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Late in 2014, Johnny Gandelsman kicked back by memorizing Bach’s Six Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin, following a tour with his string quartet, Brooklyn Rider, and before a flurry of recording sessions with the Silk Road Ensemble that included weaving music into Ken Burns’ documentary The Vietnam War.
“I had some time on my hands and I wanted to give myself a challenge,” Gandelsman recalled during a recent telephone interview. “Two pieces of the six I’d never played before, so I had to learn those, and figure out how to do it all in one show.”
On Friday night at the First Congregational Church of Lebanon, Gandelsman, 39, will play all six, without sheet music, at the end of the brief East Coast tour that he’s wedging between outings with Brooklyn Rider. The performance is part of Lebanon Opera House’s new On Location series of shows at alternate venues.
“These dates are kind of like celebrating the arrival of my new recording of the six,” Gandelsman said. “It took a while to pull it all together.”
Gandelsman, who was born in Russia and moved to the United States in 1995, at age 17, first explored the intricacies of Bach’s Chaconne, a partita in D-minor, in his early teens.
“It’s so awesome — the violin in all its glory,” Gandelsman said. “It’s gorgeous music. When you’re young, you’re looking at the bells and whistles, and you want to get in there and tackle it with youthful vigor.”
After Chaconne, the still-teenage Gandelsman tackled the second sonata, in the key of A-minor, then moved on to other projects around the time his family left Russia. At the same time he was maturing musically, he was following a 19-year path to U.S. citizenship, which he attained in 2014, around the same time he returned to the Bach quest.
“It’s better that I’m taking it on now,” Gandelsman said. “When I was a kid, I never really realized how the pieces relate to each other. Things get progressively harder with the six when you move to the great third sonata, which is a very complicated fugue. … It’s only when you get to the sixth piece that you can see the light at the tunnel.
“Now it’s more of a journey, that I do with variations. On a good day, the full package goes by in a flash. The bells and whistles kind of melt away. Now, it’s about finding the flow from one variation to the next.”
Gandelsman said he absorbed many of those intuitive lessons after Yo-Yo Ma recruited him for the Silk Road Ensemble in 2002. In addition to touring with the ensemble, he played violin for its albums Off the Map, New Impossibilities, Beyond the Horizon and, most recently, Sing Me Home, which won the 2017 Grammy Award for best album of world music.
The invitation from Burns to compose, arrange and record original music for the 10-part PBS series The Vietnam War came at the same time that Silk Road was preparing to record Sing Me Home, Gandelman recalled.
“Given how hard it is to get people together, because everybody lives in different places, we had a short amount of time for the Vietnam music, so it was very intense,” Gandelsman said. “Before the recording session, I worked with Ken’s fellow producers, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein, on what they needed. We only had one day in the studio, but we ended up giving them a lot of music.”
Now Gandelsman is looking for a window of time to watch, and listen to, the finished product.
“From the previews I’ve seen, it’s kind of astonishing and heartbreaking, and I think the music does a lot for the film,” he said. “There’s something of ours in probably every episode. … Ken and Lynn were committed to giving a 360-degree view of the war, talking to all sides. The Silk Road Ensemble sort of provides the other side, a counterbalance to the popular songs from the American perspective with a re-imagining of music from Vietnam and some improvised cues. It’s very powerful.”
After the recording sessions for The Vietnam War and Sing Me Home, Gandelsman found more time to alternate his efforts to master the Bach works with the touring schedule of Brooklyn Rider, which he co-founded in 2011.
“Within a year of taking it on the road, I think I performed all six pieces 15 times,” Gandelsman said. “Then I recorded them, through a Kickstarter campaign, a process that took a couple of years. And the performances themselves, I needed time to reach the point where I am now. It’s a fluid situation. It doesn’t feel like the kind of thing where, once you learn it, it will always be there. You have to refresh it. … One can learn a lot about these pieces at home — practicing, you can kind of imagine a lot of things — but there’s a whole other side to the pieces that I can only learn while being on stage in front of an audience. That’s exciting. It’s not like a static thing that’s fixed.
“It continues to evolve.”
Violinist Johnny Gandelsman performs at the First Congregational Church of Lebanon on Friday night at 7. To reserve tickets ($30 general admission) and learn more, visit lebanonoperahouse.org or call 603-448-0400. On Saturday morning, Gandelsman leads a master class for students of the Upper Valley Music Center from 10 to 11:30, then talks about his interpretation of the Bach works. The music center suggests a donation of $10 to attend the Saturday appearance.
Best Bets
Shaker Bridge Theatre stages an open rehearsal of its upcoming production of Dancing Lessons on Friday night at 7, at Whitney Hall in Enfield. For tickets ($10) and more information, visit shakerbridgetheatre.org or call 603-448-3750.
Grammy-winning roots/country singer-songwriter Roseanne Cash plays the Flying Monkey Performance Center in Plymouth, N.H., on Friday night at 7:30. For tickets ($69 to $79) and more information, visit flyingmonkeynh.com or call 603-536-2551.
Looking for entertaining ways to help Puerto Rico recover from Hurricane Maria? You have two choices on Saturday night, starting with a concert of works of Dvorak by the chamber ensembles Quintet Ascension and the Kentucky Warblers Piano Trio, at Our Savior Lutheran Church in Hanover at 7. Admission is by donation, proceeds from which will go to AmeriCares and All Hands Volunteers.
And at 7:30 at the Briggs Opera House in White River Junction, actor/juggler/acrobat Skip Cady, pianist Henry Danaher and nimble students from The Dance Collective perform a Puerto Rico Cabaret. Admission to the show, which kicks off at 7:30, is by a suggested donation of at least $15. Visit the Briggs’ Facebook page to learn about the organizations, which range from direct humanitarian aid to sustainable-agriculture programs and reforestation projects.
