CONCERT PREVIEW: Close Encounters With Music presents Musica Latina, June 12 at the Mahaiwe

GREAT BARRINGTON — If, this weekend, you are looking for a staid and respectable classical music recital from the folks at Close Encounters With Music (CEWM), you had better look elsewhere — because cellist and CEWM Artistic Director Yehuda Hanani, pianist Max Levinson, violinist Giora Schmidt, and two flamenco artists have prepared a musical adventure for you, commencing at 4 p.m., Sunday, June 12, at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center that will be anything but staid. In fact, it is likely to be rather on the wild side.

Sunday’s two flamenco artists are dancer and choreographer Irene Rodriguez and flamenco guitarist Cristian Puig. Both are on Jacob’s Pillow’s 2022 Flamenco & Spanish Dance faculty. 

In 2016, the New York Times called Rodriguez’ dancing “intense and exacting…The word ‘fiery,’ so overused with respect to flamenco, actually suits her well.” Jacob’s Pillow calls Rodríguez “the leading figure of Spanish dance in Cuba.” Rodriguez has choreographed a new dance work especially for Sunday’s program.

Pianist Max Levinson, the first American to win First Prize at the Guardian Dublin International Piano Competition, specializes in collaborative piano. It’s what he teaches at New England Conservatory and Boston Conservatory at Berklee, where he has instructed students in piano performance, chamber music, and piano literature for over two decades. 

As you might expect, Levinson is in high demand in the Boston area, having appeared as soloist with many major orchestras, including the Boston Pops, and with prominent chamber musicians such as Pinchas Zukerman and Richard Stoltzman. He has worked with such quartets as the Tokyo, Vermeer, Mendelssohn, and Borromeo.

Violinist Giora Schmidt has appeared as soloist with a large number of orchestras around the world, including the Cleveland, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, and Vancouver symphonies, as well as the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba, Orquesta Filarmónica de la UNAM (Mexico City), Orquesta Sinfonica de Chile, Sendai Philharmonic and the Israel Philharmonic. In his 2003 Carnegie Hall debut, Schmidt performed the Barber violin concerto with the New York Youth Symphony. He has collaborated with Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Yefim Bronfman, Lynn Harrell, Anne Sofie von Otter, Ralph Kirshbaum, and others.

Hanani describes Sunday’s program as “a kaleidoscope of sizzling Latin American and Spanish folklore and rhythm,” the repertoire ranging from Sarasate, Granados, de Falla, and Manuel Ponce to Astor Piazzolla and Cuban composer Jorge Martin. Naturally, the show will include a flamenco dance and guitar interlude.

Tickets are available here. For $175, a limited number of Patron Package tickets are available that include a themed dinner following the performance.