Program

Bach/Busoni: Chaconne
Feinberg: Sonata No. 3
Weissenberg: Six Arrangements of Songs Sung by Charles Trénet
Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Cipressi
Chopin: Polonaise-Fantaisie in A-flat major, Op. 61
Chopin: Scherzo No. 4 in E major, Op. 54

Pianist Marc-André Hamelin is renowned for his fresh readings of the established repertoire and his intrepid exploration of lesser known works of the 19th and 20th centuries. He is admired for his brilliant technique and his questing, deep thinking approach to everything he plays.

In recent seasons Hamelin has appeared as recitalist or orchestral guest soloist in such cities as New York, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, Portland, and in Quebec, Canada and internationally in Antwerp, Berlin, London, Melbourne, Rotterdam, and Milan, among many other cities. A prolific recording artist, Mr. Hamelin has set to disk some 50 CDs for the Hyperion label; these range from the neglected masterpieces of Alkan, Ives, Medtner and Roslavets to brilliantly received performances of Haydn, Mozart, Schumann, Brahms, and Chopin.

In 2010 Mr. Hamelin joined the ranks on CD of noted composer-pianists by releasing his own highly inventive “12 Etudes in all the minor keys” on the Hyperion label and with publication by Edition Peters.

Winner of the 1985 Carnegie Hall Competition, Marc-André Hamelin was born in Montreal. He began to play the piano at the age of five, and by the age of nine had already won top prize in the Canadian Music Competition. Mr. Hamelin’s father, a pharmacist by trade who was also a keen pianist, had introduced him to the works of Alkan, Medtner and Sorabji when he was still very young. Mr. Hamelin is featured in the book The Composer-Pianists: Hamelin and the Eight by Robert Rimm, published by Amadeus Press.

Program

Haydn: String Quartet Op. 71
Bartók: String Quartet Op. 5
Dvořák: String Quartet in G major, Op. 106

The Emerson String Quartet has amassed an unparalleled list of achievements over four decades: more than thirty acclaimed recordings, nine Grammys® (including two for Best Classical Album), three Gramophone Awards, the Avery Fisher Prize, Musical America’s “Ensemble of the Year” and collaborations with many of the greatest artists of our time.

The arrival of Paul Watkins in 2013 has had a profound effect on the Emerson Quartet. Mr. Watkins, a distinguished soloist, award-winning conductor, and devoted chamber musician, joined the ensemble in its 37th season, and his dedication and enthusiasm have infused the Quartet with a warm, rich tone and a palpable joy in the collaborative process. The reconfigured group has been praised by critics and fans alike around the world. “The Emerson brought the requisite virtuosity to every phrase. But this music is equally demanding emotionally and intellectually, and the group’s powers of concentration and sustained intensity were at least as impressive.” The New York Times

Having celebrated its 40th Anniversary last season– a major milestone for a ground-breaking ensemble that has earned its place in the pantheon of the classical chamber music world, the Emerson looks towards the future by collaborating with today’s most esteemed composers and premiering new works, thus proving their commitment to keeping the art form of the string quartet alive and more relevant than ever. In 2016, Universal Music Group reissued their entire Deutsche Grammophon discography in a 52-CD boxed set, and in April 2017, the Quartet released its latest album, Chaconnes and Fantasias: Music of Britten and Purcell, the first release on Universal Music Classics’ new US classical record label, Decca Gold. The 2017-2018 season reflects all aspects of the Emerson’s venerable artistry with high-profile projects, collaborations and tours. In Fall 2017, the Emerson continues its series at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC for its 39th season, and performances at the Lincoln Center’s White Lights Festival and at Alice Tully Hall. Other North American highlights of the season include a subsequent performance at the Princeton University of Shostakovich and The Black Monk: A Russian Fantasy, the new theatrical production co-created by the acclaimed theater director James Glossman and the Quartet’s violinist, Philip Setzer; collaborations with the Calidore Quartet at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, CA and the Dover Quartet at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.; and concert appearances at Cleveland, Philadelphia and Corpus Christi Chamber Music Societies, Vancouver Recital Society, Chamber Music Houston, Hopkins Center for the Performing Arts, South Mountain Concerts, Duke Performances and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI, as well as in Sleepy Hollow, NY, Louisville, KY, Shreveport, LA and Richmond, VA. In April 2018, the renowned pianist Evgeny Kissin joins the Emerson for three performances at New York’s Carnegie Hall, Chicago’s Symphony Hall and Boston’s Jordan Hall, and appears with the Quartet in France, Germany and Austria. Throughout the season, The Emerson embarks on multiple tours in South America, Asia and Europe comprising dates in Austria, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

