By Jephthe Francois ’18
Contributor
The Alton C. Bynum Recital Series was off to an unexpected, shaky start but finished strong in triumphant fashion. The recital which was held at the Phillips Recital hall music was elegant and illuminating; vintage classical music.
While performing George Frideric Handel’s composed piece of the Sonata and being accompanied by pianist Alina Polyakov, John Ferrillo, who was playing the oboe, suffered from what appeared to be shortness of breath. He was quickly escorted out of the room and was treated with immediate care.
The recital resumed in which the program was forced to skip to the next piece due to Ferillo’s absence. The subsequent sonata was composed by Ludwig van Beethoven and was performed by flutist Elizabeth Ostling and Polyakov. Then the program went into intermission.
After the intermission, Begbie and Ostling performed a piece that was actually composed by Begbie himself and dedicated to Ostling .
The next Sonata composed by Johannes Brahms was performed by clarinetist Thomas Martin and Polyakov.
Finally, the finishing piece is where the ill-strucken Ferrillo returned. He performed the finishing piece alongside flutist Elizabeth Ostling, Clarinetist Thomas Martin, and Pianist Alina Polyakov. He mentioned that, what had happened to him was that he almost fainted.
Jesse Edwards (’18), who attended and was interviewed after the Recital Series program said, “The Recital was such delight! The flutists performance was quite graceful with a good sense of elegance, the clarinetists brought in a lot of integrated pieces and meshed them all together with such beautiful harmonies.”
Another student, Hannah Allen (’19) was also interviewed after the Recital Series, and when she was asked about what she thought of the program, this is what she had to say: “I thought it was a really interesting concert. It was like really interesting in the way that it was organized; I think it’s really cool that they premiered a piece here at Gordon. I think that’s really, I don’t know, interesting.”
When asked what she hopes will strike people about her, Polyakov said “You never know what actually could happen but I think they should, my goal is to build together with them, the story of the music that I am playing because it’s not my music; I am playing music by great composers and I’m very privileged to be able to bring at least something that I already was able to investigate and found out, to my audience so this I think, is how I’m seeing this.”
The final interview question asked of her was: “What do you think makes for a great pianist?” She responded: “For a great pianist, a lot of things you know have to be combined, but I think you have to respect the composer that you are playing. This is extremely an important thing because they put all their life in what we are able to enjoy you know, and being able to discover, so many great things that they were able to translate through sounds of music.”
“So I think this is a very important thing. You have to try your best to play with all the integrity that you have you know, and build together again with the audience, this connection because this is communication through the composer’s music with the audience so I think this is the best when it happens.”
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