Sunday, May 13, 2012

LATimes.com: Violist Nokuthula Ngwenyama in 'a new incarnation of Da Camera Players'


[Nokuthula Ngwenyama (Fourth from left) in The Da Camera Players]

The renowned violist Nokuthula Ngwenyama (b. 1976), http://www.ngwenyama.com/, is President of the American Viola Society and has long been featured at AfriClassical.com. On May 9, 2012 The Los Angeles Times wrote of her participation in the debut performance of the new version of the Da Camera Players:

Los Angeles Times
By Richard S. Ginell
May 9, 2012

The name Da Camera Players is familiar to Da Camera Society of Mount St. Mary’s College’s Chamber Music In Historic Sites devotees who heard the original group's performances in the 1980s and '90s. Likewise, the Park Plaza’s elegant Grand Ballroom overlooking MacArthur Park will resonate with some who remember its amazing acoustics and wonder why it isn’t used for music more often.

Tuesday night, the two came together – a new incarnation of Da Camera Players making its “formal debut” in the Grand Ballroom, which is uncannily suited for string music. It couldn’t miss, as they say – and it didn’t.

Led by violinist Ida Levin, this edition dealt from the top of the deck, sporting two Los Angeles Philharmonic section leaders – principal violist Carrie Dennis and first associate concertmaster Nathan Cole – two former Philharmonic principal cellists, Ronald Leonard and Peter Stumpf, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s concertmaster Margaret Batjer, and two young soloists, violinist Tien-Hsin Cindy Wu and violist Nokuthula Ngwenyama.

The musicians were spread variously among three works – Richard Strauss' magically wistful glance back to another time, the Sextet from his last opera, “Capriccio”; Mozart’s eloquently somber String Quintet in G minor, K. 516; and the piece that every string player wants to play at the slightest excuse, Mendelssohn’s Octet.

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