Formed in 1976 and based in New York City, the Emerson was one of the first quartets whose violinists alternated in the first chair position. The Emerson Quartet, which took its name from the American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, is Quartet-in-Residence at Stony Brook University. During the spring of 2016, full-time Stony Brook faculty members Philip Setzer and Lawrence Dutton received the honor of Distinguished Professor, and part-time faculty members Eugene Drucker and Paul Watkins were awarded the title of Honorary Distinguished Professor. In January 2015, the Quartet received the Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award, Chamber Music America’s highest honor, in recognition of its significant and lasting contribution to the chamber music field.

Program

Krumpholtz: Sonata in F major
Damase: Sonata number 1
Gaubert: Trois Aquarelles

Flutist Bärli Nugent has always cared most about deeply engaging with communities around her by seeing opportunities in unexpected places and sharing the incomparable power of music to affect people’s lives in meaningful ways. Her lengthy professional affiliations as founder of the Naumburg Award-winning and internationally-touring Aspen Wind Quintet, creator of the landmark Aspen Wind Quintet and Kids Project, principal flutist of Marin Alsop’s Concordia Orchestra and artist-faculty at the Aspen Music Festival and School, have culminated in her current position as Assistant Dean and faculty at The Juilliard School, where she continues to innovate from an office whose door is always open.

Ms. Nugent grew up in Wilton, and graduated from Juilliard with Bachelor and Master of Music degrees. Her twenty-year international performing career began as a founding member of the Aspen Wind Quintet, winners of the 1984 Naumburg Chamber Music Award. Performing over 1,000 concerts in venues as diverse as St. Petersburg’s regal Philharmonic Hall, Amsterdam’s legendary Concertgebouw, the Frank Lloyd Wright house near Chicago, a hall filled with soccer-crazed young men in the Algerian village of Tizi Ouzou, a drafty Montana high school gym in a driving snowstorm, and a Finnish candle-lit logging cabin near the Arctic Circle, her passion for this work was to introduce audiences barely familiar with the quintet’s instruments to the joy and beauty of woodwind chamber music. And her love of teaching led to the creation of the Aspen Wind Quintet and Kids Project, in which hundreds of young people across the United States were given the opportunity to shine in their hometowns by performing with the Quintet as soloists. This hands-on community engagement later became the model for the Aspen Music Festival’s Outreach program. The Quintet’s commissions also reflected her vision of unusual engagement, including composers as diverse as Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Ward, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Frank Zappa and seven-year-old Juilliard Pre-College composition student Taktin Oei. And in her hometown of New York City, she was asked to create a chamber music program for InterSchool Orchestras of New York, serving hundreds of school children from around the New York Metropolitan area.

She has served as juror for international competitions including the London International String Quartet Competition, Concert Artists Guild, the Coleman and Fischoff Chamber Music Competitions, and was cited in a recent issue of Chamber Music magazine by members of the distinguished Jasper String Quartet for giving them a key piece of advice that altered their growth as a quartet. She has also written several articles for that magazine, including one detailing her experiences coaching string quartets and building a chamber music program in China.

Hailed by the New York Times as “a major artist” following her New York recital debut in 1975, Nancy Allen joined the New York Philharmonic in June of 1999 as Principal Harpist. She maintains a busy international concert schedule as well as heading the harp departments of The Juilliard School, Yale School of Music, and the Aspen Music Festival and School and teaching at Stony Brook University. In addition, Ms. Allen appears regularly with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. In May 2000, Ms. Allen was featured in the Philharmonic’s United States premiere of Siegfried Matthus’s Concerto for Flute, Harp and Orchestra, with Music Director Kurt Masur and Principal Flute Robert Langevin.

