing a playful and familiar opening. As Pollick performed these upbeat numbers with Ransom behind her on the piano, she wowed the audience with her agile fingers and the passionate thrusting of her bow, as it rose and fell over the humming strings of her violin.

Pollick prepared for the next piece by taking her seat at the piano with the violin still in her hand. As she did so she joked with audience, explaining that she would be playing the two instruments in order to give Ransom a rest for his piano concerto.

As Pollick began her most impressive performance of the afternoon, a two-part piece titled Solo Blues for Violin and Piano, many audience members stood up to get a better look at the brilliant, ambidextrous musician.

Switching her hand from the neck of the violin to the keys of the piano, Pollick juxtaposed the piano’s often staccato chords unto the violin’s humming song, creating many interesting effects by doing so. On one occasion, Pollick laid the violin in her lap and plucked its strings to the staccato rhythm and dissonant melody which she played on the piano.

As the piece built, the piano part evolved into a flowing melody that the violin suddenly began to follow, causing Pollick’s hands to become increasingly separate, with each one keeping to its own instrument, yet together, as the music they played resolved into one flowing melody.

“Some people are really just too talented,” Ransom joked when he returned to the stage for the final trio performance. “I think I may just have Karen play this trio all by herself.”

But because Pollick lacked the third arm with which to do so, Kreuger and Ransom accompanied her, though the violin remained the centerpiece of the trio.

Augmenting the musical performances was the ideal setting of the venue. The Reception Hall offered an intimate space with warm lighting that gave the room a cozy feel.

James Orbeck, retired curator of the Margaret Mitchell Collection at the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library, said that he was particularly fond of the location because its small size allowed the sound to reverberate.

But Orbeck was even more impressed by Pollick’s performance.

“She’s just an incredible musician and such a treasure for Emory University,” he said. “And the talent here is just hard to imagine. Playing the piano and the violin at the same time is incredible.”

But whether or not multitasking on the piano and the violin was enough to stir everyone in the audience, the concert certainly made the already good Friday even better.