Aug. 24-Sept. 1: Composer Robert Sirota’s Muzzy Ridge Concerts Presents Fourth Season of Summer Performances in Searsmont, ME
L-R Larsen-Choi Duo (Cellist Benjamin Larsen, Pianist Hyungjin Choi);
Gossamer Trio (Flutist Carol Wincenc; Cellist Claire Marie Solomon, Harpist Nancy Allen),
Composer and Muzzy Ridge Founder, Robert Sirota
Composer Robert Sirota’s Muzzy Ridge Concerts Presents Fourth Season of Summer Performances in Searsmont, ME
Saturday, August 24 and Sunday, August 25, 2024 at 3pm
Saturday, August 31 and Sunday, September 1, 2024 at 3pm
More Information
“A unique and intimate concert experience” – The Republican Journal
robertsirota.com/muzzy-ridge-concerts
Searsmont, ME – Composer Robert Sirota’s annual Muzzy Ridge Concerts series returns for a fourth season in summer 2024. This year’s four performances are once again presented over two weekends on August 24-25 and August 31-September 1, all at 3pm.
On Saturday, August 24 and Sunday, August 25, 2024, the Larsen-Choi Duo – husband-and-wife-duo cellist Benjamin Larsen and pianist Hyungjin Choi – will perform a stylistically diverse program featuring music by Robert Sirota and Johannes Brahms, plus jazz improvisation by Choi. Over the following weekend – Saturday, August 31 and Sunday, September 1, 2024 – Muzzy Ridge Concerts will welcome the Gossamer Trio (GRAMMY®-nominated flutist Carol Wincenc; internationally-acclaimed cellist Claire Marie Solomon, and GRAMMY®- nominated New York Philharmonic principal harpist Nancy Allen).
All the concerts will be presented in the Searsmont, Maine studio of series founder and Artistic Director Robert Sirota – the creative sanctuary where he has composed a great deal of his work throughout the past 35 years. Each of the concert programs performed on the two Saturdays will be repeated on the respective Sundays. Performances will run for approximately 60 minutes with no intermission. Indoor seating is limited to 50 patrons with an additional 20 outdoor seats.
On August 24 and 25, the Larsen-Choi Duo will shine a light on music across different historical eras and musical genres, performing Sirota’s Cello Sonata No. 2; Brahms’ Cello Sonata No. 2 in F Major, Op. 99; plus an original jazz improvisation by Hyungjin Choi. Written in 1886, Brahms’ Cello Sonata No. 2 evokes a sense of feisty passion intertwined with dark drama and slower contemplation over four movements. Robert Sirota composed his Sonata No. 2 for Cello and Piano specifically for Larsen and Choi in 2018, and conceived it as a companion piece for his Sonata No. 1 (which he wrote in 1988 for another married duo, cellist Norman Fischer and pianist Jeanne Kierman). Sirota describes the second sonata as having “architecture [that] mirrors and refracts the earlier piece.” Though Choi was classically trained from a young age, her added experience and training as a jazz pianist allows her to join together the beauty of these two genres in her performances and compositions, as shown through her original and improvisatory work.
Presented over the series’ second weekend, August 31 and September 1, the Gossamer Trio will perform an extensive program showcasing the works of several different composers and highlighting music from throughout the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries including Promenade Sentimentale (1904) by Théodore Dubois; Sleepers Awake (2020) and Folksong Suite by William Healy; Assobio A Jato, (The Jet Whistle) (1950) by Heitor Villa-Lobos, Sonatine En Trio (between 1903 & 1905) by Maurice Ravel, Après Un Reve (1878) and Morceau De Concours (1898) by Gabriel Fauré; and Romanian Folk Dances (1915) by Béla Bartók.
Tickets for all Muzzy Ridge Concerts performances are now on sale at www.robertsirota.com/muzzy-ridge-concerts.
About the Artists:
About Hyungjin Choi: A native of South Korea, Hyungjin Choi is a New York-based pianist covering a broad spectrum of genres. She has recorded and performed actively in many venues including Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, Le Poisson Rouge. With her husband, cellist Benjamin Larsen, she has been actively performing worldwide in the Larsen-Choi duo, covering a wide range of repertoire, including world premieres by notable composers such as Robert Sirota and Ke-chia Chen. Choi's debut album, Tales Of A Dreamer, was released on PND Records in March 2014. Her arranging work can be found in many records, including the Korean Music Award nominated, Coffee Calls for a Cigarette, and Lara Downes’ album Holes in the Sky, which was released on Sony Masterworks, and ranked number one on the Billboard chart. After training as a classical pianist from an early age, Choi graduated from the Seoul Institute of the Arts in 2006, and moved to New York in 2008 to attend the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, where she earned a BFA degree. She also holds a Master’s degree for collaborative piano at Manhattan School of Music, where she currently works as a staff pianist.