Ms. Allen’s busy performing schedule includes solo appearances at major international festivals, and has featured collaborations with soprano Kathleen Battle, clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, guitarist Manuel Barrueco, and flutist Carol Wincenc. She has appeared on PBS’s “Live From Lincoln Center” with The Chamber Music Society, as well as with Ms. Battle, and has performed as a recitalist for “Music at the Supreme Court” in Washington, D.C. Ms. Allen’s recording of Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro with the Tokyo Quartet, flutist Ransom Wilson, and clarinetist David Shifrin received a Grammy Award nomination; she can also be heard on Sony Classical, Deutsche Grammophon, and CRI.

Program

Beethoven: Seven variations on Bei Mannern, Welche Liebe Fuhlen from Mozart’s Magic Flute
Fauré: Piano quartet No. 2, Op. 45, in g minor
Sierra: Angel de la Fuego

The members of Opus One – Ida Kavafian, violin, Steven Tenebom, viola, Peter Wiley, cello, and Anne Marie McDermott, piano — are veterans as well as present members of the world’s most prestigious chamber groups, including the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Beaux Arts Trio, and the Orion and Guarneri String Quartets. As soloists as well as chamber musicians, they are familiar figures in concert halls throughout the world and have joined together to form one of the most exciting groups performing anywhere. Their dedication to the works of contemporary American composers is reflected in their programming, and the sheer, obvious joy they have in performing together communicates directly to their audiences.

Opus One is deeply committed to chamber music education. One of the innovative projects they have developed is workshops with amateurs as well as students. Concepts to help break down barriers include special concerts in which the members of Opus One collaborate with young musicians.

1998-99 marked the inaugural season of Opus One. The group made its debut on October 23, 1998, at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Subsequent seasons have included debuts in New York, Detroit, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, San Diego, Philadelphia, and Portland, Oregon. Their orchestral debut was with the Chattanooga Symphony, performing Beethoven’s Triple Concerto and a work written by Douglas Lowry especially for the group to perform with orchestra. Along with the Pittsburgh and Cleveland Chamber Music Societies, Opus One commissioned the composer Stephen Hartke to write a new quartet, “Beyond Words,” an emotional tribute to the victims of 9/11. The piece was premiered in December, 2001.

Program

Debussy: Clair de Lune (Suite Bergamasque)
Debussy: Images Book II
Schumann: Fantasie op. 17
Debussy: La terrasse des audiences au clair de lune (Préludes Book II)
Debussy: Images Book I
Beethoven: Sonata in f minor op. 57 ‘Appassionata’

Named by The Economist as one of 20 Living Polymaths, British pianist Stephen Hough is a rare renaissance man of our time. Over the course of a long and distinguished career as one of the world’s leading concert pianists, he has also excelled as a writer and composer. Mr. Hough combines an exceptional facility and tonal palette with a uniquely inquisitive musical personality, and his musical achievements have resulted in many awards and accolades for his concerts and a discography of more than fifty recordings.

In 2001 Mr. Hough became the first classical performing artist to win a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. He was awarded the 2008 Northwestern University’s Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano and went on to win the Royal Philharmonic Society Instrumentalist Award in 2010. He has appeared with almost all of the major European and American orchestras and plays recitals regularly in halls and concert series around the world. His recent engagements include recitals in Berlin, Chicago, Hong Kong, London, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Shanghai, and Sydney; performances with the Czech, London, Los Angeles, and New York Philharmonics, the Chicago, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, St. Louis, and Toronto symphonies, the Cleveland, Minnesota, Philadelphia, Budapest Festival and Russian National Orchestras; and a performance televised worldwide with the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle. He is also a regular guest at festivals such as Aldeburgh, Aspen, Blossom, Edinburgh, Hollywood Bowl, Mostly Mozart, Ravinia, Salzburg, Tanglewood, and the BBC Proms, where he has made over 20 appearances and performed the complete Tchaikovsky concertos over four programs, a series he later performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Orchestra Hall.

