50th Music Kitchen Performance: 'Kelly Hall-Tompkins, violin and Kyle Armbrust, viola'

[50th Music Kitchen Performance: 'Kelly Hall-Tompkins, violin and Kyle Armbrust, viola']

Violinist Kelly Hall-Tompkins, Founder and President of Music Kitchen: Food for the Soul sends AfriClassical word of the 50th Music Kitchen Performance:

Kelly Hall-Tompkins, violin and Kyle Armbrust, viola

Turning Point Youth Shelter December 14, 2010

“This evening's performance at Turning Point Youth Shelter marks a landmark 50 Music Kitchen performances since I founded this program! Tonight's listeners, even though they were 90% different from previous clients here, approached the event with a centered eagerness for us to get started. They were in their chairs as we warmed up, watching us silently and drinking in the music, even the sporadic and incoherent phrases of warm up. 'Are y'all playing a concert?' someone asked. 'Not yet - at 7,' I said. 'We’ll definitely let you know when we start for real.' 'It sounds good already,' he said. When finally there seemed no more reason to wait, almost everyone had been there for 20 minutes already, we started.

“This evening’s program featured two signature works for violin and viola, and joining me was a wonderful violist Kyle Armbrust. We played the Mozart G major duo, dubbed 'Michael Haydn' since Mozart wrote it in his stead. Kyle asked if they could hear the musical dialogue that happened between us and they certainly did. I also pointed out to them the fact that classical music can change moods many times within a movement. After the inevitable references to the cartoon 'Tom and Jerry', we got more under the surface with this group. The slow movement, with its sublime lyricism, reminded one listener of a romantic dialogue 'between two lovers.' After the last movement rondo, one listener exclaimed, 'Wow! I like that!'

“Three of the young clients who told me fondly of their previous musical experiences were here once again, but this time when Kyle asked if anyone played an instrument, there were a flurry of responses: one young woman played the piano, and another recalled being in an all county youth orchestra. 'We played at Carnegie Hall every year,' she said proudly. There were fond memories of past instruments, lessons and performances popping up all over the room. 'It's amazing how inspiring a great music teacher can be, isn't it?' Once again we had an easy-going, engaging, warm and fun interaction with our audience. This was Kyle’s first Music Kitchen performance but he gets the dynamic right away: he is not only a wonderful musician, but makes the music approachable and endearing to audiences. That is the ideal quality I seek in Music Kitchen artists.

“We then went on to the virtuosic Handel-Halvorsen Passacaglia. We demonstrated the main theme and chord progression and explained how it basically repeats for the entire piece by adding more and more variations. As I often like to explain to people, I mentioned that it’s like ‘classical blues’. The piece is very virtuosic with its lightning fast runs exchanged between instruments, flying staccatos, harmonics and soaring scales. The listeners were moved and impressed. But one listener, who I have successfully facilitated getting back to her bygone violin playing, said confidently, 'I’ll be able to play that one day too. Maybe not right this second, but just give me a couple of years.'”