Williams Chamber Players

The Williams College Department of Music presents the Williams Chamber Players in concert on Friday, Oct. 28, at 8 p.m. in Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall on the Williams College campus. This free event is open to the public.

Vocalists Kerry Ryer-Parke, soprano, and Keith Kibler, baritone, return to the stage to showcase works by Monteverdi and Purcell. The works highlight a torrid 16th and 17th century genre of music. The death scene from Venus and Adonis by John Blow offers a chance for opera fans a sonic glimpse into this first example of English opera. Pianist Edwin Lawrence and cellist Nathaniel Parke collaborate.

Josef Haydn, known, colloquially, as the “inventor” of the symphony was one of the classical era’s most prolific composers. While it is not strictly true that Haydn “invented” the symphonic form, he certainly raised its profile while producing over one hundred of these works. Nor was his genius limited to the symphony as he was responsible for the popularization of another type of composition: the string quartet. Along with his student Mozart, the classical era exploded with exploration of the sonata form, the symphony and the string quartet. Violinists Joana Genova and Joel Pitchon, violist Scott Woolweaver, and cellist Ronald Feldman animate Haydn’s  String Quartet in E flat Major, Op. 64 No. 6, written in (1790).

The Piano Quartet in C minor Op.15  by Gabriel Fauré is performed by Joel Pitchon, violin; Scott Woolweaver, viola; Nathaniel Parke, cello; and Doris Stevenson, piano.

The Williams Chamber Players is a resident chamber ensemble, founded at Williams College in 1999. Its purpose is to present concerts for the college and community throughout the academic year. Antecedents of the Williams ChamberPlayers are The Williams Trio, founded in 1970, and the Group for 20th Century Music, founded in 1989. Repertoire for concerts is drawn from the standard chamber music repertoire with special attention to music of the 20th and 21st centuries, and to music by Williams composers. Musicians are normally drawn from the ranks of Artists-in-Residence, Artist Associates, and other faculty, as well as occasional visiting artists.