by Bailey Porter
Staff Writer
The Mojave Trio performed the Beethoven Project Tuesday in Founders Auditorium.
Although the audience consisted of only a handful of University of La Verne students, faculty and La Verne residents, the trio of Sara Parkins (violin) Margaret Parkins (cello) and Genevieve Lee (piano) played as if it was a packed house.
The trio has been performing together for four to five years.
Sisters Margaret and Sara Parkins have been playing music together since they were young.
It was evident throughout the evening that the musicians found joy in the music that they played.
There also seemed to be an added element of friendship shared by the trio that only intensified the fluidity of their stage presence.
“I’ve found a new enthusiasm for classical music,” said Ed Gildea, a CAPA student at Cerro Coso Community College.
” The mannerisms I saw and the violinist, Sara, was so energetic, and it such a pleasure to see the passion behind it. And the different sounds are just incredible.”
Gildea, who is required to attend a classical concert for his online music class, said that this was his first concert outside the rock and roll genre.
He looks forward to coming back to ULV and bringing his children for the next concerts offered, he said
The response from the audience, with hearty applause and the occasional, “All right!” put a seal on the success of this musical experience.
Although the Beethoven Project is a specific project that the Mojave Trio is focusing on, the trio also plays works by other composers.
The Mojave Trio’s conception for the Beethoven Project grew out of a desire to present the numerous works of Beethoven that include the violin, cello and piano.
There are 10 violin sonatas, five cello sonatas and six to seven pieces for piano trios in Beethoven’s compositions, Margaret Parkins said.
“The cycle of all these works shows the versatility of Beethoven, and you kind of get a broad range of what he was like as a composer by looking at these works that have spanned his whole career,” Margaret Parkins said.
Normally, the group explains a little about the pieces that they will play during a performance, however, they did not for this performance.
The setting did not call for it, the players said.
“I like small venues because they’re more intimate,” Sara Parkins said. “But I like playing for audiences.”
The handful of people, who were spread out in Founders Auditorium did not provide an ideal setting for the group’s normal performance style, but the trio’s goal to impart the expression of the music to the listeners appeared to have been met.
Sara Parkins said that, “to express what was written and then, I suppose, our interpretation and how we feel about it,” is what the trio hopes to give to their audiences when playing such pieces from Beethoven and other composers.
Sally Marroquin, sophomore, found that in listening to the trio she could compare what she has learned about composers like Beethoven and Mozart in her music course at ULV.
“I enjoyed watching the show,” she said.
Margaret Parkins is professor of cello at the University of California, Irvine. She received her bachelor of music degree from Eastman School of Music and earned her master’s and doctoral degrees from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
Sara Parkins studied at Julliard Pre-College, Curtis Institute of Music and the San Francisco Conservatory. She has a master’s degree from SUNY Stony Brook.
Lee received her degrees from the Peabody Conservatory of Music, Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris and the Yale School of Music. She currently teaches music at Pomona College.
This is the Mojave Trio’s first performance at ULV.
The name Mojave Trio was conceived out of the trio’s desire for their group to be reflective of desert-like Southern California that they call home.
