Tickets are not required for this free event. See you soon!
Made in America: Works for viola and piano
Basil Vendryes is the Principal Violist of the Colorado Symphony, and is a former member of the San Francisco Symphony, the New York Philharmonic and Rochester Philharmonic orchestras. He currently serves on the faculty of the Lamont School of Music of the University of Denver. As a member of the Aurora String Quartet (1986-95) Mr. Vendryes performed recitals in New York, London and Tokyo as well as west coast premieres of works by John Harbison, George Perle, Richard Danielpour, Benjamin Lees and many others. From 2000-2018 Basil directed the Colorado Young Sinfonia (which he also founded), comprised of some of the best young talent in the Denver area.
Basil Vendryes was born in 1961 to West Indian parents, and began his musical training in the public schools of New York City at the age of eleven. He received scholarships to the Manhattan School of Music and the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with Sally O’Reilly, Francis Tursi and Heidi Castleman. Basil joined the San Francisco Symphony in 1982 at the age of 21 and the New York Philharmonic two years later. Basil joined the Colorado Symphony as Principal Viola in 1993. He has also served as guest principal violist for the Western Australia Symphony Orchestra and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
Mr. Vendryes has appeared in many festivals, including Spoleto, Buzzards Bay, Sunflower, Midsummer Mozart, Interharmony, Green Mountain, Taconic and the Grand Tetons. Working with promising talent is one of his passions, and Basil has given classes in viola and chamber music in Europe and throughout the United States. Mr. Vendryes has served as a juror for the Sphinx Competition for African American and Latino string players and the Hong Kong International Music Festival. In April of 2008 Mr. Vendryes performed the American premiere of Giya Kancheli’s Styx with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra (under the baton of Jeffrey Kahane) to critical acclaim. The Kancheli was subsequently repeated at the 2008 League of American Orchestras National Conference.
The 2022-23 season includes recording an all-American disc for Toccata Next (his third recording for the Toccata label), recitals in New York, South Carolina, Colorado and Wyoming and solo appearances with the Colour of Music Festival Orchestra, Lamont Chorale and the Evergreen Chamber Orchestra. Festivals will include Sunflower (Kansas), Interharmony (Italy) and Music and More (Herzegovina).
Basil Vendryes has recorded for the Albany, Ariel, Cadenza Music, Centaur, CRI, Naxos and Toccata labels in addition to his contributions as an orchestral violist for RCA, Decca, Nonesuch, Telarc, Columbia, BIS and Hyperion. His solo recordings of Russian sonatas and music of Paul Juon have received fine reviews from Fanfare and Strad magazines, as well as the Journal of the American Viola Society. Mr. Vendryes plays on a rare Italian viola made in 1887 by Carlo Cerruti.
During his forty years at Iowa State University, William David‘s primary performance focus was as a founding member of the Ames Piano Quartet. The APQ concertized throughout the United States and internationally in Austria, France, Mexico, Taiwan and South Africa. The ensemble also spent a week performing and teaching in Havana, Cuba, the first American chamber music group to be invited there in over forty years. They recorded fifteen critically acclaimed compact discs. Their Dorian CD of the two Dvorák Piano Quartets was named “one of the chamber music recording of the century” by Fanfare magazine.
Since his relocation to Colorado, David has continued to be active in chamber music. He has collaborated with members of the Colorado Symphony, the Front Range Chamber Players, as well as faculty from Colorado State University, University of Denver, and the University of Wyoming.
David received the Doctor of Musical Arts degree summa cum laude in piano performance from the University of Michigan. His major teachers there were Gyorgy Sandor and Eugene Bossart.
The concert includes performances of sonatas written or arranged for viola and piano by David Tcimpidis (2004) Sonata, Eric Ewazen (1991), Libby Larsen (2004), and Ivan Sokolov (2005), as well as Marek Harris’ Dance Suite (2002).