By Roger Muehlig rmuehlig@batavianews.com
Posted: Thursday, February 21, 2013 8:03 am
BATAVIA — Brothers John and Joseph Irrera will be back at Carnegie Hall in New York City Friday night for a two -hour music recital that includes the world premiere of an up-tempo piece composed by a fellow Rochester resident.
Russell Scarbrough’s “Bow Shock’’ is an energetic piece which the writer aimed to relate to aerodynamics, according to Joseph Irrera.
“It’s very energetic. It’s very fast. It’s very showy,’’ Joseph said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
It is also one of several pieces that the acclaimed musician brothers Joseph plays the piano, John, the violin will offer during the concert that begins at 8 p.m. in Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall.
Tickets are $40 ($20 for senior citizens and students) for what Joseph said will be about an hour and 40 minutes of music in a roughly two-hour program, intermission included.
“It’s quite a bit of music,’’ he said.
Joseph, 30, and John, 27, are Batavia natives who have performed throughout the U.S. and Europe. Both are graduates of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, are working on their doctorate degrees at Eastman, and are on the faculty at Eastman’s Community Music School.
The two have their own chamber music series in partnership with the Genesee Symphony Orchestra in Batavia.
They made their Carnegie Hall debut in 2009 and performed at the prestigious concert venue again last year.
MidAmerica Productions, the concert presenter, invited them back after meeting the two and seeing a video of them performing together, according to Molly Waymire, the company’s chamber music coordinator.
MidAmerica, founded in 1983, presents concerts in major concert halls in New York City and around the world.
Officials liked what they saw in the Irrera brothers, Waymire said.
It was also last year that Joseph said he and his brother were contracted by Scarbrough inquiring if they would be interested in working with him. Scarbrough, also an Eastman
graduate, is a trombonist and composer who lives in Rochester.
The Weill Recital Center is an intimate setting with “Carnegie Hall-type’’ acoustics, Waymire said. It seats nearly 270, she said, and there is the possibility it will sell out for the Irrera’s concert.
Joseph said his wife, Gillian, plans to attend as do his and John’s parents, Batavians Judy and Joe Irrera.
Mrs. Irrera said both her sons started in music when they were young and spent a lot of time practicing as they were growing up.
“That’s all they wanted to do,’’ she recalled in a Tuesday night phone call.
It shows in their success. “They love it (music),’’ she said.
And they are not alone. The Weill Center was the scene last weekend of the Carnegie Hall debut of three area teen-age musicians. Violinists Leighann Howland of Batavia and Sarah Ball of Le Roy were joined by trumpet player Elisabeth Follman of Waterport as members of the Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra that performed at the famed music hall Sunday.