Tanya Tomkins last performed for us this past season as a member of the Benvenue Fortepiano Trio. This year she returns as a soloist to perform three of J. S. Bach’s monumental cello suites. Her recent recording of the six suites has been praised by Gramophone as “enormously enjoyable.” This concert is part of the Performing Arts at The Neurosciences Institute.

…an exquisite player. (The Baltimore Sun)

[Tomkins’] technical command of the instrument was impressive, without calling attention to itself: the focus, for both player and listener, was on the music, which Tomkins expounded with lucid intelligence, powerful feeling, and lively rhythmic drive. (San Diego Reader)

The fortepiano flourished only briefly, between the end of the 18th century and the rise of the modern piano in the early 19th century, yet there is a wealth of literature for it. An Oregon native, Marcia Hadjimarkos received degrees in piano performance and French literature from the University of Iowa. She has been devoted to the fortepiano and clavichord since the 1980s, and studied with Jos van Immerseel at the Paris Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in 1993-94. Her program will include music of Mozart, Duphly, Balbastre, CPE Bach, Johann Schobert, Jadin, and Dussek played on a Broadwood fortepiano.

Her generous, almost introverted yet brilliantly intelligent manner... Besides the wondrous sensitivity of her touch, two elements of Hadjimarkos’s playing stand out: her very flexible approach to tempo, and her witty, sometimes daringly profuse and yet always idiomatic ornamentation. (Christopher Price, Goldberg)

All Souls’ Church is easy to find: from Interstate 5, take the Rosecrans Street exit. Continue on Rosecrans to Lytton Street, turning right on Lytton. Lytton merges into Chatsworth Boulevard. Continue on Chatsworth for about two miles, and the church will be on the right, at the junction of Chatsworth and Catalina. Another plus: ample free parking, steps from the church!