Lyrica Holds 25th Anniversary Show

Lyrica Chamber Music’s founding co-directors returned to the Presbyterian Church of Chatham Township yesterday to perform at the classical music organization’s 25th Anniversary Homecoming Gala.

Mariel Bossert and her daughter Laura, who started Lyrica 25 years ago, kicked off the program with Claude Debussy’s “Violin Sonata,” featuring the former on piano and the latter on violin.

“It’s nice to be back,” Laura Bossert said when she and her mother first came to the stage. “I see so many familiar faces.”

Current Lyrica co-director Adam Waite said getting the Bosserts—who stepped down as co-directors in 2008 for Mariel and 2010 for Laura—to come down from Massachusetts was as easy as a phone call.

“It didn’t take much convincing,” Waite said. “Without them, Lyrica would not exist, and it would be impossible to have a 25th anniversary show if they’re not here. It is very special to celebrate with them.”

After the two women performed, Chatham residents and frequent Lyrica audience members Jocelyne Rubinett and Esther DeWitt said they have been coming to these concerts for about a decade and are always impressed by what they see and hear.

“Laura has always been fantastic,” DeWitt said. “I haven’t seen Mariel perform as much, but they were just fantastic together.”

The program also featured the four-part “Cello Sonata, Op. 40,” featuring cellist Nicholas Canellakis with current Lyrica co-director David Kaplan accompanying on piano.

Before playing, Canellakis described the piece as “one of the most important sonatas” from the “world’s greatest Russian composer.”

Prior to the cello piece, Waite and Kaplan performed what the former referred to as a “palate cleanser”—transcriptions of three Johann Sebastian Bach pieces by Hungarian composer György Kurtág. Waite explained that Kurtág had arranged the pieces for him and his wife Márta to perform together.

“I have the job of playing Márta,” Kaplan joked.

Following the intermission, Laura Bossert, Canellakis and Kaplan joined forces to perform Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s “Trio No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 49,” which Kaplan said suffers the “curse of popularity.”

“We sometimes have to stand back and remind ourselves that this is just incredible music,” Kaplan said. “Because we hear it so much, it’s easy for people to forget how great it is.”

Before the show began, Carl Woodward, Lyrica’s board president, thanked the Bosserts, including Mariel’s husband Walter who had served as playwright in the past for the organization’s theatrical productions, for bringing classical music to Chatham and Morris County for the past 25 years.

“We’ve had the opportunity to witness world-class musicians,” Woodward said. “You don’t have to go to New York to see them. Come right here to Chatham.”