Valley of the Moon Festival, Chamber Music Magazine

In California, expanding by shrinking the ensemble

The Valley of the Moon Music Festival has earned an international reputation for presenting chamber music on period instruments, a passion that partners (in music, and in life) Tanya Tomkins, who plays cello, and Eric Zivian, a specialist on fortepiano, transformed into the event they founded nine years ago. This year, they are hoping to take audiences on something of a sentimental, if offbeat, journey. The festival is programming familiar works written for large orchestras, played in intimate chamber music settings using its trademark period pianos and violins with gut strings. There is some interesting history to go along with the idea. Sometimes the composers themselves created the chamber arrangements. For example, as Zivian points out, Stravinsky himself reimagined “Rite of Spring” as a piece for four-hands piano. In other cases, music publishers created slimmed-down versions to make certain works available to a wider public who might not have access to concert halls and orchestras.