Mr. Hough’s 15/16 season began with an extensive tour to Asia, which included complete Beethoven cycles in Australia and Singapore, followed by recitals in Beijing, Taipei and Tokyo. That season continued with return appearances with the Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the San Francisco, Montreal, Houston, Vancouver and New Jersey symphonies among others in North America as well as re-engagements with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Europe; and recitals at New York’s 92nd Street Y, London’s Barbican Centre, and in Quebec, Kansas City and at Dartmouth and Northwestern University.

Many of Mr. Hough’s catalogue of over 50 albums have garnered international prizes including the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis, Diapason d’Or, Monde de la Musique, several Grammy nominations, eight Gramophone Magazine Awards including ‘Record of the Year’ in 1996 and 2003, and the Gramophone ‘Gold Disc’ Award in 2008, which named his complete Saint-Saens Piano Concertos as the best recording of the past 30 years. His 2012 recording of the complete Chopin Waltzes received the Diapason d’Or de l’Annee, France’s most prestigious recording award. His 2005 live recording of the Rachmaninoff Piano Concertos was the fastest selling recording in Hyperion’s history, while his 1987 recording of the Hummel concertos remains Chandos’ best-selling disc to date. His most recent releases, all for Hyperion, include Grieg Lyric Pieces; a recording of his mass, “Missa Mirabilis,” with the Colorado Symphony and Andrew Litton; a recital disc with Steven Isserlis including Mr. Hough’s Sonata for cello and piano (Les Adieux); a solo recital of Scriabin and Janacek; and the Dvorak and Schumann concertos with the CBSO and Andris Nelsons.

Mr. Hough is also the featured artist in an iPad app about the Liszt Piano Sonata, which includes a fully-filmed performance and was released by the cutting-edge, award-winning company Touch Press.

Published by Josef Weinberger, Mr. Hough has composed works for orchestra, choir, chamber ensemble and solo piano. His “Mass of Innocence and Experience” and “Missa Mirabilis” were respectively commissioned by and performed at London’s Westminster Abbey and Westminster Cathedral. In 2012, the Indianapolis Symphony commissioned and performed Mr. Hough’s own orchestration of “Missa Mirabilis,” which was subsequently performed by the BBC Symphony as part of Mr. Hough’s residency with the orchestra. Mr. Hough has also been commissioned by the musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic, the Gilmore Foundation, London’s National Gallery, Wigmore Hall, Le Musée de Louvre and Musica Viva Australia among others.

A noted writer, Mr. Hough regularly contributes articles for The Guardian, The Times, The Tablet, Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine and wrote a blog for The Telegraph for seven years which became one of the most popular and influential forums for cultural discussion and for which he wrote over six hundred articles. His book, The Bible as Prayer, was published by Continuum and Paulist Press in 2007. Mr. Hough resides in London where he is a visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Music and holds the International Chair of Piano Studies at his alma mater, the Royal Northern College in Manchester. He is also a member of the faculty at The Juilliard School. In 2016 he was named “International Artist of the Year” by Limelight Magazine.

Program

Haydn: String Quartet in D major, Op. 76, No. 5
Bartók: String Quartet No. 5, Sz. 102, BB 110
Dvořák: String Quartet No. 11 in C major, Op. 61

The Juilliard String Quartet, widely known as the quintessential American string quartet, welcomed its new cellist, Astrid Schween, and celebrated its 70th anniversary during the 2016/17 season with return engagements in Philadelphia, San Francisco, Detroit, Toronto, Louisville, Cleveland, Tucson, and New York’s Alice Tully Hall. The JSQ premiered Fragments, String Quartet No. 6 by renowned Argentine-American composer Mario Davidovsky, jointly commissioned by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music and the Juilliard School. The Quartet toured Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, and Turkey, including appearances at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Musikverein in Vienna, and the Berlin Konzerthaus.

