Eileen Wingard

By Eileen Wingard SAN DIEGO — Ernest Bloch’s Baal Shem Suite is music that fits the High Holidays. The first movement, Vidui, is the Yom Kippur confessional prayer; the second movement, Nigun, encompasses cantorial pleading with the Heavenly Power; and the final movement, Simchat Torah, reflects the joy of receiving the Torah. My sister, concert

The concerts take place on the stage of the new concert hall in Tel Aviv. I am pleased to report that in the first two concerts, the musicians were socially distanced, although they were not wearing masks. Of course, that would have been impossible for the clarinetist in the first concert, which featured Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet. [Eileen Wingard]

The star of the first half of this year’s pared-down Summerfest of the La Jolla Music Society was indisputably, the Israeli-born director, pianist Inon Barnatan. He was featured in all the selections on Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon. His playing was consistently well-calibrated and balanced with his string collaborators and musically distinctive in its beautiful phrasing and dynamic shadings. His string colleagues were no less distinguished. [Eileen Wingard]

While Yoav Talmi was Music Director of the San Diego Symphony, the orchestra made seven recordings, testaments to the high level the orchestra had achieved during his tenure. The first recording, in 1993, featured music by Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943). [Eileen Wingard]

For this article, I am featuring my sister, violinist Zina Schiff’s Bloch Naxos release: Violin Concerto, Baal Shem Suite and Suite Hebraique, recorded with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Jose Serebrier, conducting. At a concert commemorating Kristallnacht at New York City’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Maestro Jose Serebrier heard Zina perform as soloist with the the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra.He introduced himself after the concert and they later met to discus this CD project. [Eileen Wingard]

I first heard the Cesar Franck Sonata when I was sixteen and attended a recital of the great Polish-born Jewish violinist, Bronislaw Huberman. His closing work was the Franck Sonata, his signature piece. It became one of my favorites and I worked on it in my chamber music class at UCLA. That was before my youngest sister, Zina, was even born. Little did I dream that one day, I would have a sister who would play the Franck Sonata in this glorious recording. [Eileen Wingard]

Cecil Burleigh, Music for Violin and Piano features miniature pieces by the little-known American composer, Cecil Burleigh (1885-1980), performed by my sister, violinist Zina Schiff and pianist, Mary Barranger. Named Critic’s Choice Best of 2002 by the American Record Guide, the CD took its rightful place beside the music of other great American composers, such as Edward MacDowell, Paul Creston, Charles Ives, Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein, in Naxos’ epochal “American Classics” series—the most ambitious recording project of music by American Composers. [Eileen Wingard]