Award-winning British cellist Steven Isserlis enjoys a unique and distinguished career as a soloist, chamber musician, educator, author and broadcaster. His commitment to and obvious pleasure in music making are inspirations to both audiences and fellow-musicians.
Those traits are sure to be in evidence tonight when a Hilo audience will hear Isserlis in a concert with pianist Connie Shih.
Their performance, presented by the Hawaii Concert Society, is at 7:30 p.m. at the UH-Hilo Performing Arts Center. It will include works from the Baroque and Romantic periods by Bach, Boccherini, Brahms, Mendelssohn and Ignaz Moscheles.
Isserlis was born into a family steeped in music. His viola-playing sister, Annette, and violinist sister, Rachel, both professionals, were the biggest influences on him as a boy.
“Our parents were very musical, and there was always music in the house.” he said. “My sisters were my inspiration. Even today, they always know so much more about music than I do.”
And music, Isserlis says, saved his family. His grandfather, Julius, a Russian Jew, was among a group of musicians and their families allowed by Vladimir Lenin to tour abroad, in order to display the Soviet Union’s cultural prowess. But none of them returned.
Julius Isserlis ended up in Vienna. While he was performing in England in 1938, however, Hitler’s takeover of Czechoslovakia took place, and the Isserlis family decided to remain in England, where Steven Isserlis was born 20 years later.
Nearly a generation younger than Isserlis, pianist is Shih considered to be one of Canada’s most outstanding artists. In 1993, Isserlis heard her perform in a concert in Vancouver when she was 17.
Isserlis now performs nearly all of his recitals with her.
Among the pieces the duo will perform in their Hilo concert is Johann Sebastian Bach’s Sonata No. 1 for viola da gamba, a predecessor of the cello that was popular at the time.
The work, which Isserlis will perform on his Stradivarius cello, displays Bach’s talent for counterpoint and shows why he is regarded as the master of the Baroque style. The concert also features Johannes Brahms’ cello sonata, his earliest published work for solo instrument and piano, and Felix Mendelssohn’s Variations Concertantes, which the composer-prodigy wrote at age 20.
Tickets for tonight’s concert are $25 (general), $20 (60-plus) and $10 (students), and are available at The Most Irresistible Shop and Music Exchange. Phone orders also can be made through the UH-Hilo Performing Arts Center Box Office (932-7490). Remaining tickets also are available at the door after 6:45 p.m.