About Benjamin Larsen: Cellist Benjamin Larsen made his solo debut in 1999 at the Merryall Center for the Arts, where critic for the Danbury News Times, Frank Merkling, called him “remarkably gifted,” with “a charming, warm tone.” He has performed in various venues in the Tri-State area, including concerto performances with the Hartford Symphony and Farmington Valley Symphony, and solo and chamber performances in Asia and Europe. He is an avid chamber musician, and is founder and artistic director of the Brooklyn chamber series, Concerts on the Slope. He is on the faculty of the Music School of Westchester, Brooklyn Music School, Tian Song Musical Arts, has a private studio, and is an experienced chamber music coach. Larsen has performed at summer music festivals including the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Castleman’s Quartet Program, Music@Menlo and Pacific Music Festival, and has won top prizes in several competitions. His chamber music mentors have included members of the Emerson, Tokyo, American and Keller String Quartets, as well as Robert Mann, Nicholas Mann, Peter Frankl, Andre Michel Schub, Daniel Epstein, and Sylvia Rosenberg. Past teachers include Eric Dahlin, David Finckel, Julia Lichten, and Clive Greensmith, as well as lessons with Marta Casals Istomin and Bonnie Hampton. Larsen holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from Manhattan School of Music, where he was the recipient of the Hans and Klara Bauer Scholarship and the 2011 Pablo Casals Award. He plays on an anonymous 19th century cello.
About Carol Wincenc: Hailed "queen of the flute" by New York Magazine, flutist Carol Wincenc has appeared as soloist with major orchestras worldwide, including the Chicago, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Detroit, and London symphonies, the BBC, Warsaw, and Buffalo Philharmonics, as well as the Los Angeles, Stuttgart, and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestras. Ms. Wincenc has collaborated with such celebrated ensembles as the Emerson, Tokyo, Guarneri, Cleveland, Juilliard and Escher String Quartets, and performed with Jessye Norman, Emanuel Ax and Yo-Yo Ma. She plays with the New York Woodwind Quintet, Les Amies with New York Philharmonic Principals, harpist Nancy Allen and violist Cynthia Phelps, and The Gossamer Trio with cellist Claire Marie Solomon and harpist Nancy Allen. Her newest collaboration Duo Coquelicot is with the Boston-based cellist Velleda Miragias. Her solo career was launched in 1978 when she won the first prize at the prestigious Naumburg Competition for flute. Since that time she has garnered numerous awards including the Lifetime Achievement Awards from both the China and USA National Flute Associations, the National Society of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Music, and Distinguished Alumni Awards from Brevard Music Center and Manhattan School of Music. In addition, she received a GRAMMY® nomination and a Diapason d'Or Award for her recording of the Christopher Rouse’s Flute Concerto with the Houston Symphony, a Recording of Special Merit Award with pianist András Schiff, and Gramophone magazine's "Pick of the Month" with the Buffalo Philharmonic.
About Claire Marie Solomon: Claire Marie Solomon, cellist, is a dynamic chamber, solo and orchestral musician based in Charleston, SC. She performs regularly with the Charleston Symphony and the Sarasota Orchestra in Florida. She has toured with the Staatskapelle Weimar, and spent many summers performing at the Aspen Music Festival. Solomon is a graduate of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, where she won the 2017 Cello Competition performing Saint-Saens Cello Concerto No. 1. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in psychology from Yale University, where she served as principal of the orchestra and played and toured with Yale’s famed all-cello rock ensemble, Low Strung. Solomon has taught for over ten years maintaining a private studio as well as her popular online course, Hello Cello!. Passionate about all musical genres, she has produced covers and original music under the handle Clairemarie.cello. She recently founded a folk trio, Summerauer, with mandolinist Ben Somerville and guitarist Katelyn Fajardo. She studied primarily with Eric Kim, Wolfram Koessel, and Richard Aaron as well as piano with Hélène Jeanney. Solomon performs on a 2021 William Whedbee cello, and a 1840s Knopf-Bausch bow.
