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Allison Edberg Nyquist returns with Vivaldi Project concert
Former Greencastle resident Allison Edberg Nyquist, for many years an adjunct member of the DePauw School of Music faculty and teacher of many area Suzuki violin students, returns with her colleagues in The Vivaldi Project as the Greencastle Summer Music Festival continues its free weekly free concerts at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday June 26 in the sanctuary of Gobin Memorial United Methodist Church.
The three-woman ensemble will also perform for children in the Summer Enrichment Program (also hosted by Gobin) earlier in the day.
Their program this week is titled “Discovering the Classical String Trio” and includes music by Beethoven, Sammartini and others.
Nyquist’s primary instrument is violin, but in this ensemble she plays viola, joined by violinist Elizabeth Field and cellist Stephanie Vial.
“Our motto is ‘bringing the community together with friends making music for friends,’” festival founding artistic director Eric Edberg said, “and we love presenting artists with strong Greencastle connections. The Vivaldi Project has performed here before with Allison, so they are not only friends with each other but also with many in the audience.”
The festival’s events are underwritten by donations from individuals and businesses, including Bridges Craft Pizza and Wine Bar (providing intermission refreshments), The Inn at DePauw, Greenburg Accounting and Hillside Farms. The festival also received a grant from the Putnam County Convention and Visitors Bureau and has an endowment through the Putnam County Community Foundation.
Praised for its brilliant and expressive playing, The Vivaldi Project, co-directed by Elizabeth Field and Stephanie Vial, is dedicated to presenting innovative programs of baroque and classical string repertoire that combine scholarship and performance to both educate and delight audiences. The period instrument ensemble takes its name from the virtuoso violinist and innovative composer Antonio Vivaldi, in recognition of his pivotal position between earlier baroque and later classical composers (those well known and beloved as well as those rarely heard).
Fanfare has raved about the Vivaldi Project, noting, “The group’s exquisite sense of ensemble, vibrant sound and ardent cantabile represent period instrument playing at its best.”
Meanwhile, Strings has noted, “The repertoire is charming, and the playing, on original instruments, is superb. This is lovely music, beautifully played and deserves to be heard much more often.”
Violinist Elizabeth Field, distinguished for her passionate and stylistic playing on both period and modern instruments, is the founder of The Vivaldi Project. Field is concertmaster of The Bach Choir of Bethlehem and also performs with a wide variety of ensembles throughout the U.S., from Washington D.C.’s acclaimed Opera Lafayette to the Sun Valley Summer Symphony.
In addition to period instrument recordings for Hungaroton, Naxos and Dorian, Field has performed and recorded regularly for Deutsche Grammophon with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.
Field holds a DMA from Cornell University in 18th-century performance practice, has held professorships at Sacramento State University and the University of California at Davis and was a regular guest teacher at The Curtis Institute. She is an adjunct professor at George Washington University.
Her DVD with fortepianist Malcolm Bilson, “Performing the Score,” explores 18th-century violin/piano repertoire and has been hailed by Emanuel Ax as both “truly inspiring” and “authoritative.”
Nyquist’s violin playing has been described by the Chicago Sun-Times as “impeccable, with unerring intonation and an austere beauty.”
Nyquist has performed throughout North America, collaborating with many of the top baroque ensembles, including Chatham baroque, The Washington Bach Consort, Haymarket Opera Company, Apollo’s Fire and Ensemble Voltaire.
Her discography includes recordings for the Eclectra, Delos, MSR Classics and Centaur CD labels. Nyquist is concertmaster of the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra and a member of Third Coast Baroque (Chicago).
She was artistic director of Music City Baroque (Nashville) and adjunct professor of Baroque violin at the Blair School of Music. She also taught violin at Lawrence University, Ohio State University and Interlochen Arts Camp and served as professor of viola at Indiana State University and DePauw University.
Vial is a widely respected cellist, praised for her technical flair and expressive sense of phrasing.
Vial performs regularly in early music ensembles throughout the U.S. and has given solo and chamber music concerts, lectures and master classes at numerous universities and institutions, including The Shrine to Music Museum in Vermillion, S.D., the University of Virginia, Boston Conservatory, Duke University and the Curtis Institute of Music.
Vial holds a DMA in 18th-century performance practice from Cornell University, where she studied with John Hsu.
Her book, “The Art of Musical Phrasing in the Eighteenth Century: Punctuating the Classical ‘Period,’” published by the University of Rochester Press, was praised by Malcolm Bilson as “inspired scholarship” and “essential reading.” She has recorded for the Dorian Label, Naxos, Hungaroton, and Centaur Records.
Vial calls Durham, N.C. home, where she is a lecturer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.