Donato Cabrera Conducts the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra on November 18, 2023

Photo by Stefan Cohen available in high resolution at www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/donato-cabrera

Donato Cabrera Guest Conducts the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra

Saturday November 18, 2023 at 8pm
Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts
300 N. Elm Street | Greensboro, NC

Tickets and information: www.greensborosymphony.org/event/donato-cabrera-maestro-candidate-2/

“Donato Cabrera naturally embraces both his musicians and his audiences as if they’re part of a multigenerational extended family”

– San Francisco Classical Voice

www.greensborosymphony.org | www.donatocabrera.com 

Greensboro, NC – Conductor Donato Cabrera will conduct the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra (GSO) as a Music Director finalist in an upcoming concert on Saturday, November 18, 2023 at 8pm at the Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts (300 N. Elm Street).

For this special performance, Cabrera conducts the GSO in a concert program featuring Short Ride in a Fast Machine by John Adams, Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, and Mahler's Symphony No. 4 in G major. Soprano Maria Valdes will join Cabrera and the GSO as a featured vocalist in the GSO’s performances of Knoxville: Summer of 1915 and Mahler’s Symphony No. 4.

“I’m very excited about the music I’ve chosen for my concert with the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, as well as being able to introduce the wonderful soprano, Maria Valdes, to the Greensboro community,” says Cabrera. “These three pieces by John Adams, Samuel Barber, and Gustav Mahler deal with memories that are formed during one’s youth. Indeed, with Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, the entire symphony is meant to be heard as if through children’s ears! In hearing these works by three completely different composers performed together, we will not only have the opportunity to experience the impact these memories had in the creation of these pieces, but will give us the opportunity to reflect upon the memories and experiences that continue to shape our lives.”

“I am eagerly looking forward to sharing the stage again with Maestro Cabrera, reprising two works which we performed together several years ago,” says Valdes. “Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915 was the first piece I ever performed with orchestra at the age of 19, so it is incredibly dear to my heart. And there is absolutely nothing that compares to being part of a Mahler Symphony. I can't wait to join Donato and the Greensboro Symphony to share such beautiful pieces once again!”

Mexican-American conductor Donato Cabrera is the Artistic and Music Director of the California Symphony and the Music Director of the Las Vegas Philharmonic. He served as the Resident Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony and the Wattis Foundation Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra from 2009-2016. Cabrera is one of only a handful of conductors in history who has conducted performances with the San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Opera, and the San Francisco Ballet. He is dedicated to adventurous programming, a leading advocate for living composers and digital innovation, and is keenly focused on outreach, engagement, and programming that reflects the communities he is serving. Cabrera co-founded the New York-based American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME), which is dedicated to the outstanding performance of masterworks from the 20th and 21st centuries.

Cabrera has made debuts with the Chicago, London, National, and New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, Orquesta Filarmónica de Jalisco, Philharmonic Orchestra of the Staatstheater Cottbus, Orquesta Filarmónica de Boca del Río, Orquesta Sinfónica Concepción, Hartford Symphony, Greensboro Symphony, Nevada Ballet Theatre, New West Symphony, Kalamazoo Symphony, Monterey Symphony, and the Reno Philharmonic. In his Carnegie Hall debut, Cabrera led the world premiere of Mark Grey’s Ătash Sorushan with soprano Jessica Rivera.

Deeply committed to diversity and education through the arts, Cabrera evaluates the scope, breadth, and content of the California Symphony’s music education programs, including its nationally recognized Sound Minds program and adult-education oriented Fresh Look: The Symphony Exposed weekly summer lecture series. As Resident Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony, Cabrera worked closely with its then Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, and frequently conducted the orchestra in a variety of concerts, including all of the education and family concerts, reaching over 70,000 children throughout the Bay Area every year.

Cabrera is equally at home in the world of opera, frequently conducting productions in the United States and abroad. He was the Resident Conductor of the San Francisco Opera from 2005-2008 and has also been an assistant conductor for productions at the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Ravinia Festival, Festival di Spoleto, the Aspen Music Festival, and the Music Academy of the West. Since 2008, he has frequently conducted productions in Concepción, Chile. In 2021 he made his debut with Opera San José and in spring 2023, Cabrera appeared with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music conducting Gian Carlo Menotti's The Consul.

Awards and fellowships include a Herbert von Karajan Conducting Fellowship at the Salzburg Festival and conducting the Nashville Symphony in the League of American Orchestra’s prestigious Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview. Cabrera was recognized by the Consulate-General of Mexico in San Francisco for his contributions to promoting and developing the presence of the Mexican community in the Bay Area.

About Maria Valdes: American soprano Maria Valdes was recently described as a "first-rate singing actress and a perfectly charming Gilda" (The New York Times). The upcoming 2023-2024 is filled with multitudes of thrilling symphonic and recital debuts. On the symphonic stage, Ms. Valdes joins the Greensboro Symphony to sing Knoxville: Summer of 1915 and Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, is featured as the soprano soloist in Handel’s Messiah with both the Atlanta Symphony and St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, and she returns to the Phoenix Symphony for Strauss’s Four Last Songs. In recital, she is featured with Il Cenacolo Italian Club, the Cathedral of St. Paul, the First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta, Spanish River Concerts, and OperAloha. Additionally, Ms. Valdes makes her return to Houston Grand Opera covering Maria in The Sound of Music.

Also an accomplished recitalist, Ms. Valdes has appeared in concert with Martin Katz, and made her New York recital debut with NYFOS performing with Steven Blier and Michael Barrett in Compositora, a recital of female Latin American composers. She also attended the Steans Institute at the Ravinia Festival which included several concert appearances and Ms. Valdes can be heard singing Mendelssohn’s “Hear my prayer” on the album Evening Hymn released by Gothic Records and acclaimed in the American Record Guide. An award-winner in the regional Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions, Ms. Valdes is also the winner of the top prize at the Corbett Opera Scholarship Competition at Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and is the recipient of a Shoshana Foundation Grant.

About the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra: The mission of the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra (GSO) is to enrich the cultural life of Greensboro and surrounding areas through the development, promotion, and maintenance of a program of quality music and music education. Its primary vehicle for the conduct of these activities is the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, which presents concerts, special events, educational opportunities, and related activities.

Engaged in its 64th season, the GSO has a long history of support within the Triad community, bringing a diverse range of internationally renowned guest artists to perform in the new Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts. With one of the largest suites of music education programs in the southeast, the GSO serves approximately 50,000 students across four NC counties in a given season. To learn more about the GSO, visit greensborosymphony.org

Tina Davidson's new album Hymn of the Universe explores musical connection with metaphysical and divine themes

Tina Davidson Announces Hymn of the Universe
with VocalEssence Singers and Conductor Philip Brunelle

“a mystical revelation, complex and compelling… seemingly propelled by the very energy of creation”
– Star Tribune  

Release Date: December 1, 2023
Meyer Media LLC

www.tinadavidson.com | www.meyer-media.com

Composer Tina Davidson announces her newest album, Hymn of the Universe, set for worldwide release on December 1, 2023 on Meyer Media LLC. A highly regarded American composer, Davidson is lauded for her authentic musical voice with The New York Times praising her, “vivid ear for harmony and colors.” OperaNews called her works, “transfigured beauty,” and the Philadelphia Inquirer writes that she creates, “real music, with structure, mood, novelty and harmonic sophistication – with haunting melodies that grow out of complex, repetitive rhythms.”

Hymn of the Universe follows the publication earlier this year of Davidson’s memoir Let Your Heart Be Broken (Boyle & Dalton), which was praised in The Marginalian as “a consummate read in its entirety,” written with “uncommon sensitivity and poetic insight.” Let Your Heart Be Broken traces Davidson’s extraordinary life in equally lyrical language, juxtaposing memories, journal entries, notes on compositions in progress, and insights into the life of an artist – and a mother – at work. VAN Magazine calls the book, "an unequivocally poetic memoir on love, loss, and music." Review copies of the memoir are available upon request.

Davidson’s new album Hymn of the Universe includes three of her choral works – Antiphon for the Virgin, Hymn of the Universe, and Tu Autem, Domine – and features VocalEssence Singers conducted by Philip Brunelle in the first two works and the Society for Universal Sacred Music led by Roger Davidson in Tu Autem, Domine.

Drawing on sacred and spiritual texts, Hymn of the Universe explores a musical connection with larger metaphysical and divine themes. Tim Smith writes in The Baltimore Sun, “When it comes to beautifully crafted works that speak freshly through fundamentally familiar idioms, Tina Davidson is as persuasive as they come. The Hymn of the Universe is instantly appealing. Davidson subtly sets all the material to music that flows with a lyrical gracefulness. The choral writing is clean, clear and immediately communicative. In the closing passages, the choral writing reaches a radiant height so that the last sounds resonated in a suggestion of cosmic darkness.”

Davidson describes the impetus for this exploration in her composer’s notes:

“In the third decade of my composing life I began to turn towards a new sense of spirituality, a connectedness to something larger than myself. I grew up in a household with a strange combination of Episcopalian, fundamentalism and Unitarianism. It was endlessly interesting – high rules, high drama and fun Sunday school with snacks – but never personal. In my forties, however, I felt the pull to rename and reclaim whatever was out there; higher power, God, spirit, nature, or the energy of the cosmos.”

Antiphon for the Virgin was written in 1998 as part of a larger work, River of Love, River of Light, which comprises seven spiritual texts on the Virgin Mary. Antiphon for the Virgin draws on Hildegard of Bingen’s eponymous psalm, in which the Virgin Mary epitomizes the glory of women with the power to transform life and death in her womb.

Anchoring the album, Hymn of the Universe was commissioned in 2003 by VocalEssence Singers under the direction of Philip Brunelle. Written in four movements, the work is based on the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit scientist and prolific religious writer. As both a paleontologist and an ardent Christian, Chardin is best known for his mystical evolutionary writings, in which he argued the material and spiritual worlds would develop into a final spiritual unity, a divine presence. Using texts from Chardin’s hymn-like prayer of The Mass of the World and Hymn to Matter, Tina Davidson’s Hymn of the Universe musically delves into the fiery energy of divine love and compassion at the center of Chardin’s texts. The work is capped by a final prayer, Mane Domine – “stay with us Lord” – one of Chardin’s most frequently used quotes from the Bible. 

The Star Tribune reported of the piece, “The major work Hymn of the Universe … was both intellectually rigorous and deeply moving. The first movement seemed to vibrate like a mystical revelation, complex and compelling. By contrast, the second was a lullaby to the soul, utterly transparent in its simplicity. The third movement was an extroverted song of praise, seemingly propelled by the very energy of creation. The work concluded with an a cappella movement of quiet grace.”

Written in 2004 as a commission from the Society for Universal Sacred Music, Tu Autem, Domine draws on the Latin and English text from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The text celebrates being one with God, culminating musically in a joyous and resounding “Lock me up, lock me up, Lord!”

More about Tina Davidson: Over her forty-five-year career, Tina Davidson has been commissioned by well-known ensembles such as National Symphony Orchestra, OperaDelaware, Roanoke Symphony, VocalEssence, Kronos Quartet, Cassatt Quartet, and public television (WHYY-TV). Her music has been widely performed by many orchestras and ensembles, including The Philadelphia Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Relâche Ensemble, and Orchestra 2001.Davidson was commissioned by Grammy Award-winning violinist Hilary Hahn as part of her 27 Encore project. The work, Blue Curve of the Earth, was released on Deutsche Grammophon in 2013, and again in 2018 on Hahn’s new album, Retrospective.

Long-term residencies play a major role in Ms Davidson’s career. As composer-in-residence with the Fleisher Art Memorial (1998-2001), she was commissioned to write for the Cassatt Quartet, Voces Novae et Antiquae, and members of the Philadelphia Orchestra. She also created the city-wide Young Composers program to teach inner city children how to write music through instrument building, improvisation, and graphic notation. She was composer-in-residence as part of the innovative Meet The Composer “New Residencies” with OperaDelaware, the Newark Symphony and the YWCA in Delaware (1994-97). During this residency, she wrote the critically acclaimed full-length opera, Billy and Zelda, as well as created community partner programs for homeless women, and with students at a local elementary school.

The recipient of numerous prestigious grants and fellowships, Davidson was the first classical composer to receive a $50,000 Pew Fellowship. She has been awarded four Artist’s Fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, CAP grants from the American Music Center and numerous Meet the Composer grants. Her work, Transparent Victims, was selected by the American Public Radio as part of the International Rostrum of Composers, held at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

Born in Stockholm, Sweden, Tina Davidson grew up in Oneonta, NY and Pittsburgh, PA. She received her BA in piano and composition from Bennington College in 1976 where she studied with Henry Brant, Louis Calabro, Vivian Fine and Lionel Nowak. She currently lives in Lancaster PA. Learn more at www.tinadavidson.com.

About VocalEssence: VocalEssence, the choral organization Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones says “sings magnificently,” provides opportunities that draw upon the power of singing together to nurture community, inspire creativity, affirm the value of all persons, and expand the impact of choral music. VocalEssence was founded in 1969 and through its performance series has debuted more than 300 commissions and world premieres. VocalEssence Learning & Engagement programs help people of all ages bridge, create, and learn across cultures by connecting them with renowned choral experts to provide exceptional role models, grow community self-esteem, self-expression, and engagement. For more information, visit www.vocalessence.org.

About Philip Brunelle: Philip Brunelle, artistic director and founder of VocalEssence, is an internationally renowned conductor, choral scholar and visionary. He has made his lifelong mission the promotion of the choral art in all its forms, especially rarely heard works of the past and outstanding new music. Under his leadership, VocalEssence has commissioned more than 300 works to date. Philip has conducted symphonies (New York Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, and Minnesota Orchestra among others) as well as choral festivals and operas on six continents. He is editor of two choral series for Boosey & Hawkes and chairman of the review committee for Walton Music. Philip is also Organist-Choirmaster at Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis. Learn more at www.philipbrunelle.org. 

About Society for Universal Sacred Music: The Society for Universal Sacred Music was founded by composer and conductor Roger Davidson in 2000 for the purpose of developing a repertoire of music – primarily vocal – that expresses the unconditional and eternal love of God for us all, and our fundamental brotherhood and sisterhood as eternal children of God. Beyond interfaith work, this music is meant to build bridges throughout the world by singing of that which unites us the most: the Light within each of our souls, regardless of one’s circumstances in any given lifetime on Earth. For more information, visit www.universalsacredmusic.org.

Tina Davidson: Hymn of the Universe
Meyer Media LLC
Release Date: December 1, 2023

1. Antiphon for the Virgin [5:14]

Hymn of the Universe

2. I. The Offering [8:56]

3. II. Fold Your Wings, My Soul [7:49]

4. III. Hymn To Matter [10:22]

5. IV. Stay with Us, Lord [1:33]

6. Tu Autem, Domine [4:27]

 
Total Time: 38:21

Antiphon for the Virgin
In performance, Plymouth Congregational, Minneapolis, MN, December 3, 2000
VocalEssence Singers; Philip Brunell, conductor

Hymn of the Universe
In performance, St. Olaf Catholic Church, Minneapolis, MN, March 13, 2004
VocalEssence Singers
Philip Brunell, conductor
Tina James, English Horn; James Riccardo, violin; Mark Bjork, violin; Susan Janda, viola; Dale Newton, cello; David Hagedorn, marimba

Tu Autem, Domine
In performance, October 29, 2005, New York, NY
Society for Universal Sacred Music; Roger Davidson, conductor

Sony Classical Presents Artur Rodziński – The Cleveland Orchestra

Sony Classical Presents
Artur Rodziński – The Cleveland Orchestra
The Complete Columbia Album Collection

The first ever collection of Artur Rodziński’s complete Cleveland recordings for Columbia Masterworks on 13 CDs

All 29 works appearing on CD for the first time

First release ever of the 1942 Mendelssohn violin concerto recording with Nathan Milstein

All CDs remastered from the original analog discs and tapes using 24 bit / 96 kHz technology
Original LP sleeves and labels, booklet with full discographical notes

Release Date: November 10, 2023

Pre-order: www.bit.ly/SonyOrderArturRodzinskiClevelandOrch

Following Sony Classical’s recent 16-CD release of Artur Rodziński’s New York Philharmonic recordings, here is the label’s eagerly awaited 13-disc collection of his complete recordings with the Cleveland Orchestra, which Rodziński headed from 1933 to 1943.

The fiery, volatile Polish conductor (1892–1958) – whose lean, propulsive style emulated that of his idol Toscanini – earned a reputation as a builder of great orchestras: he led and developed the Los Angeles Philharmonic before taking up his position in Cleveland. In 1935, he brought nationwide attention to the midwestern orchestra when he conducted it in the US première of Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District.

During his tenure in Cleveland, Rodziński moulded its orchestra into a brilliant ensemble which his successor, George Szell, would then elevate to international pre-eminence. Meanwhile, Rodziński was also active in Europe, becoming the first naturalized American to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic at the Salzburg Festival. There Toscanini admired his work and in 1938 picked him to train his new NBC Symphony Orchestra.

In Cleveland between 1939 and 1942, Rodziński conducted a number of important recordings for Columbia Masterworks, all of them contained in this new set. With dedicatee Louis Krasner as soloist, he made the first studio recording of the Berg Violin Concerto. His other acclaimed 78-sets include the Berlioz Symphonie fantastique, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade (“among the finest statements ever given this incorrigibly popular score” – High Fidelity), Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben, the Fifth Symphony of Tchaikovsky (“Remarkable here is the tension of the second movement and the heroic close to the first” – Gramophone) as well as those of Sibelius and Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet (“Unsullied excitement” – Gramophone), Debussy’s La Mer and the orchestral “scenario” from Jerome Kern’s Show Boat – plus a previously unreleased recording of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with Nathan Milstein.

Until now, most of these albums have only been released on 78s and reissued on LP. Thus Sony Classical’s meticulously transferred and mastered 13-disc collection of Rodziński’s Cleveland recordings fills a large gap in this still widely admired conductor’s CD discography.

SET CONTENTS

DISC 1:
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2, M. 57b
Ravel: Rapsodie espagnole, M. 54
Ravel: Miroirs, M. 43: No. 4, Alborada del gracioso (Version for Orchestra)

DISC 2:
Debussy: La mer, L. 109
Kern: Show Boat (Scenario for Orchestra)

DISC 3:
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5 in D Minor, Op. 47

DISC 4:
Strauss, R.: Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche Op. 28
Strauss, R.: Salome, Op. 54 - Salomes Tanz (Dance of the seven veils)
Strauss, R.: Der Rosenkavalier, Op. 59, Act II: Waltz Suite

DISC 5:
Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy, TH 42 (1880 Version)
Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture, Op. 49, TH 49
Tchaikovsky: Marche Slave, Op. 31, TH 45
Mussorgsky: Khovantchina: Dawn Over the Moscow River (Prelude to Act I)

DISC 6:
Sibelius: Symphony No. 5 in E-Flat Major, Op. 82
Järnefeldt: Præludium
Sibelius: Finlandia, Op. 26

DISC 7:
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, Op. 64, TH 29

DISC 8:
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 10

DISC 9:
Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade, Op. 35
Weinberger: Variations and Fugue on "Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree"

DISC 10:
Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21
Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream. Overture, Op. 21
Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream. Incidental Music, Op. 61

DISC 11:
Strauss, R.: Ein Heldenleben, Op. 40, TrV 190
Weber: Der Freischütz: Overture

DISC 12:
Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique, Op. 14

DISC 13:
Schoenberg: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 36
Berg: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra "To the Memory of an Angel"
Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64

Jupiter Quartet is Presented by Music at Kohl Mansion on November 19

Photo of the Jupiter Quartet by Todd Rosenberg available in high resolution at www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/jupiter-string

The Jupiter String Quartet is Presented by
Music at Kohl Mansion

Performing Music by Elizabeth Maconchy, Carlos Simon, Nathan Shields,
William Bolcolm, and Ludwig van Beethoven

Sunday, November 19, 2023 at 7pm
Kohl Mansion | 2750 Adeline Drive | Burlingame, CA

Tickets and Information at
www.musicatkohl.org/jupiter-string-quartet-2023-11-19

“technical finesse and rare expressive maturity”
– The New Yorker

www.jupiterquartet.com

Burlingame, CA – The Jupiter String Quartet – internationally acclaimed winners of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and the Banff International String Quartet Competition – will be presented in concert by Music at Kohl Mansion on Sunday, November 19, 2023 at 7pm. St. Lawrence String Quartet cellist and educator Christopher Costanza will offer an informative and lively pre-performance lecture at 6pm in the Kohl Mansion Library before all series concerts. The concert includes a complimentary post-performance reception with the artists.

