Sunday, March 17, 2024, at 4 pm

Program

Mendelssohn: Sonata No 2 in D Major for Cello and Piano, Op, 58 (1842-43)
Shostakovich: Sonata for Cello and Piano in d minor, Op. 40 (1934)
Grieg: Sonata for Cello and Piano in a minor, Op, 36

Cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han are the recipients of Musical America’s Musicians of the Year Award, the highest honor bestowed by the organization. They enjoy a multi-faceted musical life that encompasses performing, recording and artistic direction at the highest levels. Their concert activities have taken them from New York’s stages to the most important concert halls in the United States, Europe and Asia. They regularly perform a wide range of music that includes the standard repertoire for cello and piano, commissioned works by living composers, and virtually the entire chamber music literature for their instruments.

In 1997, David Finckel and Wu Han founded ArtistLed, the first internet-based, artist-controlled classical recording label. ArtistLed’s catalog of more than 20 releases includes the standard literature for cello and piano, plus works composed for the duo by George Tsontakis, Gabriela Lena Frank, Bruce Adolphe, Lera Auerbach, Edwin Finckel, Augusta Read Thomas, and Pierre Jalbert. Artistic Directors of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 2004, they recently led the 53-year vanguard organization through two pandemic seasons, conceiving and producing over 270 digital events which sustained chamber music communities across the country. A 2022 contract extension positions them to become the longest serving artistic directors in the Society’s history. Founders, and Artistic Directors of Silicon Valley’s Music@Menlo since 2002, the festival’s innovative thematic programming and educational initiatives have set an example that is admired internationally. The festival’s exclusive recording label, Music@Menlo LIVE, has to date released over 130 audiophile-quality CDs.

Passionately dedicated to education for musicians of all ages and experience, the duo was instrumental in transforming the CMS Two Program into today’s Bowers Program, which admits stellar young musicians to the CMS roster for a term of three seasons. They also oversee the Chamber Music Institute at Music@Menlo, which immerses some forty young musicians every summer in the multi- faceted fabric of the festival. The duo was privileged to serve on multiple occasions as a faculty member of Isaac Stern’s Chamber Music Encounters in Israel, New York and Japan. In addition, the Resource section of their website (davidfinckelandwuhan.com/resource) provides, at no cost, a wealth of guidance for students on both music study and careers, as well as invaluable information for arts organizations and individuals on every aspect of concert presenting.

Born in Taiwan, Wu Han came to the United States as a graduate student, where her talent quickly came to the attention of noted musicians. Mentored by legendary pianists such as Lilian Kallir, Menahem Pressler, and Rudolf Serkin, Wu Han thrived at the Marlboro and Aspen Music Festivals and subsequently won the prestigious Andrew Wolf Award. She currently serves as Artistic Advisor for Wolf Trap’s Chamber Music at the Barns series and for Palm Beach’s Society of the Four Arts, and in 2022 was named Artistic Director of La Musica in Sarasota, Florida. David Finckel was raised in New Jersey, where he spent his teenage years winning competitions, among them the Philadelphia Orchestra’s junior and senior divisions, resulting in two performances with the orchestra. The first American student of Mstislav Rostropovich, David Finckel went on to become the cellist of the Emerson String Quartet, which, during David’s 34-season tenure, garnered nine Grammy Awards and the Avery Fisher Prize. David is a professor at both the Juilliard School and Stony Brook University.

David Finckel and Wu Han married in 1985 and divide their time between touring and residences in New York City and Westchester County.

Sunday, February 4, 2024, at 4 pm

Program

Haydn: String Quartet in D Major, Op. 64, No. 5 “Lark”
Bartók: Quartet No. 4, Sz. 91
Ravel: String Quartet in F Major

