New England Conservatory faculty have always enjoyed playing chamber music together, but in 1985 cellist Laurence Lesser transformed these occasional musical evenings into a stellar, regularly occurring series. At the time he initiated the series, Lesser was president of NEC. He currently occupies NEC's Walter W. Naumburg Chair in Music and continues to curate the concerts.
Lesser invites unique combinations of stellar faculty to create chamber music performances at the highest level, and reveals a grasp of repertoire that ranges from old favorites to the unfamiliar. NEC's archive of recordings of these concerts is a treasure trove of irreplaceable moments of music making.
Two examples give evidence of Lesser's programming sweep. A recently uncovered 1990 video reveals a performance of the Brahms Quintet with violinists James Buswell and Marylou Speaker Churchill, violist Walter Trampler, pianist Russell Sherman, and Lesser himself. No one else holds the cards to deal this particular royal flush. A 1997 performance of Crumb's Voice of the Whale engulfed Jordan Hall in blue light, and put flutist Renée Krimsier, cellist Yeesun Kim, and pianist Donald Berman on electronically amplified and manipulated instruments.
Over the past 25 years, Boston-area chamber music buffs have come to look forward to these six free concerts held on the first Mondays of October, November, December, March, April, and May. They know they can count on hearing fascinating repertoire in one of the great halls of the world. And they know they can expect illuminating performances by some of the world's greatest artists—NEC faculty, alumni, students and friends, who donate their services in exchange for the opportunity to experience together music that is among the most transcendent expressions of human culture.
In photo: detail from 1990 First Monday video with Russell Sherman at piano, Marylou Speaker Churchill and James Buswell on violin
2010-11 Season
This year, Lesser celebrates NEC alumni, promising to include at least one former student in every piece on each program. The range of oustanding performers is impressive. They range from NEC's Boston Symphony Orchestra members to the resident Borromeo String Quartet to the recently graduated Jupiter and Parker Quartets.
2010-10-04 Beethoven, Schumann, Schoenberg
2010-11-01 Beethoven, Schuller, Brahms
2010-12-06 Mozart, Feldman, Dvorak
2011-03-07 F. Couperin, Stravinsky, Ravel
2011-04-04 Haydn, Beethoven, Mendelssohn
2011-05-02 Beach, Brahms
2010-08-03
CLAUDE DEBUSSY