Noted pianist, cellist headline at Chamber Music concert

Cleveland’s chamber music pianist Frances Renzi and Los Angeles-based cellist Rowena Hammill highlight the Chamber Music San Juans’ fall concert Saturday, 7:30 p.m., in the San Juan Community Theatre.

Renzi has played throughout the United States as a soloist and with the Dallas, Houston and Toledo orchestras, as well as in recitals in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C. Fanfare magazine described her performance as “absolutely superb … crystal-like articulation, impeccable rhythmic precision …”

Originally from Sydney, Australia, Hammill is the associate principal cellist of the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra and has performed at festivals throughout the U.S.

In addition to her classical music concerts, Hammill appeared with Denzel Washington in “Inside Man,” and with Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford in “What Lies Beneath”; she portrayed a cello instructor in the latter film.

In Friday Harbor, Hammill and Renzi will join CMSJ favorites Ron and Roxanna Patterson and clarinetist/artistic director Patricia Kostek. Together, the ensemble will perform Fauré’s “Quartet for Piano and Strings”; the deeply moving and passionate and Brahms-like “Trio for Strings” by Ernst von Dohnni; and the charming and virtuosic Beethoven “Trio, Op. 11.” Rounding out this concert will be what is widely viewed as the greatest Romantic sonata ever composed: the “Sonata for violin” by César Franck, transcribed for viola and performed by Roxanna Patterson.

Chamber Music San Juans is sponsored by King’s Market. Tickets are $23 for adults, $12 for student reserved, with $5 student RUSH available at the door. A private donor has made provision for free tickets to anyone needing financial assistance to attend a theater event.

The SJCT box office is open Tuesdays through Fridays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.; and one hour before each performance.

Call 378-3210 for more information. Or visit www.sjctheatre.org