Giving concerts all over the country, the Jupiter String Quartet is a particularly intimate group, consisting of violinists Nelson Lee and Meg Freivogel, violist Liz Freivogel (Meg’s older sister), and cellist Daniel McDonough (Meg’s husband, Liz’s brother-in-law). Brought together by ties both familial and musical, the Jupiter Quartet has been performing together since 2001 and has been the quartet-in-residence at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign since 2012. Exuding an energy that is at once friendly, knowledgeable, and adventurous, the Quartet celebrates every opportunity to bring their close-knit and lively style to audiences. Their connections to each other and the length of time they’ve shared the stage always shine through in their intuitive performances.

For this Sunday evening performance, the er Quartet will perform a musically bold and emotionally charged program that they have titled Upheaval. The program will begin with the hauntingly powerful third quartet of the esteemed Irish-English composer Elizabeth Maconchy. An avowed socialist who supported the Republican forces fighting off Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War, Maconchy wrote this work among the shadows of 1930s Europe. Next, Nathan Shields’ new quartet, Medusa –– composed for the Jupiter Quartet for Shields’ Guggenheim Fellowship –– uses the scintillating paintings of Caravaggio as an inspiration for exploring the effects of various types of political and social violence. The first half of the program will be rounded out by Carlos Simon’s heartbreaking Elegy, a memorial to the Black American victims of police violence, and William Bolcolm’s gently melancholy rag, The Graceful Ghost. After the intermission, the quartet will delve into the wonderful intricacies of Ludwig van Beethoven’s epic eighth quartet—one of the many works he wrote during a time of immense political turmoil.

Jupiter Quartet says of this program and performing it for audiences at Kohl Mansion:

“We are looking forward to sharing this intense and colorful program with the audience at Kohl Mansion. Its subject matter—a grappling with the realities and effects of violence—is unfortunately very much in the forefront of all of our minds as we witness current events. We hope this music will bring time for both reflection and inspiration as we confront such difficulties.”

More About Jupiter String Quartet: This tight-knit ensemble is firmly established as an important voice in the world of chamber music. Artists-in-residence at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana since 2012, the Jupiter Quartet maintain private studios and direct the University’s chamber music program.

The Jupiter Quartet has performed in some of the world’s finest halls, including New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, Boston’s Jordan Hall, Mexico City's Palacio de Bellas Artes, Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center and Library of Congress, Austria’s Esterhazy Palace, and Seoul’s Sejong Chamber Hall. Their major music festival appearances include the Aspen Music Festival and School, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, Rockport Music Festival, Music at Menlo, the Seoul Spring Festival, and many others. In addition to their performing career, they have been artists-in-residence at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign since 2012, where they maintain private studios and direct the chamber music program.

Their chamber music honors and awards include the grand prizes in the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition; the Young Concert Artists International auditions in New York City; the Cleveland Quartet Award from Chamber Music America; an Avery Fisher Career Grant; and a grant from the Fromm Foundation. From 2007-2010, they were in residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Two.

About Music at Kohl Mansion: Inspired by the belief that the arts strengthen communities, Music at Kohl Mansion presents world-class chamber concerts at the historic Kohl Mansion and music education in public schools on the San Francisco Peninsula. Outreach programs provide access to interactive musical experiences for diverse audiences of all ages.

Music at Kohl Mansion (MAKM), the longest-running chamber-music-only presenter on the S.F. Peninsula, is deeply committed to community building through the arts, both in its highly praised mainstage concert series founded in 1983 and in education and community programs that connect people and promote human understanding. MAKM programs enhance the quality of life of Bay Area residents and visitors by reaching out to individuals of all ages, ethnicities and socio-economic backgrounds.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: The Jupiter Quartet, the Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, who are described by The New Yorker as an ensemble of “technical finesse and rare expressive maturity,” is presented by Music at Kohl Mansion for a performance at Kohl Mansion (2750 Adeline Drive). The Jupiter Quartet will perform a bold program anchored around one of Beethoven’s “Razumovsky” String Quartets (No. 8 in E minor, Op. 52 No. 2), as well as music by living American composers: Carlos Simon’s Elegy and Nathan Shields’ Medusa, in addition to Irish-English composer Elizabeth Maconchy’s String Quartet No. 3. St. Lawrence String Quartet cellist and educator Christopher Costanza will give a pre-concert lecture at 6pm.

Short description: The Jupiter Quartet, an ensemble of “technical finesse and rare expressive maturity” (The New Yorker), is presented by Music at Kohl Mansion for a performance featuring the music of Elizabeth Maconchy, Carlos Simon, Nathan Shields, and Ludwig van Beethoven.

Concert details:

Who: Jupiter String Quartet
Presented by Music at Kohl Mansion
What: Music by Elizabeth Maconchy, Carlos Simon, Nathan Shields, William Bolcolm, and Ludwig van Beethoven, plus a pre-concert lecture by St. Lawrence String Quartet cellist and educator Christopher Costanza
When: Sunday, November 19, 2023 at 7pm. Pre-concert lecture at 6pm (Kohl Mansion Library)
Where: Kohl Mansion, 2750 Adeline Drive, Burlingame, CA 94010
Tickets and information: www.musicatkohl.org/jupiter-string-quartet-2023-11-19/

Pianist Simone Dinnerstein Presented by Spivey Hall Performing Music From her Album Undersong on November 5

Photo of Simone Dinnerstein by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution at: https://jensen-artists.squarespace.com/artists-profiles/simone-dinnerstein 

Pianist Simone Dinnerstein Presented by Spivey Hall
Performing Music by Couperin, Schumann, Glass, and Satie From her Album Undersong

Sunday, November 5, 2023 at 3:00pm
Spivey Hall | 2000 Clayton State Blvd. | Morrow, GA 30260

 Tickets and information: www.spiveyhall.org/events/event/simone-dinnerstein-piano/#sec-2015-1 

“an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity”
– The Washington Post 

Simone Dinnerstein: www.simonedinnerstein.com

Morrow, GA – GRAMMY-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Washington Post as “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” is presented in concert November 5, 2023 at Spivey Hall (2000 Clayton State Boulevard). 

Dinnerstein, who is heralded for her distinctive musical voice and commitment to sharing classical music with everyone, will make her Spivey Hall debut, performing several selections found on her 2022 Orange Mountain Music album Undersong – the final installment in a trilogy of albums recorded at her home in Brooklyn during the pandemic between 2020 and 2022, which also includes A Character of Quiet (Orange Mountain Music, 2020) and Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic (Supertrain Records, 2021). The latter surpassed two million streams on Apple Music and was nominated for a 2021 Grammy Award in the category of Best Classical Instrumental Solo. The concert program will include: Robert Schumann’s Arabesque, in C Major, Op. 18 and Kreisleriana, Op. 16; François Couperin­’s Les Barricades Mysterieuses and Tic-Toc-Choc; Philip Glass’s Mad Rush; and Erik Satie’s Gnossienne No. 3. 

Dinnerstein explains of Undersong’s title: “Undersong is an archaic term for a song with a refrain, and to me it also suggests a hidden text. Glass, Schumann, Couperin and Satie all seem to be attempting to find what they want to say through repetition, as though their constant change and recycling will focus the ear and the mind. This time has been one of reflection and reconsidering for many of us, and this music speaks to the process of revisiting and searching for the meaning beneath the notes, of the undersong.”

Reflecting on Schumann’s Arabesque, in C Major, Op. 18, Dinnerstein explains that it’s “a very beautiful, poetic piece of music but it ends with a separate type of epilogue that's something different from the piece and modern in a way. There's a rest before you play it and the rest serves as a bridge to Philip Glass’s Mad Rush. It's unclear to the listener whether it's Schumann or Glass. I really like that blurring  of the composer's languages with each other."

Dinnerstein offers this connective observation between Schumann’s Kreisleriana, Op. 16 and Schumann’s, Arabesque “The Arabesque has some quick changes in mood and the most breathtaking coda at the end that completely takes it someplace else, written in Schumann’s music language but sounding absolutely contemporary. In comparison, Kreisleriana changes on a dime. Suddenly, you’ll be in a completely different headspace. I think that’s as much about Schumann himself, as about his love for Clara.”

Sequenza21 describes Dinnerstein’s approach to Couperin’s Les Barricades Mysterieuses as “sonorous [and] eschewing ornamentation in favor of unadorned, shapely melodies.” Meanwhile, the tempo of Couperin’s Tic-Toc-Choc is thought to mirror the rhythmic precision of a clock and the full title (Le Tic-Toc-Choc, ou Les Maillotins), references little hammers or mallets. The San Francisco Classical Voice says Dinnerstein’s performance of the piece makes it appear as if she “magically transform[s] the piano into a harpsichord.”

With its distinctly repetitious compositional structure, Philip Glass’s Mad Rush, a piece originally composed for organ at New York City’s St. John the Divine, underscores the collectively seamless nature of this program’s repertoire. The New Criterion describes Dinnerstein’s performance of the piece as “transcendent – the picture of introspection interrupted by unexpected vision.”

Of Erik Satie’s Gnossienne No. 3, Dinnerstein says, “Erik Satie published three Gymnopédie and three Gnossienne together, though he eventually wrote more Gnossienne, a fantastical term that he came up with. The markings in the score for Gnossienne No. 3 are bizarre: “Plan carefully”; “Provide yourself with clear sightedness”; “Alone for a moment”; “So as to get a hollow”; “Quite lost”; “Carry this further”; “Open your mind”. These are written right over the notes. The commentary is dada-esque.”

About Simone Dinnerstein: American pianist Simone Dinnerstein has a distinctive musical voice. The Washington Post has called her “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity.” She first came to wider public attention in 2007 through her recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, reflecting an aesthetic that was both deeply rooted in the score and profoundly idiosyncratic. She is, wrote The New York Times, “a unique voice in the forest of Bach interpretation.”

Dinnerstein has played with orchestras ranging from the New York Philharmonic and Montreal Symphony Orchestra to the London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Rai. She has performed in venues from Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center to the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus, Seoul Arts Center and Sydney Opera House. She has made thirteen albums, all of which topped the Billboard charts. During the pandemic she recorded three albums which form a trilogy: A Character of Quiet, An American Mosaic, and Undersong. An American Mosaic was nominated for a Grammy.

In recent years, Dinnerstein has created projects that express her broad musical interests. She gave the world premiere of The Eye Is the First Circle at Montclair State University, the first multi-media production she conceived, created, and directed, which uses as source materials her father Simon Dinnerstein’s painting The Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’s Piano Sonata No. 2. She premiered Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic, a tribute to those affected by the pandemic, in a performance on multiple pianos throughout Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. Following her recording Mozart in Havana, she brought the Havana Lyceum Orchestra from Cuba to the U.S. for the first time, performing eleven concerts. Philip Glass composed his Piano Concerto No. 3 for her, co-commissioned by twelve orchestras. Working with Renée Fleming and the Emerson String Quartet, she premiered André Previn and Tom Stoppard’s Penelope at the Tanglewood, Ravinia and Aspen music festivals, and performed it at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and presented by LA Opera. Dinnerstein has also created her own ensemble, Baroklyn, which she directs. The Washington Post comments, “it is Dinnerstein’s unreserved identification with every note she plays that makes her performance so spellbinding.” In a world where music is everywhere, she hopes that it can still be transformative. www.simonedinnerstein.com

About Spivey Hall: Spivey Hall, located on the campus of Clayton State University, is a 400-seat, acoustically-superior performing arts venue that has presented the best in jazz and classical music to the metro Atlanta area since 1991.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Washington Post as “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” is presented in concert by Spivey Hall. Dinnerstein will perform several selections found on her 2022 Orange Mountain Music album, Undersong, including Robert Schumann’s Arabesque, in C Major, Op. 18 and Kreisleriana, Op. 16; François Couperin­’s Les Barricades Mysterieuses and Tic-Toc-Choc; Philip Glass’s Mad Rush; and Erik Satie’s Gnossienne No. 3.

Short description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Washington Post as “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” is presented in concert by Spivey Hall, performing selections by François Couperin, Robert Schumann, Philip Glass, and Erik Satie From her 2022 album Undersong.

Concert details:
Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
Presented by Spivey Hall
What: Music by François Couperin­, Robert Schumann, Philip Glass, and Erik Satie
When: Sunday, November 5, 2023 at 3pm
Where: Spivey Hall, 2000 Clayton State Boulevard, Morrow, GA 30260
Tickets and information: www.spiveyhall.org/events/event/simone-dinnerstein-piano/#sec-2015-1

Invoke Presented by the Moss Arts Center Performing Original Music

Photo by Marshall Tidrick. Available in hi-resolution at: www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/invoke

Invoke Presented by the Moss Arts Center Performing Original Music

Plus Enigma for the Night by Jocelyn C. Chambers and Tenebrae by Osvaldo Golijov

Thursday, November 16, 2023 at 7:30pm
Anne and Ellen Fife Theatre in the Street and Davis Performance Hall
190 Alumni Mall | Blacksburg, VA

Tickets and more information:
(Tickets $20-$55; $10 students with ID and youth 18 and under)
www.artscenter.vt.edu/performances/invoke.html

“The special thing about Invoke is…how its lively spirit and playfulness are essential to the way they approach every piece of music.”
– Austin Chronicle

www.InvokeSound.com

Blacksburg, VA – On Thursday, November 16, 2023, Austin-based, multi-instrumental quartet Invoke (Nick Montopoli, violin/banjo/vocals; Zach Matteson, violin/vocals; Karl Mitze, viola/mandolin/vocals; Geoff Manyin, cello/vocals) – a group the Austin Chronicle says “infuse[s] their performances with such a down-home joyfulness” – will make their Blacksburg, VA debut in a concert presented by the Moss Arts Center at the Anne and Ellen Fife Theatre at Street and Davis Performance Hall (190 Alumni Mall). Invoke will perform a program featuring selections of their original music, including several from their new album Evolve & Travel, plus Jocelyn C. Chambers’ Enigma for the Night and Tenebrae by Osvaldo Golijov.

Of Invoke making its Blacksburg debut at the Moss Arts Center and performing Osvaldo Golijov’s Tenebrae, violinist Zach Matteson says,

“We’re very excited to be visiting Blacksburg for the very first time! This will be our debut on the Moss Arts Center stage. We’re excited to share Golijov’s tremendous spiritual work with you and with the added massive sound that incorporates Geoff [Manyin’s] 6-string cello beautifully.”

Driven by a passion for storytelling, Invoke’s performances feature original works composed by and for the group, which form a unique contemporary repertoire inspired by many different musical styles –– from minimalism, to jazz, to American fiddle tunes, and bluegrass. This appreciation for different genres and collaborations can be seen through Invoke’s performance history, which includes sharing stages with some of the most acclaimed chamber groups in the country: the Westerlies, Miró and Ensō Quartets, and the U.S. Army Field Band, as well as chamber rock group San Fermin, indie group Never Shout Never, and DC beatboxer/rapper/spoons virtuoso Christylez Bacon. Iconic spaces where Invoke has performed include Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Green Music Center, among others.

Invoke recently marked their tenth anniversary together with Evolve & Travel, their first album on the Sono Luminus label, which was released on October 27, 2023. This new record features seven original works by the group. Each song reflects Invoke’s growth as people, composers, and as friends with a rich history of shared creative experiences and personal memories.

Evolve & Travel was born out of Invoke's experience of and evolution during the pandemic and of being back on the road, traveling again. After a strenuous touring schedule from 2018 to 2020, like all other musicians in spring 2020, the members of Invoke found themselves without an agenda.

Violinist Zach Matteson summarizes the experience: "The unexpected bright side of the pandemic lockdown was an excess of time and a newfound drive to be creating music that connected with people in a virtual space on a regular basis. We dug deep to create new work at a faster pace than ever before and Evolve & Travel is a direct result of that. A lot of the new tunes have individual inspirations, but certainly you can say they express an aspect of what we were interested in during our time in lockdown -- from books that we were reading and other periods of history that we were looking back on, to a need for hope and optimism in the face of great doubt. Coming out in our tenth year together as a group, Evolve & Travel is a culmination of lessons we have learned along the way. From the straight-ahead sound of the string quartet to a blend of voice, mandolin, banjo, and strings, this album showcases the entire scope of our growth as musicians, composers, and collaborators."

With Evolve & Travel, Invoke demonstrates their well-honed ability to write and perform works that weave together threads of classical technique, folk improvisation, and musical camaraderie.

Of her piece Enigma for the Night, written when she was just 16 years old, Jocelyn Chambers explains, “It's really vulnerable and breathy and reminds me [of] car rides home with granddaddy after music school let out for the day. [It’s] one of my more personal pieces.“

Osvaldo Golijov explains the contrasting ways in which one can hear and interpret Tenebrae: “I wrote Tenebrae as a consequence of witnessing two contrasting realities in a short period of time in September 2000. I was in Israel at the start of the new wave of violence that is still continuing today, and a week later I took my son to the new planetarium in New York, where we could see the Earth as a beautiful blue dot in space. I wanted to write a piece that could be listened to from different perspectives. That is, if one chooses to listen to it “from afar", the music would probably offer a "beautiful" surface but, from a metaphorically closer distance, one could hear that, beneath that surface, the music is full of pain.”

More about Invoke: Invoke was selected to be the Young Professional String Quartet in Residence at the University of Texas at Austin from 2016-2018. The group also participated in the Emerging String Quartet Program at Stanford, and was selected as an Artist in Residence at Strathmore, the Emerging Young Artist Quartet at Interlochen, and the Fellowship String Quartet at Wintergreen Performing Arts. In 2018, Invoke was named a winner of the Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition in New York, NY, received First Prize at the M-Prize International Chamber Arts competition in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and received First Prize in the Coltman Competition in Austin, Texas.

Invoke’s discography includes their debut album, Souls in the Mud (2015), featuring works by composer Danny Clay as well as original works composed by the group; Furious Creek (2018), featuring original compositions and arrangements; and Fantastic Planet (2021), an original soundtrack composed by the group inspired by the 1973 French animated feature. Fantastic Planet is a companion album to their summer 2019 commission by the Austin Chamber Music Festival. The album features Invoke’s standard instrumentation as well as the addition of the electric cello and the igil, a horsehead fiddle from Tuva, Siberia.

