Sunday, March 29th, the Rodin Duo will perform Johann Sebastian Bach’s Partita No. 3 for Solo Violin in E major, BWV 1006; Sonatina in A minor, D385 by Franz Schubert; George Enescu’s Prelude for Solo Violin; and Maurice Ravel’s Violin Sonata No. 2 in G major.
Fittingly, the concert has been dubbed, ‘Virtuosic Vignettes,’ and while David Niwa admits that the ‘vignette-ness’ of the pieces is up for debate, they are certainly selections that require two virtuoso musicians.
The Rodin Duo has one of the most lovely histories I have heard. The husband and wife duo met in Banff, Alberta, Canada years ago when both David Niwa (violin) and Mariko Kaneda (piano) were artists in residence. The two struggled to even speak the same language; Kaneda spoke Japanese and French, and Niwa spoke English and… psuedo-French. So the couple apparently made good use of dictionaries for a little while. It seems to have worked out just fine.
You may recognize David Niwa since he is Assistant Concertmaster for the Columbus Symphony and Artistic Director for Sunday at Central, and the gifted pianist Mariko Kaneda serves as Faculty at Ohio Wesleyan University. They have performed together in Columbus, New York, Philadelphia, Cape Cod, Tokyo and the Netherlands.
Honestly, having sat down to dinner with the two of them this week after attending California Mavericks, I can firmly say that they are some of the most knowledgeable and yet ‘down-to-earth’ performers I have met. If their conversational harmony is any indication of how they perform together, I can say this is not a concert to miss.
This is another FREE concert to be given at the Columbus Museum of Art‘s Cardinal Health Auditorium at 3:00 PM courtesy of Sunday at Central. Guests may also enjoy free access to galleries in CMA’s permanent collection, and free parking is available in the State Auto Insurance lot at the corner of East Gay Street and North Washington Avenue.
Here is just a taste of how well they work together. It it beautiful to behold.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agrFupHyaJs