Shoulder Season:
Spring 2025
Thursday, May 8, 7:30 p.m.
St. Stephen’s Anglican Church
Calgary
Saturday May 10, 7:30 p.m.
artsPlace
Canmore
Premiere of Capriccio Errante for Violin and Piano
ROMAN RABINOVICH is a pianist of rare musical insight, renowned for his captivating interpretations. Hailed by The New York Times for his “uncommon sensitivity and feeling,” he is recognized as one of today’s most eloquent pianists. Winner of the 12th Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition, his career has since taken him to major stages across Europe and the United States, including Gewandhaus, Carnegie Hall, Cité de la Musique, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Kennedy Center, and Wigmore Hall, where he gave three solo recitals in the 2024–25 season.
Celebrated for his inventive and often thematic recital programs, Rabinovich brings a curatorial imagination to the stage that deepens the listening experience. Roman is co-artistic director of ChamberFest Cleveland and ChamberFest West in Calgary, where he curates adventurous programs that ignite conversation, foster connection, and deepen the communal experience of music.
Jonathan Swensen
Rising star JONATHAN SWENSEN is the recipient of the 2022 Avery Fisher Career Grant and was featured as Musical America’s ‘New Artist of the Month’ and ‘One to Watch’ in Gramophone Magazine. Jonathan fell in love with the cello upon hearing the Elgar Concerto at the age of six, and ultimately made his concerto debut performing the work with Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música. Jonathan’s debut recording ‘Fantasia’, on Champs Hill Records received rave reviews, from Gramophone, BBC Music, and The Strad which printed “An exciting young talent emerges. I would gladly buy a ticket to see Swensen on the strength of this appealing calling card.”
Jonathan has performed with orchestras in Europe, the UK and the US, and made critically acclaimed debuts at the Kennedy Center, Merkin Concert Hall, Jordan Hall, Morgan Library and Museum, Vancouver Recital Society, San Francisco Performances and the Krannert Center.
Jonathan joined the Bowers Program of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in 2024, and is Artist in Residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapelle in Belgium, working with Gary Hoffman.
Alexi Kenney
Violinist ALEXI KENNEY is forging a career that defies categorization, following his interests, intuition, and heart. He is equally at home creating experimental programs and commissioning new works, soloing with major orchestras around the world, and collaborating with some of the most celebrated musicians of our time.
Alexi is the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award. Chamber music continues to be a major part of Alexi’s life, regularly performing at festivals including Caramoor, ChamberFest Cleveland, Chamber Music Northwest, Kronberg, La Jolla, Ojai, Marlboro, Music@Menlo, Ravinia, Seattle, and Spoleto. He is a founding member of Owls—an inverted quartet hailed as a “dream group” by The New York Times—alongside violist Ayane Kozasa, cellist Gabe Cabezas, and cellist-composer Paul Wiancko. Alexi is also an alum of the Bowers Program (formerly CMS 2) at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
Born in Palo Alto, California in 1994, Alexi is a graduate of the New England Conservatory in Boston. He plays a violin made in London by Stefan-Peter Greiner in 2009 and a bow by Charles Espey made in Port Townsend, Washington in 2024.
Program Notes
Roman Rabinovich, Capriccio Errante for Violin and Piano
(2025)
I. Preamble
II. Nocturne
III. Languish
IV. Burlesque
V. Final Surge
Alexi Kenney, violin / Roman Rabinovich, piano
Capriccio Errante is a suite of contrasting vignettes for violin and piano, played without pause, tracing an emotional metamorphosis where each stage reveals a new path. It begins with Preamble, where hesitant phrases emerge from silence, searching for direction. A veiled Nocturne follows, its shadowed melodies floating in and out of reach like distant flickers of light. Then, Pantomime bursts forth as a jagged, jazzy, and carefree romp — a palette-cleanser that dances on the edge of chaos. From this, Burlesque erupts in grotesque mischief before a Final Surge sweeps everything into an ecstatic, unrelenting culmination.
- Roman Rabinovich
Francis Poulenc, Sonata for Cello and Piano Op. 143
(1948)
I. Introduzione
II. Allegro - Tempo di marcia
III. Cavatine
IV. Bellabile
Jonathan Swensen, cello / Roman Rabinovich, piano
The ever-unpredictable, ever-French master of contradiction, Poulenc wrote his Cello Sonata for Pierre Fournier between 1940 and 1948. It is a perfect example of his dual nature — half monk, half rascal, as Stravinsky put it. The opening movement starts with a crisp march, full of wit and sharp edges, but with unmistakable lyrical turns. Then comes the Cavatine, where Poulenc suddenly gets serious — melancholy, soaring, almost operatic in its longing. The Bellabile dances lightly, its rhythms evoking the cabarets of Poulenc’s youth.
Then comes the Finale, a whirlwind of quicksilver shifts, humour, and Poulenc’s signature joie de vivre.
“This sonata is pure Poulenc — elegant, unpredictable, and full of heart, and, as always, it refuses to be just one thing.”
- Roman Rabinovich
~ Intermission ~
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Piano Trio in A Minor, Op. 50
(1882)
I. Pezzo elegiaco. Moderato assai
II. Tema con variazioni. Andante con moto
III. Variazione finale e coda. Allegro risoluto e con fuoco - Andante con moto
Alexi Kenney, violin / Jonathan Swensen, cello / Roman Rabinovich, piano
Tchaikovsky famously disliked the piano trio as a medium, finding the blend of strings and piano awkward and unbalanced. Yet, when faced with the death of his friend and mentor Nikolai Rubinstein, he turned to it as a vehicle for one of his most deeply personal statements. The result is a work of extraordinary emotional weight—grief-stricken, nostalgic, and, in the end, devastating.
The first movement, Pezzo elegiaco, unfolds like a long, impassioned lament, its dark opening theme growing into sweeping climaxes and moments of aching tenderness. The second movement is an expansive theme and variations, where Tchaikovsky explores a kaleidoscope of moods: waltzing elegance, rustic charm, grandeur, and playfulness. But the mood darkens as the theme returns, transformed into a solemn funeral march. The music begins to fragment, fading into silence, as if memory itself is dissolving.
“Tchaikovsky never wrote another piano trio. Perhaps he had said everything he needed to say.”
- Roman Rabinovich