Invoke has performed and recorded numerous world performers, including works by Joseph C. Phillips Jr., Armando Bayolo, and Geoff Sheil. The group’s recording credits appear on bassist/composer Ethan Foote’s solo album Fields Burning, singer/songwriter Marian McLaughlin’s Spirit House, jazz/soul singer Rochelle Rice’s EP Wonder, and many more.

About the Moss Arts Center: Located at the crossroads of Virginia Tech and downtown Blacksburg, Virginia, on the corner of Main Street and Alumni Mall, the Moss Arts Center is a thriving community where the arts are a catalyst for engagement, inspiration, and discovery. The center operates as both a presenting organization and as a 147,000-square-foot, top-caliber arts center. Since opening in 2013, the center has brought innovative, significant, and diverse programming to the campus and the region. The Moss Arts Center is named in tribute to artist and philanthropist Patricia Buckley Moss, who committed $10 million toward construction of the facility on the campus of Virginia Tech.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Austin-based, multi-instrumental quartet Invoke – which the Austin Chronicle says “infuse[s] their performances with such a down-home joyfulness” – will give a performance at the Anne and Ellen Fife Theatre at Street and Davis Performance Hall (190 Alumni Mall), presented by the Moss Arts Center. Invoke’s music weaves together threads of classical technique, folk improvisation, and musical camaraderie. In addition to performing many original works – including selections from their Sono Luminus debut album Evolve & Travel – Invoke will perform Enigma for the Night by Jocelyn C. Chambers and Tenebrae by Osvaldo Golijov.

Short description: Invoke – whose music weaves together threads of classical technique, folk improvisation, and musical camaraderie – brings a “down-home joyfulness” (Austin Chronicle) to their Blacksburg, VA debut at the Moss Arts Center. Invoke will perform original music, including works from their new album Evolve & Travel, plus Enigma for the Night by Jocelyn C. Chambers, in addition to Tenebrae by Osvaldo Golijov.

Concert details:

Who: Invoke
Presented by Moss Arts Center
What: Original Music by Invoke Plus Enigma for the Night by Jocelyn C. Chambers and Tenebrae by Osvaldo Golijov
When: Thursday, November 16, 2023 at 7:30pm
Where: Anne and Ellen Fife Theatre at Street and Davis Performance Hall 190 Alumni Mall | Blacksburg, VA 24061
Tickets and information: www.tickets.luther.edu/Online/default.asp

Sony Classical Presents Eugene Ormandy - The Philadelphia Orchestra

Sony Classical Presents
Eugene Ormandy - The Philadelphia Orchestra
The Columbia Stereo Collection 1958–1963

78 works released on on 88 CDs for the first time
Many CDs available for the first time internationally

Release Date: November 17, 2023

Pre-order: bit.ly/SonyOrderEugeneOrmandyPhiladelphiaOrchestra

Following up on the success of Sony Classical’s recent large-scale Ormandy collections – his monaural discographies with the Minneapolis Symphony and Philadelphia orchestras – the label now presents the conductor’s stereo recordings from Philadelphia containing all recordings released from 1958 to 1963 (plus some fillers from later years).

Eugene Ormandy took over the music directorship in Philadelphia from Leopold Stokowski in 1938 and held the position for 42 years. During that time his name and the orchestra’s became inseparable as he cultivated and further developed the voluptuous sound that originated with his predecessor. “Any conductor reflects clearly the instrument he played,” the Budapest-born Ormandy (1899–1985) once said. “My sound is what it is because I was a violinist.” As one commentator put it: “Every piece Ormandy touched was characterized by a ripened string tone around which the rest of the orchestra could glow.”

Ormandy and his Philadelphians were among the most prolific recording artists of all time. Between 1944 and 1968 (preceded and followed by contracts with RCA Victor), they were associated exclusively with Columbia Masterworks. Ormandy was a committed recording enthusiast, working quickly and readily accommodating the company’s planning in order to produce best-sellers.

Sony Classical’s new Ormandy/Philadelphia stereo box is filled with familiar and unfamiliar works by virtually every well-known composer (and many forgotten figures), spanning the centuries and covering the stylistic waterfront from Bach (the sons as well as the father) to Beethoven, Berlioz, Borodin, Bartók and beyond. It would be impossible (and pointless) to list them all.

There are numerous CD premières in the new collection. Among them: Ormandy’s complete 1958 recording of Debussy’s Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien with soprano Hilde Gueden and Vera Zorina as the narrator; Bach’s B minor Mass and the Brahms Requiem from 1962; as well as symphonies by Haydn and other works by Borodin, Glinka, Wagner, Poulenc, Casella and American composers including Yardumian, Barati, Rochberg and Dello Joio.

In 1963, Ormandy and the Philadelphians made the first US recording of Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony. Surveying Ormandy’s stereo discography on Columbia recently, the ClassicsToday reviewer lauded his “voluptuous” Scheherazade, his “outstanding Vaughan Williams Fantasia on ‘Greensleeves’, his Bach transcriptions (“Wonderfully done, they highlight Ormandy’s gifts as a post-Stokowski Bach arranger, an important part of his legacy”) and his special affinity for Russian music, including “his glorious Tchaikovsky Fifth Symphony and Serenade for Strings, his magnificent Rachmaninov Second, and his classic Shostakovich Cello Concerto with Rostropovich coupled to an excellent First Symphony. The composer himself attended these sessions and was dazzled by both conductor and orchestra. These are all must-have recordings. Ormandy was also known during his lifetime as the best concerto accompanist in the business, and this coupling of Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn violin concertos shows his cordial collaboration with Isaac Stern operating at the very highest level.”

Other listeners and commentators will have no hesitation in adding their own favorites to that brief selection of must-have Ormandy recordings. Indeed, for the conductor’s many enthusiasts and collectors, Sony Classical’s comprehensive new box set – all items presented in new or best available remasterings – is self-recommending.

SET CONTENTS

DISC 1:

Respighi: Pini di Roma: Symphonic Poem
Respighi: Fontane di Roma: Symphonic Poem
Respighi: Feste Romane: Symphonic Poem

DISC 2:
Grofé: Grand Canyon Suite

DISC 3:
Prokofiev: Symphony No. 5 in B-Flat Major, Op. 100

DISC 4:
Grieg: Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 16

Rachmaninov: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43

DISC 5:
Sibelius: Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 43
Sibelius: Symphony No. 7 in C Major, Op. 105

DISC 6:
Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsodies, S. 359: No. 1 in F Minor
Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsodies, S. 359: No. 2 in C-Sharp Minor
Enescu: 2 Romanian Rhapsodies, Op. 11: No. 1 in A Major
Enescu: 2 Romanian Rhapsodies, Op. 11: No. 2 in D Major
Liszt (arr. Herbert): Liebesträume No. 3 'O Lieb, so lang', S541, No. 3 (Rêve d'amour)

DISC 7:
Dello Jojo: Air Power Suite
Dello Jojo: War Scenes

DISC 8:
Bizet: Carmen Suite

DISC 9:
Mozart, W.A.: Sinfonia Concertante in E-Flat Major, K. 297 B
Haydn: Sinfonia Concertante for Oboe, Bassoon, Violin, Cello & Orchestra in B-Flat Major, Hob. I: 105
Haydn: Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra in E-flat Major, Hob. VIIe: 1

DISC 10:
Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf, A Musical Tale for Children, Op. 67
Britten: The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell, Op. 34

DISC 11:
Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35
Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64

DISC 12:
Brahms: Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 68

DISC 13:
Robertson: The Lord's Prayer
Robertson: Come, Come Ye Saints
Brahms: A German Requiem, Op. 45: I. Blessed Are They That Mourn
McGranahan (arr. Gates): O, My Father
McIntyre: How Great the Wisdom and the Love
Gounod: St. Cecilia Mass, CG 56: Holy, Holy, Holy
Holst: 148th Psalm
Handel: Messiah, HWV 56: For Unto Us A Child Is Born
Billings (arr. Siegmeister): David's Lamentation
Anonymous (arr. Baldwin): Londonderry Air
Howe (arr. Wilhousky): Battle Hymn of the Republic
Schubert (arr. Riegger): Ave Maria, D. 839
Gounod: The Redemption - Unfold, Ye Portals
Mozart, W.A.: Requiem aeternam "Give unto the meek" - Kyrie eleison "Show Thy mercy"
Robertson: Oratorio from the Book of Mormon: "Old Things Are Done Away"
Malotte: The Lord's Prayer

DISC 14:
Franck: Variations symphoniques, FWV 46
d'Indy: Symphonie sur un chant montagnard français, Op. 25

DISC 15:
Liszt: Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-Flat Major, S. 124
Liszt: Piano Concerto No. 2 in A Major, S. 120, R. 456

DISC 16:
Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture, Op. 49, TH 49
Borodin: In the Steppes of Central Asia
Borodin: Polovtsian Dances (From "Prince Igor")
Mussorgsky: Night on Bald Mountain
Khachaturian: Masquerade Suite: Galop
Khachaturian: Gayane Ballet Suite: Dance of the Young Maidens
Shostakovich: Polka from "The Age of Gold"
Rimsky-Korsakov: Polonaise from Christmas Eve Suite
Rimsky-Korsakov: The Snow Maiden: Dance of the Tumblers
Kabalevsky: Comedian's Galop (From "The Comedians")
Mussorgsky: Sorochinsty Fair: Gopak
Khachaturian: Sabre Dance from "Gayne Ballet Suite"

DISC 17:
Debussy: Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, L. 86
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2, M. 57b
Debussy: La mer, L. 109

DISC 18:
Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 23
Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Minor, Op. 21

DISC 19:
Mozart, W.A.: Serenade No. 13 in G Major, K. 525 "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" (2013 Remastered Version)
Bach, J.S.: Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major, BWV 1068: II. Air on the G String (2013 Remastered Version)
Corelli: Concerto grosso in G Minor, Op. 6 No. 8 "Christmas Concerto" (2013 Remastered Version)
Mendelssohn: Octet for Strings in E-Flat Major, Op. 20: III. Scherzo (2013 Remastered Version)

DISC 20/21:
Handel: Messiah, HWV 56

DISC 22:
Rimsky-Korsakov: Le coq d'or Suite
Rimsky-Korsakov: Russian Easter Festival, Op. 36
Glinka: Ruslan and Lyudmila Overture
Tchaikovsky: Marche slave, Op. 31, TH 45
Balakirev (orch. Casella): Islamey (Oriental Fantasy)

DISC 23:
Handel (arr. Hamilton Harty): Royal Fireworks Suite
Corelli (arr. Pinelli): Suite for Strings
Handel (arr. Harty): Water Music Suite

DISC 24:
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, Op. 64, TH 29

DISC 25:
Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2 in E Minor, Op. 27

DISC 26:
Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-Flat Major, Op. 107
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 10

DISC 27:
Mendelssohn: Piano Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 25, MWV O 7
Mendelssohn: Piano Concerto No. 2 in D Minor, Op. 40, MWV O 11

DISC 28:
Brahms: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77
Wieniawski: Violin Concerto No. 2 in D Minor, Op. 22

DISC 29:
Debussy: The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, L. 124

DISC 30:
Prokofiev: Symphony No. 4 in C Major, Op. 112

DISC 31:
Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-Flat Major, Op. 83

DISC 32:
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 74, TH 30 "Pathétique"

DISC 33:
Sibelius: Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op. 47
Sibelius: Lemminkäinen Suite, Op. 22: II. The Swan of Tuonela

DISC 34:
Orff: Carmina Burana

DISC 35:
Ravel: Boléro, M. 81
Ravel: Le tombeau de Couperin, M. 68a
Ravel: Miroirs, M. 43: No. 4, Alborada del gracioso (Version for Orchestra)
Chabrier: España
Ravel: Pavane pour une infante défunte
Debussy (arr. orch.): Suite bergamasque, L. 75: III. Clair de lune (Arr. for Orchestra)
Ravel: La Valse

DISC 36:
Vincent: Symphonic Poem After Descartes
Vincent: Symphony in D (A Festival Piece In One Movement)

DISC 37:
Bach, J.S. (arr. Ormandy): Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565
Bach, J.C.: Sinfonia for Double Orchestra in E-Flat Major, Op. 18, No. 1
Bach, J.S. (arr. Ormandy): Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C Major, BWV 564
Bach, J.S. (arr. Ormandy): Passacaglia in C Minor, BWV 582

DISC 38:
Vivaldi: The Four Seasons, Violin Concerto in E Major, RV 269 "Spring"
Vivaldi: The Four Seasons, Violin Concerto in G Minor, RV 315 "Summer"
Vivaldi: The Four Seasons, Violin Concerto in F Major, RV 293, "Autumn"

Vivaldi: The Four Seasons, Violin Concerto in F Minor, RV 297 "Winter"

DISC 39:
Grieg: Peer Gynt, Op. 23 - Suite No. 1, Op. 46
Sibelius: 2 Pieces from Kuolema, Op. 44: No. 1, Valse triste
Alfén: Midsommarvaka, Op. 19 "Swedish Rhapsody No. 1"
Sibelius: Finlandia, Op. 26
Sibelius: En Saga, Op. 9

DISC 40:
Walton: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra
Lalo: Symphonie espagnole in D Minor, Op. 21

DISC 41:
Vivaldi: Concerto for 2 Violins in D Minor, RV 514
Vivaldi: Concerto for 2 Violins in C Minor, RV 509
Vivaldi: Concerto for 2 Violins in G Minor, RV 517
Vivaldi: Concerto for 2 Violins in D Major, RV 512

DISC 42:
Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances, Op. 45
Casella: Paganiniana Op. 65

DISC 43:
Tchaikovsky: Serenade in C Major, Op. 48, TH 48
Borodin (arr. Sargent): Nocturne for String Orchestra
Barber: Adagio for Strings, Op. 11
Vaughan-Williams (arr. Greaves): Fantasia on Greensleeves from Sir John In Love
Grieg: Two Elegiac Melodies, Op. 34
Schubert (arr. Harris): Serenade, D. 957, No. 4
MacDowell (arr. Frost): 10 Woodland Sketches, Op. 51: No. 1, To a Wild Rose (Arr. T. Frost for Orchestra)
Massenet: Meditation from "Thaïs"

DISC 44:
Strauss, Johann II: Frühlingsstimmen, Op. 410
Strauss, Johann II: Kaiser-Walzer, Op. 437
Strauss, Johann II: Wiener Blut, Op. 354
Strauss, Johann II: An der schönen blauen Donau, Op. 314
Strauss, Johann II: Geschichten aus dem Wienerwald, Op. 325

DISC 45:
Yardumian: Passacaglia, Recitative and Fugue for Piano and Orchestra
Yardumian: Choral Prelude
Yardumian: Cantus animae et cordis
Yardumian: Symphony No. 2 "Psalms": I Psalm 130

DISC 46:
Reger: Piano Concerto in F Minor, Op. 114

DISC 47:
Weber: Invitation to the Dance, Op. 65
Liszt: 2 Episoden aus Lenau's Faust, S. 110: No. 2, Der Tanz in der Dorfschenke "Mephisto Waltz"
Saint-Saens: Danse Macabre, Op. 40
Brahms (orch. Dvorák): 21 Hungarian Dances, WoO 1
Glière: The Red Poppy: Russian Sailor's Dance
Weber: Euryanthe, Op. 81, J. 291: Overture
Weinberger: Svanda dudák (Schwanda the Bagpiper): Polka & Fugue

DISC 48:
Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14, H. 48
Saint-Saens: Samson et Dalila, Op. 47: Bacchanale
Dukas: L'apprenti sorcier

DISC 49:
R. Strauss: Ein Heldenleben, Op. 40, TrV 190

DISC 50:
Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 11
Liszt: Totentanz, S. 126 "Danse macabre"

DISC 51:
Walton: Belshazzar's Feast
Roussel: Baccus et Ariane, Suito No. 2

DISC 52:
Ravel: Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D Major, M. 82
Mozart, W.A.: Concerto for 2 Pianos and Orchestra No. 10 in E-Flat Major K 365/316a (2019 Remastered Version)

DISC 53:
Bartók: Violin Concerto No. 1, Sz. 36
Viotti: Violin Concerto No. 22 in A Minor

DISC 54:
Mozart, W.A.: Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-Flat Major, K. 482
Mozart, W.A.: Piano Sonata No. 4 in E-Flat Major, K. 282 (Philippe Entremont, piano)

DISC 55:
Tchaikovsky: The Sleeping Beauty, Op. 66, TH 13

DISC 56:
Franck: Symphony in D Minor, FWV 48

DISC 57:
Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35, TH 59

DISC 58:
Brahms: Piano Concerto No 1 in D Minor, Op. 15

DISC 59:
Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake, Op. 20, TH 12 (Excerpts)

DISC 60:
Strauss, R.: Don Juan, Op. 20
Strauss, R.: Tod und Verklärung, Op. 24

DISC 61:
Bach, J.C.: Sinfonia for Double Orchestra in D Major, Op. 18, No. 3
Bach, W.F.: Sinfonia for 2 Flutes and Strings in D Minor, F. 65
H. Casadesus: Concerto for Orchestra in D Major

DISC 62:
Tchaikovsky (ed. Bogatyrev): Symphony No. 7 in E-Flat Major

DISC 63:
Strauss, Josef: Fire-Bell Polka (Feuerfest)
Strauss, Johann II: Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka, Op. 214
Strauss, Johann II: Roses from the South (Rosen aus dem Süden), Op. 388
Strauss, Johann II: Hunting Polka (Auf der Jagd, Polka schnell), Op. 373
Strauss, Johann II: New Pizzicato Polka (Neue Pizzicato Polka), Op. 449
Strauss, Johann II: Unter Donner und Blitz, Op. 324
Strauss, Johann II: Explosions Polka, Op. 43
Strauss, Johann II: Wine, Women and Song (Wein, Weib und Gesang), Op. 333
Strauss, Johann II: Annen Polka, Op. 117
Strauss, Johann II: Thousand And One Nights (Tausend und eine Nacht), Op. 346
Strauss, Johann II: Young-in-Heart Polka (Leichtes Blut Polka)

DISC 64:
Rimsky-Korsakov : Scheherazade, Op. 35

DISC 65:
Mendelssohn: Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
Davies: O Little Town of Bethlehem
Mason: Joy to the World
Adam: O Holy Night (Cantique de Noël)
Traditional: O Come, O Come, Emanuel
Traditional: God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
Schubert: Ave Maria
Wade: O Come, All Ye Faithful (Adeste Fideles)
Traditional: The First Noël
Traditional: Deck the Halls With Boughs of Holly
Traditional: O Sanctissima (O du fröhliche)
Beethoven: The Worship of God
Traditional: O Come, Little Children
Gruber: Silent Night, Holy Night

DISC 66:
Delius: Brigg Fair: An English Rhapsody
Delius: A Dance Rhapsody No. 2 - Mazurka Tempo
Delius: On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring
Delius: In a Summer Garden, Rhapsody for Orchestra, RT VI/17

DISC 67:
Barati: Chamber Concerto
Rochberg: Symphony No. 2

DISC 68:
Sibelius: Symphony No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 39
Sibelius: Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op. 47

DISC 69:
Poulenc: Concerto in G Minor for Organ, Strings and Tympani
R. Strauss: Festival Prelude for Organ and Orchestra, Op. 61
Barber-Ormandy: Toccata Festiva, Op. 36

DISC 70:
Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 1, Sz. 83
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 4 in B-Flat Major, Op. 53

