Sony Classical Presents Derek Solomons – L'Estro Armonico – Haydn Symphonies

Sony Classical Presents Derek Solomons
L'Estro Armonico – Haydn Symphonies

Album Release Date: March 29, 2024
Pre-Order Available Now

“among the most brilliant Haydn performances” – BBC Music Magazine, 2012 

The previously unreleased Haydn project by L'Estro Armonico, recorded between 1980-1986 appearing on available on 18 CDs for the first time

36 Symphonies appearing on CD for the first time

16 CDs remastered from analog and digital tapes

In the 1980s, as the movement for historically informed performance was booming, there was a sudden flurry of attempts by period-instrument ensembles to record all of Haydn’s 106 symphonies. It was perhaps inevitable that none of them would reach the summit of this musical Everest – most made it about halfway up to this ambitious and costly undertaking.

One of these Haydn series that created a stir at the time was directed by the London-based violinist-conductor Derek Solomons. Between 1980 and 1986, he recorded 49 symphonies with his hand-picked ensemble, L’Estro Armonico. Sony Classical is now pleased to present all of these pioneering Haydn performances for the first time on CD. Included in this new collected edition of 18 newly mastered discs are several recordings never before issued in any medium.

In an interview for Gramophone, Solomons stated: “There seemed no better composer to look at than Joseph Haydn to make our recording début on original instruments – and also the début of these symphonies in this kind of performance. I’d discovered that there was a group of 14 symphonies written for Count Morzin before Haydn started working for Count Esterhazy.”

On questions such as the historically correct size of the ensemble, Solomons’s guide (and the annotator of all his Haydn symphony releases) was H.C. Robbins Landon, the doyen of Haydn scholars. Landon had determined from contemporary sources that Haydn’s “Morzin” orchestra initially comprised only three first and three second violins, one each of viola, cello and bass, with a pair of oboes, a pair of horns and a bassoon.

After recording the early “Morzin” group, Solomons turned to the ground-breaking “Sturm und Drang” symphonies that Haydn composed in the years following his move – in around 1760 – from Count Morzin’s Vienna establishment to the wealthy, influential, music-loving Hungarian court of Count Esterházy. In 1982, L’Estro Armonico began with the six earliest of this astonishing body of works. They were released by CBS, which, having taken over the project from Saga, went on to record the ensemble’s Haydn until 1986 – long enough to complete the remaining symphonies from the “Sturm und Drang” period as well as a few earlier and later ones also written for Esterházy.

Although Derek Solomons’s vision of performing all the symphonies with L’Estro Armonico would, sadly, never materialize, there was almost unanimous enthusiasm for the works that were ultimately recorded and released: “It would be hard to imagine performances of more freshness and conviction … One is impressed by the light-textured quality of the playing, its neatness and precision … The string section is small … which enables the winds – especially the splendid high horns – to be heard with absolute clarity” (Gramophone); “I find it very difficult to go back to conventional Haydn, which seems so mannered and dull in comparison” (Classical Music); “The exhilaration I feel as I rediscover Haydn’s inventiveness, underlines the fact that I will never be able to listen again to Haydn being flattened by a steamroller of a large symphony orchestra” (Music & Video Week). As recently as 2012, a BBC Music Magazine critic called these “among the most brilliant Haydn performances I’ve heard.”

SET CONTENTS

DISC 1:

Haydn: Symphony No. 39 in G Minor, Hob. I:39
Haydn: Symphony No. 35 in B-Flat Major, Hob. I:35
Haydn: Symphony No. 38 in C Major, Hob. I:38, “The Echo”

DISC 2:

Haydn: Symphony No. 59 in A Major, Hob. I:59, “Fire”
Haydn: Symphony No. 49 in F minor, Hob. I:49, “La passione”
Haydn: Symphony No. 58 in F Major, Hob. I:58

DISC 3:

Haydn: Symphony No. 26 in D Minor, Hob. I:26
Haydn: Le pescatrici: Overture, Hob. I:106
Haydn: Symphony No. 41 in C Major, Hob. I:41

DISC 4:

Haydn: Symphony No. 48 in C Major, Hob. I:48, “Maria Theresia”
Haydn: Symphony No. 44 in E Minor, Hob. I:44, “Trauer”

DISC 5:

Haydn: Symphony No. 52 in C Minor, Hob. I:52
Haydn: Symphony No. 43 in E-Flat Major, Hob. I:43, “Mercury”

DISC 6:

Haydn: Symphony No. 42 in D Major, Hob. I:42
Haydn: Symphony No. 51 in B-Flat Major, Hob. I:51

DISC 7:

Haydn: Symphony No. 45 in F-Sharp Minor, Hob.I:45
Haydn: Symphony No. 46 in B Major, Hob. I:46

DISC 8:

Haydn: Symphony No. 47 in G Major, Hob. I:47
Haydn: Symphony No. 65 in A Major, Hob. I:65

DISC 9:

Haydn: Symphony No. 50 in C Major, Hob. I:50
Haydn: Symphony No. 64 in A Major, Hob. I:64
Haydn: Symphony No. 54 in G Major, Hob. I:54

DISC 10:

Haydn: Symphony No. 55 in E-Flat Major, Hob. I:55
Haydn: Symphony No. 56 in C Major, Hob. I:56

DISC 11:

Haydn: Symphony No. 57 in D Major, Hob. I:57
Haydn: Symphony No. 63 in C Major, Hob. I:63

DISC 12:

Haydn: Symphony No. 60 in C Major, Hob. I:60 “Il distratto”
Haydn: Symphony No. 68 in B-Flat Major, Hob.I:68

DISC 13:

Haydn: Symphony No. 66 in B-Flat Major, Hob. I:66
Haydn: Symphony No. 69 in C Major, Hob. I:69, “Laudon”
Haydn: Symphony No. 67 in F Major, Hob. I:67

DISC 14:

Haydn: Symphony No. 16 in B-Flat Major, Hob. I:16
Haydn: Symphony No. 17 in F Major, Hob. I:17
Haydn: Symphony No. 19 in D Major, Hob. I:19
Haydn: Symphony No. 20 in C Major, Hob. I:20
Haydn: Symphony No. 108 in B-Flat Major, Hob.I:108

DISC 15:

Haydn: Symphony No. 1 in D Major, Hob. I:1
Haydn: Symphony No. 37 in C Major, Hob. I:37
Haydn: Symphony No. 2 in C Major, Hob. I:2
Haydn: Symphony No. 15 in D Major, Hob. I:15

DISC 16:

Haydn: Symphony No. 4 in D Major, Hob. I:4
Haydn: Symphony No. 10 in D Major, Hob. I:10
Haydn: Symphony No. 18 in G Major, Hob. I:18

DISC 17:

Haydn: Symphony No. 5 in A Major, Hob. I:5
Haydn: Symphony No. 32 in C Major, Hob. I:32
Haydn: Symphony No. 11 in E-Flat Major, Hob. I:11

DISC 18:

Haydn: Symphony No. 33 in C Major, Hob. I:33
Haydn: Symphony No. 27 in G Major, Hob. I:27
Haydn: Symphony No. 107 in B-Flat Major, Hob. I:107
Haydn: Symphony No. 3 in G Major, Hob. I:3

The Julia Perry Centenary Celebration & Festival in New York City - Full Schedule Announced

Experiential Orchestra and Videmus Present

The Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival in New York City
March 13-16, 2024

www.JuliaPerryFestival.com

New York, NY – From March 13-16, 2024, Experiential Orchestra (EXO) and Videmus will present the Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival in New York City, celebrating Perry’s brilliance and legacy and illustrating the vibrance and importance of her music historically, today, and tomorrow. The four-day celebration takes place at venues across the city including Le Poisson Rouge, Mannes School of Music at The New School College of Performing Arts, the DiMenna Center for Classical Music, and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center. In addition to EXO and Videmus, presenting partners include the Mannes School of Music at The New School College of Performing Arts and National Concerts. WQXR is the official media partner. The festival also marks the release of American Counterpoints, a new album from Experiential Orchestra and Curtis Stewart, conducted by EXO Music Director James Blachly, which includes the first-ever recording of Perry's Violin Concerto plus music by Stewart and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson. American Counterpoints will be released by Bright Shiny Things on March 1, 2024.

The Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival will include performances of Julia Perry's chamber, choral, and orchestral music, as well as a series of talks and discussions organized by Dr. Louise Toppin, founder of the African Diaspora Music Project and Artistic Director of Videmus, illustrating the resurgence of scholarly interest in Perry’s work. Festival performers include the Experiential Orchestra led by Music Director James Blachly, bass-baritone Donnie Ray Albert, pianist Samantha Ege, flutist Brandon Patrick George, baritone Will Liverman (released courtesy of The Metropolitan Opera), soprano Laquita Mitchell, PUBLIQuartet, violinist and composer Curtis Stewart, and soprano Louise Toppin. Students from New York City conservatories and music schools will participate in a side-by-side rehearsal and reading of Perry's music with EXO. A shared performance by Experiential Orchestra and youth ensembles led by EXO Music Director James Blachly and presented by National Concerts on March 16 at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall passes Perry’s musical legacy to the next generation. The concert culminates in four-time-Grammy nominee Curtis Stewart performing Perry's virtuosic Violin Concerto, with young musicians sitting side-by-side the EXO professionals in the orchestra.

Julia Perry (1924-1979) was an African-American composer, born in Lexington, Kentucky and raised in Akron, Ohio. Her early career was filled with promise: she spent two summers at the Berkshire Music Center, studied with Luigi Dallapiccola and briefly with Nadia Boulanger, won the Prix Fontainebleau and two Guggenheim Fellowships, and her Study for Orchestra was performed by the New York Philharmonic in 1965. But tragically, many of her roughly 100 compositions remain unknown. As J. Michele Edwards writes, “Her career was curtailed because of health problems, especially a paralytic stroke affecting her right side in 1971. Her letters reveal her effort to walk, talk, and conduct again. She did learn to write with her left hand and resumed composing; however, she endured tragic emotional and financial difficulties.”

Louise Toppin says, “Julia Perry’s prominence in music history as an African American woman composer has been erased for too long. Her story as a rising star in the world of composition and conducting during the years of extreme segregation in the United States is both compelling and astonishing. Her compositions (although to date her known output is small) show craftsmanship of the highest caliber that appeal to performers and audiences alike. With this festival, we are presenting for consideration her compositions (several world premieres) and current research on her life and work. There is much continued excavation that needs to take place to present a more complete biography and to locate/uncover her missing compositions.  Our celebration (and others held during 2024 in England, Michigan and Missouri) are but the beginning of unveiling this extraordinary composer – Julia Perry.”

"Since I first encountered Julia Perry's music in 2014, I have been inspired by her work, life, and career. As I studied her music in depth, it became clear to me what a true master and genius musician she was, and how important it is to have her music performed more broadly," says James Blachly. “In 2020, Dr. Louise Toppin invited me to serve as the Orchestra Liaison for the African Diaspora Music Project, and for the past three years, she and I have worked with our colleague, conductor Christopher Wilkins, to explore Perry's many unpublished works. During this time Louise also formed an international working group to advocate for Perry's music and legacy. The Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival is an outgrowth of this rich collaboration, and brings together in one place many of the foremost scholars and performers working to promote Perry, all timed to celebrate Perry's centenary. I firmly believe that Perry's music is an essential part of our American cultural and musical history. All of her music deserves to be heard, and much of it should become a part of our most frequently performed repertoire."

