{"id":1660,"date":"2016-01-24T00:00:14","date_gmt":"2016-01-24T05:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/?p=1660"},"modified":"2022-01-29T01:41:20","modified_gmt":"2022-01-29T06:41:20","slug":"phelps-les-amies-asolo-theatre-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/phelps-les-amies-asolo-theatre-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Cynthia Phelps and her Les Amies wow audiences"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Arts and Entertainment <\/span> Sunday, Jan. 24, 2016\u00a0\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

Music review: Artist Series Concerts: ‘Les Amies’<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The trio, consisting of Carol Winincenc, Cynthis Phelps and Nancy Allen, wowed audiences at the Historic Asolo Theatre.<\/h5>\n
by: June LeBell<\/div>\n
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Les Amies almost named themselves WOW, to stand for Wonderful Overworked Women but, being such good friends, flutist Carol Wincenc, violist Cynthia Phelps and harpist Nancy Allen settled on Trio Les Amies. But a rose by any other name is still “Wow,” and this trio of stunning artists \u2014\u00a0Wincenc is an internationally renowned soloist and chamber musician, Phelps is principal violist of the New York Philharmonic\u00a0and Allen is principal harp of that illustrious orchestra \u2014\u00a0wowed the audience this weekend at the Historic Asolo with a beautiful, mostly French program.<\/p>\n

They opened with the gentle, hypnotic sounds of Ibert in his Deux Interludes, followed by the composer\u2019s well-known \u201cEntr\u2019acte,\u201d a rippling, exciting piece that showed off Les Amies\u2019 virtuosity. That was followed by a short excursion to England for the Elegiac Trio by Sir Arnold Bax, a work that contrasted the richness of the viola with the mellowness of the flute, with the harp acting as a rippling buttress.<\/p>\n

Ravel\u2019s \u201cSonatine en Trio,\u201d sounding very much like a retrograde \u201cMother Goose\u201d melody (by the same composer, of course), was where the true colors of each instrument erupted, with Wincenc, Phelps and Allen demonstrating their individual instrument\u2019s affects, yet \u2013 much to their musical credit \u2013 blending their sounds like a wash of impressionism. This piece was originally written for piano solo, but we learned, through the well-documented program notes\u00a0that were introduced charmingly by the members of Les Amies (who speak as well as they play), that it was Carlos Salzedo, the brilliant harpist, pedagogue and harp designer, who\u2019d arranged this work for trio. And, after seeing what Salzedo had done, Ravel is said to have asked, \u201cNow, why didn\u2019t I think of that?\u201d (We have to add that in this work, there\u2019s a precursor of a line from Gershwin\u2019s \u201cPorgy and Bess.\u201d It would be interesting to know, since Gershwin\u2019s opera came a few decades after the Ravel piece, whether that was a coincidence or a tip-of-the-musical-hat by Gershwin to Ravel.)<\/p>\n

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The final work was Debussy\u2019s Sonate for Flute, Alto et Harp, the piece,\u00a0Allen explained,\u00a0that brought Les Amies together in the first place. If one didn\u2019t know better, one might think Debussy had written the Sonate for this trio of friends, because it\u2019s like the three wonderful, overworked women who played it: jazzy, beautiful and looking ahead to making wonderful music and being even more overworked.<\/p>\n

Read the full\u00a0review<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arts and Entertainment Sunday, Jan. 24, 2016\u00a0\u00a0 Music review: Artist Series Concerts: ‘Les Amies’ \u00a0 The trio, consisting of Carol Winincenc, Cynthis Phelps and Nancy Allen, wowed audiences at the Historic Asolo Theatre. by: June LeBell Les Amies almost named themselves WOW, to stand for Wonderful Overworked Women but, being such good friends, flutist Carol […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"related-artist":[19],"class_list":{"0":"post-1660","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-press","8":"related-artist-cynthia-phelps","9":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1660"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3317,"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1660\/revisions\/3317"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1660"},{"taxonomy":"related-artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/related-artist?post=1660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}