The Escher String Quartet has received acclaim for its profound musical insight and rare tonal beauty. A former BBC New Generation Artist and recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, the quartet has performed at the BBC Proms at Cadogan Hall and is a regular guest at Wigmore Hall. In its hometown of New York, the ensemble serves as season artists of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. The 2023-2024 season finds the Escher Quartet embarking upon a major project-performances of the complete cycle of quartets by Bela Bartok, culminating in a single concert performance of all six at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Beyond Bartok, the Escher’s will return to many of the illustrious music centers and organizations in America, such as the Kennedy Center, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Phoenix Chamber Music Society, Duke University, Coleman Chamber Music Association, and Savannah Music Festival, among others. The Escher Quartet has made a distinctive impression throughout Europe, with recent debuts including the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Berlin Konzerthaus, London’s Kings Place, Slovenian Philharmonic Hall, Les Grands Interprètes Geneva, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and Auditorium du Louvre. The group has appeared at festivals such as the Heidelberg Spring Festival, Budapest’s Franz Liszt Academy, Dublin’s Great Music in Irish Houses, the Risør Chamber Music Festival in Norway, the Hong Kong International Chamber Music Festival, and the Perth International Arts Festival in Australia. Alongside its growing European profile, the Escher Quartet continues to flourish in its home country, performing at the Aspen Music Festival, Bravo! Vail, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Bowdoin Music Festival, Toronto Summer Music, Chamber Music San Francisco, Music@Menlo, and the Ravinia and Caramoor festivals. The 2022-2023 season saw the release of two albums – string quartets by Pierre Jalbert and the Escher’s studio recording of the complete Janacek quartets and Pavel Haas quartet no. 2 with multi award winning percussionist Colin Currie (BIS Label). Recordings of the complete Mendelssohn quartets and beloved romantic quartets of Dvorak, Borodin and Tchaikovsky were released on the BIS label in 2015-18 and received with the highest critical acclaim, with comments such as “…eloquent, full-blooded playing… The four players offer a beautiful blend of individuality and accord” (BBC Music Magazine). In 2019, DANCE, an album of quintets with Grammy award winning guitarist Jason Vieaux, was enthusiastically received. In 2021, the Escher’s recording of the complete quartets of Charles Ives and Samuel Barber was met with equal excitement, including “A fascinating snapshot of American quartets, with a recording that is brilliantly detailed, this is a first-rate release all around” (Strad Magazine). The quartet has also recorded the complete Zemlinsky String Quartets in two volumes, released on the Naxos label in 2013 and 2014. Beyond the concert hall, the Escher Quartet is proud to announce the creation of a new non profit, ESQYRE (Escher String Quartet Youth Residency Education). ESQYRE’s mission as a non-profit classical music organization is to provide a comprehensive educational program through music performance and instruction for people of all ages. In addition to their non-profit work, the quartet has also held faculty positions at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX and the University of Akron, OH. Within months of its inception in 2005, the ensemble came to the attention of key musical figures worldwide. Championed by the Emerson Quartet, the Escher Quartet was invited by both Pinchas Zukerman and Itzhak Perlman to be Quartet in Residence at each artist’s summer festival: the Young Artists Program at Canada’s National Arts Centre; and the Perlman Chamber Music Program on Shelter Island, NY. The Escher Quartet takes its name from the Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher, inspired by Escher’s method of interplay between individual components working together to form a whole.

Sunday, October 22, 2023, at 4 pm

Program

Ives: Piano Sonata No. 2, “Concord, Mass., 1840-60”
Schumann: Waldszenen, Op. 82
Ravel: Gaspard de la Nuit

“A performer of near-superhuman technical prowess” (The New York Times), pianist Marc-André Hamelin is known worldwide for his unrivaled blend of consummate musicianship and brilliant technique in the great works of the established repertoire, as well as for his intrepid exploration of the rarities of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. He regularly performs around the globe with the leading orchestras and conductors of our time, and gives recitals at major concert venues and festivals worldwide.

Highlights of Mr. Hamelin’s 2022–2023 season include a vast variety of repertoire performed with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Carnegie Hall (Piano Quintet’s by Florence Price and Brahms), Berlin Philharmonic and Marek Janowski(Reger’s Piano Concerto), San Diego Symphony and Rafael Payare (Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2), Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Gustavo Gimeno (Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie), Netherlands Philharmonic and Joshua Weilerstein (Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue), and Symphony Nova Scotia and Holly Mathieson (Grieg’s Piano Concerto). Recital appearances take Mr. Hamelin to Vienna, Chicago, Toronto, Montréal, Napa Valley, São Paulo, and Bogotá, among other venues across the world.

The summer of 2022 included performances at many festivals including Caramoor with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Tanglewood, Domaine Forget, La Jolla, Schubertiade, and Festival International Piano.

Mr. Hamelin is an exclusive recording artist for Hyperion Records, where his discography spans more than 70 albums, with notable recordings of a broad range of solo, orchestral, and chamber repertoire. In January 2022, the label released a two-disc set of C. P. E. Bach’s sonatas and rondos that received wide critical acclaim and in June 2022, Hyperion released the two-disc set of William Bolcom’s The Complete Rags.

Mr. Hamelin has composed music throughout his career, with over 30 compositions to his name. The majority of those works—including the Etudes and Toccata on L’homme armé, commissioned by the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition—are published by Edition Peters. His most recent work, his Piano Quintet, was premiered in August 2022 by himself and the celebrated Dover Quartet at La Jolla Music Society.

Mr. Hamelin makes his home in the Boston area with his wife, Cathy Fuller, a producer and host at Classical WCRB. Born in Montreal, he is the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the German Record Critics’ Association, and has received seven Juno Awards and 11 Grammy nominations, and the 2018 Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano Performance from Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music. In December 2020, he was awarded the Paul de Hueck and Norman Walford Career Achievement Award for Keyboard Artistry from the Ontario Arts Foundation. Mr. Hamelin is an Officer of the Order of Canada, a Chevalier de l’Ordre national du Québec, and a member of the Royal Society of Canada.