Read more about Julia Perry in The New York Times and The Marginalian.

The Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival Opening Night on Wednesday, March 13, 2024 at 8pm (doors at 7pm) at Le Poisson Rouge features the multi-GRAMMY-nominated PUBLIQuartet, applauded by The Washington Post as “a perfect encapsulation of today’s trends in chamber music;” soprano Laquita Mitchell, praised in The New York Times for her “smooth-voiced and soothing presence;” and pianist and musicologist Samantha Ege, known for her "vivid, revelatory" performances (iNews). PUBLIQuartet will bring a creative re-imagining to the music of Julia Perry, performing world premieres of rediscovered works by Perry in arrangements by members of the quartet Jannina Norpoth, Hamilton Berry and Curtis Stewart, including Perry’s Prelude for Piano and Miniature for Piano and Stewart’s We Who Seek, which draws on Perry’s choral work Ye, Who Seek the Truth in a new version for quartet, electronics, and spoken word to be performed by Stewart. Soprano Laquita Mitchell will perform two rediscovered songs by Perry, How Beautiful are the Feet and By the Sea. Samantha Ege performs Perry’s Miniature for Piano and Prelude for Piano. The evening also celebrates the release of Experiential Orchestra’s album American Counterpoints, which features contributions from all of the PUBLIQuartet members.

On Thursday, March 14, 2024 from 9:30am-6pm, the festival in partnership with the Mannes School of Music at The New School College of Performing Arts will present a day of Discovery and Discussion around Perry’s works, curated by Louise Toppin. The lecture series features a keynote by Tammy Kernodle (University Distinguished Professor of Music at Miami University and the former President of the Society for American Music) and presentations by Tad Biggs, Sasha Doster, Samantha Ege, Philip Ewell, Angela Hammond, Gayle Murchison, and Garrett Schumann. A second keynote presentation by Christopher Wilkins (Music Director and Conductor for the Akron Symphony and Boston's Landmarks Orchestra) and Louise Toppin, DMA (Professor of Music, University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor, University of Michigan) will discuss Perry’s time in Akron, Ohio, as well as the challenges surrounding the publication of her works.  The lecture series is free and open to the public, but registration is required. 

On Thursday, March 14, 2024 at 7:30pm at Tishman Auditorium at The New School, in partnership with the Mannes School of Music at The New School College of Performing Arts, the festival celebrates the Chamber Music of Julia Perry. The performance features soloists from Experiential Orchestra, along with guest soloists baritone Will Liverman, bass-baritone Donnie Ray Albert, and flutist Brandon Patrick George, in selections from Julia Perry’s chamber music catalog including the presumed world premiere of her Quinary Quixotic Songs, as well as Six Contrasts for baritone, Pastoral for solo flute and ensemble, and Symphony No. 13 for Wind Quintet. Angela Hammond will provide an overview of Perry’s life, and a panel discussion with Afa Dworkin, President and Artistic Director of the Sphinx Organization; Loki Karuna, Interdisciplinary Arts Activist; and composer Anthony M. Kelley will be moderated by Co-Founder, Artistic Director and Violist of Castle of our Skins Ashleigh Gordon. MacDowell Executive Director Chiwoniso Kaitano will discuss Perry’s eight stays at the nation’s preeminent artist residency program between 1954 and 1968. 

On Friday March 15, 2024 at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music, the festival brings Perry’s legacy to the next generation, through side-by-side rehearsals and readings with Experiential Orchestra led by Music Director James Blachly and students from three New York City conservatories. In addition to rehearsing with violin soloist Curtis Stewart, students will have the opportunity to learn from Stewart and Fredara M. Hadley, Ph.D., Ethnomusicology Professor at The Juilliard School, about their personal relationship with Perry’s music. Jennifer Arnold, Violist and Antiracism Advocate, will lead additional activities. These rehearsals and readings are open only to the participating students and other festival participants.

The Closing Night Concert on Saturday, March 16, 2024 at 8pm presented by National Concerts at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center features Julia Perry’s Violin Concerto performed by Curtis Stewart and the Experiential Orchestra led by Music Director James Blachly, following the March 1 release of their recording of the piece as part of EXO’s American Counterpoints album. Perry’s Violin Concerto was composed in 1963 and revised in 1968, but she continued to update the score until 1977, only two years before her death. Both this performance and the recording include Perry’s extensive revisions to its orchestration, by Roger Zahab. EXO, Stewart, and Blachly gave the professional world premiere performance of this revised version of the concerto in December 2022 in New York. Students from three New York City conservatories will join EXO for the concerto, sitting side-by-side with EXO members. The festival Closing Night Concert also includes soprano Louise Toppin performing the world premiere orchestral arrangement of Julia Perry’s setting of the spiritual I’m a Poor Li’l Orphan in this World and Experiential Orchestra performing Perry’s beautiful Prelude for Strings. The concert closes with the two youth ensembles performing the first half of the concert – Ruckel Middle School Chorus (Niceville, FL) and Sandra Day O’Connor HS Orchestra (San Antonio, TX) – joining EXO on stage to perform Perry's Ye, Who Seek the Truth, introducing this important composer’s music to the next generation.

Programs subject to change. Visit www.JuliaPerryFestival.com for all festival updates and information.

Julia Perry Centenary Celebration & Festival Schedule:

Opening Night with PUBLIQuartet, Violinist Curtis Stewart, Soprano Laquita Mitchell and Pianist Samantha Ege

Wednesday, March 13, 2024 - Doors at 7pm; Concert at 8pm

Le Poisson Rouge
158 Bleecker Street, New York, NY

Tickets & Information

Discussion and Discovery – A Lecture Series Organized by Dr. Louise Toppin

Thursday, March 14, 2024 from 9:30am-6pm

In Partnership with the Mannes School of Music at The New School College of Performing Arts

Theresa Lang Community and Student Center
Arnhold Hall, 2nd Floor
55 West 13th Street, New York, NY

Free Registration & Information

The Chamber Music of Julia Perry

Thursday, March 14, 2024 at 7:30pm

In Partnership with the Mannes School of Music at The New School College of Performing Arts

Featuring Soloists from Experiential Orchestra; Donnie Ray Albert, Bass-Baritone; Brandon Patrick George, Flute; and Will Liverman, Baritone
Angela Hammond, Speaker
Chiwoniso Kaitano, Executive Director, MacDowell
Panel Discussion with Afa Dworkin, President and Artistic Director of the Sphinx Organization; Loki Karuna, Interdisciplinary Arts Activist; and Composer Anthony M. Kelley; moderated by Ashleigh Gordon, Co-Founder, Artistic Director & Violist of Castle of our Skins

John L. Tishman Auditorium
63 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY

Tickets & Information

Introducing Julia Perry to the Next Generation

Friday, March 15, 2024

Experiential Orchestra in a Side-by-Side Reading with Conservatory Students
Led by EXO Music Director James Blachly
With Violin Soloist Curtis Stewart; Fredara Hadley, Ph.D., Professor of Ethnomusicology, The Juilliard School; and Jennifer Arnold, Violist and Antiracism Advocate

The DiMenna Center for Classical Music
50 W 37th St, New York, NY

Closed event. Festival participants only.

Closing Night with Experiential Orchestra, Violinist Curtis Stewart, Soprano Louise Toppin

Saturday, March 16, 2024 at 8pm

Presented by National Concerts

Featuring Experiential Orchestra; James Blachly, EXO Music Director; Curtis Stewart, Violin Soloist; Louise Toppin, Soprano; Students from Three New York City Conservatories; Ruckel Middle School Chorus (Niceville, FL); Sandra Day O’Connor HS Orchestra (San Antonio, TX)

Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center
1941 Broadway, New York, NY

Tickets & Information
Use code EXO316 for a 15% discount.

Programs subject to change. Visit www.JuliaPerryFestival.com for all festival updates and information.

For more information about the presenters and presenting partners:

Experiential Orchestra: www.experientialorchestra.com

James Blachly: www.jamesblachly.com

Videmus: www.videmus.org

Louise Toppin: www.louisetoppin.com

Mannes School of Music at The New School College of Performing Arts: www.newschool.edu/mannes

National Concerts: www.nationalconcerts.com 

WQXR is the official media partner for the Julia Perry Centenary Celebration & Festival 

For more information about American Counterpoints, Bright Shiny Things: Paula Mlyn, paula@a440arts.com

Sony Classical Releases New EP of Bach Transcriptions by Young Piano Star Mao Fujita

Sony Classical Releases New EP of Bach Transcriptions
by Young Piano Star Mao Fujita

“Fujita is a musician of tremendous versatility and taste, with a poetic sense of pulse and eloquent, insightful, fearless articulation” – The Times

“Proportion and purpose” – The Guardian

“One gets the feeling that when Mao Fujita looks at a score he sees not scales, chords and octaves but shapes”  
– New York Classical Review

Sony Classical releases a brand new recording project by acclaimed Berlin-based Japanese pianist, Mao Fujita. Following on from his lauded and highly significant 2022 debut recording of Mozart’s Complete Piano Sonatas and his subsequent 2023 EP ‘Mozart Reworked’, which features a selection of Mozart transcriptions, Mao Fujita turns his attention here to transcriptions by Alexander Siloti and Sergei Rachmaninov, of sublime works by J.S. Bach, scheduled for release on February 9, 2024. Bach Transcriptions was recorded in Summer 2023 in Berlin, where this young artist now lives and studies.

Mao Fujita’s chosen works for his new six track Bach Transcriptions EP include:

Prelude in B Minor, BWV 855a (Transcribed by Alexander Siloti)
Andante from the Sonata for Solo Violin, BWV 1003 (Transcribed by Alexander Siloti),
Paraphrase on the Prelude in C-Sharp Major, BWV 872 (Transcribed by Alexander Siloti)
Suite from the Partita for Violin in E Major, BWV 1006 (Transcribed by Sergei Rachmaninov)

I. Preludio
II. Gavotte
III. Gigue

Mao Fujita is rapidly gaining a name for himself internationally. This in-demand young pianist, who started his piano studies at the age of three, won the Clara Haskill Competition in 2017 and took the silver medal at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 2019.  Since his arrival on world stages, including hugely successful recent debut appearances at both Carnegie Hall in New York and Wigmore Hall in London, his performances draw audiences into the music through his personable and intimate style, complemented by a sense of roving curiosity and delight that comes from constantly discovering new aspects of the music.  His innate musical sensitivity, natural ability, vitality and good humor shine through all of his performances, whether live or recorded and he continues to charm audiences all over the world. 

Emerald City Music to Receive $15,000 Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts Commissioning New Work by Fred Onovwerosuoke

Composer Fred Onovwerosuoke

Emerald City Music to Receive $15,000 Grant
from the National Endowment for the Arts

Commissioning New Work by Fred Onovwerosuoke

Premiere Performances February 9 & 10
Presented by Emerald City Music in Seattle & Olympia

Concert Details: www.emeraldcitymusic.org/season/oboe-oboe

Seattle, WA — Emerald City Music is pleased to announce it has been approved by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for a Grants for Arts Projects award of $15,000. This grant will support a core pillar of Emerald City Music’s mission and history: supporting the creation of new works for chamber music settings –– specifically the commissioning of a new composition by Fred Onovwerosuoke titled Concertino for Two Solo Oboes and String Quintet (A Tale of the Fisherfolks), which will be premiered at Emerald City Music’s next concerts on February 9 and 10, 2024. This project was sparked in collaboration between the University of Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music and Emerald City Music.