About Nancy Allen: Nancy Allen has a solo career spanning 50 years. Principal harpist of the New York Philharmonic since 1999, Allen was the first prize winner of Israel’s Fifth International Harp Competition. She was sponsored by a National Endowment for the Arts Solo Recitalist Award, Affiliate Artists and the Pro Musicis Foundation. As an Angel/ EMI recording artist, her recording “The Music of Ravel and Debussy” earned a GRAMMY® nomination. A student in the last class of the legendary Marcel Grandjany, Allen also studied with Pearl Chertok, Lily Laskine, and with the renowned harpist Susann McDonald. Highlights of her career include performances for Music at the Supreme Court hosted by Justice Sandra Day O’Conner and for the 1986 opening of the Aspen Silverqueen Gondola at the top of Ajax Mountain along with singer John Denver. She has enjoyed close collaborations with soprano Kathleen Battle, guitarist Manuel Barrueco, flutists Carol Wincenc and Ransom Wilson, and with the Tokyo and American String Quartets. Nancy Allen has been head of the harp department of The Juilliard School since 1986. Her students hold major orchestral positions and prizes internationally. A veteran of summer music festivals, she has been a faculty/artist with the Aspen Music Festival since 1976.
About Robert Sirota: Over five decades, composer Robert Sirota has developed a distinctive voice, clearly discernible in all of his work – whether symphonic, choral, stage, or chamber music. Writing in the Portland Press Herald, Allan Kozinn asserts: “Sirota’s musical language is personal and undogmatic, in the sense that instead of aligning himself with any of the competing contemporary styles, he follows his own internal musical compass.”
Robert Sirota’s chamber works have been performed by Alarm Will Sound; Washington Square Contemporary Music Society; Sequitur; Sandbox Percussion; Yale Camerata; yMusic; pianist Jeffrey Kahane; TACTUS Ensemble; Chameleon Arts Ensemble; New Hudson Saxophone Quartet; Left Bank Concert Society; Dinosaur Annex; the Chiara, American, Telegraph, Ethel, Elmyr, and Blair String Quartets; the Peabody, Concord, and Webster Trios; and the Fischer Duo, and at festivals including the Tanglewood, Aspen, Yellow Barn, and Cooperstown music festivals; Bowdoin Gamper and Bowdoin International Music Festival; and Mizzou International Composers Festival. Orchestral performances include the Seattle, Vermont, Virginia, East Texas, Lincoln (NE), Meridian (MS), New Haven, Greater Bridgeport, Oradea (Romania) and Saint Petersburg (Russia) symphonies, as well as conservatory orchestras of Oberlin, Peabody, Manhattan School of Music, Toronto, and Singapore. He is currently at work on Rising, a dance piece in collaboration with the Neave Trio, Pigeonwing Dance, and choreographer Gabrielle Lamb.
In 2021, Sirota launched the Muzzy Ridge Concerts series at his studio in Searsmont, Maine. Held in August each year, Muzzy Ridge Concerts is committed to presenting intimate performances by world-class musicians. Featured musicians have included the Fischer Duo, the Neave Trio, flutist Carol Wincenc, composer/pianist Nico Muhly, violist Nadia Sirota, violist Jonah Sirota, oboist Regina (Gigi) Brady, organist/pianist Victoria Sirota, cellist Velléda Miragias, violinist Laurie Carney, pianist David Friend.
Recipient of grants from the Guggenheim and Watson Foundations, United States Information Agency, National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer, and the American Music Center, Sirota’s works are recorded on Legacy Recordings, National Sawdust Tracks, and the Capstone, Albany, New Voice, Gasparo and Crystal labels. His music is published by Muzzy Ridge Music, Schott, Music Associates of New York, MorningStar, Theodore Presser, and To the Fore.
Before becoming Director of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University in 1995, Sirota served as Chairman of the Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions at New York University and Director of Boston University's School of Music. From 2005-2012, he was the President of Manhattan School of Music, where he was also a member of the School’s composition faculty.
A native New Yorker, Sirota studied at Juilliard, Oberlin, and Harvard and divides his time between New York and Searsmont, Maine with his wife, Episcopal priest and organist Victoria Sirota. They frequently collaborate on new works, with Victoria as librettist and performer, at times also working with their children, Jonah and Nadia, both world-class violists.