Music on Mondays

This series of world-class performances by renowned artists is presented on the big screen in Connie Brown Hall at the Tribby Arts Center on Mondays at 1 p.m., and broadcast on SPTV Channel 12 at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m.

2008 Verbier Festival

Monday, May 8

Salvatore Accardo (violin), Antoine Tamestit (violist) and Gautier Capuçon (cellist) join the brilliant pianist Menahem Pressler for a chamber music concert of piano quartets by Schumann and Brahms.

Schumann and Brahms were tied to together by their love for Clara Wieck. Loving wife and muse to Robert Schumann, Clara was a friend and mentor to Brahms both before and after the death of her husband. This concert featured the works of these two great Romantic composers, opening with Schumann’s Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 47, a piece emblematic of Schumann’s personality: agitated, tormented, and passionate. It was followed by the Andante movement of Brahms’ Piano Quartet in C Minor, Op. 60, a work pianist Menahem Pressler describes as, “the most beautiful love declaration ever composed.”

Martin Kušej (stage director), Daniel Barenboim (conductor) with Rolando Villazón (Don José), Marina Domashenko (Carmen) and the Staatskapelle Berlin

Monday, May 22

Martin Kušej's brilliant 2006 Carmen represents a landmark interpretation of a truly timeless opera. Led by Rolando Villazón as Don José and Marina Domashenko in the title role, the virtuoso cast joins forces with the celebrated Staatskapelle Berlin under the direction of the legendary maestro Daniel Barenboim.

This 2006 production was declared a great success, with Mexican tenor Rolando Villazón hailed by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as, "a perfect José, sung as he hasn't been sung in a long time." Marina Domashenko's lush mezzosoprano voice and the illustrious Staatskapelle Berlin under the baton of Daniel Barenboim make this production an operatic experience not to be missed.

In 1875, the 36-year-old Bizet was only a moderately successful opera composer. Little did he know that his new project, based on Prosper Mérimée's novella Carmen, was destined to immortalize his genius and become one of the most popular operas of all time. Ironically, the opera was met with incredibly negative critical reception, and when Bizet died of a heart attack on the night of its 31st performance, he died considering Carmen a failure. Just months later, the second production, mounted in Vienna, solidified the work's reputation as a masterpiece, and within the following three years, Carmen was produced in nearly every major European opera house.

Monday, June 5

Bach's work has shown no bounds in the variety of excellent music it has inspired, and jazz is no exception. The Baroque master's compositions have sparked the imaginations of countless jazzmen, including Jacques Louisser, Joachin Kühn, Dan Tepfer, and of course Brad Mehldau.

When the American pianist premiered his Three Pieces After Bach project at Carnegie Hall, he clarified that his unique approach "is not about making Bach jazzy," adding, "I have nothing against that but my program only includes works by Johann Sebastian Bach or my own music."

Mehldau is one of the most influential jazzmen of recent decades. He has shared the stage with musical legends as diverse as Charlie Haden, Lee Konitz, Renée Fleming, and Anne Sofie von Otter, and his music has played key roles in cinematic masterpieces like Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut.

Monday, June 19

Celebrated worldwide as a composer and a conductor unafraid to take risks and discover new possibilities, Esa-Pekka Salonen comes to you on medici.tv in the esteemed company of the Orchestre de Paris and virtuoso cellist Gautier Capuçon.

The evening begins in high style with Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1. From the opening of this beloved work, brimming with color and contrast, brightness and levity are imbued with an undercurrent of irony that comes more and more to the forefront as the movements progress. Next, the orchestra interprets Bruckner's Symphony No. 6, an enchanting masterpiece that the composer considered his boldest symphony, full of rhythmic complexity and bringing the program to a triumphant conclusion.