In total, the NEA will award 958 Grants for Arts Projects awards totaling more than $27.1 million that were announced as part of its first round of fiscal year 2024 grants.

“The NEA is delighted to announce this grant to Emerald City Music, which is helping contribute to the strength and well-being of the arts sector and local community,” said National Endowment for the Arts Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “We are pleased to be able to support this community and help create an environment where all people have the opportunity to live artful lives.”

Kristin Lee, Artistic Director of Emerald City Music says:

“We are deeply honored to receive this distinguished grant from The National Endowment for the Arts—our first time in the eight seasons of Emerald City Music's history! This award not only gives us the opportunity to present the innovative composition by Fred Onovwerosuoke but also solidifies our organization's role within the vibrant communities of Seattle and Olympia.”

Onovwerosuoke’s new composition, Concertino for Two Solo Oboes and String Quintet (A Tale of the Fisherfolks), features an unusual, yet intentional, instrumentation: two oboes and string quintet. Works with this instrumentation are extremely rare and were only popular in the baroque era with composers like Tomaso Albinoni and Antonio Vivaldi. Bringing a new contemporary voice to this instrumentation opens opportunities for myriad future arts presenters to similarly diversify the canon of classical music.

Commissioned composer Fred Onovwerosuoke was born in Ghana of Nigerian parents, and writes music that bears influences from Africa, the Caribbean and the American Deep South. “FredO,” as friends call him, has spent time in over thirty African countries researching and analyzing some of Africa’s rich music traditions. About his music, he writes: "I see hidden across Africa a gold-mine of unlimited musical scales and modes, melodic and harmonic traditions, and, yes, rhythms - abundant yet largely untapped. My compositions are informed by my travels around the world, and each piece is harnessed and nurtured by an African sensibility that is unmistakable and genuine."

Onovwerosuoke’s influences are wide and varied, and he is much at home discussing Beethoven, Debussy and Stravinsky as well as foremost exponents of various traditional musics. In 1994 he founded the St. Louis African Chorus to help nurture African choral music as a mainstream repertoire for performance and education in America. Today, the organization’s mission has broadened to include classical/art music by lesser-known composers particularly of African descent and renamed Intercultural Music Initiative. ​​​Onovwerosuoke’s numerous awards include multiple ASCAP Awards, American Music Center Award, Meet-The-Composer Award, and Brannen-Cooper Brothers Award. He has published several books: Songs of Africa in several volumes, Twenty-Four Studies in African Rhythms, Twelve African Songs for Solo Voice & Piano and Afro Caribbean Mass for Mixed Voices & Piano. Fred Onovwerosuoke serves on the boards of various professional bodies and maintains an active schedule as composer-in-residence, guest conductor or speaker on the subject of art music by African descent composers.

About Emerald City Music:

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.

For more information on other projects included in the NEA’s grant announcement, visit arts.gov/news.

Ambitious Multi-Instrumental Quartet Invoke Returns to Long Island in Performance Presented by Concerts by the Pond

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

Invoke Presented by Concerts by the Pond

Ambitious Multi-Instrumental Quartet
Makes Highly Anticipated Return to Long Island

Saturday, March 2, 2024 at 8pm
St. John's Episcopal Church | 1670 NY-25A | Cold Spring Harbor, NY

Tickets and more information:
General Admission: $30 Student: $15
www.stjcsh.org/invoke/

“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

Cold Spring Harbor, NY – On Saturday, March 2, 2024, 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 be presented in concert by Concerts by the Pond. The performance –– marking Invoke’s highly anticipated return to Long Island for the first time since 2019 –– will be held at St. John's Episcopal Church (1670 NY-25A). The program will feature Invoke performing several selections of their original music, including works from their new album Evolve & Travel, in addition to Enigma for the Night by Jocelyn C. Chambers and Tenebrae by Osvaldo Golijov.

Violinist Zach Matteson says of this original program and the group’s return to Long Island for the first time in five years:

“We’re very excited to be back in Long Island for the first time in 5 years! A lot has changed in the world since then and we’ve grown up a bit to meet it head on. In addition to music off of our new album and by exciting contemporary composers, we’ll be performing a brand new work by our own Nick Montopoli, Tel. Tel is the result of a self-imposed challenge: to create a sparkling, splashy quartet work to showcase our 'traditional' quartet skills. The piece is far from traditional, however, featuring uncommon playing techniques and plenty of rhythmic twists and turns.”

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 Concerts by the Pond: Inspired by our beautifully restored church and our intimate, historic, and scenic venue, Concerts by the Pond provides diverse programming and innovative live performances of classical, contemporary, and liturgical music, which, coupled with dynamic education programs, creates a sense of discovery and community within our St. John's parish and the citizenry of Cold Spring Harbor and surrounding region. Celebrating our 10th Anniversary Season, Concerts by the Pond is broadening our range of live chamber music performances. The expanded six-concert season is packed full of award-winning artists offering a wide range of musical styles ranging from traditional classical music to contemporary, folk, and jazz.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Austin-based, multi-instrumental quartet Invoke – whose music weaves together threads of classical technique, folk improvisation, and musical camaraderie and who the Austin Chronicle says “infuse[s] their performances with such a down-home joyfulness” – will be presented in concert on Long Island, NY by Concerts at the Pond, for the first time since 2019. The performance will take place at St. John's Episcopal Church (1670 NY-25A). In addition to performing 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 Long Island, NY for the first time since 2019, at St. John's Episcopal Church (1670 NY-25A). Invoke will perform original music, including works from their new album Evolve & Travel, plus Enigma for the Night by Jocelyn C. Chambers and Tenebrae by Osvaldo Golijov

Concert details:
Who: Invoke
Presented by Concerts by the Pond
What: Original Music by Invoke Plus Enigma for the Night by Jocelyn C. Chambers and Tenebrae by Osvaldo Golijov
When: Saturday, March 2, 2024 at 8pm
Where: St. John's Episcopal Church 1670 NY-25A Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11724
Tickets and information: www.stjcsh.org/invoke/

Sony Classical to Release Winter The New Album from Lavinia Meijer

Sony Classical Announces Winter
The New Album from Lavinia Meijer
One of the World’s Most Critically Acclaimed Harpists

New Single “Open Window Part II” Out Now

Album Release Date: February 2, 2024
Preorder Now

Featuring original compositions and interpretations of works by the likes of
Max Richter, Philip Glass, and Nils Frahm

The album is the culmination of a year long project dissecting the seasons

Sony Classical is proud to announce the release of a brand-new album from Lavinia Meijer, a pioneering and exciting musician and composer, and one of the most important harpists of her generation. Winter is the culmination of a year-long project taking inspiration from the changing of the seasons, and the effect climate change is having on them. The album, to be released on February 2, 2024, features two new compositions by Meijer alongside interpretations of works by, among others, Max Richter, Philip Glass, and Nils Frahm, and collaborations with violinist Nadia Sirota, the Wishful Singing ensemble, and Alma Quartet. New single “Open Window Part II” is out today – listen here.

The idea for Winter crystallized over a year ago, with a piece of music left over from Meijer’s last record Are You Still Somewhere? Titled “Open Window” and written during the pandemic, it provided, she says, fresh inspiration; about winter, coldness, and those special days you spend with your family. “I wrote it hoping I could ‘travel’ myself, but also so that listeners could travel in their own minds to other places. Places they could not physically be. It became very symbolic of that whole time.”

The “coldness” of pandemic lockdowns, and the winters they occurred in, became a theme; so did the idea of people being physically separated, and the “suffocating” nature of alienation in society. Linking this to changing of the seasons, and the effect of climate change, was a natural extension, and so Meijer began intuitively researching and gathering works. Some, she’d never heard before; others, she’d struggled to adapt for the harp. Connecting the titles and moods with a season, the result was a neat, conceptual, full circle of releases: two “winter” singles a year ago, followed by three, four-track EPs for spring, summer, and fall. And now Winter, a full-length record of 18 works.

“Winter for me isn’t just about the cold – it’s also about long stretches of endurance. So the songs I composed for this record have long lines, and go deeper down into this season,” she says. They’re also deeply personal; the second movement of “Open Window” is based on a well-known folk song from Korea, the country of her birth. Elsewhere, works by other famous composers proved a great fit: Philip Glass’ “Freezing”, wonderfully augmented by the acapella singing ensemble Wishful Singing and “Amethyst” by Dutch composer Reyer Zwart and featuring Alma Quartet, concerning a metaphorical transformation into the precious stone.

Even with the tone and subject matter of the featured works and compositions – and with the way Meijer wanted to open up “the dark tones of the harp, because without them, you cannot hear the lighter ones as clearly” – Winter is not sad or melancholic. In fact, quite the opposite. “I want the listener to feel alive, and that the music triggers more awareness of everything around them and the beauty that exists in the world,” she says. “I want them to feel inspired.”
 

Sony Classical Presents Cellist Anastasia Kobekina and the Mysteries of Venice – New Single Abendserenade Out Today

Sony Classical Presents
Cellist Anastasia Kobekina and the Mysteries of Venice

From the Renaissance of Claudio Monteverdi and John Dowland
to the twenty-first-century with Brian Eno and Caroline Shaw

New Single “Abendserenade”
Out Today

Album Trailer - Watch Here

Album Release Date: February 2, 2024
 Preorder Now

“My ultimate goal in making music is getting beyond cello technique and instead attempting to reach for that feeling when I sing in my most expressive, private and personal moments. Music at its most direct.” – Anastasia Kobekina

“She is the embodiment of grace.” – Le Monde

“Kobekina plays with gorgeous elegance and effortlessly wide lines”
– Der Tagesspiegel

Sony Classical presents its debut album from charismatic cellist Anastasia Kobekina, to be released on February 2, 2024. The “unrivaled musician” (Le Figaro) known for her fearless musicianship and “almost overwhelming sincerity” (The Strad) presents an eclectic concept album exploring her own multifaceted relationship to the city of Venice. New single, “Abendserenade” is out today – listen here.

Anastasia Kobekina is a trailblazing artist who is proving a major force in shaping the future of classical music. A former BBC New Generation Artist and Borletti-Butoni Trust Artist, her communication skills and imaginative flair combine with a command of modern and baroque cellos, both of which mingle seamlessly on her new album.

Venice, which showcases many sides of Kobekina’s artistry, draws listeners away from the lugubrious gondoliers and carnival masks that have provided our standard musical image of Venice. Instead, the album asks how much of what we’ve internalized about the iconic city is actually real. ‘Venice feels not just a city but an idea, a character in itself,’ says the cellist; ‘or maybe it presents a different character to each of us. It asks questions of you, fires your imagination.’

Her album, on which Kobekina is joined by a team of handpicked soloists and the Basel Chamber Orchestra, presents an embracing, personal conversation between past and present, including music from the Renaissance of Claudio Monteverdi and John Dowland to the twenty-first-century of Brian Eno and Caroline Shaw.

