Jennifer Koh
REVIEW: At Fortas and Washington Concert Opera, fine pairs and doomed couples
By Michael Brodeur
At the Kennedy Center on Friday night, violinist Jennifer Koh gave her first performance on the Terrace Theater stage as artistic director of the Fortas Chamber Music Series, which this season has hosted violinists Augustin Hadelich and Maxim Vengerov, a farewell from the Emerson String Quartet and a recital from bass-baritone Bryn Terfel. Still, if you’re a Fortas faithful, Friday’s program may have triggered déjà vu.
Joined by former mentor Jaime Laredo, Koh and about two dozen players from the Juilliard Orchestra revisited a program titled “Two x Four” — a celebration of four classical and contemporary concertos for two violins, first presented by Fortas in 2013 with an orchestra of musicians from the Curtis Institute.
Repeating a program from 10 years ago nearly verbatim may seem like a strange way to signal a fresh start, but with her stewardship of Fortas, Koh aimed to pay tribute to pianist Joseph “Yossi” Kalichstein, the longtime Fortas artistic director who died in 2022 — and whose trio with Laredo and cellist Sharon Robinson The Washington Post once dubbed “the greatest piano trio on the face of the Earth.”
Apart from a swapped-out closer (instead of Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings in C, we finished with Mozart’s delightful Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat), Friday’s menu was precisely the same. Yet this reprise felt more like a refresh — a welcome reminder of the unique pleasures of the double concerto.
In Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins, Strings and Continuo in D minor (BWV 1043), Koh and Laredo seemed to tell a story about their former dynamic as student/teacher at Curtis: Koh’s lines were bright, lively and piquant; Laredo’s rustic and leathery. Trading lines and smiles, they played the hell out of it. At one point, Koh even kicked off her heels.
Violinists Gabrielle Després and Coco Mi were led by conductor Sasha Scolnik-Brower in “Seasons Lost,” an entrancing (and slightly despondent) homage to Vivaldi by Juilliard dean and birthday boy David Serkin Ludwig. The two violinists beautifully etched a winter of stark stillness; a gusty, indecisive spring; a summer of slumping glissandos and whirring bugs; and a pouncing autumn, crisp and scrubby.
Violinist Hina Khuong-Huu joined Koh for Anna Clyne’s evocative “Prince of Clouds,” which sends streaky contrails of violin skyward over lowing bass and stretches of percussive pizzicato before coming in for an impossibly soft landing. Matthew Hakkarainen and Maya Kilburn offered a strikingly human reading of Philip Glass’s “Echorus,” weaving its mechanistic repetitions into a cozy blanket.
Koh and Laredo reunited onstage for Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat, which showcased each musician’s singular voice: Laredo, in particular, loves to finish his grainy lines with folksy serifs. The whole evening felt less like a study of a form than a celebration of a friendship. I’ll look forward to “Two x Four: Part Three.”