Jennifer Koh

Albuquerque Journal
By David Steinberg
July 24th, 2016
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Trio to perform Bartok music for festival

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Bela Bartok’s music is known for its Hungarian and Romanian folk elements.

Violinist Jennifer Koh finds more than folk rhythms. An example is Bartok’s “Contrasts.”

“He also engages so directly with Western classical tradition that’s quite fascinating,” Koh said in a phone interview.

“You have different composers from middle Europe that engage more with the Slavic tradition. Bartok is engaged directly with Western and Germanic traditions, like Beethoven, Brahms and Mozart.”

And, she added, Bartok’s music is hardly atonal.

In “Contrasts,” Koh will be joined by clarinetist Romie de Guise and pianist Juho Pohjonen.

“Everyone has a strong role in the piece. I think it’s just a great piece of music.”

The trio will perform “Contrasts” on Thursday, July 28, in the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival concert at Simms Auditorium in Albuquerque. They will also play “Contrasts” in a festival concert the previous evening at St. Francis Auditorium in Santa Fe.

Also on the paired concerts’ program are Johannes Brahms’ Clarinet Trio in A minor and W.A. Mozart’s Duo in B-flat major for Violin and Viola.

Koh thinks that music in general has a “compelling ability to connect human beings and human experiences. It’s about shortening distances between cultures and between people … whether a great distance or sitting next to each other in a concert hall.”

Music – in fact, the arts in general – can transcend human boundaries and goes to “the core of who we are as emotional human beings.”

In Koh’s Shared Madness project, more than 32 composers wrote solo violin pieces for her to premiere. Among the composers are Philip Glass, Vijay Iyer and festival artistic director Marc Neikrug. The commissions were in exchange for Koh’s repayment of a loan on her violin.

Koh was named Musical America’s 2016 Instrumentalist of the Year.

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