DISC 71:
Smith (arr. Asper): The Star-Spangled Banner
Elgar(arr. Fagge): Land of Hope and Glory
Berlin: Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor
DeLisle: The Marseillaise
Sibelius (arr. Matthews): On Great Lone Hills - From "Finlandia"
Traditional (arr. Robertson): Hatikva
arr. Jenskins: The Maple Leaf Forever
Ward (arr. Asper): America, The Beautiful
Jacobs (arr. Lowell, Durham): This Is My Country
Shaw (arr. Schreiner): O Columbia The Gem Of The Ocean
Berlin (arr. R. DeCormier and E. Sauter): God Bless America
Sousa: Washington Post March
Gottschalk (arr. Kay): Grand Walkaround from Cakewalk
Ives (arr. Schuman): Variations on "America"
Copland: Rodeo: V. Hoedown
Smith (arr. Asper): The Star-Spangled Banner

DISC 72:
Bartók: Bluebeard's Castle, Sz. 48

DISC 73/74:
Bach, J.S.: Mass in B Minor, BWV 232

DISC 75:
Wagner: Lohengrin, WWV 75: Prelude to Act III
Wagner: Siegfried, WWV 86C: Waldweben
Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, WWV 96: Prelude to Act III & Dance of the Apprentices & Entrance of the Meistersingers
Wagner: Tannhäuser, WWV 70: Overture and Venusberg Music
Wagner: Siegfried-Idyll, WWV 103

DISC 76:
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4 in C Minor, Op. 43

DISC 77:
Walton: Façade
Ibert: Divertissment from Un chapeau de paille d'Italie
Ibert: Escales

DISC 78:
Mozart, W.A.: Concerto in B-Flat Major for Bassoon and Orchestra, K. 191
Mozart, W.A.: Concerto No. 1 in G Major for Flute and Orchestra, K. 313

DISC 79:
Mozart, W.A.: Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra in C Major, K. 314
Mozart, W.A.: Concerto in A Major for Clarinet and Orchestra, K. 622

DISC 80:
Yardumian: Symphony No. 1
Yardumian: Violin Concerto

DISC 81:
Saint-Saens: Symphony No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 78 "Organ"
Saint-Saens: The Carnival of the Animals, R.125

DISC 82:
Sousa: The Stars and Stripes Forever
Meyerbeer: Coronation March from "Le Prophete"
Beethoven: Die Ruinen von Athen, Op. 113: No. 4, Marcia alla turca
Gounod: Marche funèbre d'une marionnette
Gould: American Salute (When Johnny Comes Marchin' Home)
Verdi: Grand March from "Aida"
Bizet: March of the Toreadors from "Carmen"
Herbert: March of the Toys
Schubert: Marche Militaire
Prokofiev: March from "The Love for Three Oranges"
Strauss, Johann II: Radetzky March
Knipper: Meadowlands (Cavalry of the Steppes) from Symphony No. 4
Elgar: Pomp and Circumstance No. 1

DISC 83:
Brahms: A German Requiem, Op. 45

DISC 84:
Prokofiev: Symphony No. 6, Op. 111

DISC 85:
Mozart, W.A.: Concerto for 3 Pianos and Orchestra in F Major, K. 242
Bach, J.S.: Concerto for 3 Pianos and Orchestra in D Minor, BWV 1063
Bach, J.S.: Concerto in F Major, BWV 971 "Italian" (Robert Casadesus, piano)

DISC 86:
Chopin (arr. Douglas): Les Sylphides - Ballet
Délibes: Sylvia (Ballet Suite) Excerpts
Délibes: Coppelia
Chopin (arr. Harris): Nocturne in E-Flat Major, Op. 9, No. 2 (Arr. for Orchestra)

DISC 87:
R. Strauss: Don Quixote, Op. 35 - Fantastische Variationen über ein Thema ritterlichen Characters

DISC 88:
Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-Sharp Minor, Op. 1
Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Minor, Op. 40

Award-Winning Telegraph Quartet Presented by the University of Michigan Performing Music by Bacewicz, Britten, and Weinberg

Photo of the Telegraph Quartet by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution at: www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/telegraph-quartet

Telegraph Quartet Presented by the University of Michigan

Performing Music by Grażyna Bacewicz, Benjamin Britten, Mieczysław Weinberg

Monday, November 13, 2023 at 8pm
Britton Recital Hall at University of Michigan
1100 Baits Dr. | Ann Arbor, MI

Free and Open-to-the-Public
Information at: www.smtd.umich.edu/event/13-november-2023-3/

“full of elegance and pinpoint control...”
– The New Yorker

www.TelegraphQuartet.com

Ann Arbor, MI – The Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello), a group described by The Strad as having "precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication,” will be presented in concert by The University of Michigan on Monday, November 13, 2023 at 8pm, as part of a residency with the University from November 12-14, 2023, which includes a Masterclass on Sunday, November 12 at 7pm. The concert and masterclass are both free and open to the public. For their performance, Telegraph Quartet will perform a program featuring String Quartet No. 4 (1951) by Grażyna Bacewicz, String Quartet No. 1 (1941) by Benjamin Britten, and String Quartet No. 6 in E minor Op. 35 (1946) by Mieczysław Weinberg.

Known for their technical prowess and appreciation for the history behind music, the Telegraph Quartet brings a concert program to the University of Michigan that’s steeped in the mystery, tension, and global turmoil of World War II. Intricate and stylistically intense compositions intertwine with the feelings and perceptions imparted into each work by their respective composers, as a result of the unique but highly charged circumstances all three faced during the war. These works channel a dark era in human history but give Telegraph Quartet an exciting opportunity to display their performative precision and unified musical expression through works that beautifully blend compositional complexity with many strong emotions..

The Telegraph Quartet’s new release, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths was released on August 25 via Azica Records. The first album in a three record series focused on string quartets of the era, Divergent Paths offers a glimpse into the beginning of the 20th century. The Telegraph Quartet explores this time bewildering and unbridled creativity through the work of Arnold Schoenberg and Maurice Ravel, whose music on this album weaves threads of great contrast and surprising similarity. The works the Telegraph Quartet is performing for the University of Michigan make up the program that will be recorded on the second volume in the series.

The New York Times says of the first installment in the trilogy:

“[I]n the Schoenberg, they achieve something truly special, meticulously guiding its often wayward progress. At times Schoenberg makes the four strings sound almost orchestral, but the Telegraph players can also make his contrapuntal tangles radiantly clear. Every minute of their account sounds gripping and purposeful, which is one of the highest compliments you can pay the piece.”

Joseph Maile of the Telegraph Quartet says:

“All of the works on this program and future album reflect each composers’ emotional state as they wrestled with the consequences of these traumatic times. While foreboding, anger, uncertainty and longing pervade the works, each one finds its own way to a life-affirming optimism, whether defiant or joyous. We are very excited to be coming to the University of Michigan and working with all of the talented and dedicated students there! Along with our Masterclass, we look forward to also working one-on-one with the students and sharing these intense and profound works with them and the overall community.”

Grażyna Bacewicz’s String Quartet No. 4 was composed in 1951, several years after the end of World War II. During this time, Bacewicz lived through the Nazi occupation of Warsaw. The work opens with a kind of sorrow-tinged hope that builds to a joyous third movement.

Benjamin Britten and his future partner Peter Pears fled England in 1939 with the rumblings of war with Germany on their heels, in part to avoid their inevitable jailing if war broke out due to their pacifist beliefs. War did break out shortly and by 1941, the homesick Britten was writing his first quartet, with a nostalgia for his island home that is reflected in the wave-like motions of the work’s third movement.

During World War II Weinberg fled his homeland of Poland and having failed to convince his family to come with him, almost all of them would be murdered in the concentration camps. His String Quartet No. 6 (1946) contains an innocent mundanity that erupts throughout the work into desperation, sorrow, and tragic indignation as he dealt with the ramifications of his exile and learned to live warily in his newfound home of the Soviet Union.

About Telegraph Quartet: The Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello) formed in 2013 with an equal passion for standard and contemporary chamber music repertoire. Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “…an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape” and “powerfully adept… with a combination of brilliance and subtlety,” the Telegraph Quartet was awarded the prestigious 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.

The Quartet has performed in New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Chamber Masters Series, and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Emilia Romagna Festival. They have collaborated with pianists Leon Fleisher and Simone Dinnerstein; cellists Norman Fischer and Bonnie Hampton; violinist Ian Swensen; composer-vocalist Theo Bleckmann; St. Lawrence Quartet, and the Henschel Quartett. A fervent champion of 20th- and 21st-century repertoire, the Telegraph Quartet has premiered works by John Harbison, Osvaldo Golijov, Robert Sirota, and Richard Festinger. In 2018 the Quartet released its debut album, Into the Light, featuring works by Anton Webern, Benjamin Britten, and Leon Kirchner on the Centaur label. The Telegraph Quartet released its new album, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths – which features Ravel’s renowned quartet and Schoenberg’s first quartet – on August 25 via Azica Records.

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Quartet is currently on the chamber music faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as the Quartet-in-Residence and has given master classes at the SFCM Collegiate and Pre-College Divisions, through the Morrison Artist Series at San Francisco State University, and abroad at the Taipei National University of the Arts, National Taiwan Normal University, and in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Telegraph has also served as artists-in-residence at the Interlochen Adult Chamber Music Camp, SoCal Chamber Music Workshop, and Crowden Music Center Chamber Music Workshop. In November 2020, the Telegraph Quartet launched ChamberFEAST!, a chamber music workshop in Taiwan and in fall 2020, Telegraph launched an online video project called TeleLab, in which the ensemble collectively breaks down the components of a movement from various works for quartet.

For more information, visit www.telegraphquartet.com.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: The award-winning Telegraph Quartet, described by The New York Times as being “full of elegance and pinpoint control,” is presented in concert by the University of Michigan on Monday, November 13, 2023 at 8pm. On Sunday November 12, 2023 at 7pm, the Quartet will give a masterclass. Both events are free and open to the public. For the performance, the Bay Area ensemble will perform a program highlighting works of the mid 20th century, including Grażyna Bacewicz’s String Quartet No. 4, Benjamin Britten’s String Quartet No. 1, and Mieczysław Weinberg’s String Quartet No. 6 in E minor Op. 35 (1946).

Short description: The Telegraph Quartet, which is described as being “full of elegance and pinpoint control” (The New York Times), is presented by the University of Michigan for a masterclass on November 12 and performance on November 13, featuring the music of Grażyna Bacewicz, Benjamin Britten, and Mieczysław Weinberg. Both events are free and open to the public.

Concert details:

Who: Telegraph Quartet
Presented by the University of Michigan
What: Music by Grażyna Bacewicz, Benjamin Britten, and Mieczysław Weinberg
When: Monday November 13, 2023 at 8pm; Masterclass on Sunday, November 12 at 7pm
Where: Britton Recital Hall at University of Michigan, 1100 Baits Dr., Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Tickets and information (Free and Open to the Public): www.smtd.umich.edu/event/13-november-2023-3/

Jupiter Quartet Continues its Concert Series Presented by Krannert Center with Folk Encounters

Photo of the Jupiter Quartet by Todd Rosenberg available in high resolution at www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/jupiter-string

The Jupiter String Quartet Continues its Concert Series Presented by Krannert Center for the Performing Arts with Folk Encounters

Featuring Guest Violist Kirsten Docter

Performing Music by Su Lian Tan, Wynton Marsalis, and Antonin Dvořák

Friday, November 10, 2023 at 7:30pm
University of Illinois | Foellinger Great Hall
500 S Goodwin Ave. | Urbana, IL

Tickets and Information at
https://krannertcenter.com/events/jupiter-string-quartet-kirsten-docter-viola

“technical finesse and rare expressive maturity”
– The New Yorker

www.jupiterquartet.com

Urbana, IL – The Jupiter String Quartet – the quartet-in-residence at the University of Illinois since 2012 and internationally acclaimed winners of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and the Banff International String Quartet Competition – continues their 2023-2024 concert series presented by Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in Foellinger Great Hall (500 S. Goodwin Ave) on Friday, November 10, 2023 at 7:30pm, in a collaborative performance with violist Kirsten Docter. The Jupiter’s series at Krannert Center also includes a third performance on February 6, 2024.

The Jupiter Quartet will perform a program of works that spans more than a century and highlights a range of musical styles, including excerpts from "At the Octoroon Balls," String Quartet No. 1 by Wynton Marsalis (1995), Antonin Dvořák’s Viola Quintet In E-flat Major “American,” Op. 97 B. 180 (1893), and Su Lian Tan’s “Life in Wayang” (2002).

The Jupiter Quartet says of collaborating with Kirsten Docter:“We are so pleased to bring one of our longtime mentors, the wonderful violist Kirsten Docter, to campus to share the stage with us and give wise advice to our students. Antonin Dvorak’s viola quintet is a fantastic, joyful work, and we are excited to share it with our hometown crowd at Krannert.”

Based in Urbana and giving concerts all over the country, the Jupiter String Quartet is a particularly intimate group, consisting of violinists Nelson Lee and Meg Freivogel, violist Liz Freivogel (Meg’s older sister), and cellist Daniel McDonough (Meg’s husband, Liz’s brother-in-law). Brought together by ties both familial and musical, the Jupiter Quartet has been performing together for 23 years. Exuding an energy that is at once friendly, knowledgeable, and adventurous, the Quartet celebrates every opportunity to bring their close-knit and lively style to audiences.Their connections to each other and the length of time they’ve shared the stage always shine through in their intuitive performances.

Up next on February 6, 2024, the Jupiter Quartet will conclude its concert series with a program that features the work of Michi Wiancko, Béla Bartók, and Johannes Brahms, with Soyeon Kate Lee joining the Quartet on piano.

More About Jupiter String Quartet: This tight-knit ensemble is firmly established as an important voice in the world of chamber music. Artists-in-residence at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana since 2012, the Jupiter Quartet maintain private studios and direct the University’s chamber music program.

The Jupiter Quartet has performed in some of the world’s finest halls, including New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, Boston’s Jordan Hall, Mexico City's Palacio de Bellas Artes, Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center and Library of Congress, Austria’s Esterhazy Palace, and Seoul’s Sejong Chamber Hall. Their major music festival appearances include the Aspen Music Festival and School, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, Rockport Music Festival, Music at Menlo, the Seoul Spring Festival, and many others. In addition to their performing career, they have been artists-in-residence at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign since 2012, where they maintain private studios and direct the chamber music program.

Their chamber music honors and awards include the grand prizes in the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition; the Young Concert Artists International auditions in New York City; the Cleveland Quartet Award from Chamber Music America; an Avery Fisher Career Grant; and a grant from the Fromm Foundation. From 2007-2010, they were in residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Two.

About Kirsten Docter: Kirsten Docter is associate professor of viola and chamber music at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. First-prize wins at the Primrose International and American String Teachers Association Viola Competitions launched her on a career that includes a 23-year tenure with the Cavani Quartet, concerts on major series and festivals, and numerous appointments as a master class clinician and teacher.

Docter’s festival appearances include performances at the Aspen Music Festival, Seattle Chamber Music Society, and Kneisel Hall. Her work can be heard on the Azica, Albany, and New World labels. Docter formerly served on the chamber music and viola faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music and the University of Michigan. She has been a jury member of the Primrose International Viola, Fischoff National Chamber Music, and Sphinx competitions. In the summer she serves on the viola faculty of the Perlman Music Program and Bowdoin International Music Festival.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: The Jupiter Quartet, the Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign who are described by The New Yorker as having “technical finesse and rare expressive maturity,” is presented by Krannert Center for a performance with violist Kirsten Docter in Foellinger Great Hall (500 S Goodwin Ave.). The ensemble will perform a stylistically diverse, collaborative program that includes excerpts from "At the Octoroon Balls," String Quartet No. 1 by Wynton Marsalis, and Su Lian Tan’s Life in Wayang. and Antonin Dvořák’s Viola Quintet In E-flat Major “American,” Op. 97 B. 180, performed with violist Kirsten Docter.

Short description: The Jupiter Quartet, who are described as having an ensemble of “technical finesse and rare expressive maturity” (The New Yorker), is presented by Krannert Center for a performance with violist Kirsten Docter, featuring the music of Wynton Marsalis, Su Lian Tan, and Antonin Dvořák.

Concert details:

Who: Jupiter String Quartet and violist Kirsten Docter
Presented by Krannert Center
What: Music by Su Lian Tan, Wynton Marsalis, and Antonin Dvořák.
When: Friday, November 10, 2023 at 7:30pm
Where: University of Illinois, Krannert Center, Foellinger Great Hall, 500 S Goodwin Ave, Urbana, IL 61801

Tickets and information: www.krannertcenter.com/events/jupiter-string-quartet-kirsten-docter-viola

Pianist Simone Dinnerstein Presented by Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center Performing Music by From her Album Undersong

Photo of Simone Dinnerstein by Tanya Braganti available in high resolution at: https://jensen-artists.squarespace.com/artists-profiles/simone-dinnerstein 

Pianist Simone Dinnerstein Presented by
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center

Performing Music by Couperin, Schumann, Glass, and Satie From her Album Undersong

Wednesday, November 8, 2023 at 7pm
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center
120 College Street | Asheville, NC

Tickets and information: www.blackmountaincollege.org/simone-dinnerstein/

“an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity”
– The Washington Post

Simone Dinnerstein: www.simonedinnerstein.com

Asheville, NC – GRAMMY-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Washington Post as an “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” is presented in concert November 8, 2023 at Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (120 College Street).

Dinnerstein, who is heralded for her distinctive musical voice and commitment to sharing classical music with everyone, will perform several selections found on her 2022 Orange Mountain Music album Undersong –– the final installment in a trilogy of albums recorded at her home in Brooklyn during the pandemic between 2020 and 2022, which also includes A Character of Quiet (Orange Mountain Music, 2020) and Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic (Supertrain Records, 2021). The latter surpassed two million streams on Apple Music and was nominated for a 2021 Grammy Award in the category of Best Classical Instrumental Solo. The concert program will include: Robert Schumann’s Arabesque, in C Major, Op. 18 and Kreisleriana, Op. 16; François Couperin­’s Les Barricades Mysterieuses and Tic-Toc-Choc; Philip Glass’s Mad Rush; and Erik Satie’s Gnossienne No. 3.

Dinnerstein explains of Undersong’s title: “Undersong is an archaic term for a song with a refrain, and to me it also suggests a hidden text. Glass, Schumann, Couperin and Satie all seem to be attempting to find what they want to say through repetition, as though their constant change and recycling will focus the ear and the mind. This time has been one of reflection and reconsidering for many of us, and this music speaks to the process of revisiting and searching for the meaning beneath the notes, of the undersong.”

Reflecting on Schumann’s Arabesque, in C Major, Op. 18, Dinnerstein explains that it’s “a very beautiful, poetic piece of music but it ends with a separate type of epilogue that's something different from the piece and modern in a way. There's a rest before you play it and the rest serves as a bridge to Philip Glass’s Mad Rush. It's unclear to the listener whether it's Schumann or Glass. I really like that blurring of the composer's languages with each other."

Dinnerstein offers this connective observation between Schumann’s Kreisleriana, Op. 16 and Schumann’s, Arabesque “The Arabesque has some quick changes in mood and the most breathtaking coda at the end that completely takes it someplace else, written in Schumann’s music language but sounding absolutely contemporary. In comparison, Kreisleriana changes on a dime. Suddenly, you’ll be in a completely different headspace. I think that’s as much about Schumann himself, as about his love for Clara.”

