Young people create a heaven with strings

It is fitting that the opening number for Robert McDuffie’s annual Labor Day Festival, Allegro moderato from the String Octet in B-flat major, was written by Max Bruch, a German composer in the age of Romanticism who wrote his first composition when he was 9 years old. Of the guest participants listed in the program, most started playing their instruments before they were old enough for grammar school.

Amy Schwartz Moretti, director of the McDuffie Center for Strings, who played with the five young string players, was accompanied by Annie Fullard, chamber coach for the center and by guest artist Daniel Tosky, from the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, on double bass. Moretti has such a good time playing her violin that she would inspire even the timid student player to excel Who wouldn’t want to experience that exhilaration?

The next two selections, from String Quartet No. 14 in G major, K. 387, from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, were played by the guest students only, the first with an outstanding violin performance by Yeawon Erica Hwang. The lilting composition is referred to as “Spring,” possibly a reference to that season in Vienna, where Mozart wrote it in 1782.

The Suite for Two Violins and Piano, from Opus 71, by Moritz Moszkowski, featured violinists Sam Parrini, part of an accomplished musical family, in his home state of South Carolina, and Ryan Char, accompanying pianist Jay Sherman, who equipped himself well with another lively performance.

Elizabeth Pridgen, the G. Leslie Fabian piano chair in music at the center and a highly regarded concert pianist, and Julie Albers, the Charles and Mary Jean Yates cello chair at the center and principal cellist for the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, joined senior viola player Alexander Locke and violinist Harry Ward, a junior in the music school, for Piano Quintet No. 2, Opus 81, by Antonin Dvorak, featuring the founder of the school bearing his name, McDuffie.

Last year, we met Ward, from Sydney, Australia, for the first time, when he entertained guests at a private reception for a nonprofit organization in Macon. His enthusiasm for Macon and especially for what he termed his good fortune in being accepted in the McDuffie Center for Strings, was a refreshing perspective coming from someone who probably travels the longest distance to attend the university.

On Labor Day, senior Dustin Wilkes-Kim, another violinist in the center’s ensemble, was scheduled to play; however, due to illness, Ward had the good fortune to be tapped to take his place and to play with McDuffie on the first movement, Allegro, ma non tanto, another festive selection for the afternoon of celebration for the end of one season and of the introduction of the new season, which opens later this month.

During the brief intermission, anticipation and excitement were in the air among friends and supporters of the season, among them Betty Sweet Ladson and Gay Faircloth. Around the table of refreshments Ron and Mary Freeman and Will and Roslyn Platt commented on the level of proficiency among the guest musicians and of the ensemble. It’s embarrassing to think what some of us might have been doing at the age of 17 when these students are well on their way to professional status!

The last selection of the afternoon, Edward Grieg’s Holberg Suite, Opus 40, saved the best for last. Conductor and music director of the Mercer Symphony, Ward Stare, who also serves in that capacity for the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, with his energetic direction, led the faculty musicians, festival guest participants and the center’s ensemble through the five movements.

The suite, first written by Grieg for piano, is a collection of lively folk dance music – one could envision Spanish dancers with castanets in the second movement, Sarabande, possibly a waltz during the fourth, titled Air, and the quicksteps of the last, Rigaudon, composed in double meter.

McDuffie’s festival was the perfect ending to the holiday weekend and an astonishing display of young talent. The guest players are in high school – maybe we will see more of them, in the not too distant future, at Mercer’s Townsend School of Music and at the McDuffie Center for Strings.

This story was originally published September 6, 2017 at 11:37 AM with the headline "Young people create a heaven with strings."