In reflecting on a city that exists both physically and in the imagination, Venice creates and links musical worlds. Some of the most familiar music on the album is invigorated for being both taken out of one context and placed in another. More unfamiliar music sounds strangely close-to-home. The effect is dream-like, enchanting and thought provoking - as mysterious, timeless and surprising as Venice itself.

Among the works included are those of the free-spirited Venetian composer Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677). Between concerto movements by Vivaldi and Bach, American composer Caroline Shaw’s work Limestone and Felt yanks us into the present day, the puncturing of history being played out in sound. There are works by twentieth-century greats in whose lives Venice played a role: Gabriel Fauré, Nino Rota and Benjamin Britten.

Also included is Kobekina’s performance of her own father Vladimir Kobekin’s work based on a melody by Monteverdi, Ariadne’s Lament. ‘This piece goes right under my skin, and recording it was one of the most intense musical experiences I have ever had,’ she says.

Monteverdi, a former Director of Music at St Mark’s Basilica in Venice, is a near-constant presence on the album. Likewise, the most famous composer to have emerged from Venice, Antonio Vivaldi, is represented across a number of cello concertos.

Of Vivaldi, Kobekina says: ‘There are such extreme contrasts in Vivaldi’s music, especially between the orchestra and soloist, it’s as if between sun and shade. There is this almost physical feeling of getting picked up and carried off in the waves. An unconscious dance, eternal, as if beating a rhythm innate in all of us, movement as the root of music. It is so easy to get swept away in.’

In the music of the baroque as in the music of today, Kobekina displays instinctive flair and tangible sincerity. She states firmly that this is not an album about the cello but the human voice - in both the adaptation of songs and arias and the desire to achieve, even in music conceived for instruments, the most natural communicative expression.

‘The voice exists closest to our thoughts and imagination…our everyday speech,’ she says.

‘My ultimate goal in making music is getting beyond cello technique,’ says Kobekina, ‘beyond the wood, the strings, the bow, beyond simply reproducing a sound or echoing a particular voice, and instead attempting to reach for that feeling when I sing in my most expressive, private and personal moments. Music at its most direct.’

Anastasia Kobekina
Website
Instagram

Sony Classical
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National Arts Centre Orchestra to Give Canadian Premiere of Major Work by Gity Razaz on Feb 7 and 8; Plus Razaz's Spring Season Highlights

Photo by Ronald Andrew Schvarztman, available in high resolution here.

Canadian Premiere of Major New Work by Composer Gity Razaz
Methuselah (In Chains of Time)

by the National Arts Centre Orchestra Conducted by Alexander Shelley

February 7 & 8, 2024 at 8pm
Southam Hall | 1 Elgin Street | Ottawa, Canada
Tickets & Information

“There’s an uncompromising beauty to works by the Iranian-born American composer.” 
– BBC Music Magazine

“Razaz has a compelling voice and refreshing command of sonority and harmony.” 
– San Diego Union-Tribune on the World Premiere of Methuselah (In Chains of Time)

Read a New Interview with Gity Razaz in I Care If You Listen about her Spring Season

Additional Upcoming Highlights for Gity Razaz: 

April 6: Secrets, Invocations
Commissioned and performed by Alisa Weilerstein as part of her FRAGMENTS project
Presented by Washington Performing Arts at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC 

April 12-16: Flowing Down the Widening Rings of Being world premiere tour
Commissioned and performed by the Israeli Chamber Project with tenor Karim Sulayman
in New York, NY; Rockville, MD; Seattle, WA

www.gityrazaz.com

Composer Gity Razaz’s music has been hailed by The New York Times as “ravishing and engulfing” and in 2022, she was named a “Rising Star” by BBC Music Magazine. Her major new orchestral work, Methuselah (In Chains of Time) will have its Canadian premiere in performances by the National Arts Centre Orchestra conducted by Alexander Shelley on February 7 and 8, 2024 at 8pm at National Arts Centre’s Southam Hall (1 Elgin Street, Ottawa). The concerts also include Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade and Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto performed by Blake Pouliot.

Gity Razaz, who was born in Tehran, Iran in 1986 and now lives in New York, is a composer whose music is deeply influenced by the constantly changing, at times tumultuous, realities of the world, including her identity and personal journey as an immigrant. This process of what Razaz describes as “uprooting and rebuilding” occupies much of her work, resulting in music that is emotionally charged and dramatic, while still maintaining mystery and lyricism. Her compositions are her means of responding to a hyperactive, disconnected world and offering transformation to listeners.

Methuselah (In Chains of Time) is inspired by a nearly 5000-year-old Great Basin bristlecone pine tree growing in the White Mountains in California. Razaz was struck by what she describes as, “the awe-inspiring shape of the trunk, braided around its core and twisting upwards from the bone-dry surface of the rock-covered ground.”

She writes, “As I was composing the piece, I was constantly thinking about the remarkable endurance of life, a single-minded, unapologetic force whose sole purpose is to perpetuate survival in spite of all the odds. I could not help seeing parallels in various aspects of our world: the persistence of hope, the striving for advancement, and the fight for justice and betterment. Such ideals essentially sprout from the same impulse, embedded in our DNA: to thrive.”

Methuselah (In Chains of Time) was commissioned by the League of American Orchestras and Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation. It was premiered by the San Diego Symphony conducted by Rafael Payare in a highly praised performance:

“Gity Razaz’s Methuselah (In Chains of Time) received an auspicious world premiere Saturday. Razaz has a compelling voice and refreshing command of sonority and harmony. Highly charged fragments of tonally suggestive melodies, each on the verge of zipping off into space, are yolked together and anchored in sustained drones of harmonic semi-light. Brilliant use of orchestral color and a careful shaping of foreground and background ideas create an opulent and suggestive sonic landscape. The percussion were especially captivating in her piece, with mallet instruments and auxiliary sounds played expertly and with a great advocacy of her music.” (San Diego Union-Tribune)

In addition to the Canadian premiere of Methuselah (In Chains of Time), other spring 2024 highlights for Razaz include a performance by Alisa Weilerstein of Secrets, Invocations for solo cello, presented by Washington Performing Arts at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC on April 6, 2024. The piece in two movements was commissioned by Weilerstein as part of her multi-year FRAGMENTS project which weaves the 36 movements of Bach’s solo cello suites with 27 newly commissioned works.

From April 12-16, 2024, Gity Razaz’s new song cycle, Flowing Down the Widening Rings of Being, will be premiered in New York, NY at the Kaufman Music Center (April 12); in Rockville, MD at the Bender JCC (April 14); and in Seattle, WA at Meany Center for the Performing Arts (April 16). Flowing Down the Widening Rings of Being for tenor, violin, viola, cello, clarinet, harp and piano is based on poetry and prose of Rumi and Rainer Maria Rilke, with an intro from Emerson's essay Circles. It is commissioned and will be performed by the Israeli Chamber Project with Lebanese-American tenor Karim Sulayman.

More About Gity Razaz:

Gity Razaz’s music has been commissioned and/or performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, cellist Alisa Weilerstein, Seattle Symphony, San Diego Symphony Orchestra, Washington National Opera, National Sawdust, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, former cellist of the Kronos Quartet Jeffrey Zeigler, cellist Inbal Segev, violinist Jennifer Koh, League of the American Orchestras, violinist Francesca dePasquale, Metropolis Ensemble, Albany Symphony Orchestra, Juilliard Symphony Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, and Amsterdam Cello Biennale among many others.

Recent works include a piece for Alisa Weilerstein and her ground-breaking project Fragments, a commission from BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sakari Oramo for the prestigious Last Night of the BBC Proms at London’s Royal Albert Hall, and a world premiere with San Diego Symphony under Rafael Payare as part of an ambitious multiple-orchestra spanning initiative from the League of American Orchestras. Upcoming commissions include a collaboration with Israeli Chamber Project and the Grammy-winning tenor, Karim Sulayman, as well as a concerto for flautist Sharon Bezaly and London’s Wigmore Soloists.

Her compositions have earned numerous national and international awards, such as the Andrew Imbrie Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters that is “is given to a composer of demonstrated artistic merit in mid-career”, the Jerome Foundation award, the Libby Larsen Prize in 28th International Search for New Music Competition, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Composer Institute, Juilliard Composers’ Orchestra Competition, multiple ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer awards, ASCAP Plus Awards, Juilliard’s Palmer Dixon Award for the outstanding composition of the year in 2010 and 2012, as well as special recognition from the Brian Israel Composition Prize, Margaret Blackburn Memorial Competition, the League of Composers (ISCM), to name a few.   

Razaz’s debut album, The Strange Highway, which was recently released on Sweden’s preeminent BIS Records, has garnered international praise. As described by BBC Music Magazine, “There’s an uncompromising beauty to these works by the Iranian-born American composer, the opening title work, for cello octet, is a wild rhythmic ride, while the closing Metamorphosis of Narcissus offers some fantastic musical storytelling. Impressive.”

Feb. 12-13: Jupiter Quartet Presented in Two Virginia Performances with Pianist Soyeon Kate Lee

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

The Jupiter Quartet Presented in Two Performances with Pianist Soyeon Kate Lee

Performing Music by Elizabeth Maconchy, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Johannes Brahms

Monday, February 12, 2024 at 7:30pm
Kaufman Theater at Chrysler Museum of Art | 1 Memorial Place | Norfolk, VA

Tickets and Information at
www.feldmanchambermusic.org/jupiter-string-quartet-and-soyeon-kate-lee-february-12-2024/

Tuesday, February 13, 2024 at 7:30pm
Williamsburg Regional Library | 515 Scotland St. | Williamsburg, VA

Tickets and Information at
www.chambermusicwilliamsburg.org/jupiter-string-quartet-soyeon-kate-lee-february-13-2024

“an ensemble of eloquent intensity”
– The New Yorker

www.jupiterquartet.com | www.SoyeonKateLee.com

Norfolk & Williamsburg, VA – 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 – is presented in two performances with pianist Soyeon Kate Lee on Monday, February 12 and Tuesday, February 13, 2024.

On February 12 at 7:30pm, the Jupiter Quartet and Lee will be presented in concert by the Feldman Chamber Music Society at the Kaufman Theater at Chrysler Museum of Art (1 Memorial Place). On February 13 at 7:30pm, Lee and the ensemble will be presented by the Chamber Music Society of Williamsburg at the Williamsburg Regional Library (515 Scotland St.). Both of these concerts include Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 8 in E minor, Op. 59 No. 2; Elizabeth Maconchy’s String Quartet No. 3; and Johannes Brahms’ Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34.

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 since 2001. 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.

The Jupiter Quartet says of performing with Soyeon Kate Lee:

“We are very excited to bring the wonderful pianist Soyeon Kate Lee to the University of Illinois campus. We have enjoyed teaching side by side with her at the Bowdoin International Music Festival for several summers, and are always amazed by her sensitive musicality and formidable technique in the many performances we have witnessed there. The Krannert audience is in for a real treat.”