Paul Winter Consort cellist Eugene Friesen joins the La Voz de Trez ensemble of singer Natalia Bernal, pianist Mike Eckroth and guitarist Jason Ennis at Dartmouth College’s Rollins Chapel at 1 on Sunday afternoon, to perform music from Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Cuba and other parts of Latin America. Admission is free.
Looking Ahead
The No Strings Marionette Company performs The Cunning Little Vixen, an adaptation of the Rudolf Tesnohlidek children’s book, at Randolph’s Chandler Music Hall on Nov. 25. After the troupe’s annual holiday show, the Arts Bus leads a workshop for kids in the Esther Mesh Room, before Santa Claus visits. Admission is $7. To learn more, visit chandler-arts.org or call 802-728-6464.
Theater/Performance Art
Northern Stage’s production of The Little Mermaid runs the next seven weeks at the Barrette Center for the Arts in White River Junction, including previews at 7:30 tonight and Friday night and the official opening on Saturday night. The musical adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, featuring songs and characters from the Disney movie version of the story, continues through Jan. 7. For tickets ($15 to $69) and more information, visit northernstage.org or call 802-296-7000.
Music
British-born, California-based folk singer-songwriter John O’Connor plays pieces from his new album, Rare Songs, at the ArtisTree Community Arts Center in South Pomfret on Friday night at 7:30. Admission is $15.
Soprano Anastasia Robinson, a native of Springfield, N.H., sings during the Kearsarge Chorale’s performances of Handel’s Messiah on Saturday night at 7:30 and Sunday afternoon at 3, at Our Lady of Fatima Church in New London. Tickets cost $15 at the door. To learn more, visit kearsargechorale.org.
The Upper Valley Chamber Orchestra and the Upper Valley Music Center’s Vivace Ensemble perform during the center’s autumn concert at Richmond Middle School in Hanover on Sunday afternoon at 3. David Wysocki will conduct the orchestra through two works of Beethoven, while Mark Nelson will guide Vivace through two classical works and a medley of songs from Pirates of the Caribbean. Admission is $10 for adults.
Dance
The Old Sam Peabody Contra Dance Band sets the rhythm and Delia Clark calls the steps during the community contra dance and potluck that BarnArts is hosting at the Barnard Town Hall on Friday night. The potluck begins at 5:30, and dancing runs from 6 to 7:30. Admission is free. To learn more, visit barnarts.org or call 802-234-1645.
The Moonlighters Big Band plays the annual Harvest Dance on Saturday night at 8, at Damon Hall in Hartland. Admission is $15, with a $1 discount for dancers bringing non-perishable donations to the Hartland Food Shelf.
The Tango Norte quintet returns to the ArtisTree Community Arts Center in South Pomfret on Sunday afternoon, to provide the soundtrack to the next session of milongas social dance. Before the dance ($15 admission) that runs from 4 to 7, ArtisTree provides a dance lesson at 3, for a fee of $10. Dancers taking the lesson and staying for the main event pay $22. To learn more, visit artistreevt.org.
Bar and Club Circuit
Guitarist Ted Mortimer and fiddler Thal Aylward perform at Peyton Place in Orford tonight from 6 to 9.
Still Hill pulls into Windsor Station tonight at 7:30 for a set of Americana music. The Party Crashers rock the house on Friday night at 9:30, after which the Tim Brick Band plays a set of country-western on Saturday night at 9:30 and roots musician George Nostrand plays the venue on Tuesday night at 6.
Singer-songwriter Dan Walker performs in the tavern at Jesse’s restaurant in Hanover on Friday night at 5.
Sensible Shoes rocks the Skunk Hollow Tavern in Hartland Four Corners on Friday night at 9.
Soulfix plays the Railside Tavern in Randolph on Friday night at 9.
Acoustic rocker Ben Fuller kicks off the weekend of music at Salt hill Pub in Hanover with a performance on Friday night at 9. The Tricksters play Saturday night at 9, with a set of top-40 covers from the 1980s to the present.
Acoustic rocker Chris Powers plays at Salt hill Pub in West Lebanon on Friday night at 9, followed on Saturday night at 9 by The Conniption Fits.
Chris Hersch & The Moonraiders conduct a country-western swing through Salt hill Pub in Lebanon on Friday night at 9. The next night at 9, Mo’Combo brings in the funk and the noise.
Shaker rocks Salt hill Pub in Newport on Saturday night at 9.
Singer Colleen Mari joins saxophonist Michael Parker for a set of soul and jazz at the Stony Brook Tavern in Stockbridge on Saturday night from 6 to 9.
Blue Mountain Union High School graduate Dylan Gombas and fellow Vermont-native singer-songwriter Troy Millette perform at the Skinny Pancake in Hanover on Saturday night at 8.
Open Mics
Ramunto’s Brick & Brew Pizza in Bridgewater hosts an open mic starting at 7:30 on Thursday nights. Participants get a free large cheese pizza.
String players of all ages and abilities are welcome at the weekly acoustic jam session at South Royalton’s BALE Commons on Friday night from 6:30 to 10.
Joe Stallsmith leads a weekly hootenanny of Americana, folk and bluegrass at Salt hill Pub in Hanover on Monday nights at 6.
The ever-in-motion Jim Yeager hosts the open-mics on Monday night at 8 at Bentley’s in Woodstock, at the Public House in Quechee on Tuesday night at 6 and at 8 on Wednesday night at Skunk Hollow Tavern in Hartland Four Corners.
Bradford’s Colatina Exit holds an open mic, Tuesday nights at 8.
David Corriveau can be reached at dcorriveau@vnews.com and at 603-727-3304.