Sequenza21 describes Dinnerstein’s approach to Couperin’s Les Barricades Mysterieuses as “sonorous [and] eschewing ornamentation in favor of unadorned, shapely melodies.” Meanwhile, the tempo of Couperin’s Tic-Toc-Choc is thought to mirror the rhythmic precision of a clock and the full title (Le Tic-Toc-Choc, ou Les Maillotins), references little hammers or mallets. The San Francisco Classical Voice says Dinnerstein’s performance of the piece makes it appear as if she “magically transform[s] the piano into a harpsichord.”

With its distinctly repetitious compositional structure, Philip Glass’s Mad Rush, a piece originally composed for organ at New York City’s St. John the Divine, underscores the collectively seamless nature of this program’s repertoire. The New Criterion describes Dinnerstein’s performance of the piece as “transcendent – the picture of introspection interrupted by unexpected vision.”

Of Erik Satie’s Gnossienne No. 3, Dinnerstein says, “Erik Satie published three Gymnopédie and three Gnossienne together, though he eventually wrote more Gnossienne, a fantastical term that he came up with. The markings in the score for Gnossienne No. 3 are bizarre: “Plan carefully”; “Provide yourself with clear sightedness”; “Alone for a moment”; “So as to get a hollow”; “Quite lost”; “Carry this further”; “Open your mind”. These are written right over the notes. The commentary is dada-esque.”

About Simone Dinnerstein: American pianist Simone Dinnerstein has a distinctive musical voice. The Washington Post has called her “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity.” She first came to wider public attention in 2007 through her recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, reflecting an aesthetic that was both deeply rooted in the score and profoundly idiosyncratic. She is, wrote The New York Times, “a unique voice in the forest of Bach interpretation.”

Dinnerstein has played with orchestras ranging from the New York Philharmonic and Montreal Symphony Orchestra to the London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Rai. She has performed in venues from Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center to the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus, Seoul Arts Center and Sydney Opera House. She has made thirteen albums, all of which topped the Billboard charts. During the pandemic she recorded three albums which form a trilogy: A Character of Quiet, An American Mosaic, and Undersong. An American Mosaic was nominated for a Grammy.

In recent years, Dinnerstein has created projects that express her broad musical interests. She gave the world premiere of The Eye Is the First Circle at Montclair State University, the first multi-media production she conceived, created, and directed, which uses as source materials her father Simon Dinnerstein’s painting The Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’s Piano Sonata No. 2. She premiered Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic, a tribute to those affected by the pandemic, in a performance on multiple pianos throughout Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. Following her recording Mozart in Havana, she brought the Havana Lyceum Orchestra from Cuba to the U.S. for the first time, performing eleven concerts. Philip Glass composed his Piano Concerto No. 3 for her, co-commissioned by twelve orchestras. Working with Renée Fleming and the Emerson String Quartet, she premiered André Previn and Tom Stoppard’s Penelope at the Tanglewood, Ravinia and Aspen music festivals, and performed it at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and presented by LA Opera. Dinnerstein has also created her own ensemble, Baroklyn, which she directs. The Washington Post comments, “it is Dinnerstein’s unreserved identification with every note she plays that makes her performance so spellbinding.” In a world where music is everywhere, she hopes that it can still be transformative. www.simonedinnerstein.com

About Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center: ​The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (BMCM+AC) preserves and continues the legacy of educational and artistic innovation of Black Mountain College (BMC). We achieve our mission through collection, conservation, and educational activities including exhibitions, publications, and public programs. Arts advocate Mary Holden founded BMCM+AC in 1993 to celebrate the history of Black Mountain College as a forerunner in progressive interdisciplinary education and to explore its extraordinary impact on modern and contemporary art, dance, theater, music, and performance. Today, the museum remains committed to educating the public about BMC’s history and raising awareness of its extensive legacy. Our goal is to provide a gathering point for people from a variety of backgrounds to interact through art, ideas, and discourse.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Washington Post as “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” is presented in concert by Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center. Dinnerstein will perform several selections found on her 2022 Orange Mountain Music release, Undersong, including Robert Schumann’s Arabesque, in C Major, Op. 18 and Kreisleriana, Op. 16; François Couperin­’s Les Barricades Mysterieuses and Tic-Toc-Choc; Philip Glass’s Mad Rush; and Erik Satie’s Gnossienne No. 3.

Short description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described as an artist of “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity” (The Washington Post) is presented in concert by Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, performing selections by François Couperin, Robert Schumann, Philip Glass, and Erik Satie from her 2022 album Undersong.

Concert details:
Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein and Caroga Arts Ensemble Conducted by Music Director Alexander Platt
Presented by Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center
What: Music by Music by François Couperin­, Robert Schumann, Philip Glass, and Erik Satie
When: Wednesday, November 8, 2023 at 3pm
Where: 120 College St, Asheville, NC 28801
Tickets and information: www.blackmountaincollege.org/simone-dinnerstein/

San Francisco Girls Chorus Opens 45th Anniversary Season with Left Coast Chamber Ensemble

Photo by Rachel Ziegler available in high resolution at www.sfgirlschorus.org/press-room.

San Francisco Girls Chorus Opens 45th Anniversary Season

Valérie Sainte-Agathe, Artistic Director

November 4 & 5, 2023 – This Is What It Means
SFGC Premier Ensemble Opening Concerts Centering Music by California Women
Co-Presented with Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Part of the California Festival
Music by Sarah Gibson (World Premiere), Reena Esmail, Nicolás Lell Benavides, Caroline Shaw, Gabriela Lena Frank, Lisa Bielawa, and Ursula Kwong-Brown

December 11, 2023 – SFGC Winter Concert: Folk Songs of the World with Latin Grammy-Nominee Accordionist Sam Reider at Davies Symphony Hall

San Francisco Girls Chorus: www.sfgirlschorus.org
Press Room: www.sfgirlschorus.org/press-room

San Francisco, CA – The San Francisco Girls Chorus (SFGC) led by Artistic Director Valérie Sainte-Agathe opens its 2023-2024 season, which celebrates 45 years of empowering young women through music, with concerts on November 4 and 5. Since 1978, SFGC has provided girls and young women the unique opportunity not only to perform at the highest artistic caliber, but also to develop self-confidence, leadership skills, and an awareness of the role of the arts in civic engagement.

SFGC launches the season with This Is What It Means, two concerts featuring its Premier Ensemble co-presented and performed with Left Coast Chamber Ensemble (LCCE) as part of the statewide California Festival on November 4, 2023 at First Presbyterian Church in Berkeley and November 5, 2023 at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. The concert program centers the voices of Californian women composers, interweaving instrumental and vocal works by Pauline Oliveros (Tree/Peace), Gabriela Lena Frank (Picaflor Esmeralda from Two Mountain Songs and Canto para California), Reena Esmail (Love of Thousands, SFGC commission 2019), Gabriella Smith (Carrot Revolution), Lisa Bielawa (Opening: Forest from Vireo), and Ursula Kwong-Brown (I See You, I Hear You, I Believe You) with the music of Nicolás Lell Benavides (A Bird Came Down the Walk), Caroline Shaw (Dolce Cantavi), and Hildegard von Bingen (O Virtus Sapientiae). SFGC and LCCE join forces in the world premiere performances of a new work by Los Angeles-based composer Sarah Gibson titled This is what it means, co-commissioned by the two ensembles for the occasion. Gibson's music has been described as "expansive" by the Los Angeles Times, and has been performed by the BBC and Los Angeles Philharmonics, Atlanta, Seattle, and New Jersey Symphonies, and more. Her compositions reflect her deep interest in the creative process across various artistic mediums, especially from the female perspective.

On December 11, 2023, SFGC presents its highly anticipated annual concert at Davies Symphony Hall, SFGC Winter Concert: Folk Songs of the World, bringing together hundreds of singers from the Premier Ensemble, the entire Chorus School, as well as SFGC alumnae. This year’s concert is inspired by folk music traditions from around the world and features acclaimed accordionist and 2023 Latin Grammy nominee Sam Reider as guest artist, combining traditional favorites (including Silent Night), new works, and hidden gems from the holiday choral repertoire. The San Francisco-based Sam Reider has performed, recorded, and collaborated with a range of artists including Jon Batiste, Jorge Glem, Sierra Hull, Laurie Lewis, and Paquito d’Rivera. From his genre-bending acoustic ensemble The Human Hands to his duo collaboration with Grammy-nominated Venezuelan artist Jorge Glem, his unique compositional voice and melodicism runs throughout his eclectic projects.

SFGC's season continues on March 9, 2024 when the Premier Ensemble performs Vivaldi’s Juditha Triumphans at Z Space, with music direction by Valérie Sainte-Agathe and stage direction by Céline Ricci. In May 2024, the Chorus School will showcase singers from Levels 1 through IV at its annual Chorus School Spring Concert at the Scottish Rite Masonic Center, coming together to celebrate their accomplishments from the year individually and as a school. The Premier Ensemble’s season concludes with a collaboration with renowned percussionist and composer Haruka Fujii on May 19, 2024 at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. In addition, SFGC ensembles will perform throughout the Bay Area in collaboration this season with other organizations and artists including the East Bay Philharmonic, Sunset Music & Arts, Lisa Mezzacappa, and the Amateur Music Network.

A leader in the Bay Area and national music scenes, SFGC produces award-winning concerts, recordings and tours; empowers young women in music and other fields; and sets the international standard for the highest level of performance and education. SFGC has been recognized through numerous honors including five GRAMMY Awards, four ASCAP/Chorus America Awards for Adventurous Programming, and in 2002, becoming the first youth chorus to receive Chorus America's prestigious Margaret Hillis Achievement Award for Choral Excellence. Each year, hundreds of singers of diverse backgrounds from 45 Bay Area cities ranging in age from age four to eighteen participate in SFGC’s programs. The organization consists of a six-level Chorus School training program and the Premier Ensemble, a professional-level chorus of treble voices.

San Francisco Girls Chorus Season Highlights

This Is What It Means
SFGC Premier Ensemble Opening Concerts Centering Music by California Women
Co-Presented with Left Coast Chamber Ensemble
Part of the California Festival

November 4, 2023 at 7:30pm
First Presbyterian Church, 2407 Dana St, Berkeley, CA

November 5, 2023, at 4pm
San Francisco Conservatory of Music, 50 Oak St, San Francisco, CA

SFGC Winter Concert: Folk Songs
with Latin Grammy-Nominee Accordionist Sam Reider

December 11, 2023 at 7pm
Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Ave, San Francisco, CA

SFGC Premier Ensemble in Vivaldi’s Juditha Triumphans
Music direction by Valérie Sainte-Agathe & stage direction by Celine Ricci

March 9, 2024 at 7:30pm & March 10, 2024 at 2pm
Z Space, 450 Florida St, San Francisco, CA

Chorus School Spring Concert
Featuring a World Premiere by SFGC Composer-in-Residence Sahba Aminikia

May 2024
Scottish Rite Masonic Center, 2850 19th Ave, San Francisco, CA

SFGC Premier Ensemble with Percussionist & Composer Haruka Fujii

May 19, 2024 at 3pm
San Francisco Conservatory of Music, 50 Oak St, San Francisco, CA

Tickets & information: www.sfgirlschorus.org

The San Francisco Girls Chorus receives support from Grants for the Arts, The Kimball Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Sequoia Trust, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc., The Sam Mazza Foundation, The Bernard Osher Foundation, and The Morris Stulsaft Foundation.

More About The San Francisco Girls Chorus And Chorus School:

Established in 1978, the mission of the San Francisco Girls Chorus is to create outstanding performances featuring the unique and compelling sound of young women’s voices through an exemplary program committed to education and visionary leadership in the development of this art form.

Commissions of new works from the leading composers of our time, collaborations with renowned guest artists, and partnerships with other Bay Area and national arts organizations provide the young women of SFGC with matchless performance experiences among powerful adult role models. In addition to its annual engagements with the San Francisco Opera and San Francisco Symphony, recent and current/upcoming artistic partnerships include the San Francisco Ballet, San Francisco Film Festival, Opera Parallèle, Kronos Quartet, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, New Century Chamber Orchestra, TEDxSanFrancisco, and Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky. SFGC has also traveled to the East Coast on a number of occasions in recent years for debut concert engagements, including for the 2016 NY PHIL BIENNIAL FESTIVAL at Lincoln Center in collaboration with The Knights orchestra, for SHIFT: A Festival of American Orchestras in April 2017 with The Knights at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, and at Carnegie Hall in February 2018 with the Philip Glass Ensemble, for a sold-out performance that was broadcast around the world by Medici TV.

SFGC's commitment to artistic excellence has been recognized through many awards and honors, including five GRAMMY Awards; four ASCAP/Chorus America Awards for Adventurous Programming; and, in 2002, becoming the first youth chorus to receive Chorus America's prestigious Margaret Hillis Achievement Award for Choral Excellence.

SFGC was founded in 1978 by Elizabeth Appling, who served as Artistic Director until her retirement in 1992. Other Artistic Directors during SFGC's illustrious 40-year history include Sharon J. Paul (1992 - 2000), Magen Solomon (2000-2001, interim), Susan McMane (2001-2012), Brandon Brack (2012-2013, interim), and Lisa Bielawa (2013-2018).

SFGC owns and operates the Kanbar Performing Arts Center, which has become a hub for small to mid-size arts organizations in the Bay Area. In addition to SFGC’s own rehearsal and performance programs, the Kanbar Center provides long-term leased office space to such organizations as American Bach Soloists, Opera Parallèle, Jewish LearningWorks, and the Chinese-American International School, as well as rehearsal space for groups including New Century Chamber Orchestra, Kronos Quartet, San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, Merola summer opera program, and the San Francisco Boys Chorus.

About Valérie Sainte-Agathe, SFGC Artistic Director:

Valérie Sainte-Agathe has prepared and conducted the San Francisco Girls Chorus since 2013, including performances with renowned ensembles throughout the United States and beyond. Through transformative choral music training, education, and performance, Ms. Sainte-Agathe empowers young women and champions the music of today throughout the choral world.

Prior to her time with SFGC, Ms. Sainte-Agathe served as Music Director for the Young Singers program of the Montpellier National Symphony and Opera in France from 1998-2011, and participated in eight recordings with the Montpellier National Orchestra and The Radio France Festival.

In the 2022-2023 season, Ms. Sainte-Agathe celebrated a decade of leadership with the San Francisco Girls Chorus. During her tenure, she has welcomed artistic collaborations with many celebrated guest artists including Chanticleer, Santa Fe Opera, soprano Shawnette Sulker, composer and percussionist Susie Ibarra, GRAMMY-nominated composer Ayanna Woods, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, the King’s Singers, Roomful of Teeth, Bobby McFerrin. She premiered SFGC’s first self-produced and commissioned opera, Tomorrow’s Memories: A Little Manila Diary at San Francisco’s Magic Theatre in June 2023. Her first recording as SFGC’s Music Director, Final Answer, was released on Orange Mountain Music in February 2018, and her second recording, My Outstretched Hand, was released in July 2019. Ms. Sainte Agathe has toured with SFGC’s Premier Ensemble locally and internationally, and will travel with the ensemble to South Africa in July 2024.

Ms. Sainte-Agathe’s artistry stretches beyond the San Francisco Girls Chorus, including joining Philharmonia Baroque as its new Chorale Director in 2022, and a feature in the 2022 book Music Mavens: 15 Women of Note published by the Chicago Review Press. Ms. Sainte-Agathe joined forces with GRAMMY Award-winning Kronos Quartet during its 2021-2022 season to conduct the world premiere of At War With Ourselves - 400 Years of You by Michael Abels and continues to perform this work throughout the U.S. on tour with the ensemble.

Ms. Sainte Agathe’s performance highlights include her Carnegie Hall and Barbican Center debuts with the Philip Glass Ensemble, conducting with Michael Riesman in Glass’s Music with Changing Parts; conducting SFGC for the New York Philharmonic Biennial Festival at Lincoln Center; and collaborating with The Knights for the SHIFT Festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. She also served as Choirmaster with Taylor Mac, recipient of MacArthur Foundation's "Genius Grant," for the "Holiday Sauce" production at the Curran Theater in December 2018.

Sony Classical Presents Anshel Brusilow Conducts the Chamber Symphony of Philadelphia The Complete RCA Album Collection

Sony Classical Presents Anshel Brusilow
Conducts the Chamber Symphony of Philadelphia
The Complete RCA Album Collection

Philadelphia’s top chamber orchestra, founded and conducted by the Philadelphia Orchestra’s principal violinist and conductor Anshel Brusilow in 1966

All recordings in this set appearing on CD for the first time, remastered from the original master tapes using 24 bit / 192 kHz technology

Original LP sleeves and labels, booklet with full discographical notes

Release Date: November 3, 2023

Pre-order: bit.ly/SonyAnshelBrusilowChamberSymphonyOfPhiladelphia

The Chamber Symphony of Philadelphia was founded in 1965 by Anshel Brusilow, then concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Brusilow, who studied conducting and played under Pierre Monteux, George Szell and Eugene Ormandy, auditioned more than 1,000 musicians for the 36 full-time positions and conducted the ensemble from 1966 until 1968, when it was disbanded for want of adequate philanthropic support in the city for a second orchestra. But over the course of two-and-a-half 34-week seasons it had already performed more than 200 concerts and made six albums for RCA Victor. Sony Classical is now issuing all these LP recordings by the Chamber Symphony of Philadelphia on CD for the first time.

The original LP releases were praised by High Fidelity, which called the Chamber Symphony of Philadelphia “an orchestra of rare quality”. Reviewing its début release, Brahms’s D major Serenade, the US classical music magazine opined: “Brusilow could hardly have chosen a better work to show off the capabilities of his new orchestra – every first-chair woodwind and brass player has his chance to shine (and each does shine, brilliantly).” The Brahms was followed by a series of choice couplings: Tchaikovsky’s “Mozartiana” Suite with Arensky’s Variations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky (“Brusilow is thoroughly at home in this literature, and his players respond beautifully to his direction” – High Fidelity); symphonies by Haydn and Cherubini; a French programme of Ravel, Ibert and Françaix (“Perhaps a reflection of the Monteux influence … this record … carries true stylistic conviction in matters of phrasing, texture, and timbre” – High Fidelity); and Richard Strauss’s Le Bourgeois gentilhomme as well as Hugo Wolf’s Italian Serenade.

The orchestra also premièred and recorded a new sacred choral work by Richard Yardumian, the Philadelphia-based composer championed by Eugene Ormandy. Come, Creator Spirit for mezzo-soprano, chorus (or congregation) and orchestra was the first mass setting by an established American composer in the English vernacular following the Vatican Council’s 1963 decision. The work was lauded for its integrity, spiritual fervor, and power to communicate the essence of devotion in all its nuances from praise to supplication.

