Marta Szlubowska’s new Christmas CD with Mississippi String Quartet shares magical music of the holiday season, scoring a longtime goal for the Jackson concert violinist and spreading the Christmas joy she takes to heart.
“That has always been my dream, to make a Christmas CD,” says Szlubowska. It’s a desire first prompted by a CD made by string quartet friends in Minnesota. “I just loved listening to it so much, I’m like, I want to do one! I want to do one!
“It wasn’t quite as easy work as I thought, by listening to it,” she says, with a fond laugh. “It’s a labor of love.” The arrangements for string quartet in”Winter Holiday” comprise a full-fledged salute to the season with jazzy Christmas songs and carols, and also music from Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker” and a Jewish selection, “Chanukah, Oh Chanukah.”
“I can listen to it year-round,” she says of Christmas music. “The jazzy ones and the hymns at church — all of that is beautiful.” With a string quartet at the helm, “It’s like a small orchestra. … It’s really beautiful how it comes together,” in arrangements that highlight each player for results that are both lush and intimate. “We’ve had people listen to ‘The Nutcracker’ and say, ‘I’ve never heard this version before!’”
A “Winter Holiday” concert and CD signing is set for 7 p.m. Dec. 16, in the Music Suite at First Presbyterian Church in Jackson.
Currently on sabbatical from her concertmaster role with the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra for the 2021-22 season, Szlubowska is using the time to build her solo career and focus more on the chamber music she loves.
“One of my passions is solo performing,” says Szlubowska, whose “Musicale on Peace Street” concert series started last spring at Canton’s First Presbyterian Church and just completed its fourth concert in late November — a recital that also featured her mother, pianist Danuta Szlubowska. In previous ones, she was joined by her daughter, violinist Julia Kirk, and by Mississippi String Quartet.
Mississippi String Quartet came together during the pandemic, starting in the summer 2020, as Szlubowska recalls. “I was trying to pull together whoever was willing to come and play. We befriended people at St. Mark’s United Methodist Church in Brandon. They’ve been very generous with their space, and so I’ve been pretty much living there since the pandemic,” she says, laughing. “Now, it’s expanding more.”
The quartet developed over time. Along the Szlubowska on violin, current members are Milena Rusanova (second violin), Ausra Jasineviciute (viola) and Rebekah Miller (cello). They are also musicians with the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra.
With a project grant from the Mississippi Arts Commission, Szlubowska is at work on a video lecture/recital in February, produced by Steve Watson, on 20th century Polish composer and violinist Grażyna Bacewicz (1909-69), whose rich music has recently become more available. “She’s probably the most prolific woman composer in history. … She was absolutely amazing.
“Her birthday is Feb. 5, so we’re hoping to do it on her birthday, so we’ll see what happens,” Szlubowska says. The music they’ll perform — Bacewicz’s String Quartet No. 3 — was written in 1947, in the midst of turbulent times, “so the music is somewhat serious, but she also puts a lot of folk elements in it, and a lot of romanticism in it … and also some impressionism.
“There’s kind of everything in there, so it’s nice to talk about it, because people can get lost a little bit if you don’t. But we’ve performed it and people really responded.”
In addition to continuing her Musical Moments with Marta YouTube channel, with educational videos and short performances, she’s also working with another, smaller MAC grant. That one will support a collection of her music videos— vignettes, really — of four different composers from Szlubowska’s native Poland, also produced by Watson, for YouTube.
Szlubowska came to the U.S. from Poland at age 17 on a full scholarship to the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, but her kinship with the music of her homeland remains strong. “It’s like it’s in your heart. You cannot help but be connected.
“Polish music is very much influenced by other countries, but that folk element … It’s always going to be touching to you, because it’s yours. It really feels like home.”