Mozart wrote his Quartet in D Major, K. 575, as part of a set of three composed in the final period of his life. Professionally and financially he was struggling, but this quartet in particular is full of joy and beauty, with all four voices of the quartet actively engaged. Bartok’s sixth quartet similarly comes from the closing years of of his life and features a composer very comfortable with the demands of writing for the string quartet medium. The quartet was conceived during the second world war as he struggled to deal both with the turmoil in his homeland of Hungary and his mother’s acute illness. He eventually fled to the United States after his mother’s death. Initially, Brahms composed his popular four movement Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34 as a string quintet meant to include two cellos. From there, the piece came to be altered into a sonata for two pianos, and eventually took on a final arrangement as a piano quintet. The work is dedicated to Princess Anna of Hesse.

More About Jupiter String Quartet: 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, Caramoor International Music Festival, Music at Menlo, Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival, the Banff Centre, the Seoul Spring Festival, and many others. In addition to their performing career, they have been artists-in-residence at the University of Illinois 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. 

The Jupiter String Quartet feels a strong connection to the core string quartet repertoire; they have presented the complete Bartok and Beethoven string quartets on numerous occasions. Also deeply committed to new music, they have commissioned string quartets from Nathan Shields, Stephen Andrew Taylor, Michi Wiancko, Syd Hodkinson, Hannah Lash, Dan Visconti, and Kati Agócs; a quintet with baritone voice by Mark Adamo; and a piano quintet by Pierre Jalbert. 

The quartet's latest album is a collaboration with the Jasper String Quartet (Marquis Classics, 2021), produced by Grammy-winner Judith Sherman. This collaborative album features the world premiere recording of Dan Visconti’s Eternal Breath, Felix Mendelssohn’s Octet in E-flat, Op. 20, and Osvaldo Golijov’s Last Round. The Arts Fuse acclaimed, “This joint album from the Jupiter String Quartet and Jasper String Quartet is striking for its backstory but really memorable for its smart program and fine execution.” The quartet’s discography also includes numerous recordings on labels including Azica Records and Deutsche Grammophon. 

Highlights of the Jupiter Quartet’s 2023-24 season include performances presented by Music at Kohl Mansion, San Antonio Chamber Music Society, Camerata Musica, UNLV Chamber Music Series, and Feldman Chamber Music Society and Chamber Music Society of Williamsburg with pianist Soyeon Kate Lee, as well as residencies at San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the University of Idaho as part of the Auditorium Chamber Music Series. As artists-in-residence at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, they also perform a series of concerts at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.

The quartet chose its name because Jupiter was the most prominent planet in the night sky at the time of its formation and the astrological symbol for Jupiter resembles the number four. 

About Soyeon Kate Lee: First prize winner of the Naumburg International Piano Competition and the Concert Artist Guild International Competition, Korean-American pianist Soyeon Kate Lee has been lauded by The New York Times as a pianist with "a huge, richly varied sound, a lively imagination and a firm sense of style," and by the Washington Post for her "stunning command of the keyboard.”

Highlights of recent seasons include appearances at the National Gallery, Library of Congress, Gina Bachauer Concerts, Purdue Convocations, Music@Menlo, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center on tour, San Francisco Performances, Camerata Pacifica tour, Chamber Music Chicago, and the Cleveland Art Museum. She was a member of Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society’s Bowers program, and is a regular participant in numerous chamber music festivals including the Great Lakes, Santa Fe and Music Mountain Chamber Music Festivals. Ms. Lee has collaborated with conductors Carlos Miguel Prieto, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Jahja Ling, and Jorge Mester with the London, San Diego, Hawaii, Louisiana, Naples symphony orchestras among others.

She has commissioned works by prominent composers and has given world premieres of works written by Frederic Rzewski, Marc-André Hamelin, Alexander Goehr, Gabriela Lena Frank, Texu Kim, and Huang Ruo.

As a Naxos recording artist, her discography spans a wide range of repertoire from two volumes of Scarlatti Sonatas, Liszt Opera Transcriptions, two volumes of Scriabin, and Clementi Sonatas. Ms. Lee’s recording of Re!nvented under the E1/Entertainment One (formerly Koch Classics) label garnered her a feature review in the Gramophone Magazine and the Classical Recording Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year Award.

A second prize and Mozart Prize winner of the 2003 Cleveland International Piano Competition and a laureate of the Santander International Piano Competition in Spain, Ms. Lee has worked extensively with Richard Goode, Robert McDonald, Ursula Oppens, and Jerome Lowenthal. A graduate of The Juilliard School, Ms. Lee was awarded the William Petschek Piano Debut Award at Lincoln Center and the Arthur Rubinstein Award and received her Doctor of Musical Arts from The Graduate Center, City University of New York.

In 2022, Soyeon Kate Lee joined the piano faculty at the Juilliard School, and serves on the piano faculty at the Bowdoin International Music Festival during the summers. She resides in New York with her husband, pianist Ran Dank, and their two children, Noah and Ella.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: The Jupiter Quartet, the Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign which The New Yorker describes as “an ensemble of eloquent intensity,” is presented with pianist Soyeon Kate Lee in two performances on February 12 and 13 by Feldman Chamber Music Society and the Chamber Music Society of Williamsburg respectively. The ensemble will perform a vibrant and stylistically diverse program, that includes Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 8 in E minor, Op. 59 No. 2; Elizabeth Maconchy’s String Quartet No. 3; and Johannes Brahms’s Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34, which the Quartet will perform in collaboration with Lee.

Short description: The Jupiter Quartet, who are described as “an ensemble of eloquent intensity” (The New Yorker), is presented with pianist Soyeon Kate Lee in two performances on February 12 and 13 by the Feldman Chamber Music Society and the Chamber Music Society of Williamsburg respectively. Each concert will feature the music of Ludwig van Beethoven, Elizabeth Maconchy, Johannes Brahms.

Concert details:

Who:Jupiter String Quartet and pianist Soyeon Kate Lee
Presented by Feldman Chamber Music Society
What: Music by Ludwig van Beethoven, Elizabeth Maconchy, Johannes Brahms
When: Monday, February 12, 2024 at 7:30pm
Where: Kaufman Theater at Chrysler Museum of Art, 1 Memorial Place, Norfolk, VA 23510
Tickets and information: www.feldmanchambermusic.org/jupiter-string-quartet-and-soyeon-kate-lee-february-12-2024/

Who: Jupiter String Quartet and pianist Soyeon Kate Lee
Presented by Chamber Music Society of Williamsburg
What: Music by Ludwig van Beethoven, Elizabeth Maconchy, Johannes Brahms
When: Tuesday, February 13, 2024 at 7:30pm
Where: Williamsburg Regional Library, 515 Scotland St., Williamsburg, VA 23185
Tickets and information: www.chambermusicwilliamsburg.org/jupiter-string-quartet-soyeon-kate-lee-february-13-2024/

Sony Classical Presents Copland Conducts Copland – The Complete Columbia Album Collection

Sony Classical Presents 
Copland Conducts Copland – The Complete Columbia Album Collection

Album Release Date: February 16th, 2024
Preorder Now

Aaron Copland’s complete own recordings for Columbia Masterworks from 1935 to 1976 on 19 CDs plus recordings of two of his works by Leonard Bernstein on one additional CD

Additionally includes his first recording of The Tender Land Suite and the first recording by the composer of Appalachian Spring for RCA Red Seal

6 works in this set appearing on CD for the first time, remastered from the original master tapes using 24 bit / 96 kHz technology

Collaborations with Benny Goodman, Isaac Stern, the Juilliard String Quartet, William Warfield, Henry Fonda, and more

Original LP sleeves and labels, booklet with full discographical notes

The “Dean of American Composers” was a formidable interpreter of his music. Gramophone called Aaron Copland “a splendid advocate of his own scores”, and shortly after his death in 1990 The New York Times wrote: “Composers’ performances are not always definitive, but Copland was a fine, communicative conductor and pianist, and Columbia recorded him with first-rate orchestras and soloists. … In every way, these recordings must be regarded as the heart of the composer’s discography.”

As a gifted pianist, Copland took part in the earliest recordings of his music back in the 1930s, as well as in many others that followed over nearly three decades. Although it wasn’t until 1950 that he first conducted in a studio, he later took up the baton with increasing frequency. He once said to the choreographer Agnes de Mille: “I don’t think I’m ever going to compose anything else. I’m having such a good time conducting.”

Although Sony Classical has issued many of his CBS/Columbia recordings on CD before, including a major 5-disc set in 2013, this new 20-disc collection marks the first all-inclusive compilation of Aaron Copland’s authoritative interpretations with the composer’s six early recordings for the first time on Sony Classical CD.

Columbia recorded the oldest items here in 1935: Copland playing the thorny Piano Variations of 1930, one of his most challenging masterpieces, and joined by the Russian-born soloist and quartet leader Jacques Gordon in two pieces for violin and piano. “Gordon plays the tangy Americana of the Ukulele Serenade, the second of the pieces … with unbridled brio,” wrote MusicWeb International. And for this “evocative, powerfully declamatory reading” (MusicWeb International) of his piano trio Vitebsk, he teamed up with violinist Ivor Karman, who played in the première, and cellist David Freed.

Flash forward to the 1960s. Now with the Juilliard Quartet, Copland recorded Vitebsk again, along with his Piano Quartet and Sextet. He partnered Isaac Stern in the Violin Sonata and, with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, recorded “a wonderful and certainly historically important performance” of his Piano Concerto. Thus wrote Copland’s definitive biographer Howard Pollack, who goes on to say: “Copland plays the solo part with unmatched élan, and Bernstein communicates the music’s big-city edge – which may have provided no small foundation for his own cityscapes – with inimitable gusto.”

Copland’s first recording as a conductor was of the Clarinet Concerto in 1950, with its dedicatee Benny Goodman and the Columbia Symphony Orchestra. This is its first appearance on CD. In the new set you’ll be able to compare it with their well-known stereo remake from 1963. Another classic interpretation from the early 60s is the Old American Songs with baritone William Warfield and Copland at the piano. There are also mono and stereo versions of the 12 Poems of Emily Dickinson, with Copland accompanying mezzo Martha Lipton in 1950 and soprano Adele Addison in 1964.

In the case of Copland’s best-loved work, the ballet Appalachian Spring he composed in 1944 for Martha Graham, there are even more versions to enjoy and compare. In 1959, he conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra in what is still considered by many to be the definitive recording of the concert suite for full orchestra: “The performance has an appealing breadth and warmth of humanity, helped by the Symphony Hall resonance: the Shaker climax is wonderfully expressive” (Penguin Guide). RCA Victor coupled it with the suite from The Tender Land, Copland’s only opera, which he later recorded more fully (in an hour-long abridged version) with the New York Philharmonic. That 1966 release, also included here, won him a Grammy®.

Then in 1973, with the Columbia Chamber Orchestra, Copland recorded the complete original ballet score of Appalachian Spring for chamber ensemble. It is followed here by a bonus track: the rehearsal that also accompanied it on LP. Three years earlier he had re-recorded the suite in its full concert scoring with the London Symphony Orchestra, with which he enjoyed a happy and productive association on the concert platform as well as in the studio.

His other recordings with the LSO include the atmospheric Quiet City as well as such important but less familiar works as the neo-classical Short Symphony – a “remarkable synthesis of the learned and the vernacular. … A singularly ‘complete’ representation of its inventor” (critic Michael Steinberg) – as well as the Dance Symphony, Orchestral Variations, Statements for Orchestra and Symphonic Ode. Copland clearly liked conducting English orchestras. He chose the Philharmonia to record his Third Symphony and suites from his celebrated film scores.