SET CONTENTS

DISC 1:
Brahms: Serenade No. 1 in D Major, Op. 11

DISC 2:
Yardumian: Come, Creator Spirit

DISC 3:
Tchaikovsky: Orchestral Suite No. 4, Op. 61, "Mozartiana"
Arensky: Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovsky, Op. 35a
Tchaikovsky: String Quartet No.1, Op. 11: II. Andante cantabile (Arr. for Orchestra)

DISC 4:
Cherubini: Symphony in D Major
Haydn: Symphony No. 60 in C Major, Hob. I:60, "Il distratto"

DISC 5:
Ravel: Le tombeau de Couperin, M. 68a
Francaix: Sérénade for Small Orchestra
Ibert: Suite Symphonique
Ibert: Capriccio

DISC 6:
R. Strauss: Der Bürger als Edelmann Suite, Op. 60
Wolf: Italian Serenade

Steven Schick's Soundlines out on Islandia Music Records - Second Volume in Weather Systems

Islandia Music Records to Release
Weather Systems from Steven Schick
A Multi-Album Series

Second Album – Soundlines – Out on December 1

“Philosopher King of Percussion” – The New York Times 

www.stevenschick.com | www.islandiamusic.com

New York, NY – Islandia Music Records announces Weather Systems II – Soundlines: On Language and the Land, the second in a three-volume series from “one of the great percussion virtuosos of our time” (San Francisco Chronicle) Steven Schick. Weather Systems is a set of recordings of the percussion music that has been most meaningful to Schick, which spans more than 100 years and features a diverse set of composers. Weather Systems II – Soundlines: On Language and the Land will be released on December 1, 2023. The final installment of this recording project, Weather Systems III: It's About Time, is expected in 2026 and will be an up-close look at rhythm as an ode to future musicians.

Soundlines: On Language and the Land, which also marks Schick’s 70th birthday, is centered around his 700 mile walk up the California coast in 2006. Schick reflects on this journey as “a real moment of change in which my musical life and the natural world really started to speak to each other,” prompting a different approach to and understanding of percussion playing. The 3-CD set features highly contrasting works for percussion by Iannis Xenakis (Psappha), Vivian Fung (The Ice is Talking), George Lewis (Soundlines), Lei Liang (Trans), Frederic Rzewski (To the Earth), Vinko Globokar (Toucher), Roger Reynolds (Here and There), and Sarah Hennies (Thought Sectors), which all musically reveal deeper truths of the world.

Percussionist, conductor, and author Steven Schick has championed contemporary percussion music by commissioning or premiering more than one hundred-fifty new works. The title of his series, Weather Systems, and the first album, A Hard Rain, reflect Schick’s background growing up in a farming family in Iowa, always having one eye on the weather and in particular, on the rain. Soundlines: On Language and the Land is an echo of Schick’s walk up the California coast: a musical changing of perspectives and connection with the world. In his liner notes, Schick writes, “Each [of these recordings] presents layered emotions in which a humorous façade dissolves to reveal deeper truths.” 

The 700 mile journey on foot also had another motivation. Schick writes, “Although my walk from San Diego to San Francisco began as an exploration of sound and sonic cultures, it soon shifted to a more important goal. I was in love and I wanted to marry my girlfriend Brenda, who was living then in the Bay Area. . .  I was full of music but also full of love—for her and for the land I was crossing to reach her. The California coast may not have been the wine-dark sea of Homer, but for me it was the pathway to a future where music served life and not the other way around. With this realization, I did not minimize the position of music in my life, but rather safeguarded it. For those who wonder how Brenda answered my proposal: We have been married for 16 years.” 

Weather Systems will be released on Islandia Music Records, the record label of cellist and producer Maya Beiser. Beiser says, “Steve Schick and I met 30 years ago, in New York City. Both of us were involved with the Bang on a Can festival, we became founding members of the Bang on a Can All-Stars. Steve is a true virtuoso, possessing a rare artistic force which melds rigorous discipline with mesmerizing, hypnotic performance energy. Over the years we have collaborated on many different projects and remained close friends and artistic confidants. I am so thankful for the opportunity to help bring this monumental project to fruition with Islandia Music Records.”

Soundlines forms the basis for the pivotal journey of musical rediscovery and reframing. The album’s titular work by George Lewis tells of Schick’s seven-week trek from San Diego to San Francisco. Schick writes:

George Lewis has told my story in his extraordinary Soundlines, a work for speaking percussionist, ensemble, and electronics, using a narrative I wrote as the basis of his libretto. From its happy-go-lucky beginnings—I really did just start walking north one day—through moments of crisis and realization, George created a Radio Play, a Hörspiel, which in the German tradition is both light and dark; family entertainment and high drama. He included details of conversations along the way, a list of Native American tribes whose land I crossed on foot, and my own, ever-present, internal monologue. Soundlines points not just to the mechanics of a long walk but to the imperatives of a pilgrimage as a process of cleansing and reconciliation, a demarcation between how things had been and how they might yet be. George Lewis is one of the great creators of our time, as composer, author, advocate, and teacher. It is no surprise that in Soundlines he grasped the raptures and regrets of a long walk more clearly than did the walker himself.

Iannis Xenakis’ Psappha written in 1975 for multi-percussion solo takes inspiration from the Greek poet Sappho, whose archaic form is the namesake of Xenakis’ work. Since 1977, Schick estimates that he has performed Psappha over seven hundred times, allowing him to understand the piece as “fundamentally about the Sapphic voice.” By imagining the lost voices of Sapphos, Schick recorded Psappha surrounded by hanging gongs, which, “though never actually struck, reverberated sympathetically in a luminous halo of resonance. 

Vivian Fung’s The Ice is Talking was written in 2018 as a reaction to the receding glaciers in her Canadian home. Performed on a block of ice, the percussionist embodies the anxieties and poignancies of Fung’s work, all while playing on a disappearing instrument. But it is within these challenges that the deeper meanings of Fung’s work becomes apparent. For Schick, “the cracking and dripping of melting are miniature and poignant echoes of the loud booming and zinging of warming spring ice on the midwestern lakes of my childhood. Alas, the ice begins truly to sing only as it is dying.”

Lei Liang’s Trans, written in 2014, engages with the natural world, using beach stones to create clouds of sounds. Amidst these environmental sonorities created by his undergraduate students at University of California, San Diego, Schick lays down his virtuosic solo.

Frederic Rzewski’s To the Earth (1985) draws on the Homeric Hymn “To Earth Mother of All,” a prayer to the Greek goddess of the Earth. With flowerpots as solo instruments, the text and percussion embody Earth’s fragility and the precariousness of humanity.

Composed in 1973, Toucher by Vinko Globokar uses French translations from Berthold Brecht’s eponymous play. Originally based on Galileo’s persecution from the Catholic Church, Schick writes, “my first conversations with Vinko informed an interpretation of the piece as a paean to the soixante-huitards, the Parisian protesters of 1968 who struck against consumerism and imperialism.” Whether about Galileo or the soixante-huitards, Toucher musically depicts the stark differences between the powerful and powerless.

Described by Schick as a “daringly barren soundscape,” Roger Reynolds’ Here and There (2018) sets bass drum, large tam-tam, and vibraphone to spoken word. Drawing on Samuel Beckett’s “Text for Nothing IX,” Here and There probes Beckett’s contemplation on birth and death with intimately immediate percussion. The performance is the culmination of an over thirty year friendship and collaboration with Reynolds and Schick.

At almost an hour in length, Sarah Hennies’ Thought Sectors (2020) closes Schick’s album with an internal landscape. Through large sections of repetition, small absences, changes, and perturbations in the reiterations coagulate into meaning. As Schick writes, through Thought Sectors, “details normally too small to be distinguishable in the cascade of faster moving music begin to come alive. 

More About Steven Schick: Percussionist, conductor, and author Steven Schick was born in Iowa and raised in a farming family. Hailed by Alex Ross in The New Yorker as, “one of our supreme living virtuosos, not just of percussion but of any instrument,” he has championed contemporary percussion music by commissioning or premiering more than one hundred-fifty new works. The most important of these have become core repertory for solo percussion. Schick was inducted into the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame in 2014.

Steven Schick is artistic director of the La Jolla Symphony and Chorus and previously, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. As a conductor, he has appeared with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony, Ensemble Modern, the International Contemporary Ensemble, and the Asko/Schönberg Ensemble.

Schick’s publications include a book, The Percussionist’s Art: Same Bed, Different Dreams, and many articles. He has released numerous recordings including the 2010 Percussion Works of Iannis Xenakis, and its companion, The Complete Early Percussion Works of Karlheinz Stockhausen, in 2014 (both on Mode). He received the “Diapason d’Or” as conductor (Xenakis Ensemble Music with ICE) and the Deutscheschallplattenkritikpreis, as percussionist (Stockhausen), each for the best new music release of 2015.

Steven Schick is Distinguished Professor of Music and holds the Reed Family Presidential Chair at the University of California, San Diego. He was music director of the 2015 Ojai Festival, and co-artistic director, with Claire Chase, of the Summer Music Program at the Banff Centre from 2017-2019. 

About Islandia Music Records: Islandia Music Records is an independent record label founded and spearheaded by cellist and producer Maya Beiser, one of the foremost soloists and avant-garde artists of her generation. Beiser’s desire to be the driving force behind her artistic expression led her to concentrate on an intensely rich and innovative solo career. She has engaged composers, choreographers, dancers, visual artists, filmmakers, sound designers, and technology innovators to create works written for her or by her and interpreted through her singular artistic lens. The freedom to chart her own course made it possible to become a game changer in the contemporary creative landscape. A platform for self-expression and daring artistic adventures, Islandia Music Records allows for a broad palette of collaborative patterns: between the old and the new, the brazen and the subtle, the dark and the hopeful.

Steven Schick: Weather Systems II – Soundlines: On Language and the Land
Islandia Music Records
Release Date: December 1, 2023

Disc I
Iannis Xenakis: Psappha (1975) (14:23)
Vivian Fung: The Ice is Talking (2018) (11:40)
**George Lewis: Soundlines (A Dreaming Track) (2019) (30:14)

Disc II
Lei Liang: Trans (2014) (15:04)
Frederic Rzewski: To the Earth (1985) (9:17)
Vinko Globokar: Toucher (1973) (9:30)
*Roger Reynolds: Here and There (2018) (30:51) 

Disc III
Sarah Hennies: Thought Sectors (2020) (57:43)

**The International Contemporary Ensemble
Steven Schick, Solo Percussion and Voice, Conductor
David Byrd-Marrow, Horn
Rebekah Heller, Bassoon
Katinka Kleijn, Cello
Josh Modney, Violin
Erin Rogers, Saxophone
Joshua Rubin, Clarinet
Ross Karre, Percussion
George Lewis, Sound Processing and Sound Design
Soundlines Software by Damon Holzborn

Soundlines (A Dreaming Track) was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, Gustavo Dudamel Music & Artistic Director, and the International Contemporary Ensemble with the support of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.

Newport Classical Celebrates the Holiday Season with Two Programs in December

Newport Classical Celebrates the Holiday Season
with Two Programs in December

Messiah at the Mansion
Featuring The Choir School of Newport County and Ensemble Altera
Sunday, December 3, 2023 | 1pm and 3:30pm
Rosecliff | 548 Bellevue Ave. | Newport, RI 

Classical Christmas
Saturday, December 16, 2023 | 3pm
Emmanuel Church | 42 Dearborn St. | Newport, RI

Tickets & Information: www.newportclassical.org

Newport, RI – Newport Classical celebrates the season with two weekends of holiday programs in December – Messiah at the Mansion featuring The Choir School of Newport County and Ensemble Altera in two performances on Sunday, December 3 at 1pm and 3:30pm at Rosecliff (548 Bellevue Ave.), and Classical Christmas on Saturday, December 16 at 3pm at Emmanuel Church (42 Dearborn St.), which brings together talented musicians from the community.

Messiah at the Mansion on December 3 features Handel’s iconic oratorio Messiah performed by Rhode Island’s Ensemble Altera, led by Christopher Lowrey, and the Professional Choristers of The Choir School of Newport County, led by Peter Berton, surrounded by the splendor of Rosecliff mansion. Described by the Boston Musical Intelligencer as “seamless ensemble perfection,” Ensemble Altera offers a boldly reimagined chamber version of Handel’s timeless classic with The Choir School of Newport County, including the famous “Hallelujah Chorus.” Newport Classical is proud to present the third year of this annual holiday tradition, perfect for the whole family. Messiah at the Mansion is sponsored by Cynthia Sinclair through her generous support of The Choir School of Newport County. 

Classical Christmas on December 16 is a community holiday celebration held in the English Gothic Revival architecture of Emmanuel Church. Newport Classical presents a delightful afternoon of holiday chamber music including works from the classical repertoire, traditional carols, and a grand finale featuring selections from Vivaldi’s Gloria. A memorable holiday experience for audiences of all ages, the concert is followed by a festive reception graciously hosted by the Vestry of Emmanuel Church.

Newport Classical’s Chamber Series at Newport Classical Recital Hall continues on November 3, when violinist William Hagen, hailed as a “brilliant virtuoso…a standout” (The Dallas Morning News), performs with pianist Orion Weiss. On January 26, rising-star pianist Eric Lu, who has been described by The Guardian as “a veritable poet of the keyboard,” will make his Newport Classical debut in a program featuring music by Schubert, Mendelssohn, Bach, and Chopin. The Galvin Cello Quartet, which burst onto the scene after capturing the Silver Medal at the 2021 Fischoff Competition and the 2022 Victor Elmaleh Competition, will perform on February 23. Bassoonist Eleni Katz and pianist Evren Ozel take the stage on March 22 in a program celebrating the many facets of the bassoon, featuring music by Debussy, Ravel, Saint-Saëns, Coleridge-Taylor, and more. On April 26, the award-winning Balourdet Quartet, which recently won the Grand Prize at the 2021 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition, will present a program featuring Hadyn, Kurtág, and Schubert. Polish-American soprano Magdalena Kuźma, praised as a "standout" with "star quality" by Opera News, performs a program spanning from Chopin to Rachmaninoff to Rodgers and Hammerstein on May 17. On June 7, pianist Asiya Korepanova closes the Chamber Series with music by Rachmaninoff, Mussorgsky, Beach, Chopin, and more.

For Newport Classical’s complete concert calendar, visit www.newportclassical.org/concerts 

About Newport Classical:

Newport Classical is a premier performing arts organization that welcomes people of every age, culture, and background to intimate, immersive musical experiences. The organization presents world-renowned and up-and-coming artistic talents at stunning, storied venues across Newport – an internationally sought-after cultural and recreational destination.

Originally founded in 1969 as Rhode Island Arts Foundation at Newport, Inc. and previously known as Newport Music Festival, Newport Classical has a rich legacy of musical curiosity having presented the American debuts of hundreds of international artists and is most well-known for hosting three weeks of concerts in the summer in the historic mansions throughout Newport and Aquidneck Island. In 2021, the organization launched a new commissioning initiative – each year, Newport Classical will commission a new work by a Black, Indigenous, person of color, or woman composer as a commitment to the future of classical music.

Newport Classical is proud to be an essential pillar of New England’s cultural landscape, and to invest in the future of classical music as a diverse, relevant, and ever-evolving art form. Newport Classical’s four core programs – the one-of-a-kind Music Festival; the Chamber Series in the Newport Classical Recital Hall; the free, family-friendly Community Concerts Series; and the Music Education and Engagement Initiative that inspires students in local schools to become the arts advocates and music lovers of tomorrow – illustrate the organization’s ongoing commitment to presenting “timeless music for today.”

Emerald City Music Presents the New York Classical Players with Yekwon Sunwoo, Violinist Kate Ardndt, and Cellist Samuel DeCaprio

Emerald City Music Presents the New York Classical Players
with 2017 Cliburn Gold Medalist Yekwon Sunwoo,
Violinist Kate Ardndt, and Cellist Samuel DeCaprio
Conducted by Dongmin Kim

Featuring Music by David Ludwig, Tchaikovsky, and Chopin

Violinist Kristin Lee, Artistic Director

Friday, November 10, 2023 at 8pm
415 Westlake
415 Westlake Avenue N | Seattle, WA

Tickets: www.emeraldcitymusic.org/season/new-york-classical-players

Saturday, November 11, 2023 at 7:30pm
The Washington Center for the Performing Arts
512 Washington St SE | Olympia, WA

Tickets: www.emeraldcitymusic.org/season/new-york-classical-players-olympia

“...start a new [tradition] with your family at a night out at Emerald City Music.”
– Thurston Talk 

www.emeraldcitymusic.org

Seattle & Olympia, WA – On Friday, November 10, 2023 at 8pm in Seattle at 415 Westlake (415 Westlake Avenue N) and Saturday, November 11, 2023 at 7:30pm in Olympia at The Washington Center for the Performing Arts (512 Washington St SE), Emerald City Music (ECM) presents the New York Classical Players, led by Dongmin Kim in their Pacific Northwest performance debut. These concerts also mark the first time ECM will present a chamber orchestra on its stages. For these performances, ECM also welcomes 2017 Cliburn Piano Competition gold medalist Yekwon Sunwoo, violinist Kate Ardndt, and cellist Samuel DeCaprio. These exemplary musicians will join together to perform a program infused with the richness of Romantic-era music by Tchaikovsky and Chopin, as well as Moto perpetuo (2016) –– a contemporary work for solo violin by living composer David Ludwig (b. 1957).

Of Ludwig’s Moto Perpetuo (2016), Allan Kozinn of the Portland Press Herald says, “Ludwig’s interest is in extending the violin’s palette with timbres and effects. [T]he violin tones bend, stretch, whisper, slide and rasp, and the virtuosity involved is both technical…and conceptual.” The work was commissioned by violinist Jennifer Koh for the "Shared Madness" project and premiered at National Sawdust in New York City. Tchaikovsky's capricious and whimsical Pezzo Capriccioso is a work written over a single week as the composer was preoccupied with the illness of his close friend. The young 19-year-old Chopin wrote his lyrical Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21 – a work filled with romantic and soaring melodic passages – as an homage to his Warsaw School muse, Polish soprano Konstancja Gładkowska. Closing the evening is the soul-stirring cello melodies in Tchaikovsky’s timeless Serenade, a piece the composer wrote "by the impulse of an intimate conviction... a piece that comes from the bottom of my heart."

On New York Classical Players making their Pacific Northwest debut with Emerald City Music and collaborating with three stellar soloists, conductor Dongmin Kim says:

“I am absolutely thrilled to be joining the New York Classical Players (NYCP) for our debut concerts in the Pacific Northwest, presented by Emerald City Music (ECM). To bring our music to new audiences, and in such beautiful settings, is truly special. The excitement only grows as we will be sharing the stage with Yekwon Sunwoo, an incredible pianist and winner of the 2017 Van Cliburn Competition. Together, we'll journey through an array of both classical and contemporary works. It's this blend that I believe really showcases what NYCP and ECM are all about: honoring tradition while embracing innovation. I can't wait to connect with you all through these performances. There's something magical about sharing live music together - it creates a bond. So please join us on this exciting musical adventure with ECM!”

For the performance at 415 Westlake, audiences can enjoy ECM’s flagship “date-night experience,” which combines vibrant classical performance with an open bar, and a “wander-around” concert setting with no stage dividing the audience from the musicians. The second performance of the program in Olympia will take place at the newly renovated Washington Center for the Performing Arts.

Emerald City Music (ECM) is the Pacific Northwest home for eclectic, intimate, and vibrant classical chamber music experiences. Known for their casual environment combined with award winning artists, ECM has gained recognition from several high-profile publications like Seattle Times, The City Arts deemed ECM "the beacon for the casual-classical movement". Unique to only ECM attendees are encouraged to wear casual clothes, enjoy the open bar and walk around in order to increase the satisfaction of each of the ECM concerts.

This performance, and all of ECM’s Mainstage performances this season, will be recorded live and then made available on Emerald TV, ECM’s subscription-based streaming platform for performances and additional video content.

