Pulling Strings Spokane Chamber Music Offers ‘Springtime In Paris’ At Met

Thu., March 5, 1998

Travis Rivers Correspondent

Violinist Andor Toth and pianist Stephanie Leon Shames will be the guest artists with the Spokane String Quartet when the Spokane Chamber Music Association presents “Springtime in Paris” Tuesday at The Met.

Toth and Shames will perform sonatas by Camille Saint-Saens and Claude Debussy and join the quartet and bassist Scott Dixon for Ernest Chausson’s Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Quartet.

Toth has added a string bass part to Chausson’s original work. Though the work’s unusual scoring has made it something of a concert rarity, many musicians consider it among the French master’s greatest works.

Toth’s long and distinguished career started early. As an 18-year-old fellowship student at the Juilliard School, Toth was violin soloist with the Original Ballet Russe Orchestra. The next year he became one of the youngest members of the NBC Symphony led by the legendary Arturo Toscanini.

The violinist has been a member of several important chamber music ensembles, including the Alma Trio and the New Hungarian Quartet. Toth also served as concertmaster for the Los Angles Chamber Orchestra and taught at such leading institutions as the Oberlin College Conservatory and Stanford University.

Shames, who grew up in Detroit, now lives in Seattle where her husband, Jonathan, conducts the Seattle Youth Symphony. She has performed with the Detroit Symphony, the New Orleans Philharmonic and the Seattle Symphony and frequently appeared on European and British radio and television.

Dixon is a freshman at Eastern Washington University and a member of the Spokane Symphony.

Members of the Spokane String Quartet violinists Kelly Farris and Jane Blegen, violist Karen Walthinsen and cellist John Marshall are members of the Spokane Symphony. The group is quartet-in-residence at Eastern Washington University.

In addition to its performances in the Northwest, the quartet made its Carnegie Hall debut in 1980 and toured Europe in 1984 and 1993. The quartet accompanied the Spokane Area Children’s Chorus in a European tour of 1995 and will be heard in concert with the chorus in a tour of the British Isles this summer.

Concert-goers are reminded of the early curtain time for this performance.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: CONCERT The Spokane String Quartet will perform at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at The Met. Tickets are $15 ($12 for seniors, $8 for students), available at The Met, Hoffman Music, Street Music, G&B Select-a-Seat outlets or call (800) 325-SEAT.

This sidebar appeared with the story: CONCERT The Spokane String Quartet will perform at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at The Met. Tickets are $15 ($12 for seniors, $8 for students), available at The Met, Hoffman Music, Street Music, G&B; Select-a-Seat outlets or call (800) 325-SEAT.