Monday, October 25, 2021

12 PM

Free concerts at noon every other Monday from fall through spring . . . no wonder the Mini-Concerts are the longest-running and one of the most popular classical music series at the library! This series was founded by Glenna Hazleton in 1970 at the Athenaeum, and has been going strong ever since. The concerts feature both local and touring musicians, prize-winning students, university music faculty members, local chamber ensembles. . . and the repertoire also includes jazz, folk and world music. There are no reservations, no tickets . . . just line up at the side door of the Athenaeum before noon. (Donations are always welcome!) Mini-Concerts take place every other Monday at noon and last about an hour.

Born in Moscow (Russia), Irina Bendetsky showed musical promise as a small child and at age four entered professional music school, where her teacher was a student of the famous piano pedagogue Heinrych Neigaus. After completing Gnessin College, she entered Gnessin Conservatory of Music. Ms. Bendetsky has made concert tours through Bulgaria to St. Petersburg and other Russian cities and has appeared with orchestras - in Russia and the United States - in concertos by List, Ravel, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Bach and Shostakovich.

Ms. Bendetsky left the Soviet Union in 1989 and moved to San Diego. Since 1990 she has been on the music faculty of the University of San Diego, and she teaches privately. She has been also invited to perform with local orchestras. In 1995 she created the Encore Trio which has been successfully performing throughout San Diego.

In 2006 she started to perform in duo with violinist Ondrej Lewit and together they performed in many venues in San Diego County and also recorded a CD with compositions of violinist and composer Franz Drdla.

Born in Prague, capital of Czech Republic (formerly part of Czechoslovakia), Ondrej Lewit started to study the violin at the age of seven at Elementary School of Music, later continued at State Conservatory of Music and obtained his MA degree graduating at Academy of Performing Arts. As a member of Camerata Pragensis, Camerata Nova, concertmaster of J. Suk's Chamber Orchestra and especially as a first violin of Cuartetto Cassoviae, he played in many countries of European continent and made many recordings for the Czechoslovak Radio and Television, Italian RAI and recording companies like Supraphon, Opus and Edigsa.

In 1983 he immigrated to Spain, where he became the concertmaster of Tenerife Symphony Orchestra (Orquesta Sinfonica de Tenerife - OST) and later also leader and conductor of OST Chamber Orchestra, playing in numerous occasions as a soloist with many important guest conductors as R. Barshai, E. Colomer, S. Morgenstern, T. Olilla, D. Shallon, D. Solomon, Y. Talmi and many others. He was a violin teacher and chamber music coach at Santa Cruz Conservatory from 1984 to 1989. In 1997 he started to teach violin and chamber music at OST's Academy of Orchestral Studies (was also its Director and Chair of the String Department). In 1987 he also renewed his quartet activity as a first violin of the Lewit Quartet (former Cuartetto Cassoviae),which appeared at many Spanish concert halls through 2000.

From 1988 to 1992 he was a member of Eastern Philharmonic Orchestra (in 1992 as an associated concertmaster), a chamber music player and a faculty at Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, NC. Between 1995 and 1997 Spanish Youth Orchestra and Catalonia Youth Symphony invited him to work with them as a violin teacher and a chamber music coach during their Summer camps.

In 2000 he moved to Barcelona where he played until 2003 as a concertmaster with the Liceo Opera Theater Orchestra. He was also very often invited as a guest concertmaster by Valles Symphony (Sabadell), Galician Symphony (La Coruna), Bilbao Symphony and Castilla-Leon Symphony (Valladolid).

Since 2005 until 2010 was appointed as a concertmaster of Baja California Orchestra and violin teacher at its Conservatory of Music in Tijuana, Mexico. Since 2004 he has his private violin and viola studio in San Diego, where he is frequently performing with Encore Trio, Violin and Piano Duo Yrion (with pianist Irina Bendetsky), Quartetto Sorrento and Sorrento Camerata. He was also concertmaster and assistant concert master of California Chamber Orchestra and is concertmaster of San Diego Interfaith Choir and Orchestra. Since 2015 he is also a concertmaster of Grossmont Symphony Orchestra and in 2019 he became concertmaster of Palomar Symphony Orchestra and in 2020 profesor of Violin and Viola at Palomar College.

Program

Ludwig van Beethoven  

Sonata n. 8 in G major Op. 30 No. 3

Allegro assai

Tempo di Minuetto, ma molto moderato e grazioso

Allegro vivace

Johannes Brahms            

Sonata n. 1 in G major Op. 78

Vivace ma non troppo

Adagio

Allegro molto moderato

Bedrich Smetana             

Two Duets for Violin and Piano

1.Duet in A major - Moderato

2. Duet in G minor - Andantino, Allegro vivo