About the New York Classical Players:

New York City’s outstanding young chamber orchestra, the New York Classical Players is an ensemble dedicated to the highest standards of artistry, collaboration, and virtuosity. Under the leadership of music director Dongmin Kim, the group performs across the United States, in South America and in Asia. Dongmin Kim is quickly establishing himself as one of the most inspiring and versatile conductors. His recent and upcoming engagements on the world's prestigious stages include Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Jordan Hall, Herbst Theatre, Faulkner Performing Arts Center, Seoul Arts Center, and the Lotte Concert Hall, to name a few. Since founding NYCP in 2010, Mr. Kim has led the group in over 200 concerts including a US tour with superstar soprano Sumi Jo and a host of prominent artists have appeared with the orchestra including Miriam Fried, Donald Weilerstein, Kim Kashkashian, Cho-Liang Lin, Pamela Frank, Charles Neidich, Peter Wiley, Carol Wincenc, Chee-Yun, Stefan Jackiw, Jasmine Choi, and Richard O'Neill.

About Dongmin Kim:

Dongmin Kim is the Music Director of the celebrated chamber orchestra New York Classical Players. Since founding NYCP in 2010, he has conducted hundreds of concerts for New Yorkers, three international tours from Asia to South America, and throughout the US. Most recently, he led a series of concerts with NYCP for the last minute stepping in to fill the English Chamber Orchestra's US tour. Dongmin has conducted various prestigious ensembles, including the National Symphony Orchestra, Seoul Arts Center Festival Orchestra, Round Top Festival Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of Baltimore, Jacksonville, and Winnipeg. He was awarded the Herbert von Karajan Fellowship by the Vienna Philharmonic, which led to a residency at the Salzburg Music Festival. As the Indianapolis Symphony's Schmidt Conducting Fellow, Dongmin worked alongside Mario Venzago and Raymond Leppard.

He has recorded chamber orchestra pieces by renowned composer Samuel Adler for Toccata Classics, which received praise from Luxembourg's Pizzicato Magazine. Additionally, he recorded Korean Art Songs with Haeran Hong for Warner Classics. As a violist, Dongmin has performed in various countries, including the United States, South America, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, and has been a principal violist for the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra under MTT. Born in Seoul, Dongmin studied Orchestral Conducting and Viola at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. His distinguished mentors include Kurt Masur, Janos Starker, Leonard Slatkin, Imre Pallo, and David Effron.

About Kristin Lee, ECM Artistic Director:

Kristin Lee is a violinist of remarkable versatility and impeccable technique who enjoys a vibrant career as a soloist, chamber musician, educator, and artistic director. “Her technique is flawless, and she has a sense of melodic shaping that reflects an artistic maturity,” writes the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and The Strad reports, “She seems entirely comfortable with stylistic diversity, which is one criterion that separates the run-of-the-mill instrumentalists from true artists.

As a soloist, Lee has appeared with leading orchestras including The Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, Hawai’i Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Ural Philharmonic of Russia, Korean Broadcasting Symphony, Guiyang Symphony Orchestra of China, and Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional of Dominican Republic. She has performed on the world’s finest concert stages, including Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, the Kennedy Center, Kimmel Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Ravinia Festival, the Louvre Museum, the Phillips Collection, and Korea’s Kumho Art Gallery. An accomplished chamber musician, Kristin Lee became a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center after winning The Bowers Program audition and completing the program's three-year residency. In addition to her prolific performance career, Lee is a devoted educator. She is on the faculty of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music as an Assistant Professor of Violin. Lee is also the founding artistic director of Emerald City Music (ECM), a chamber music series that presents authentically unique concert experiences and bridges the divide between the highest caliber classical music and the many diverse communities of the Puget Sound region of Washington State.

Kristin Lee’s honors include an Avery Fisher Career Grant, top prizes in the Walter W. Naumburg Competition and the Astral Artists National Auditions, and awards from the Trondheim Chamber Music Competition, Trio di Trieste Premio International Competition, the SYLFF Fellowship, Dorothy DeLay Scholarship, the Aspen Music Festival’s Violin Competition, the New Jersey Young Artists’ Competition, and the Salon de Virtuosi Scholarship Foundation. 

Born in Seoul, Lee moved to the United States and studied under prestigious teachers including Sonja Foster, Catherine Cho, Dorothy DeLay, Donald Weilerstein, and Itzhak Perlman. Lee holds a Master’s degree from The Juilliard School. Lee’s violin was crafted in Naples, Italy in 1759 by Gennaro Gagliano and is generously loaned to her by Paul & Linda Gridley. For more information, visit www.violinistkristinlee.com.

About ECM:

Emerald City Music (ECM) is the Pacific Northwest home for eclectic, intimate, and vibrant classical chamber music experiences. Deemed "the beacon for the casual-classical movement" (CityArts), ECM hosts world-renowned musicians in unique concert experiences. Founded in 2015, Emerald City Music produces and tours seven productions annually, with each tour visiting Seattle’s South Lake Union (415 Westlake, a chic contemporary venue with an open bar), Olympia’s Minnaert Center (a 495 seat modern concert hall), a once annual concert at the Bellingham Music Festival, and an annual concert in New York City.

ECM has gained recognition regionally and nationally as a major player in the chamber music scene. Artistic Director Kristin Lee –– a touring violinist awarded the Avery Fisher Career Grant and a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center –– is regarded for her innovative programming that both honors the tradition of chamber music while expanding the genre’s boundary past common limits. Emerald City Music made a name for itself beginning in its second season with a national collaborative commission with Grammy-winning composer John Luther Adams, and has continued to press the boundary of chamber music with accolades like a tour of Steve Reich’s iconic and rare Music for 18 Musicians, a pitch-black performance of Georg Haas’s “In the Dark” quartet, and the West Coast debut of the Danish folk group The Dreamers’ Circus.

ECM values real, authentic connection and holds the belief that music possesses the innate power to connect people, inclusive of varying backgrounds and perspectives. Over eight years, artists from every corner of the globe have visited Emerald City Music to prove just that: there exists a special connection between artist and listener that only music can facilitate.

Follow ECM on Social Media

Facebook: www.facebook.com/emeraldcitymusic
Twitter: www.twitter.com/emeraldctymusic
Instagram: www.instagram.com/emeraldcitymusic

ECM New Series releases new album featuring the music of Arvo Pärt - Tractus - recorded in 2022

ECM New Series Releases

Arvo Pärt: Tractus

Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir
Tallinn Chamber Orchestra
Tõnu Kaljuste, conductor

ECM New Series 2800
CD: 0289 4859166 4
Release date: November 10, 2023

Press downloads available upon request.

Music and word: In Arvo Pärt's work, they are manifestly at its core, even when no word is heard, no text has been set to music, but the power of language becomes the subject nonetheless. – Wolfgang Sandner

Tractus emphasizes Arvo Pärt compositions that blend the timbres of string orchestra and choir. New versions predominate, with focused performances from the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir under Tõnu Kaljuste’s direction that invite alert and concentrated listening. From the opening composition Littlemore Tractus, which takes as its starting point consoling reflections from a sermon by John Henry Newman, the idea of change, transfiguration and renewal resonates, setting a tone for a recording whose character is one of summing up, looking inward, and reconciling with the past. Compositions included are Littlemore Tractus, Greater Antiphons, Cantique des degrés, Sequentia, L’abbé Agathon, These Words… and Veni creator. An evocative reworking of Vater unser for choir, strings and piano concludes this album.

Tõnu Kaljuste, a long-time ally of Pärt, points out that much recent discussion with the composer has revolved around new approaches to the scores. Commenting on the wide-reaching and evocative repertoire brought together here, Wolfgang Sandner remarks in the CD’s liner note (included at the press room link above), “sound and silence, music and word always remain in dialogue in Arvo Pärt’s work. But the vocal and the instrumental too, the sacred and the profane, complement each other. Liturgical ritual and spiritual concert are in exchange and form a context that points to a common origin.”

The compositions included on Tractus are based upon or inspired by scriptural, liturgical or other Christian texts. “The text is independent of us,” Pärt once said. “It awaits us. Everyone needs his own time to come to it. The encounter occurs when the text is no longer treated as literature or artwork but as reference point or model.”

Recorded in Tallinn’s Methodist Church in September 2022 and produced by Manfred Eicher, Tractus extends the line of Arvo Pärt albums begun with Tabula rasa in 1984, the recording which initially brought Pärt’s music to widespread awareness. 

The collaboration between Arvo Pärt and producer Manfred Eicher has persisted now for forty years: “Our work together making new records is always a celebration,” Pärt has said. “It is something very lively and in continuous formation.”

The Tractus album includes a booklet with all sung texts and liner notes by Wolfgang Sandner (in German), and by Kai Kutman (in English).

Newport Classical Presents Next Chamber Series Concert – Violinist William Hagen and Pianist Orion Weiss Play Dvořák & Brahms

L-R: William Hagen, Orion Weiss
Hagen photo credit: Tyler Rye | Weiss photo credit: Lisa-Marie Mazzucco

Newport Classical Presents Next Chamber Series Concert
Violinist William Hagen and Pianist Orion Weiss Play Dvořák & Brahms

Friday, November 3, 2023 at 7:30pm
Newport Classical Recital Hall | 42 Dearborn St | Newport, RI

“Hagen’s violin rises from the orchestra to ever-loftier heights with a performance that is as passionate as it is poignantly phrased”
– Florida Times-Union

Tickets and Information: https://newportclassical.org/event/william-hagen

Newport, RI – Continuing its commitment to ongoing year-round programming, Newport Classical presents its next Chamber Series concert featuring the internationally acclaimed violinist William Hagen in an evening of virtuosic chamber music. Joined by renowned pianist Orion Weiss, Hagen takes the stage in downtown Newport at Newport Classical’s home venue, Newport Classical Recital Hall (42 Dearborn St.) on Friday, November 3, 2023 at 7:30pm.

In this performance, Newport audiences will hear the “captivating” (The Dallas Morning News) chamber music of Hagen and the “powerful technique and exceptional insight” (The Washington Post) of Weiss. The third-prize winner of the 2015 Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition, William Hagen is an established international soloist, performing with conductors such as Marin Alsop, Christian Arming, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Michel Tabachnik, and Hugh Wolff. Known for his affinity for chamber music, Orion Weiss has performed in recent seasons with the Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and New York Philharmonic. He is the recipient of the Classical Recording Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year, Gilmore Young Artist Award, and an Avery Fisher Career Grant.

In the duo’s Newport debut, Hagen and Weiss bookend their program with the music of Dvořák and his mentor, Brahms. Written and published in 1887, Dvořák’s Four Romantic Pieces, Op. 75 were adapted from his Bagatelles for String Trio. The resulting miniatures for violin and piano combine Dvořák’s charming lyricism with the passion and expressiveness of the Late Romantic period. Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 7 in C minor, Op. 30, No. 2 is one of the most imperious works in the repertoire. Quasi-symphonic in scope, the piano and violin interplay with one another as foils, culminating in a work of drama and power. The sonata is a favorite among many musicians and audiences alike. Among the last pieces that Clara Schumann ever wrote, her Three Romances, Op. 22 were composed in 1853 and premiered in 1855. The work was dedicated to her close friend and violinist, Joseph Joachim, who she performed the piece with on countless occasions. Also written for violinist Joseph Joachim, Brahms’ Violin Sonata No. 3 in D minor, Op. 108 was composed in 1888 and was his last contribution to piano-violin duo literature. A contrast from his previous two works in the genre, Brahms’ Third Sonata is grand in scale, technically demanding, and tempestuously dramatic. The piece was quickly accepted as part of the standard repertoire and remains so 130 years later.

More about the artists:
https://www.williamhagen.com/#biography
https://www.orionweiss.com/about-orion

Newport Classical’s next performance on December 3 features Handel’s iconic oratorio Messiah performed by Rhode Island’s premier vocal powerhouse, Ensemble Altera and the Professional Choristers of The Choir School of Newport County. Newport Classical will also present a community concert of holiday chamber music on December 16 in Emmanuel Church. On January 26 in the next Chamber Series concert, rising-star pianist Eric Lu, who has been described by The Guardian as “a veritable poet of the keyboard," will make his Newport Classical debut in a program featuring music by Schubert, Mendelssohn, Bach, and Chopin. The Galvin Cello Quartet, which burst onto the scene after capturing the Silver Medal at the 2021 Fischoff Competition and the 2022 Victor Elmaleh Competition, will perform on February 23. Bassoonist Eleni Katz and pianist Evren Ozel take the stage on March 22 in a program celebrating the many facets of the bassoon, featuring music by Debussy, Ravel, Saint-Saëns, Coleridge-Taylor, and more. On April 26, the award-winning Balourdet Quartet, which recently won the Grand Prize at the 2021 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition, will present a program featuring Hadyn, Kurtág, and Schubert. Polish-American soprano Magdalena Kuźma, praised as a "standout" with "star quality" by Opera News, performs a program spanning from Chopin to Rachmaninoff to Rodgers and Hammerstein on May 17. On June 7, pianist Asiya Korepanova closes the Chamber Series with music by Rachmaninoff, Mussorgsky, Beach, Chopin, and more.

For Newport Classical’s complete concert calendar, visit www.newportclassical.org/concerts 

About Newport Classical:

Newport Classical is a premier performing arts organization that welcomes people of every age, culture, and background to intimate, immersive musical experiences. The organization presents world-renowned and up-and-coming artistic talents at stunning, storied venues across Newport – an internationally sought-after cultural and recreational destination.

Originally founded in 1969 as Rhode Island Arts Foundation at Newport, Inc. and previously known as Newport Music Festival, Newport Classical has a rich legacy of musical curiosity having presented the American debuts of hundreds of international artists and is most well-known for hosting three weeks of concerts in the summer in the historic mansions throughout Newport and Aquidneck Island. In 2021, the organization launched a new commissioning initiative – each year, Newport Classical will commission a new work by a Black, Indigenous, person of color, or woman composer as a commitment to the future of classical music.

Newport Classical is proud to be an essential pillar of New England’s cultural landscape, and to invest in the future of classical music as a diverse, relevant, and ever-evolving art form. Newport Classical’s four core programs – the one-of-a-kind Music Festival; the Chamber Series in the Newport Classical Recital Hall; the free, family-friendly Community Concerts Series; and the Music Education and Engagement Initiative that inspires students in local schools to become the arts advocates and music lovers of tomorrow – illustrate the organization’s ongoing commitment to presenting “timeless music for today.”

Amanda Gorman & Jan Vogler at Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall - An Evening of Poetry and Bach

Amanda Gorman by Daniel Williams; Jan Vogler by Jim Rakete. Available in high resolution here.

Amanda Gorman & Jan Vogler at Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall

Presented by Dorn Music 

Saturday, February 17, 2024 at 8pm
Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall | 57th St. and 7th Ave.

Tickets: www.carnegiehall.org by calling CarnegieCharge 212.247.7800, and at the Carnegie Hall box office at 57th Street and Seventh Avenue.

October 19, 2023 – New York, NY – History-making Presidential inaugural poet and bestselling author Amanda Gorman and internationally acclaimed cellist Jan Vogler share the stage for the first time at Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall on Saturday, February 17, 2024 at 8pm, in an evening of spoken word and music featuring the award-winning poetry of Ms. Gorman and the Cello Suites of J.S. Bach, offering a message of hope and humanity. Tickets are on sale October 19th at 11am ET.

Jan Vogler says, “I grew up reading poetry, and have played the music of Bach for nearly my entire life, reveling for many years in the universal appeal of his captivating Cello Suites. To collaborate with Amanda and to see how her wonderful poems change my interpretation of Bach's music is a great joy. I can't wait to share the results of this extraordinary inspiration.”

Amanda Gorman says, “Like many people, Bach’s music captures my heart and my imagination. To be in dialogue with it, and with Jan and his cello – a Stradivarius that was made around the time that Bach wrote this music – is to touch something timeless.”

Tanja Dorn, President and CEO of presenter Dorn Music says, “I am elated that Dorn Music will be bringing together these two incredible artists around the eternal music of Bach and Ms. Gorman’s contemporary poetry in this very special evening. We are so honored to be presenting Ms. Gorman at Carnegie Hall and to be helping to bring this collaboration to life.”

Amanda Gorman is the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history. She is a committed advocate for the environment, racial equality, and gender justice. Amanda’s activism and poetry have been featured on the Today Show, PBS Kids, and CBS This Morning, and in The New York Times, Vogue, and Essence. After graduating cum laude from Harvard University, she now lives in her hometown of Los Angeles.

In 2017, Amanda Gorman was appointed the first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate by Urban Word – a program that supports Youth Poets Laureate in more than 60 cities, regions and states nationally. Gorman’s groundbreaking performance of her poem, “The Hill We Climb,” at the 2021 Presidential Inauguration received international critical acclaim, inspiring millions of viewers with her message of hope, resilience, and healing.

Amanda appeared on the cover of TIME magazine in February 2021 and was the first poet to grace the cover of Vogue in their May 2021 issue. She was Porter Magazine's July 2021 cover star and received The Artist Impact Award at the 2021 Backstage at the Geffen Awards. In 2021 Amanda was one of 5 Variety Power of Women honorees and cover star, as well as one of three cover stars for Glamour's Women of the Year. The following year she was Allure’s beauty issue cover star, and one of four cover stars for Harper’s Bazaar’s 2022 Icons issue. The special edition of her inaugural poem, “The Hill We Climb,” her debut picture book, Change Sings, and her poetry collection, Call Us What We Carry, were published in 2021, all debuting at #1 on New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestsellers lists. Her latest children’s book, Something, Someday, was published in September 2023 with illustrations by Caldecott Honor and Coretta Scott King Honor winner Christian Robinson, also debuting at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. Please visit theamandagorman.com.

Jan Vogler’s distinguished career has brought him together with renowned conductors and internationally acclaimed orchestras around the world. Highlights of his career as a soloist include concerts with the New York Philharmonic (both in New York and Dresden at the occasion of the reopening of the rebuilt Dresdner Frauenkirche under the direction of Lorin Maazel in 2005), performances with the Chicago, Boston, Pittsburgh and Montréal Symphony Orchestras and many others. He collaborates with conductors such as Andris Nelsons, Fabio Luisi, Sir Antonio Pappano, Valery Gergiev, Omer Meir Wellber, Manfred Honeck and Kent Nagano.

His interpretations of Johann Sebastian Bach’s famous cello Suites have been praised by audiences and critics. His recording of the six solo suites was awarded the Echo Klassik award in 2013. His great ability allowed him to explore the sound boundaries of the cello and to establish an intensive dialogue with contemporary composers and artists. This includes regular world premieres, including works by Tigran Mansurian, John Harbison, Udo Zimmermann, Wolfgang Rihm, Jörg Widmann, Nico Muhly, Sven Helbig, Zhou-Long and Sean Shepherd. In addition to his classical career Jan has collaborated with artists like actor Bill Murray (New Worlds) and rock legend Eric Clapton.

Jan has been an exclusive Sony Classical artist since 2003. His latest recording combines the world premiere recording of the Cello Concerto by Enric Casals with the Cello Concerto by Lalo, his partners being the Moritzburg Festival Orchestra and conductor Josep Caballe Domenech. In addition, his recording "Pop Songs" with the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Omer Meir Wellber was released in May 2022. In 2006, Jan received the European Award for Culture and in 2011 the Erich-Kästner Award for tolerance, humanity and international understanding. In June 2018 he received the European Award for Culture TAURUS as Director of the Dresden Music Festival and in 2021 Jan Vogler was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. Jan Vogler has been Director of the renowned Dresden Music Festival since October 2008 as well as Artistic Director of the Moritzburg Festival since 2001. Please visit janvogler.com.

