[Nokuthula Ngwenyama
(Fourth from left) in The Da Camera Players]
The
renowned violist Nokuthula Ngwenyama (b. 1976),
http://www.ngwenyama.com/,
is President of the American Viola Society and has long been featured
at AfriClassical.com. On May 9, 2012 The Los Angeles Times wrote of
her participation in the debut performance of the new version of the
Da Camera Players:
Los
Angeles Times
By Richard S. Ginell
May
9, 2012
The
name Da Camera Players is familiar to Da Camera Society of Mount St.
Mary’s College’s Chamber Music In Historic Sites devotees who
heard the original group's performances in the 1980s and '90s.
Likewise, the Park Plaza’s elegant Grand Ballroom overlooking
MacArthur Park will resonate with some who remember its amazing
acoustics and wonder why it isn’t used for music more often.
Tuesday night, the
two came together – a new incarnation of Da Camera Players making
its “formal debut” in the Grand Ballroom, which is uncannily
suited for string music. It couldn’t miss, as they say – and it
didn’t.
Led by violinist Ida
Levin, this edition dealt from the top of the deck, sporting two Los
Angeles Philharmonic section leaders – principal violist Carrie
Dennis and first associate concertmaster Nathan Cole – two former
Philharmonic principal cellists, Ronald Leonard and Peter Stumpf, the
Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s concertmaster Margaret Batjer, and
two young soloists, violinist Tien-Hsin Cindy Wu and violist
Nokuthula Ngwenyama.
The musicians were
spread variously among three works – Richard Strauss' magically
wistful glance back to another time, the Sextet from his last opera,
“Capriccio”; Mozart’s eloquently somber String Quintet in G
minor, K. 516; and the piece that every string player wants to play
at the slightest excuse, Mendelssohn’s Octet.
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