Devoted master teachers, the members of the Juilliard String Quartet offer classes and open rehearsals when on tour. At the Juilliard School, where they are the String Quartet in Residence, all are sought-after members of the string and chamber music faculty and annually, in May, they are hosts of the 5-day internationally recognized Juilliard String Quartet Seminar.

Joseph Lin was a founding member of the Formosa Quartet, winner of the 2006 London International String Quartet Competition. He was named a Presidential Scholar in the Arts and has won numerous awards, including the Concert Artists Guild International Competition, the Pro Musicis International Award and First Prize at the inaugural Michael Hill World Violin Competition in New Zealand. Mr. Lin has appeared as a soloist with the New Japan Philharmonic, the Sapporo Symphony, the Taiwan National Symphony, the Auckland Philharmonia, the Ukraine National Philharmonic, and the Boston Symphony.

Violinist Ronald Copes has toured extensively with Music from Marlboro ensembles, the Los Angeles and Dunsmuir Piano Quartets, and with the Juilliard String Quartet. Mr. Copes has recorded numerous solo and chamber music works for radio and television broadcast as well as for Sony Classical, Orion, CRI, Klavier, Bridge, New World Records, ECM and the Musical Heritage Society. He has worked closely with composers including Stephen Hartke and Donald Crockett, and has garnered prizes in the Artists’ Advisory Council International Competition, the Merriweather Post Competition and the Concours International d’Exécution Musicale in Geneva. He joined the faculty of The Juilliard School in 1997, where he serves as chair of the violin department.

Roger Tapping, viola, joined the Julliard Quartet and the Juilliard School viola faculty in 2013. He moved from London to the USA in 1995 to join the Takács Quartet. His decade with them included many Beethoven and Bartók cycles in major cities around the world. He has been on the viola faculty of the New England Conservatory, where he also directed the Chamber Music program. Mr. Tapping played and recorded with a number of London’s leading chamber ensembles, including Britain’s longest established quartet, the Allegri Quartet. He was a founding member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. He has performed as a guest with many distinguished quartets from the U.S. and Europe, and he was a member of the Boston Chamber Music Society.

Cellist Astrid Schween is an internationally recognized soloist, chamber artist, and teacher. Her recent appearances have included performances with the Boston, Memphis, Detroit and Seattle Chamber Music societies, the Boston Trio and ongoing recital partnerships with celebrated pianists Randall Hodgkinson and Michael Gurt. As a longtime member of the Lark Quartet, Ms. Schween performed at major venues around the world and received many honors including the Naumburg Chamber Music Award. During her tenure, the quartet produced critically acclaimed recordings for the Arabesque, Decca/Argo, New World, CRI, and Point labels, and commissioned numerous works.

In September 2016, she succeeded Joel Krosnick as cellist of the Juilliard String Quartet and joined the Juilliard faculty.

Photo by Steve J Sherman from Colbert Artists Management.

Sunday, April 9, 2017 at 4 pm

Program

Beethoven: Variations on Mozart’s “La Ci Darem La Mano” for Two Oboes and English Horn
Beethoven: Sextet for 2 clarinets, 2 horns, 2 bassoons
Beethoven: Rondino for 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 horns, 2 bassoons
Beethoven: Octet for 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 horns, 2 bassoons

One of only two wind players to have been awarded the Avery Fisher Prize since the award’s inception in 1974, David Shifrin is in constant demand as an orchestral soloist, recitalist and chamber music collaborator.

Mr. Shifrin has appeared with the Philadelphia and Minnesota Orchestras and the Dallas, Seattle, Houston, Milwaukee, Detroit and Denver symphonies among many others in the US, and internationally with orchestras in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. In addition, he has served as principal clarinetist with the Cleveland Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra (under Stokowski), the Honolulu and Dallas symphonies, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and New York Chamber Symphony. Mr. Shifrin has also received critical acclaim as a recitalist, appearing at such venues as Alice Tully Hall, Weill Recital Hall and Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall and the 92nd Street Y in New York City as well as at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. A sought after a chamber musician, he has collaborated frequently with such distinguished ensembles and artists as the Tokyo and Emerson String Quartets, Wynton Marsalis, and pianists Emanuel Ax and André Watts.

