KC Friends of Chamber Music’s next season filled with big names, stirring works

The Friends of Chamber Music is calling its 2024-2025 season “Voyages,” and the itinerary should please those who want to go on a musical escape. From big birthday celebrations to early music masterpieces and marquee names like Nikolai Lugansky and Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, the cruise entertainment looks high quality.

According to Dmitri Atapine, who, with his wife, Hyeyeon Park, is co-artistic director of the Friends, the food on these voyages will be extremely tasty.

“One of the things we need to do as great chefs is to assemble a menu for our audience,” Atapine said. “We want to take our audience on a discovery of chamber music, something that will draw connections between different performances, something that will resonate with each audience member and provide a unifying thread through the season. They will know that from September to May, they can trust that once every two or three weeks, they will have a reservation at their favorite chamber music restaurant.”

The season is bookended with concerts marking important birthday anniversaries.

“Three, to be precise,” Atapine said. “We finish our season with a master pianist, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, who will celebrate the 150th birthday of Maurice Ravel by performing the incredible feat of playing the entire catalog of Ravel’s works for piano in one single evening.”

But the season opens Sept. 13 with a concert called “Voyage of Love,” which will celebrate the 150th birthday of Arnold Schoenberg, the founder of the so-called New Viennese School, whose music still sounds revolutionary today.

“We will fly to Kansas City musicians from all across the country with myself on cello, as well as Hyeyeon on piano,” Atapine said. “We’ll celebrate Schoenberg’s birthday and Clara Schumann’s birthday on her 205th in the company of Johannes Brahms’ great string sextet. So that opening concert kind of represents one of those desires. We wanted to perform Schoenberg on this day to start our voyage all the way to Ravel.”

Before we get to the end of the season, however, there are lots of other ports of call along the way. On Sept. 28, Christina and Michelle Naughton, a twin sister piano duo, will perform works by Mozart and Mendelssohn, as well as contemporary American composers.

The Friends also has intriguing early music offerings in the works. French lutenist Thomas Dunford will play everything from Renaissance music to Erik Satie March 21. The Twelfth Night Ensemble with baritone Roderick Williams will present a secular cantata by Handel, “Apollo e Dafne” on Oct. 26, and the Dunedin Consort, an acclaimed European early music ensemble, will perform Bach’s St. John Passion on Nov. 16.

And, of course, it wouldn’t be a chamber music series without string quartets. The Isidore String Quartet, winners of the Banff Competition and the Avery Fisher Career Competition will perform Dec. 6 and the Leonkoro Quartet who will perform music by Mendelssohn and American composer Caroline Shaw March 28, 2025.

“And it’s not just the concerts,” Atapine said, “It’s all the stuff we do around the concerts. The education, the pre-concert talks, the master classes, visits to schools and retirement communities. We want to be out there in the community.”

All concerts now begin at 7 p.m. and are free for those 17 and under. Atapine is especially proud of a new Friends initiative called Club35.

“So basically, if you’re 18 to 35, you pay one time 35 bucks and you can go to every concert,” he said. “The whole season for $35. It’s three dollars a concert. Are we crazy? Yes. But we’ll get you into the concert virtually for free because we want you there.”

For tickets and more information, 816-766-1096 or chambermusic.org.

Sept. 13: “Voyage of Love” with violinists Jennifer Frautschi and Oliver Neubauer, violinists Hsin-Yun Huang and Che-Yen Chen, cellists Nicholas Canellakis and Dmitri Atapine and pianist Hyeyeon Park. Folly Theater, 300 W. 12th St.

Sept. 28: Christina and Michelle Naughton. Folly Theater.

Oct. 26: Handel: “Apollo e Dafne“ performed by Twelfth Night Ensemble. Atonement Lutheran Church, 9948 Metcalf Ave., Overland Park.

Nov. 8: “Poulenc’s Homage to Winds” with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Midwest Trust Center, Johnson County Community College, 12345 College Blvd., Overland Park.

Nov. 16: Bach’s St. John Passion with the Dunedin Consort. Atonement Lutheran Church.

Dec. 6: Isidore String Quartet. 1900 Building, 1900 Shawnee Mission Parkway, Mission Woods.

Feb. 11: Nikolai Lugansky. Folly Theater.

Feb, 21: The Gesualdo Six. Village Presbyterian Church, 6641 Mission Road, Prairie Village.

March 21: Thomas Dunford. Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral, 415 W. 13th St.

March 28: Leonkoro String Quartet. 1900 Building.

April 25, 2025: “Voyage de passion” with violinist Martin Beaver and violist Ettore Causa, cellist Dmitri Atapine and pianist Hyeyeon Park. 1900 Building.

May 9, 2025: Jean-Efflam Bavouzet performs the complete Ravel piano works. Folly Theater.

William Baker Festival Singers — Britten, Bernstein & Vaughan Williams

Music can sometimes help us process the most painful issues. The William Baker Festival Singers will take on war and oppression with their concert April 14 at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church.

The program includes Benjamin Britten’s Festival Te Deum, which had its premiere in November 1944 during the waning days of World War II, Vaughan Williams’ “Dona Nobis Pacem” (“Grant Us Peace”), “Songs of the Holocaust” by William W. Dreyfoos, Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and “At Our Last Awakening,” a hopeful work by Ed Frazier Davis.

3 p.m. April 14. St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, 1307 Holmes St. $25-$100. 913-488-7524 or festivalsingers.org.

Park ICM presents Behzod Abduraimov and Daniel Lozakovich

Park University’s International Center for Music will present its star graduate and current artist-in residence, Behzod Abduraimov, with violinist Daniel Lozakovich on April 14 at the 1900 Building.

In 2009, Abduraimov won the London International Piano Competition, and he’s hardly sat on his laurels since. Although he has a well-established international recording career, we’re lucky that his home base is here. Lozakovich, a violinist from Sweden, is only 22, but he’s already made his mark. In 2016, he won the Vladimir Spivakov International Violin Competition, and he’s signed an exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon.

This dynamic duo will perform three substantial works: Beethoven’s “Kreutzer” Sonata, the Sonata in A Major by César Franck and the Violin Sonata No. 1 by Robert Schumann.

7:30 p.m. April 14. 1900 Building, 1900 Shawnee Mission Parkway. $10-$30. icm.park.edu.

You can reach Patrick Neas at patrickneas@kcartsbeat.com and follow his Facebook page, KC Arts Beat, at www.facebook.com/kcartsbeat.