Camerata San Antonio opens their 23rd season this weekend with a program called “Nature’s Tapestry,” featuring a trio of string quartets that all have a connection to our world.
“The big piece on the program is the Brahms third string quartet,” said Camerata’s cellist, Ken Freudigman. “It was written in 1875, [when] Brahms was on holiday outside of Heidelberg. He wrote that it was almost bucolic in nature.”
The program also includes Dmitri Shostakovich’s very first string quartet, music that’s tuneful and not at all as thorny as some of the composer’s later quartets.
The most surprising and delightful piece on the program might be a newer work by Elena Ruehr. Her String Quartet No. 8 comes with the title, “Insect Dances.”
“It’s the story of a bunch of bugs who are a family,” said Freudigman.
Typical in classical music, of course?!?
“They’re having a party,” Freudigman continued, “Spider is rushing around the house, trying to get everything ready… we’ve got a ladybug who waltzes, we have a bumblebee who boogies, and then at the end, the grasshopper leads a polka, where everybody dances until they can’t dance anymore.”
The concerts happen this Friday at Kerrville’s First Presbyterian Church at 4:00 p.m., followed by a Saturday 3:00 p.m. show on Saturday at San Antonio’s Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit, and Sunday at 2:00 p.m. at Christ Episcopal Church. Details and tickets are at CamerataSA.org.
Listen in using the audio player at the top of this page to hear Camerata perform music by Shostakovich, and two of the “Insect Dances” by Elena Ruehr.
