Now in its fourth year, the Canandaigua Lake Chamber Music Festival has built a solid reputation for attracting world-class performers and offering innovative concert programs. In addition to its regular August season in Canandaigua, the CLCMF has added a series of concerts in Rochester at the Temple B'rith Kodesh. "Voices of Israel," the second of these concerts, will feature Laurie Rubin (mezzo-soprano), Edward Klorman (viola), Amy Sue Barston (cello), Noam Sivan (pianist and composer), and Daniel Weiser (piano). All five artists are dedicated to the special intimacy of the chamber music setting.

New York-based composer Sivan, who will perform improvisations on themes suggested by the audience, says, "Improvising in concert is the best way to engage the audience in the creative process of music making. The concert becomes not only about bringing classical or new works to the audience, but also about creating the music for the audience, in their presence. That makes a concert really come alive." On Sivan's improvisational skills, Klorman promises, "You will be amazed by Noam's extraordinary ability to improvise in any style. When he improvises a fugue, it feels like Bach is in the room with you."

As part of his visit to Rochester, Sivan will offer a workshop at Hochstein, helping students collaborate in creating improvised chamber music. His aim as a teacher, performer, and composer, Sivan says, "is to express emotions through music making, to communicate ideas, to reach out and tell people that music is important and can move us deeply. It's not just entertainment. Music has the power to convey messages that are basic to our mental and spiritual existence."

Laurie Rubin, who will premiere Sivan's song cycle for voice and piano, "In the Mountains of Jerusalem," agrees that collaborating on the creation of a new chamber piece is a remarkable experience. "It's so exciting to create the original interpretation of a piece with the composer present," Rubin says. "When performing works of the past, I can only imagine the composer's intentions and use my own feelings as my guide. But hearing directly from the source what is in the composer's mind, gives me a whole new perspective. I know what vocal colors and emotions to use to create the right ambience in performance."

"In the Mountains of Jerusalem," commissioned for the Canandaigua Lake Chamber Music Festival with funding from The Commission Project, incorporates Hebrew texts by Leah Goldberg. "When poetry is set to music, its meaning is magnified," Sivan says. "In these poems, the yearning to love, to be loved, to communicate, speaks from every word. It was important for me to convey through sound the changing emotions expressed at every moment in the poem."

"Some of the cycle's dramatic intensity," says Rubin, "stems from Noam's experience as an opera composer. He believes that even non-operatic songs should have their own sense of action, drama, and even a visual aspect." Since Goldberg's poetry is filled with visual imagery drawn from the stone-laden landscape around Jerusalem, Sunday's premiere will include some props to enhance the musical expression of the texts. "I find the idea of using props exciting," says Rubin, "because they provide something tangible to help me express visually what I feel musically."

Other works on the program include Johannes Brahms' "Two Songs for Contralto, Viola, and Piano, Op. 91" (1884), and Alexander Zemlinsky's "Sonata in A minor for Cello and Piano" (1894). Of the songs, Klorman says, "Brahms is known for many beautiful vocal works, but in these two songs he decided to add an obbligato viola part - which, as a violist, I think was a very good idea. The viola blends marvelously with the contralto voice, conveying the rustling of wind through the treetops, or the calm of a lullaby." The songs were written for Brahms himself to perform with his two friends, violinist Joseph Joachim, and his wife, Amalie, a singer.

Zemlinsky's cello sonata evokes the lush, passionate style of Brahms, his mentor. The sonata was never published, and was lost until the manuscript turned up in North Wales 20 years ago. As a youth Zemlinsky was a prize-winning student at the Vienna Conservatory, but because he never abandoned tonality, his works were often deemed "old-fashioned." Nonetheless, according to pianist Daniel Wiser, "the sonata is a truly powerful work, with its dark texture, solemn mood, chromatic intricacy, and modulations to surprising and remote keys. It's an exciting work, and we hope it will spark renewed interest in an unjustly neglected composer." 

Voices of Israel

Temple B'rith Kodesh, 2131 Elmwood Ave

Sunday, March 30

3 p.m. | $10-$50 | 800-595-4849, LakeChamberMusic.org