Aaron Copland not only created some of the most original, influential, and appealing compositions in the history of American music. He also left posterity a body of recordings that illustrate exactly how he wanted these pieces to go – a priceless, new 20-CD legacy of authentic performances, the “heart of the composer’s discography.”

SET CONTENTS

DISC 1:
Copland: Concerto for Clarinet, Strings & Harp with Benny Goodman (1950)
Copland: Piano Quartet
Copland: Piano Variations (1930)
Copland: Nocturne (1928)
Copland: Vitebsk, Study on a Jewish Theme for Piano Trio
Copland: Ukulele Serenade

DISC 2:
Copland: Old American Songs with William Warfield (1951/53)
Copland: Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson with Martha Lipton

DISC 3:
Copland: Appalachian Spring (Ballet for Martha)
Copland: The Tender Land: Suite

DISC 4:
Copland: Concerto for Clarinet, Strings & Harp with Benny Goodman (1963)
Copland: Old American Songs with William Warfield (1962)

DISC 5:
Copland: Piano Concerto
Copland: Music for the Theatre (Suite in 5 Parts for Small Orchestra)

DISC 6:
Copland: The Tender Land (Opera in Three Acts)

DISC 7:
Copland: Music for a Great City
Copland: Statements for Orchestra

DISC 8:
Copland: Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson with Adele Addison
Copland: Las Agachadas
Copland: In the Beginning
Copland: Lark

DISC 9:
Copland: Piano Quartet
Copland: Sextet for Clarinet, Piano and String Quartet
Copland: Vitebsk, Study on a Jewish Theme for Piano Trio

DISC 10:
Copland: Short Symphony "Symphony No. 2"
Copland: Dance Symphony

DISC 11:

Copland: An Outdoor Overture
Copland: Our Town Suite
Copland: 2 Pieces for String Quartet (Instrumental)
Copland: Quiet City

DISC 12:
Copland: Billy the Kid Suite
Copland: 4 Dance Episodes from Rodeo

DISC 13:
Copland: Fanfare for the Common Man
Copland: Lincoln Portrait
Copland: Appalachian Spring

DISC 14:
Copland: Symphonic Ode
Copland: Preamble for a Solemn Occasion
Copland: Orchestral Variations

DISC 15:
Copland: Appalachian Spring
Copland: Copland Rehearses Appalachian Spring

DISC 16:
Copland: Sonata for Violin and Piano (1942/3) with Isaac Stern
Copland: Duo for Flute and Piano with Elaine Shaffer
Copland: Nonet for String Orchestra

DISC 17:
Copland: Danzón Cubano
Copland: 3 Latin American Sketches
Copland: El Salón México
Copland: Dance Panels

DISC 18:
Copland: The Red Pony Suite
Copland: John Henry
Copland: Music for Movies
Copland: Letter from Home
Copland: Down a Country Lane

DISC 19:
Copland: Symphony No. 3

DISC 20:
Copland: Inscape
Copland: Connotations
 

GatherNYC concerts continues with Joe Lovano, Brandon Patrick George & Parker Ramsay, Duo Kayo, Invoke, Borromeo and Juilliard Quartets

GatherNYC Continues 2023-2024 Season at Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) in Columbus Circle

Every Other Sunday Morning at 11AM

Coming Up Next in January, February, and March:
JAN 21 • Parker Ramsay (harp) + Brandon Patrick George (flute)
FEB 4 • Joe Lovano + Douglas J Cuomo + The Overlook: Seven Limbs
FEB 18 • Duo Kayo
MAR 3 • Invoke
MAR 17 • Borromeo Quartet
MAR 31 • Juilliard Quartet

Spring 2024 Concerts:
APR 7 • Orpheus + Boyd Meets Girl (rescheduled from November)
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, continues its 2023-24 season at the series’ home venue, Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) (2 Columbus Circle) with five upcoming concerts in December, January and February. The season runs through May 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.”

Up next:

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.

GatherNYC's Spring 2024 Schedule – All Concerts Take Place at 11AM: 

April 7: Orpheus + Boyd Meets Girl (rescheduled from November)
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.

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.

GatherNYC's programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Sony Classical Releases Edward Power Biggs Plays Historic Organs of Europe

Sony Classical Releases
Edward Power Biggs Plays Historic Organs of Europe

The first set presenting recordings by British-American organist

Album Release Date: January 26, 2024
Preorder Now

The legendary series by Columbia’s top organist for the first time in a set of 6 CDs
All CDs remastered from the original analog tapes using 24 bit / 192 kHz technology
Original LP sleeves and labels, booklet with full discographical notes

The legendary English organist Edward Power Biggs became a household name when his Sunday morning CBS broadcasts introduced radio listeners all over North America to the sound of historic pipe organs and the classical organ repertoire from every period.

In a lifelong search for authenticity, the indefatigable Biggs visited places in Holland, North Germany, England, France, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland where some of the great organist-composers of the Renaissance and Baroque had lived and worked. Between 1961 and 1970, Columbia recorded him in a “Historic Organs of Europe” series, performing music by Bach, Buxtehude, Couperin, Dunstable, Frescobaldi, Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli, Purcell, Soler, Sweelinck, Tallis and many others.

In his original notes to this ambitious project, which Sony Classical is now reissuing complete in a collection of 6 CDs, Biggs wrote: “It is fascinating to play a composer’s music on the organ he played. You feel that you have touched the lifeline of history. … Beethoven’s orchestra, Bach’s choir are all gone, but the same organs on which great musicians played are still available.”

When these famous recordings were released on LP, Gramophone’s reviewer wrote that “the commanding sweep of the whole panorama makes compulsive listening. … The enthusiasm of Mr. Power Biggs for his subjects makes him the ideal guide: he can turn his hand to any organ and make a neat job of the music, however recalcitrant the actions may be. His performances are sumptuously recorded.” Organ aficionados will relish this new opportunity to experience these musical milestones in this new box set.

Set Contents

DISC 1: Historic Organs of Switzerland
DISC 2: Historic Organs of Spain
DISC 3: Historic Organs of Italy
DISC 4: Historic Organs of France
DISC 5: Historic organs of England
DISC 6: Famous Organs of Holland and North Germany

Jan 26 and 27: Arvo Pärt's Passio at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine - Two Concerts for Peace and Healing

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine and Experiential Orchestra in Partnership with LPR

Present Arvo Pärt's Passio
A Concert for Peace and Healing

Friday, January 26 and Saturday, January 27, 2024
7pm Choral Prelude, 8pm Concert

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine
1047 Amsterdam Avenue at 112th Street, New York, NY
Tickets & Information

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine and Experiential Orchestra (EXO) in partnership with LPR present Arvo Pärt's monumental work Passio in A Concert for Peace and Healing on Friday, January 26 and Saturday, January 27 at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine – the world’s largest Gothic Cathedral (1047 Amsterdam Avenue at 112th Street, New York, NY). The performance of Passio begins at 8pm, preceded by a choral prelude at 7pm.

The concerts feature the GRAMMY-winning Experiential Orchestra led by Music Director James Blachly with soloists Enrico Lagasca, Haitham Haidar, and the Evangelist Quartet (Elijah McCormick, soprano; Kate Maroney, alto; Oliver Mercer, tenor; Charles Wesley Evans, bass). Both 8pm concerts will begin with a 7pm choral prelude of Orthodox Chants performed by Artefact Ensemble led by Benedict Sheehan, with singers stationed throughout the Cathedral.

Audience members may choose to recline on yoga mats during the performance, or sit in chairs, immersing themselves in the soaring and awe-inspiring architecture of the Cathedral while being transported by Pärt's timeless music. 

NPR recently reported, "Known for his serene, slow-moving music, the 88-year-old Estonian composer has attracted a legion of fans far beyond classical borderlines who love his chilled-out sound, including Björk, Michael Stipe and Keanu Reeves... Pärt routinely gets the nod as being the most performed living composer. And in our ever violent, confounding world, we need his music now more than ever."

These performances follow EXO and Artefact Ensemble’s sold-out performances of the music of Arvo Pärt at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in The Temple of Dendur, presented by Met Live Arts in 2021.
 

For more information: www.experientialorchestra.com/calendar/passio

www.lpr.com | www.stjohndivine.org | www.experientialorchestra.com | www.artefactensemble.org

Music of Jóhann Jóhannsson in Concert - ACME at UGA Performing Arts Center in Athens

Photo of ACME by Mark Shelby Perry, available in hi-resolution here.

American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME)
Performs The Music of Jóhann Jóhannsson

Presented by University of Georgia Performing Arts Center

Friday, February 9, 2024 at 7:30pm
Ramsey Concert Hall | 230 River Rd | Athens, GA
Tickets & Information

“contemporary music dynamos”
– NPR 

ACME: www.acmemusic.org

Athens, GA – On Friday, February 9, 2024 at 7:30pm, the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) will perform The Music of Jóhann Jóhannsson presented by the University of Georgia Performing Arts Center at Ramsey Concert Hall. The Icelandic composer was most widely known for his Golden Globe Award-winning and Oscar-nominated film scores for The Theory of Everything, Arrival, and Sicario but was equally adept in the concert music world. ACME’s performance at UGA will feature his chamber music, traversing his recorded catalog in music from his albums Englabörn, IBM 1401, Fordlandia, and Orphée, as well as Clarice Jensen’s For This From That Will Be Filled.

ACME toured with Jóhann Jóhannsson from 2009 until his death in 2018, and can be heard on his 2016 Deutsche Grammophon album Orphée. In 2022, they released the world premiere recording of his contemporary oratorio Drone Mass, which they commissioned in 2015 for their 10th anniversary season. ACME recorded the album, also on Deutsche Grammophon, in collaboration with Theatre of Voices led by Paul Hillier.

At UGA, ACME will perform perform Jóhannsson’s Odi et amo (Englabörn, 2002), Corpus Camera from the television score of the same name (1999), Ég heyrði allt án þess að hlusta (Englabörn, 2002), Englabörn (Englabörn, 2002), Sálfræðingur (Englabörn, 2002), Fordlandia (Fordlandia, 2008), Flight from the City (Orphée, 2016), and BC (For This From That Will Be Filled, 2018) – a collaborative work by Jóhannsson and ACME cellist and artistic director, Clarice Jensen.

ACME first performed this program in Jóhannsson’s memory at (Le) Poisson Rouge in New York in 2018, reprising selections that they played with the composer during their first concert with him – which was his New York debut – at (Le) Poisson Rouge in 2009. An Earful described a performance of the program as, “as strong an argument for Jóhannsson’s ongoing presence in our musical lives as can be imagined.”

ACME members for this concert include: Clarice Jensen, cello and ACME artistic director; violinists Ben Russell and Laura Lutzke; Kal Sugatski, viola; Adele Stein, cello; Grey McMurray, guitar; and Daniel Neumann, sound engineer.