Tickets are on sale through the Carnegie Hall website, www.carnegiehall.org by calling CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800, and at the Carnegie Hall box office at 57th Street and Seventh Avenue. Regular ticket prices start at $35. Student and Senior rush tickets are available for $35 at the Carnegie Hall box office. Students must show ID.

Dorn Music: dornmusic.com

GatherNYC Launches 2023-2024 Season in NYCat Museum of Arts and Design in Columbus Circle

GatherNYC Launches 2023-2024 Season in NYCat Museum of Arts and Design in Columbus Circle

Sixteen Concerts from October 22, 2023 through May 26, 2024

Season Schedule - Every Other Sunday Morning at 11AM:
OCT 22 • Eliza Bagg: “Lisel”
NOV 5 • Caroline Shaw + Andrew Yee
DEC 3 • Dalí Quartet
DEC 17 • Project Trio
JAN 7 • 9 Horses + Jacob Jolliff (mandolin)
JAN 21 • Parker Ramsay (harp) + Brandon Patrick George (flute)
FEB 4 • Douglas J Cuomo + The Overlook: Seven Limbs
FEB 18 • Duo Kayo
MAR 3 • Invoke
MAR 17 • Borromeo Quartet
MAR 31 • Juilliard Quartet
APR 7 • Orpheus + Boyd Meets Girl
APR 14 • Maeve Gilchrist (harp)
APR 28 • Majel Connery + Felix Fan: Rivers are our Brothers
MAY 12 • Ocean Music Action: Megan Conley (harp) + friends
MAY 26 • Kristin Lee (violin) + friends

“thoughtful, intimate events curated with refreshing eclecticism by its founders, the cellist Laura Metcalf and the guitarist Rupert Boyd, complete with pastries and coffee”
– The New Yorker 

“A sweet chamber music series”
– The New York Times

“Impressive Aussie/American led concert series proves music can be a religion.”
– Limelight Magazine 

Museum of Arts and Design | The Theater at MAD | 2 Columbus Circle | NYC

Tickets & Information: www.gathernyc.org

New York, NY – GatherNYC, a revolutionary concert experience founded in 2018 by cellist Laura Metcalf and guitarist Rupert Boyd, announces its 2023-24 season at the series’ home venue, Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) (2 Columbus Circle). The full season, 16-concert series runs from October 22, 2023 through May 26, 2024, with concerts held every other Sunday at 11am in The Theater at MAD. Coffee and pastries are served before each performance at 10:30am. 

Guests at GatherNYC are served exquisite live classical music performed by New York’s immensely talented artists, artisanal coffee and pastries, a taste of the spoken word, and a brief celebration of silence. The entire experience lasts one hour and evokes the community and spiritual nourishment of a religious service – but the religion is music, and all are welcome.

Spoken word artists perform briefly at the midpoint of each concert, many of whom are winners of The Moth StorySLAM events. “It’s an interesting moment of something completely different from the music, and it often connects with the audience,” Metcalf told Strings magazine in a feature about the series earlier this year. “Then we have a two-minute celebration of silence when we turn the lights down, centering ourselves in the center of the city. Then the lights come back on, and the music starts again out of the silence. We find that the listening and the feeling in the room changes after that.”

Metcalf and Boyd say, “We are thrilled to be returning to the beautiful Museum of Arts and Design, offering 16 concerts throughout our 2023-24 season, our most exciting lineup yet. We look forward to providing our audiences with world-class musical experiences in an intimate, unique setting, complete with spoken word, silence, coffee and a communal, welcoming environment.”

GatherNYC 2023-2024 Season Schedule – All Concerts Take Place at 11AM:

Oct 22: Eliza Bagg “Lisel”
Propelled by her varied and accomplished career performing with Grammy-winning ensemble Roomful of Teeth, experimental music legends Meredith Monk and John Zorn, and soloing with the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics, vocalist Eliza Bagg's solo act “Lisel” explores the intersection between the human voice and technology. Using only her own voice and a computer, she uses autotune and delay effects to create a “full spectrum sound journey through the potential of the human voice.” 

Nov 5: Caroline Shaw + Andrew Yee
This intimate show presents original work by the multi-instrumentalists and composing duo, Caroline Shaw and Andrew Yee. Shaw is a Pulitzer-Prize winning composer and new music superstar. Andrew Yee is cellist of the Attacca Quartet, which has won two GRAMMY awards for albums of Shaw’s music, Orange and Evergreen. Together, Yee and Shaw invite audiences into the creative, tender, and achingly beautiful world of their musical friendship.

Dec 3: Dalí Quartet
The award-winning Dalí Quartet is acclaimed for bringing Latin American quartet repertoire to an equal standing alongside the Classical and Romantic canon. Their program “Classical Roots, Latin Soul” has been praised worldwide for its fresh approach to music from Brahms and Haydn to Piazzolla and Paquito d’Rivera.

Dec 17: PROJECT Trio
PROJECT Trio, made up of saxophone, double bass and beatboxing flute, is a dynamic and innovative music group known for their genre-blending performances and captivating stage presence. The trio pushes the boundaries of traditional chamber music with their unique fusion of classical, jazz, hip-hop, and world music influences. Their creative and adventurous approach to music-making has earned them a devoted following (their YouTube channel alone has over 100 million views), making them a trailblazing force in the contemporary music landscape. 

Jan 7: 9 Horses with Jacob Jolliff
Supergroup 9 Horses (Sara Caswell, violin; Joseph Brent, mandolin; Andrew Ryan, bass) returns to GatherNYC along with mandolin virtuoso Jacob Jolliff of the Bela Fleck Band to present their electrifying program that blends bluegrass with Bach and Vivaldi. 

Jan 21: Brandon Patrick George (flute) + Parker Ramsay (harp)
Grammy-winning flutist Brandon Patrick George, a “knockout musician with a gorgeous sound” (Philadelphia Inquirer) is joined by harpist Parker Ramsay, hailed as “remarkably special” (Gramophone) for an unforgettable duo recital. Together they perform a lyrical program spanning centuries and continents.

Feb 4: Douglas J Cuomo + The Overlook: “Seven Limbs”
The Overlook returns to GatherNYC to present Douglas J Cuomo’s meditative and ecstatic work Seven Limbs for string quartet and improvised electric guitar. This piece is inspired by an ancient Tibetan Buddhist meditation practice called The Seven Limbs, which is a method of purifying the mind, allowing it to become more patient, peaceful, loving, and compassionate; filled with joyful energy.

Feb 18: Duo Kayo
Duo Kayo is the dynamic pairing of violist Edwin Kaplan and cellist Titilayo Ayangade, both star chamber musicians and veterans of esteemed string quartets (the Tesla and Thalea Quartets, respectively). The duo is on a mission to become a vessel for new and exciting music, which they have already shared with audiences across the country, as well as closer to home at Lincoln Center. Their expressive, richly harmonic programs creatively blend the classical with the contemporary.

Mar 3: Invoke
Described as “...not anything but everything: Classical, Folk, Bluegrass, Americana and a sound yet to be termed seamlessly merged into a perfect one” (David Srebnik, SiriusXM Classical), Invoke strives to successfully dodge even the most valiant attempts at genre classification. The multi-instrumental quartet encompasses traditions from across America, including bluegrass, Appalachian fiddle tunes, jazz, and minimalism. Fueled by their passion for storytelling, Invoke weaves all of these styles together to form a unique contemporary repertoire, featuring original works composed by and for the group.

Mar 17: Borromeo Quartet
One of the most influential quartets of our time, the Borromeo Quartet has held residencies at both New England Conservatory and the Taos School of Music for 25 years. Their vivid performances and fearless approach to music making have inspired many generations of musicians, and led them to be recognized with some of the industry’s most prestigious awards: the Cleveland Quartet Award, the Avery Fisher Career Grant, and the Martin Segal Award of Lincoln Center.

Mar 31: Juilliard String Quartet
Founded in 1946 and hailed by The Boston Globe as “the most important American quartet in history,” the ensemble draws on a deep and vital engagement to the classics, while embracing the mission of championing new works, a vibrant combination of the familiar and the daring. Each performance of the Juilliard String Quartet is a unique experience, bringing together the four members’ profound understanding, total commitment, and unceasing curiosity in sharing the wonders of the string quartet literature. Based out of the Juilliard School in New York City, where the four members of the quartet serve on the faculty, the reach of this venerable quartet is worldwide.

April 7: Orpheus + Boyd Meets Girl
GatherNYC Artistic Directors Rupert Boyd and Laura Metcalf team up with violinist Abi Fayette and trumpeter Louis Hanzlik, two of the Artistic Directors of the legendary, Grammy-winning Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, for a joyous collaborative program that spans many genres including Baroque, tango, jazz and more.
Originally, November 19th

April 14: Maeve Gilchrist (harp)
The Edinburgh-born, New York-based harpist and composer Maeve Gilchrist has taken the Celtic harp to new levels of visibility. Sought after as both a soloist and collaborator, she has released 5 albums and enjoyed high-profile collaborations with the Silkroad Ensemble, Arooj Aftab and many others. Her most recent album was hailed by the Irish Times in its five-star review as “Buoyant, sprightly and utterly beguiling...a snapshot of a musician at the top of her game.”

April 28: Majel Connery + Felix Fan: Rivers are our Brothers
The Rivers are our Brothers is an electronic song cycle on ecological responsibility, told from the point of view of the land. Based on a letter from Chief Seattle that urges us to think of the earth as kin, the songs take a first-person view of nature: rocks sing about their mothers, and snowflakes tell about their hearts of sand. Connery’s vocals and Felix Fan’s electric cello combine to tell the story using a “supernatural” sound. "The goal of this music is to give nature a voice" says Connery, “and this isn’t a cute nature documentary. I want to stop people in their tracks and show them the world like they’ve never seen it: as vibrant, and thrilling, and alive.”

May 12: Ocean Music Action: Honoring Mother Earth
On Mother’s Day, harpist Megan Conley brings her Ocean Music Action project to GatherNYC with a concert paired with a volunteer day of climate action. OMA uses the transformative power of music to inspire greater stewardship of oceans and waterways, and the musical selections are inspired by the natural world. Megan, formerly the principal harpist of the Houston Symphony now living in Honolulu, will be joined by several of her esteemed colleagues from The Knights for a special program honoring mother earth.

May 26: Kristin Lee & Friends
GatherNYC’s 2023-24 season concludes with a celebratory program curated and performed by one of New York City’s most accomplished violinists, Kristin Lee. Kristin enjoys a vibrant and multi-faceted career as a soloist with major orchestras like the Philadelphia Orchestra and St. Louis Symphony, a chamber musician on the roster of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, an Assistant Professor of Violin at the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, and Founder and Artistic Director of Emerald City Music, a chamber music series in Washington State. Kristin and her colleagues will share a virtuosic and exciting program to finish the season.

For tickets and information, visit www.gathernyc.org.

California Symphony presents Handel-Rivers of Inspiration

CALIFORNIA SYMPHONY PRESENTS HANDEL–RIVERS OF INSPIRATION

Led by Donato Cabrera, Artistic & Music Director
Featuring the World Premiere of Viet Cuong’s Chance of Rain
Part of the California Festival

In Concert November 11 and 12, 2023
At Walnut Creek’s Lesher Center for the Arts

California Symphony also presents Composing the Future: A Panel Discussion hosted by KDFC’s Dianne Nicolini on November 7 as part of the Statewide California Festival

Continuing a season of performances honoring trailblazing composers and unique artists

Tickets & Information: californiasymphony.org/festival

WALNUT CREEK, CA – California Symphony and Artistic and Music Director Donato Cabrera continue the 2023-24 season, featuring concerts that honor trailblazing composers and unique artists, with Handel–Rivers of Inspiration, on Saturday, November 11 at 7:30pm and Sunday, November 12 at 4pm at the Lesher Center for the Arts (1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek). These concerts are part of the statewide California Festival, showcasing the most compelling and forward-looking voices in performances of works written in the past five years.

California Symphony presents a line-up of water-inspired works for Handel—Rivers of Inspiration, including the highly-anticipated world premiere of Chance of Rain by the Symphony’s 2020-2023 Young American Composer-in-Residence Viet Cuong. Composed shortly after his father’s death, Cuong’s inspiration for this work came from early mornings spent as a child, watching the weather report over breakfast before practicing the piano while his father listened. Says Cuong, “The process of writing it has also reminded me that—while rain may fall—our fondest memories can keep us dry.” The program continues with George Frideric Handel’s Water Music, Suites No. 1 and No. 2. Jolly, jaunty, and packed with catchy tunes, the work was met with acclaim during its premiere at an outdoor concert on London’s River Thames in 1717 – so much so that King George I commanded the musicians to play it through three times over. An ingenious blend of popular styles of the day, Water Music is still among the most popular of Handel’s pieces. The program concludes with Robert Schumann’s euphoric Symphony No. 3 (Rhenish). Composed in a little over a month, Symphony No. 3 was inspired by a happy, peaceful trip that Schumann took with his wife Clara in the German countryside. Full of joyful rhythms and inventive melodies, the work beautifully captures the sights and sounds as the Rhine River rolls through the scenic landscape. 

"While the most well-known piece on these concerts may be Handel's Water Music, I created this program as a tribute to our outgoing composer in residence, Viet Cuong,” says Cabrera. “When I found out that Viet's piece was titled Chance of Rain and inspired by the metaphorical significance of water, I wanted to pair his piece with other compositions from the past that used water as a signifier of time, place, and meaning. Spanning over three hundred years, the music on this program will also reveal the incredible breadth of style that an orchestra like the California Symphony can perform."

California Symphony additionally offers as part of the California Festival, Composing the Future: A Panel Discussion on Tuesday, November 7 at 7:30pm in the Lesher Center for the Arts. Moderated by San Francisco’s Classical KDFC host Dianne Nicolini and featuring panelists San Francisco Symphony CEO Matthew Spivey, composer Viet Cuong, and pianist Sarah Cahill, the panel discussion will explore how collaborations shape classical music. Guests are invited to enjoy a complimentary drink alongside a conversation into the future and evolution of contemporary classical music as well as the challenges and opportunities that composers, performers, presenters, and audiences face. Capacity is limited and free tickets, which are available at californiasymphony.org/festival, are required for entry.

The California Symphony’s November 11 and 12 concerts open with the premiere performances of Viet Cuong’s Chance of Rain. Inspired by the everyday, Cuong’s Chance of Rain reminisces on moments from childhood, finding comfort and shelter in memories. Chance of Rain uses the large ensemble to its fullest extent, acoustically creating an echoed delay, which embodies the task of remembering. Cuong develops a “thrilling experience” (San Francisco Classical Voice) of musical memory through Chance of Rain, reflecting his inventiveness and boundless imagination.

During his time as the 2020-23 Young American Composer-in-Residence at California Symphony, Viet Cuong has enjoyed a fruitful partnership with the orchestra, composing three works commissioned and premiered by the California Symphony. In 2021, California Symphony premiered Cuong’s Next Week’s Trees in their “Poetry in Motion” video series. The work, which takes its name from American poet Mary Oliver’s Walking to Oak-Head Pond, And Thinking Of The Ponds I Will Visit In The Next Days And Weeks, served as a reminder of the “confident hope of the present.” Viet Cuong’s Stargazer Piano Concerto, inspired by the refractions of starlight on its journey to Earth, was premiered by pianist Sarah Cahill in the California Symphony’s 2022-23 season finale. Chance of Rain is Cuong’s final contribution as Resident Composer for the California Symphony.

Called “alluring” and “wildly inventive” by The New York Times, the “irresistible” (San Francisco Chronicle) music of Vietnamese-American composer Viet Cuong (b. 1990) has been commissioned and performed on six continents by musicians and ensembles including the New York Philharmonic, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Sō Percussion, Atlanta Symphony, Sandbox Percussion, and Orchestra of St. Luke’s, among many others, and has been played at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, National Gallery of Art, and more. In his music, Cuong enjoys exploring the unexpected and whimsical, and he is often drawn to projects where he can make peculiar combinations and sounds feel enchanting or oddly satisfying. He was recently featured in The Washington Post’s “21 for ’21: Composers and performers who sound like tomorrow.”

Founded in 1986, California Symphony is in its eleventh season under the leadership of Artistic and Music Director Donato Cabrera. It is distinguished by its vibrant concert programs that combine classics alongside American repertoire and works by living composers and for making the symphony welcoming and accessible. The orchestra includes musicians who perform with the San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Ballet, and others. Committed to developing new talent, California Symphony has launched the careers of some of today’s most well-known artists, including violinist Anne Akiko Meyers, cellists Alisa Weilerstein and Joshua Roman, pianist Kirill Gerstein, and composers Mason Bates, Christopher Theofanidis, and Kevin Puts.

California Symphony’s 2023-24 season is sponsored by the Lesher Foundation. The November concerts are sponsored by the Heller Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Three-concert subscriptions start at $99 and are available now, along with single tickets ($45-90, and $20 for students 25 and under). More information is available at CaliforniaSymphony.org. A 30-minute pre-concert talk and Q&A led by lecturer Scott Fogelsong will begin one hour before each performance.

FOR CALENDAR EDITORS:

WHAT: California Symphony presents Composing the Future: A Panel Discussion

California Symphony offers as part of the California Festival a panel discussion moderated by San Francisco’s Classical KDFC host Dianne Nicolini and featuring panelists San Francisco Symphony CEO Matthew Spivey, composer Viet Cuong, and pianist Sarah Cahill. The panel discussion will explore how collaborations shape classical music. Guests are invited to enjoy a complimentary drink alongside a conversation into the future and evolution of contemporary classical music as well as the challenges and opportunities that composers, performers, presenters, and audiences face.

WHEN: Tuesday, November 7, 2023 at 7:30pm

WHERE: Hofmann Theatre at the Lesher Center for the Arts
1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek

TICKETS: Capacity is limited and free tickets, which are available at californiasymphony.org/festival, are required for entry.

WHAT: California Symphony presents Handel–Rivers of Inspiration

California Symphony presents Rivers of Inspiration, a concert featuring the music of George Frideric Handel, Viet Cuong, and Robert Schumann. Opening the program is the highly anticipated world premiere of California Symphony’s 2020-2023 composer-in-residence Viet Cuong’s Chance of Rain. Robert Schumann’s exuberant Symphony No. 3 and Handel’s spectacular Water Music, Suites No. 1 and No. 2 accompany Viet Cuong’s world premiere. These concerts are part of the statewide California Festival, showcasing the most compelling and forward-looking voices in performances of works written in the past five years.

WHEN: Saturday, November 11, 2023 at 7:30 pm   
Sunday, November 12, 2023 at 4:00 pm

WHERE: Hofmann Theatre at the Lesher Center for the Arts
1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek

CONCERT:
HANDEL–RIVERS OF INSPIRATION
7:30pm, Saturday, Nov. 11
4:00pm, Sunday, Nov. 12
Donato Cabrera, conductor
California Symphony
PROGRAM:
Viet Cuong—Chance of Rain (world premiere)
George Frideric Handel—Water Music, Suites No. 1 and No. 2
Robert Schumann—Symphony No. 3 (Rhenish)

TICKETS: Three-concert subscriptions start at $99 and are available now. Single tickets are $45-90 and $20 (for students 25 and under with valid Student ID).

INFO: For more information or to purchase tickets, the public may visit CaliforniaSymphony.org or call the Lesher Center Ticket Office at (925) 943-7469 (open Wed – Sun, noon to 6pm).

PHOTOS: Available here.