By Daniel Buckwalter
There are days when I do love Eugene. Take this past Sunday, for instance. Mother’s Day.
Understand that I bike everywhere. It’s my chief mode of transportation, and I mostly get away with it because of the ample bike paths and bike lanes Eugene has to offer. On Sunday, with gorgeous sunny weather in my face, I downshifted and biked up a small hill to Temple Beth Israel near East 29th and University streets.
This was my first time inside the synagogue. Its sanctuary is a lovely room with high windows and walls painted yellow. This perfectly accents bright days, and on Sunday it was the proper backdrop for the fourth season’s closing concert of the great (and Eugene-based) Delgani String Quartet and its presentation titled Mozart’s Clarinet.
With its guest artist, clarinetist Wonkak Kim, Delgani began its Mother’s Day gift to the community with complicated 20th-century works by Samuel Barber and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. After intermission, Delgani touched on the romantic and lighter fare of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
The quartet features Jannie Wei and Wyatte True (violinists), Kimberlee Uwate (viola) and Eric Alterman (cello). It plays with a confident, self-assured style that feels personable and is certainly engaging. The quartet is a treat to listen to and to watch as it perform.
The Delgani String Quartet is a treasure.
It started on Sunday with Barber’s String Quartet in B minor, which includes, of course, the second (and often stand-alone) movement popularly known as Adagio for Strings. I always have seen religious ascension in the second movement, and in the hands of the Delgani String Quartet, I heard its softer side. It was beautiful.
Kim came aboard for Zwilich’s piece, Clarinet Quintet. It was in five short movements with high-pitch clarinet sequences that reminded me of birds chirping in the spring. It felt appropriate for a sunny Mother’s Day.
After intermission, Kim returned with an instrument called the Basset clarinet for Mozart’s Clarinet in A Major. It is longer and thicker than the standard clarinet, and its range allows it to reach lower notes. It worked in perfect harmony with the Delgani String Quartet. The four movements were magical.
After the concert, I biked back down University Street to the bottom of the small hill to University Park where parents and children were frolicking on the green lawn. It was a wonderful sight. All of it was a simple, yet elegant, reminder of why I do love Eugene.
You can take in the Delgani String Quartet one more time in Eugene this season. Delgani concludes the Eugene portion of its season on Tuesday, May 14, at 7:30 p.m., again at Temple Beth Israel, 1175 E. 29th Ave. Individual tickets are $28, student tickets are $10. At 7 p.m., before the concert, Delgani’s immersion quartet of high school students will perform Felix Mendelssohn’s First String Quartet, Op.12.
After that, Delgani wraps up its fourth season by performing Mozart’s Clarinet in Salem on May 18 and Portland on May 19.
The Salem appearance is at 3 p.m. on Saturday, May 18, at the Christian Science Church at 935 High St. SE. In Portland, it will be at 3 p.m. on May 19, at The Old Church Concert Hall at 1422 SW 11th Ave.
