If music is magic, this sorcerer's ruse commenced with a facade of easy pastels, pleasantly drawn with facile dexterity. Then, without warning, sharp arrows begin piercing the canvass, as darker realities emerge from below... Such was the spell cast by Benjamin Beilman, the 27-year-old violinist, in collaboration with pianist Anna Polonsky, in the opening concert of the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music 2017-2018 season, October 15, 2017. Of course, music is not really magic – at least not of that variety – but an in-the-moment expression of an interpretive artist's cumulative experience of a composer's ideas. The admirable constants of Beilman's performance here were a strongly projected full tone and a penetrating delivery. All cresting waves, calm waters, and dark depths were explored from a very even keel – a captivating journey from beginning to close. The most balanced crafting of contrasting emotions arrived immediately with Beethoven's Piano an
Gendel's Reviews of Music and Life