Sunday, February 18, 2018

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Music review: A fine evening of chamber music from the Ritz Chamber Players

Ann Hobson Pilot



Feb 17, 2018

The Ritz Chamber Players are the United States’ first chamber ensemble made up of professional musicians “spanning the African diaspora,” as their introductory materials put it.

The almost 20 players who come together according to their schedules and repertoire made their St. Louis debut on Friday night at the newly improved E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall at Washington University’s 560 Music Center.

The five performing were Ann Hobson Pilot, the distinguished harpist who retired in 2009 as principal harp of the Boston Symphony Orchestra after 40 years; flutist Demarre McGill; cellist Tahirah Whittington; Washington University faculty member (and St. Louis Symphony Orchestra regular) Kyle Lombard on violin and violist Orlando Wells.

The program was varied, ranging from classical to tango. It opened with Mozart’s Flute Quartet No. 1 in D major, showing off McGill’s fluid playing and golden tone as well as fine ensemble work from the quartet, and set the tone for the rest of the evening with first-rate music-making throughout.

Lombard, Wells and Whittington returned for the next piece, the fragmentary String Trio of African-American composer Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson (1932-2004). The piece, which was Perkinson’s last composition, creates a melancholy mood in its brief span. It received a solid reading.


The “Fantaisie” for Violin and Harp by Saint-Saëns introduced Pilot, a living legend of the harp and one of the first African-American musicians hired by American symphony orchestras in the 1960s. She’s a commanding figure on stage. The “Fantaisie” is a pure Romantic work, and Lombard and Pilot imbued it with heartfelt virtuoso playing.

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