Mistral kicks off its 20th anniversary season with The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind on September 17 in Brookline at St. Paul’s Church. Dreams and Prayers is a chamber work for klezmer clarinet and string quartet written by the world-renowned Argentine composer and Brookline resident, Ozvaldo Golijov, who will be present at the Brookline concert to introduce his work. The New York Times has called Golijov “ . . . a musical alchemist who conjures up new worlds.” He is a Grammy award winner who has been commissioned by major symphonies and ensembles across the globe, including the New York Philharmonic and Boston Symphony.
Isaac the Blind was a medieval rabbi who practiced Kabbalah, a technique of numerological divination based on the fact that Hebrew letters were also used as numbers. He believed that the secrets of the universe, past, present and future, were all encoded into the Hebrew alphabet. Golijov views his quintet as “a kind of epic, a history of Judaism . . . The movements sound like they are in three of the languages spoken in almost 6000 years of Jewish history: the first in Aramaic, the second in Yiddish and the third in Hebrew.”
Internationally-renowned clarinetist Todd Palmer is the featured artist in these performances, and he has performed this work on prestigious stages around the world, including Spoleto and Alice Tully Hall. Of his Spoleto performance, a reviewer wrote, “Palmer’s performance of Isaac the Blind was a startling artistic experience whose echoes will haunt attentive listeners for a long time to come.”
Also on the program is a string quartet by Spanish composer Turina, Oracion del Torero (A Bullfighter’s Prayer), and the colorful, folkloric Impresiones de la Puna for flute and strings by another Argentine composer, Alberto Ginastera, played by flutist and artistic director Julie Scolnik. A surprise morsel by Piazzolla for the same instrumentation will complete the program.
Tickets $30/$25 Seniors. Student Rush tickets at the door: FREE. Contact Mistral about group and family discounts. Order securely online at Andover Chamber Music, email sales@andoverchambermusic.org, or call 978-474-6222.
MISTRAL has been bringing “unstuffy, unpredictable, and unmatched” concerts with internationally renowned musicians to the Merrimack Valley and Greater Boston area since 1997. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Julie Scolnik, Mistral performances are always a little eccentric, stubbornly personal, impassioned, and committed to invigorating old traditions with an ever-youthful perspective. The Mistral 2016-17 concert season is funded in part by the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
