Lenox — Victor Romanul devours Bach Partitas for breakfast and washes them down with Paganini Caprices. This is one gnarly violinist, capable of slaying the scariest monsters of the standard repertory—93 concerti, to be exact. He and Russian-born violist Michael Zaretsky, along with pianist Xak Bjerken, will appear at the Linde Center for Music and Learning on Sunday, November 24, to perform a program of Shostakovich, Mozart, and Williams.
Sunday’s program is as follows:
- John Williams — Duo Concertante for violin and viola
- W. A. Mozart — Duo in G for violin and viola, K.423
- Dmitri Shostakovich — Viola Sonata, Op. 147
Victor Romanul is a section player in the BSO, but he has always had a fire in his belly for solo performance, and his track record as a performer reflects this. When I interviewed him in 2021, he expressed this desire in no uncertain terms:
… If I’m going to be in Symphony Hall, in the dark hall with the statues lit up, with this camera sort of moving magically in the air and this wonderful video team and Grammy Award-winning audio team — If I’m going to have the chance to do that, then it is my great desire. I live for these opportunities to put myself into a role and express myself, and I push it to the limit. (Hopefully my technique will hold up.)
The Boston Symphony Orchestra has streamed Romanul’s performances of Paganini’s Aria in A, Sauret’s “Fantasie,” Bach’s Chaconne, the Maud Powell arrangement of “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” (recorded at Tanglewood), and William Grant Still’s Suite for Violin and Piano, recorded from the Symphony Hall stage during the pandemic lockdown.
Russian-born Michael Zaretsky is gnarly in his own way: He had to be in order to graduate from the Moscow State Conservatory cum laude and play in the Moscow Philharmonic String Quartet and the Moscow Radio and TV Symphony Orchestra—not to mention successfully auditioning for the Boston Symphony while still a Tanglewood Music Center fellow.
Mr. Zaretsky immigrated to Israel in 1972 and served as principal viola of the Jerusalem Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra, as well as a soloist with Radio Israel. He played for Leonard Bernstein the following year, and the rest is history: Bernstein brought him to Tanglewood, where he started his half-century tenure with the BSO. He has since performed with such prominent artists as Emanuel Ax, Yuri Bashmet, Yefim Bronfman, Gil Shaham, and Vadim Repin, as well as with other BSO players such as Victor Romanul.
Pianist Xak Bjerken, a former member of the Los Angeles Piano Quartet and now professor of music at Cornell University, will accompany Mr. Romanul and Mr. Zaretsky on the 24th. Mr. Bjerken has performed with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Spoleto Festival Orchestra, Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra, the Schoenberg Ensemble, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Disney Hall. But that is just scratching the surface. He has also performed at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Glinka Hall in St. Petersburg, and the Konzerthaus in Berlin.
And here is an important connection to Tanglewood: Mr. Bjerken received his master’s and doctoral degrees from the Peabody Conservatory as a student of and teaching assistant to Leon Fleisher, who served as the artistic director of the Tanglewood Music Center from 1986 to 1997.
Hear violinist Victor Romanul, violist Michael Zaretsky, and pianist Xak Bjerken at Tanglewood’s Linde Center for Music and Learning, 3 West Hawthorne Road, Lenox, MA 01240, at 3 p.m., on Sunday, November 24. More information and tickets are available here.