About ACME: Since 2004, led by cellist and artistic director Clarice Jensen, the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) has risen to the highest ranks of American new music through a mix of meticulous musicianship, artistic vision, engaging collaborations, and unwavering standards in every regard. NPR calls them “contemporary music dynamos,” and Strings reports, “ACME’s absorbing playing pulsed with warm energy. . . Shared glances and inhales triggered transitions in a flow so seamless it seemed learned in a Jedi temple.” ACME was honored by ASCAP during its 10th anniversary season in 2015 for the “virtuosity, passion, and commitment with which it performs and champions American composers.”

The ensemble has performed at leading international venues including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, BAM, The Kennedy Center, Washington Performing Arts, UCLA's Royce Hall, Stanford Live, Chicago’s Millennium Park, Duke Performances, The Satellite in Los Angeles, STG Presents in Seattle, Melbourne Recital Hall and Sydney Opera House in Australia, and at festivals including the Sacrum Profanum Festival in Poland, All Tomorrow's Parties in England, Auckland Arts Festival in New Zealand, Summer Nostos Festival in Greece, Boston Calling, and Big Ears in Knoxville, TN.

ACME’s collaborators have included The Richard Alston Dance Company, Wayne McGregor’s Random Dance, Gibney Dance, Satellite Ballet, Meredith Monk, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Max Richter, actress Barbara Sukowa, filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, Blonde Redhead, Grizzly Bear, Low, Matmos, Micachu & The Shapes, Jeff Mangum, A Winged Victory for the Sullen, Roomful of Teeth, Lionheart, and Theo Bleckmann.

In March 2022, ACME released the world premiere recording of Jóhann Jóhannsson's contemporary oratorio Drone Mass on Deutsche Grammophon, with Theatre of Voices led by Paul Hillier. Gramophone included the album on its list of Best New Classical Recordings. Of the album, Gramophone wrote, “The compelling sound world of the late Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson is powerfully captured in this epic work” and says ACME is "superb on this recording." ACME's recordings also appear on Sono Luminus, Deutsche Grammophon, Butterscotch Records, New World Records, and New Amsterdam Records.

​​About Jóhann Jóhannsson: Jóhann Jóhannsson (1969–2018) was a prolific composer, who wrote music for a wide array of media including theatre, dance, television and films. His work is stylised by its blending of classical instrumentation with electronic elements.

His first solo album, Englabörn (2002, Touch), drew from a broad set of influences, ranging from Erik Satie, Bernard Herrmann, Purcell and Moondog to electronic music issued by labels such as Mille Plateaux and Mego. Another album would follow on Touch, before Jóhannsson released two orchestral albums on 4AD: Fordlândia and IBM 1401 – A User’s Manual. In 2016, Jóhann signed with Deutsche Grammophon and released his last solo record, Orphée. Since his untimely passing in 2018, more work has surfaced including his 2021 EP Gold Dust, which includes previously unheard and unused music from past projects. Most recently his long-awaited contemporary oratorio Drone Mass, featuring ACME, Theatre of Voices, and conducted by Paul Hillier, had its posthumous release in 2022 on DG.

A great deal of Jóhannsson’s work in his last years had been closely entwined with film: in 2010 he paired up with American avant-garde filmmaker Bill Morrison on the critically acclaimed The Miners’ Hymns. He has also scored a number of major cinematic hits, including Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners (2013), Sicario (2015), the score of which was nominated for all major awards, and Arrival (2016), which earned him Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations. His other notable film credits include James Marsh’s Stephen Hawking biopic The Theory of Everything (2014), for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score, and Panos Cosmatos’ cult favorite horror film Mandy.

Beyond scoring films, Jóhannsson directed them as well: his debut short, End of Summer arrived in 2015 and was followed up by a multimedia piece titled Last and First Men, which premiered as a live performance at the Manchester International Festival in 2017. Narrated by Tilda Swinton, the project combines film and music to create a poetic meditation on memory, loss and the idea of Utopia. The film premiere of Last and First Men took place at the Berlinale in 2020, while End of Summer had its online premiere over on Mubi during the same year.

Emerald City Music Presents Oboe / Oboe – Featuring James Austin Smith and Titus Underwood in a World Premiere by Fred Onovwerosuoke

Emerald City Music Presents Oboe / Oboe

Featuring Oboists James Austin Smith and Titus Underwood
in the World Premiere of a New Work by Fred Onovwerosuoke
for Two Solo Oboes and String Quintet
(2024 ECM Commission)

Plus Music by Marina Dranishnikova, Tomaso Albinoni,
Mark O’Connor, and W.A. Mozart

Violinist Kristin Lee, Artistic Director

Friday, February 9, 2024 at 8pm
415 Westlake
415 Westlake Avenue N | Seattle, WA
Tickets: www.emeraldcitymusic.org/season/oboe-oboe

Saturday, February 10, 2024 at 7:30pm
The Minnaert Center for the Arts
2011 Mottman Rd SW | Olympia, WA

Tickets: www.emeraldcitymusic.org/season/oboe-oboe-olympia

“[Artistic Director Kristin Lee] wants to show you, through Emerald City Music’s concert series, just how varied and innovative chamber music can be.” 
– The Seattle Times

www.emeraldcitymusic.org

Seattle & Olympia, WA – On Friday, February 9, 2024 at 8pm in Seattle at 415 Westlake (415 Westlake Avenue N) and Saturday, February 10, 2024 at 7:30pm in Olympia at The Minnaert Center for the Arts (2011 Mottman Rd SW), Emerald City Music (ECM) presents Oboe / Oboe – a program dedicated to highlighting the artistry of the oboe, through works composed for the woodwind instrument by a diverse group of composers from around the world and from throughout many different eras in time.

Emerald City Music showcases the dextrous versatility of the oboe – a traditionally solo instrument – as a duo. The program was created with two specific superstar oboists in mind: returning artist James Austin Smith and Emerald City Music debut artist Titus Underwood. Also featured as guest performers for this concert are violinist and ECM Artistic Director Kristin Lee, violinist and best-selling author, Ling Ling Huang, violist Ayane Kozasa, cellist Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir, bassist Rachel Calin, and pianist/harpsichordist Oksana Ejokina.

The evening explores historical keystone pieces written for the oboe – from the baroque era to classical, mid-20th century, and finally to the contemporary sounds of 2024. The flurry of oboes is interjected with a light hearted and virtuosic piece by Mark O'Connor: String Quartet For Violin, Viola, Cello, And Bass: I. Fast And Cheerful (2019). The program features a world premiere by Fred Onovwerosuoke commissioned by Emerald City Music, written for two solo oboes and string quintet. The American composer, who was born in Ghana of Nigerian parents, writes music that bears influences from across Africa, the Caribbean, and the American Deep South.

Instrumentation that features two oboes in double-soli is exceedingly rare and the works with this configuration were primarily popular in only the baroque era. The program platforms one of these works, Tomaso Albinoni's Concerto, published in 1722, bookending the evening with Fred Onovwerosuoke’s modern counterpart. Additionally, the program will also feature Marina Dranishnikova’s Poem For Oboe and Piano (1953) and W.A. Mozart’s Oboe Quartet in F Major, K. 370 (1781).

Of this thoughtfully curated program and the decision to showcase the oboe in particular, Artistic Director Kristin Lee says:

“This program from our Seventh Season, Oboe/Oboe, is perhaps the one I’m looking forward to with the most anticipation. It’s the only program from this season that features a variety of instruments like the oboe, strings, and harpsichord. In addition, we will be featuring a mix of returning and brand new artists to our ECM stage.

The biggest reason for it being the highlight is the feature of our world premiere performance of Fred Onovwerosuoke’s brand new concertino for Two Oboes and String Quintet. I encountered Fred’s music through learning about the friendship between him and Titus Underwood, one of the featured oboists on this program. The essence to creation and process of music making stems from human relationships so I’m excited to share their friendship and new friendships with our audience. It’ll be a joyful evening of music over decades –– the perfect way to kick off our spring season!”

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 Capital High School Performing Arts Center.

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. The Seattle Times calls ECM’s programming “very different,” noting its “nontraditional atmosphere,” which often “doesn’t have a stage separating performers from the audience, and artists mingle with the audience during the intermission.”

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.

For more about the artists, visit: www.emeraldcitymusic.org/season-artists

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

GRAMMY®-Nominated Neave Trio Announces New Album on Chandos Records: A Room of Her Own

GRAMMY®-Nominated Neave Trio Announces New Album on
Chandos Records: A Room of Her Own

Featuring the Music of Lili Boulanger, Cécile Chaminade,
Germaine Tailleferre, and Dame Ethel Smyth
Worldwide Release: February 2, 2024

Downloads and CDs available to press on request

“[The Neave Trio] shows enormous stylistic variety, from great pathos to playful mischievousness to exuberant virtuosity”
– BBC Music Magazine

www.neavetrio.com | www.chandos.net

The GRAMMY®-nominated Neave Trio (violinist Anna Williams, cellist Mikhail Veselov, and pianist Eri Nakamura), announces its next album, A Room of Her Own, available worldwide on February 2, 2024. A Room of Her Own is the Neave Trio’s fifth for Chandos Records, and includes D’un matin de printemps and D’un soir triste from Lili Boulanger’s Deux Pièces en trio (1917-18); Cecile Chaminade’s Trio No. 1, Op. 11 (1880); Germaine Tailleferre’s Trio (1916-17, revised 1978); and Ethel Smyth’s Trio (1880).

A Room of Her Own follows the Neave Trio’s critically acclaimed third Chandos album, 2019’s Her Voice, which was named one of the best recordings of the year by both The New York Times and BBC Radio 3, and features the music of distinguished women composers Louise Farrenc, Amy Beach, and Rebecca Clarke.

Two generations of composers are represented on A Room of Her Own: Cécile Chaminade and Ethel Smyth were born in 1857 and 1858 respectively, while Germaine Tailleferre and Lili Boulanger were born in 1892 and 1893. All four were in their early twenties when they composed the works on this album. Smyth had just begun composing in her late teens, and the Piano Trio is one of her earliest known works, while Chaminade and Boulanger had been writing prolifically from an early age; Boulanger died prematurely, at the age of twenty-four, and her piano trios were among her final compositions, while the longest-lived of these composers, Tailleferre, returned to revise her forgotten early trio in her mid-eighties. The early lives of these composers were shaped by varying levels of familial support and educational opportunity, and each had to contend – in different ways – with the gendered barriers that faced women in music throughout their lifetimes.

“We are excited to record these trios by Ethel Smyth, Chaminade, Tailleferre, and Lili Boulanger because of the distinctive voices these composers bring to the chamber music repertoire,” says the Neave Trio. “Each piece reflects a unique perspective, showcasing the distinctive styles and innovative approaches of these composers. Their compositions, though from different time periods and backgrounds, share a common thread of breaking conventional norms, making them powerful representations of female artistry in a historically male-dominated field. By recording and performing these trios, we aim to celebrate the richness of their musical contributions and emphasize the importance of recognizing and promoting the works of wonderful composers who happened to be women.”

Hailed by BBC Music Magazine for its "generous and warm-hearted, utterly beguiling playing, the Neave Trio has emerged as one of the finest young ensembles of its generation. It has been praised by WQXR Radio in New York City for its "bright and radiant music making," described by The Strad as having "elegant phrasing and deft control of textures," and praised by The New York Times for its "excellent performances."

