Iowa State professor of music and Des Moines Symphony concertmaster Jonathan Sturm will perform a recital of violin and viola sonatas on Friday, Feb. 8., at 7:30 p.m. in ISU’s Martha Ellen Tye recital hall. Admission is free.
Sturm, who is also the violist in the Amara Piano Quartet (formerly Ames Piano Quartet), has chosen to perform on both instruments in one concert at ISU for the first time in a decade, and he will collaborate for the first time in a recital with the new Amara Quartet pianist Mei-Hsuan Huang. The concert will feature the important Baroque Passacaglia by Biber and the E-flat sonata by Brahms, both of which he will perform on the viola. The second half of the concert will feature the immortal A major sonata for violin by Cesar Franck.
Sturm said, "All three of these works are masterpieces of melody, structure, style and content and offer the audience a chance not only to hear the pinnacle of beautiful music (and music requiring great virtuosity and sensitivity to perform), but also to enter into the potential of story that these pieces evoke. Each piece possess the kind of resonance within it that suggests a monumental conception of musical art by its composer. These are works I have wanted to perform for nearly fifteen years, and I have been waiting for the right time in my own development to present them in a way I hope will do them the justice they so richly deserve."