An artist member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 1989, David Shifrin served as its artistic director from 1992 to 2004. He has toured extensively throughout the US with CMSLC and appeared in several national television broadcasts on PBS’s Live From Lincoln Center. He has been the Artistic Director of Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon since 1981 and is also the Artistic Director of the Phoenix Chamber Music Festival.

David Shifrin joined the faculty at the Yale School of Music in 1987 and was appointed Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society of Yale and Yale’s annual concert series at Carnegie Hall in September 2008. He has also served on the faculties of The Juilliard School, University of Southern California, University of Michigan, Cleveland Institute of Music and the University of Hawaii. In 2007 he was awarded an honorary professorship at China’s Central Conservatory in Beijing.

Mr. Shifrin continues to broaden the repertoire for clarinet and orchestra by commissioning and championing the works of 20th and 21st century American composers including, among others, John Adams, Joan Tower, Stephen Albert, Bruce Adolphe, Ezra Laderman, Lalo Schifrin, David Schiff, John Corigliano, Bright Sheng and Ellen Zwilich.

William Purvis pursues a multifaceted career both in the U.S. and abroad as horn soloist, chamber musician, conductor, and educator. A passionate advocate of new music, he has parti- cipated in numerous premieres including horn concerti by Peter Lieberson, Bayan Northcott, Krzysztof Penderecki, and Paul Lansky; horn trios by Poul Ruders and Paul Lansky; Sonate en Forme de Préludes by Steven Stucky; and recent premieres by Elliott Carter, Retracing II for Solo Horn and Nine by Five with the New York Woodwind Quintet. He is a member of the New York Woodwind Quintet, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Yale Brass Trio, and the Triton Horn Trio, and is an emeritus member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. A frequent guest artist with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Boston Chamber Music Society, Mr. Purvis has collaborated with many of the world’s most esteemed string quartets, including the Juilliard, Tokyo, Orion, Brentano, Daedalus, Mendelssohn, Sibelius, and Fine Arts string quartets. A Grammy Award winner, Mr. Purvis has recorded extensively on numerous labels including Deutsche Grammophon, Sony Classical, Naxos, Koch and Bridge. He is cur- rently Professor in the Practice of Horn and Chamber Music at the Yale School of Music, where he is also coordinator of winds and brasses, and serves as director of the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments.

Frank Morelli studied with Stephen Maxym at the Manhattan School of Music and later became the first bassoonist to be awarded a doctorate by the Juilliard School. He has made nine appearances as soloist at Carnegie Hall playing concertos, sinfonias concertantes, and even a solo ballad with the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band. He joined the Yale faculty in 1994. A prolific chamber musician, Frank Morelli has appeared with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center on numerous occasions. He has participated in major music festivals including Norfolk, Marlboro, Banff, and Music@Menlo. He is a member of Festival Chamber Music and of the woodwind quintet Windscape, which is in residence at the Manhattan School of Music and with whom he has recorded two recent CDs. Mr. Morelli also serves on the faculties of the Juilliard School, the Manhattan School of Music, and SUNY Stony Brook. He is editor of Stravinsky: Difficult Passages for Bassoon and has several transcriptions for bassoon and woodwind quintet to his credit, published by Trevco Music.

Stephen Taylor holds the Mrs. John D. Rockefeller III solo oboe chair with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He is also solo oboe with the New York Woodwind Quintet, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble (where he is co-director of chamber music), the American Composers Orchestra, the New England Bach Festival Orchestra, the renowned contemporary music group Speculum Musicae, and plays as co-principal oboe with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. He appears regularly as soloist and chamber musician at such major festivals as Spoleto, Caramoor International Music Festival, Aldeburgh, Bravo! Colorado, Music from Angel Fire, Chamber Music Northwest, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival and Schleswig-Holstein. Trained at the Juilliard School with teachers Lois Wann and Robert Bloom, Mr. Taylor is a member of its faculty as well as of SUNY Stony Brook and the Manhattan School of Music. The Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University awarded him a performer’s grant in 1981. Mr. Taylor joined the faculty of the Yale School of Music in the fall of 2005.

