Each year, Gili Melamed-Lev, a pianist and co-founder of Jazz and Classics for Change, assembles an ever-changing group of talented professional musicians to play a variety of concerts in the Hudson Valley and the Berkshires. The venues differ, but each concert features inspiring classical pieces – all chosen to uplift the audience. In fact, JCFC’s guiding principal was coined by Leonard Bernstein: “This will be our reply.
..”, he said, “to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.
” The concert scheduled for Sept. 21 certainly fulfills that mandate. The program will open with a gorgeous transcription of an organ piece by J.
S. Bach arranged for violin, viola and bass. It will be followed by two pieces for violin and piano: the beautiful Romanza in F by Beethoven and a fiery, energetic piece by Brahms from the FAE Sonata that was written by 3 composers – Brahms and Schumann among them, as a birthday gift for the well-known virtuoso violinist Joseph Joachim.
The last piece on the program is the piano quintet in C (for 2 violins, viola, cello and piano) by Ernst von Dohnanyi. Melamed-Lev says, “It is a masterful piece, rich with sweeping melodies, drama, lyricism and a strong sense of hope.” In fact, JCFC is driven by the belief that music has the power to transform lives.
It strives to build connections through music that enrich, inspire and honor the lives of all people. The venue, Tydeman Farm in Germantown, is a favorite f.