by Max Zänker
Staff Writer
Smooth piano and violin sounds, emerging to classical melodies, filled Founders Auditorium Tuesday night, as violinist Ida Levin and pianist Timothy Durkovic took the audience on a musical trip through time and space.
“We knew each other (from) some mutual friends, and we wanted to do something together for over a year now,” Levin said.
The audience found itself sinking into the minor melodies with closed eyes and tapping their hands and feet to the more up-tempo beats.
The music spanned from the 17th to the 20th centuries, as the duo entertained the audience with songs from composers Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms and Marc Lavry, among others.
The program included classical sonatas, Jewish and Spanish dances and even a blues sonata for violin and piano.
“I mostly choose songs I have not played in a long time,” Levin said.
The international variety of the chosen pieces resulted from Levin’s love for traveling. Her career has taken her to England, the Netherlands, Poland, Israel and several others countries.
“When I see the land, the city and the countryside, a composer comes from, it helps me to understand his compositions,” she said.
Levin started playing the violin at the age of 3.
At the age of 10, she made her debut in the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
“The violin spoke to me since my childhood,” said Levin about her fascination with the violin. Maybe because my mother was a soprano, I always preferred the higher notes of the violin to the lower register of, for example, the cello.”
When Levin plays, she describes it as a “big emotional connection” to the composer.
In Tuesday’s concert, she huddled against her violin and seemed to merge with the music, swaying to the sound during the slower songs, and playfully hitting the strings, stepping forward and backward to the rhythm of the up-tempo songs.
“I get deep into the music, and I sometimes have a hard time (getting) carried away by the emotions,” Levin said.
Junior music major Danielle Cummings enjoyed the concert. She said “Vivace ma non troppo,” a movement by Brahms, was one of her favorites performed.
“I have performed this movement myself,” she said. “Levin played it very good, very expressive and with clear tones.”
Freshman Angel Guerrero preferred listening to Durokovic play the piano and came to the concert for that purpose.
“The classical piano music is like an emotion, like a thrill,” he said. “In comparison to pop, it has more work and is more professional. I like that.”
Durkovic’s hands hardly touched the claviature, they seemed to develop a life of their own as they jumped over the keys and elicited smooth tones from the piano.
The native Guatemalan began his studies at the age of five and had his first solo appearance when he was 11.
Durkovic currently works as a coordinator of the keyboard studies program at ULV.
“It was great playing with Ida,” Durkovic said. “We have only been practicing two days. She is a great artist.”
Max Zänker