Sunday, January 22, 2017 at 4:00 pm

Program

Dvořák: Selections from Miniatures, Op. 75a (two violins and viola)
Mozart: Viola Quintet in B-flat Major, K. 174
Mendelssohn: Viola Quintet in B-flat Major, Op. 87

Violinist Daniel Phillips enjoys a versatile career as a veteran chamber musician, solo artist and teacher. He began violin studies at age four with his father Eugene Phillips, a composer and former violinist with the Pittsburgh Symphony, and graduated from Juilliard. His major teachers are Ivan Galamian, Sally Thomas, Sandor Vegh and George Neikrug. He won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in 1976. In 1985, he toured and recorded in a string quartet with Gidon Kremer, Kim Kashkashian, and Yo-Yo Ma.

Daniel Phillips is a founding member of the 29-year-old Orion String Quartet, which has residencies at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Mannes. Available recordings are the complete quartets of Beethoven and Leon Kirchner, and works written for them by Wynton Marsalis, Chick Corea, John Harbison, and Marc Neikrug. They performed the Beethoven cycle in London to inaugurate the new Kings Place Concert Hall. This season includes concerts at the Library of Congress, Lincoln Center, and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. He is professor of violin at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, CUNY and serves on the faculties of Juilliard, Mannes College of Music, and Bard College Conservatory.

Born in Strasbourg, France and based now in New York City, Arnaud Sussmann trained at the Conservatoire de Paris and the Juilliard School with Boris Garlitsky and Itzhak Perlman. Winner of several international competitions, including the Andrea Postacchini of Italy and Vatelot/Rampal of France, he was named a Starling Fellow in 2006, an honor which allowed him to be Mr. Perlman’s teaching assistant for two years.

Arnaud Sussmann has appeared with the American Symphony Orchestra, Stamford Symphony, Chattanooga Symphony, Minnesota Sinfonia, Lexington Philharmonic, Jerusalem Symphony and France’s Nice Orchestra. Further concerto appearances have included a tour of Israel and concerts at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Dresden Music Festival in Germany and at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.

Belgian-American violist Dimitri Murrath has made his mark as a soloist on the international scene, performing regularly in venues including Jordan Hall (Boston), Kennedy Center (Washington), Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room, Royal Festival Hall (London), Kioi Hall (Tokyo), the National Auditorium (Madrid), and Théâtre de la Ville (Paris).

A recipient of a 2014 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Dimitri was a first prize winner at the Primrose International Viola Competition. Other awards include second prize at the First Tokyo International Viola Competition, the special prize for the contemporary work at the ARD Munich Competition, and a fellowship from the Belgian American Educational Foundation. In 2012, he was named laureate of the Juventus Festival, an award recognizing young European soloists.

Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt is the founding violist of the Dover Quartet, First Prize winner and sweeper of every special award at the Banff International String Quartet Competition 2013 and winner of the Gold Medal and Grand Prize in the 2010 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. Her numerous awards also include First Prize of the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition and top prizes at the Tokyo International Viola Competition and the Sphinx Competition.

Ms. Pajaro-van de Stadt’s summer festival appearances include Marlboro, Bowdoin, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Sarasota Strings, Bravo! Vail Valley, and La Jolla Summerfest, as well as Italy’s Emilia Romagna Festival. In addition to appearances as soloist with the Tokyo Philharmonic, the Jacksonville Symphony, and the Sphinx Chamber Orchestra, she has performed in recitals and chamber music concerts throughout the United States, Latin America, and Europe, including an acclaimed 2011 debut recital at London’s Wigmore Hall.

