On Feb. 19 the free admission Glendale Noon Concerts will feature cellist Jonathan Flaksman and pianist Brendan White performing Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Cello Sonata. The free admission Glendale Noon Concerts series of live performances take place at the sanctuary of Glendale City Church, 610 E. California Ave. in Glendale.

Jonathan Flaksman, born in Akron, Ohio in 1981, has been playing the cello since the age of 5 with his first teacher being Madalena Burle-Marx. He has studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music under Richard Aaron, and then attended the Julliard School under Fred Sherry. He graduated from Mannheim University in Germany, in the class of his father Michael Flaksman, with an artist diploma in orchestral studies. Jonathan Flaksman has taken many masterclasses including those taught by Harvey Shapiro, Siegfried Palm, Bernard Greenhouse, Youngchang Cho, Jens Peters Maintz, Frans Helmerson and Ralph Kirshbaum. As a soloist and chamber musician, Flaksman has traveled the United States, Europe and Asia. He has attended the Interlochen Arts Camp and music festivals (Aspen), Schleswig-Holstein, Cividale (Italy), Łancut (Poland), Aurora Chamber Music (Sweden) and the Ascoli Piceno Festival, and performed as a soloist with the Bari Symphony at the Carl Orff Festival in Putignano. He has given masterclasses in both Italy and California and has served on the juries of various competitions. 

Flaksman lives in Los Angeles playing with the symphonies of Pasadena and Modesto, composing and arranging his own works, and records for TV and film. He recently earned the assistant principal cellist position of New Mexico Philharmonic in addition to winning his spot in the Long Beach Symphony. He has also been tenured as assistant principal cellist of Santa Barbara Symphony since 2015.

Born in Jackson, Tennessee, but now based in Los Angeles, pianist Brendan White appears frequently in solo recitals and chamber ensembles and as a soloist with orchestra. As soloist, White has performed with Musica Nova (Eastman School of Music), Vicente Chamber Orchestra, Symphony of the Verdugos, Crown City Symphony, Global Harmony Symphony, Delta Symphony Orchestra and Jackson Symphony Orchestra.

As a recording artist, White was featured on Danaë Vlasse’s Grammy Award-winning album Mythologies. White’s collaborations in Southern California have included the Mühlfeld Trio, which won the prestigious Beverly Hills Auditions, the Speakeasy Society and Eighteen Squared. He is an original member of the Sunset ChamberFest in Los Angeles. White’s repertoire spans many centuries and genres and he has worked with well-known composers such as Thomas Adès, Stephen Cohn, Donald Crockett and Danaë Vlasse.

White is also a composer of original music. Local recital appearances include Piano Spheres Emerging Artist Series, Soundwaves in Santa Monica, Silicon Beach CO Recital Series and Glendale Noon Concerts among others. He attended the Eastman School of Music and the Thornton School of Music, University of Southern California.

According to Robert Markow, who wrote program notes, “The sonata opens with a dark-hued slow introduction built mainly from a two-note melodic cell. The allegro section is ushered in with a long-breathed, yearning theme for the cello. The piano introduces the second theme, in D major, this one more relaxed and songful than the first. The importance of the slow introduction’s two-note cell is heard throughout the development section, where it is played almost constantly by one or both of the instruments.

“The second movement is laid out in the standard scherzo and trio format (ABA-C-ABA). The two instruments share the scherzo’s rhythmically urgent and restless opening theme in C minor, but it is the cello that claims the impassioned second theme as well as that of the central trio section. This is idiomatic cello writing at its best – lyrical, deeply soulful, soaring melodies written in the instrument’s most sonorous range.

“The sonata’s finest movement is undoubtedly its ‘Andante,’ a seamless arc of lyrical outpouring, midnight poetry and glowing rapture. The quintessential Rachmaninoff is heard in this musical dialogue, which rises twice to an intense climax and then subsides to close in quiet repose.

“The high-spirited finale features one of Rachmaninoff’s most inspired melodies. Its second theme, announced by the cello, fairly exudes lyric warmth, sensuous beauty and nobility of purpose.”

GNC is celebrating its 17th year of presenting free admission concerts every first and third Wednesday for Glendale and the Southland community.

Upcoming concerts will be updated at http://glendalenoonconcerts.blogspot.com.