Grammy-nominated cellist Peter Wiley attended the Curtis Institute at just 13 years of age, under the tutelage of David Soyer. He continued his precocious accomplishments with his appointment as principal cellist of the Cincinnati Symphony at age 20, after one year in the Pittsburgh Symphony. He made his concerto debut at Carnegie Hall in 1986 with the New York String Orchestra conducted by Alexander Schneider.

As a recitalist he has appeared at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. A member of the Beaux Arts Trio from 1987 to 1998, Mr. Wiley succeeded his teacher, David Soyer, as cellist of the Guarneri String Quartet from 2001 to 2009. He is also a member of the piano quartet Opus One, with Ida Kavafian, Steven Tenenbom and Anne-Marie McDermott. Mr. Wiley has enjoyed a long-term association with the Marlboro Music Festival and is currently on the faculties of the Bard College Conservatory of Music, the University of Maryland, and the Curtis Institute of Music.

Sunday, November 13, 2016 at 4 pm

Program

HAYDN Sonata in E-flat major, Hob.XVI:52
CHOPIN Nocturne in C sharp minor, B. 49
CHOPIN Nocturne in G Major, Op. 37 No 2
SHOSTAKOVICH 24 Preludes and Fugues – No. 5 in D Major & No. 24 in D minor
-Intermission-
SCHUBERT Serenade
BEETHOVEN Sonata No. 21 in C major, Op. 53 “Waldstein”

Born in Shenzhen, China, Wei Luo began piano lessons at age 5, and gave her debut recital in Hong Kong at age 6. Winner of numerous competitions in China, Wei also claimed first prize in the 11th Chopin International Competition for Young Pianists in Poland and the 2nd Rachmaninov International Piano Competition for Young Pianists in Frankfurt, both in 2010. She made her orchestra debut with the Shanghai Philharmonic in 2010 with conductor Muhai Tang performing Prokofiev Concerto No. 3.

Exploring a depth of core repertoire, Wei Luo has already performed major concertos of Rachmaninoff, Beethoven and Prokofiev, and recital repertoire of Bach, Schumann, Mussorgsky, Chopin, Ravel and Haydn. She has participated in masterclasses with Leon Fleisher, Richard Goode, Seymour Lipkin, Abbey Simon and Nelita True.

In 2012 she was accepted to the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music where she currently studies with Gary Graffman and Robert McDonald. Wei was honored to be the artist selected to perform in the Dean’s Honors recital at Curtis in 2014.

September 25, 2016 at 4 pm

Program

Mozart: Quartet in B-flat major, K. 589
David Ludwig: Pale Blue Dot
Beethoven: Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 130 with the Grosse Fuge, Op. 133

The Dover Quartet — violinists Joel Link and Bryan Lee, violist Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, and cellist Cameron Shaw — was formed in 2008 at the Curtis Institute of Music, and continued their studies as Graduate Quartet-in-Residence at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music from 2011-13. Because of the exceptional faculty at both of these institutions, the group draws from the musical lineage of the Cleveland, Vermeer, Concord, and Guarneri Quartets. The Quartet has been mentored extensively by Shmuel Ashkenasi, James Dunham, Norman Fischer, Kenneth Goldsmith, Joseph Silverstein, Arnold Steinhardt, Michael Tree, and Peter Wiley. The Quartet is dedicated to sharing their music with underserved communities and is an active member of Music for Food, an initiative to help musicians fight hunger in their home communities.

The Dover Quartet catapulted to international stardom following a stunning sweep of the 2013 Banff International String Quartet Competition, becoming one of the most in-demand ensembles in the world. The New Yorker recently dubbed them “the young American string quartet of the moment.” In 2013-14, the Quartet was the first ever Quartet-in-Residence for the venerated Curtis Institute of Music, and is now faculty Quartet-in-Residence at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music.

The Dover Quartet participates regularly in some of the continent’s most reputable summer festivals, including Chamber Music Northwest, Artosphere, Bravo Vail, and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and are active proponents of new music. This season included a premier of Pulitzer-Prize winning Caroline Shaw’s new quartet at Dumbarton Oaks, and next season will include the premieres of multiple commissions, including works from Richard Danielpour and Michael Djupstrom.