The Neave Trio’s 2022 album Musical Remembrances was nominated for a GRAMMY® in the Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble category. Musical Remembrances features Rachmaninoff’s Trio élégiaque No. 1, Brahms’ Piano Trio No. 1, Op. 8, and Ravel’s Piano Trio in A minor, Op. 67, and is the Neave Trio’s fourth album with Chandos Records. In addition to Her Voice, previous releases include French Moments (2018), which includes the only known piano trios by Debussy, Fauré, and Roussel; and Neave’s Chandos debut, American Moments (2016), featuring works by Korngold, Foote, and Bernstein. In 2018, Neave Trio also released its critically acclaimed album, Celebrating Piazzolla (Azica Records, 2018), featuring mezzo-soprano Carla Jablonski.

A Room of Her Own | Neave Trio | Chandos Records
Release Date: February 2, 2024 (Worldwide)
Recorded March 15-17 2023 at Potton Hall, Dunwich, Suffolk, England

Lili Boulanger (1893-1918)
[1] D’un matin de printemps (1917-18) [4:47]
No. 1 from Deux Pièces en trio for Violin, Cello, and Piano Assez animé – Rubato – Tempo I
[2] D’un soir triste (1917-18) [10:15]
No. 2 from Deux Pièces en trio for Violin, Cello, and Piano Lent, grave – Un peu mouvementé – Large – Large – Plus lent, funèbre – Très élargi, libre – Lent – Mouvement I

Cécile Chaminade (1857-1944): Trio No. 1, Op. 11 in G minor for Violin, Cello, and Piano (1880) [22:20]
[3] I Allegro – Meno mosso – Tempo I – Poco meno mosso – Tempo I [8:19]
[4] II Andante – Animato – Tempo I [4:34]
[5] III Presto leggiero [3:38]
[6] IV Allegro molto agitato – Poco più mosso [5:49]

Germaine Tailleferre (1892–1983): Trio for Piano, Violin, and Cello (1916– 17, revised 1978) [14:16]
[7] I Allegro animato [4:04]
[8] II Allegro vivace [3:14]
[9] III Moderato [2:55]
[10] IV Très animé – Accélérez – Tempo I [4:01]

Ethel Smyth (1858-1944): Trio in D minor for Piano, Violin, and Cello (1880) [31:11]
[11] I Allegro non troppo – Grandioso (breit) – Meno mosso [9:35]
[12] II ‘Der Mutte [sic] der Einfachkeit [sic]?!’ (The Courage of Simplicity?!).
Andante – Scherzando – Poco meno mosso [6:17]
[13] III Scherzo. Presto con brio – Trio – Scherzo da capo – Coda [4:08]
[14] IV Finale. Allegro vivace [11:09]

Total Time: [83:10]

Recording producer: Jonathan Cooper
Sound engineer: Jonathan Cooper
Editor: Jonathan Cooper
A&R administrator Sue Shortridge
Front cover Photograph of Neave Trio by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco Photography
Design and typesetting Cass Cassidy
Booklet editor Finn S. Gundersen
Publishers Éditions Henry Lemoine, Paris (Tailleferre), Roberton Publications (Goodmusic
Publishing), Tewkesbury (Smyth), Éditions Durand, Paris (other works)
℗ 2024 Chandos Records Ltd

About the Neave Trio: Since forming in 2010, GRAMMY®–nominated Neave Trio – violinist Anna Williams, cellist Mikhail Veselov, and pianist Eri Nakamura – has earned enormous praise for its engaging, cutting-edge performances. New York's classical music radio station WQXR explains, "'Neave' is actually a Gaelic name meaning 'bright' and 'radiant', both of which certainly apply to this trio's music making." Gramophone has praised the trio's "taut and vivid interpretations," while The Strad calls out their "eloquent phrasing and deft control of textures" and BBC Music Magazine describes their performances as balancing "passion with sensitivity and grace."

Neave has performed at many esteemed concert series and at festivals worldwide, including Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 92nd Street Y, Rockport Chamber Music Festival, Norfolk and Norwich Chamber Music Series (United Kingdom), and the Samoylov and Rimsky Korsakow Museums’ Chamber Music Series in St. Petersburg (Russia). The trio has held residency positions at Brown University, University of Virginia, Longy School of Music of Bard College, San Diego State University as the first-ever Fisch/Axelrod Trio-in-Residence, and the Banff Centre (Canada), among many other institutions. Neave Trio was also in residence at the MIT School of Architecture and Design in collaboration with dancer/choreographer Richard Colton. During the 2023-2024 season, Neave Trio joined the faculty of Virginia Commonwealth University as the inaugural ensemble-in-residence.

Neave Trio strives to champion new works by living composers and reach wider audiences through innovative concert presentations, regularly collaborating with artists of all mediums. These collaborations include the premiere of Robert Paterson’s Triple Concerto with the Mostly Modern Orchestra under the direction of JoAnn Falletta; D-Cell: an Exhibition & Durational Performance, conceived and directed by multi-disciplinary visual artist David Michalek; as well as performances with the Blythe Barton Dance Company; with dance collective BodySonnet; with projection designer Ryan Brady; in the interactive concert series “STEIN2.0,” with composer Amanuel Zarzowski; in the premiere of Klee Musings by acclaimed American composer Augusta Read Thomas; in the premiere of Eric Nathan’s Missing Words V, sponsored by Coretet; in Leah Reid’s Cloud Burst for piano trio and electronics; in Dale Trumbore’s Another Chance; and in a music video by filmmaker Amanda Alvarez Díaz of Astor Piazzolla’s "Otoño Porteño.” During the 2024-25 season, the Neave Trio will collaborate with Pigeonwing Dance, composer Robert Sirota, and choreographer Gabrielle Lamb to perform Rising, an evening-length work which meditates not only on rising temperatures and sea levels, but also on humanity’s rising awareness of our connection to and dependence on the Earth’s oceans.

Recent and upcoming highlights include performances presented by Harvard University, Kaatsbaan, Rockport Celtic Festival, Chamber Music Tulsa, the Chicago Chamber Music Society, Friends of Chamber Music Portland, Boston Athenaeum, the Williams Center at Lafayette College, and many more. For more information, visit www.neavetrio.com.

GRAMMY®-nominated Pianist Simone Dinnerstein is Presented by the Library of Congress with The U.S. Air Force Band in Rhapsody in Blue at 100 – Led by Col. Don Schofield

Photo by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution at: www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/simone-dinnerstein

GRAMMY®-nominated Pianist Simone Dinnerstein Performs as Guest Soloist with The U.S Air Force Band

Presented by the Library of Congress in
Rhapsody in Blue at 100

Conducted by Colonel Don Schofield

Monday, February 12, 2024 at 8pm
Thomas Jefferson Building - Coolidge Auditorium
10 1st Street SE | Washington D.C.

Tickets: www.bit.ly/SimoneDinnersteinLibraryOfCongress212224

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

www.simonedinnerstein.com

Washington DC – On February 12, 2024, GRAMMY®-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Washington Post as “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” will be the featured guest soloist with The United States Air Force Band in Rhapsody in Blue at 100 – a special concert commemorating the centennial anniversary of the iconic work. The performance will be held at the Thomas Jefferson Building - Coolidge Auditorium (10 1st Street SE) and will be conducted by Colonel Don Schofield.

In honor of the occasion, the concert will feature a performance of the original 1924 jazz orchestra version of the beloved piece. Composed by George Gershwin and initially orchestrated by Ferde Grofé, the work’s premiere performance was given on February 12, 1924 with Gershwin also appearing as guest soloist with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, for which the piece was arranged. A new critical edition of that score was published by Ryan Bañagale and University of Michigan’s Gershwin Initiative.

The Library of Congress is home to the George and Ira Gershwin Collection, which contains music manuscripts, lyric sheets correspondence, photographs, programs and publicity materials, business papers, and scrapbooks that present nearly a complete record of the Gershwins’ lives and work.

Original manuscripts of this famed work of Americana drawn from the George and Ira Gershwin Collection and Ferde Grofé Collection will be on view at the Library of Congress. There will be a pre-concert lecture by Gershwin scholar Ryan Bañagale at 6:30pm in the Coolidge Auditorium. Registration for this free event will open on Wednesday, January 17, 2024 at 10am. The rest of the concert program will be announced at a later date.

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 The Library of Congress: The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library, offering access to the creative record of the United States — and extensive materials from around the world — both on-site and online. It is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office. Explore collections, reference services and other programs and plan a visit at loc.gov; access the official site for U.S. federal legislative information at congress.gov; and register creative works of authorship at copyright.gov.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: GRAMMY®-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Washington Post as “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” is the guest soloist with the U.S. Air Force Band, led by Colonel Don Schofield in Rhapsody in Blue at 100 –– a commemorative concert program which features a performance of the original version of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, presented by the Library of Congress. The remainder of the program will be announced at a later date.

Short Description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity” (The Washington Post) is the guest soloist with the U.S. Air Force Band, led by Colonel Don Schofield, in a performance of the original version of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, presented by the Library of Congress. Other works to be announced.

Concert details:
Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
Presented by the Library of Congress
Conducted by Colonel Don Schofield
What: A performance of the original version of Rhapsody in Blue, plus other works to be announced
When: Monday, February 12, 2024 at 8pm
Where: Thomas Jefferson Building - Coolidge Auditorium (LJG45E), 10 1st Street SE, Washington, DC 20540
Tickets and information: www.bit.ly/SimoneDinnersteinLibraryOfCongress212224 (Registration opens Wednesday, January 17 at 10am ET)

Sony Classical Announces the 2024 New Year’s Concert with the Vienna Philharmonic Conducted by Christian Thielemann

Sony Classical Announces the 2024 New Year’s Concert
with the Vienna Philharmonic

Conducted by Christian Thielemann

Album Release Dates:
CD / Digital: February 9, 2024
DVD, Blu-ray, and Vinyl: March 8, 2024
Preorder Here

As in previous years, the Vienna Philharmonic’s 2024 New Year’s Concert will be released by Sony Classical in both audio and video formats. Under the baton of Christian Thielemann, no fewer than nine of the works from the foot-tapping world of the waltz and polka are featured for the first time on the program of what remains the most popular event in the world of classical music.

The live recording of the 2024 New Year’s Concert can now be pre-ordered and will be available on CD and digitally from February 9, 2024 as well as on DVD, Blu-ray, and Vinyl from March 8, 2024. There are few concerts in the world that are awaited with as much excitement as the New Year’s Concert from Vienna. This year, it was broadcast to over 90 countries all round the world, reaching an audience of millions of people.

The conductor at the 2024 New Year’s Concert will be Christian Thielemann, the principal conductor of the Dresden Staatskapelle and Daniel Barenboim’s successor at the Berlin State Opera. Thielemann has had close musical links with the Vienna Philharmonic since 2000. He first conducted a New Year’s Concert in 2019 and regularly appears with the orchestra at its subscription concerts in the Vienna Musikverein, at the Salzburg Festival and on tour in Japan, China, Europe and the United States

Daniel Froschauer, the chairman of the Vienna Philharmonic’s board of directors, stresses the conductor’s important role with the orchestra: “For many years we have enjoyed a close artistic partnership with Christian Thielemann, especially in the field of the symphony. He is one of the orchestra’s conductors to whom we feel an especial affinity. This is the reason why we have again invited him to conduct our New Year’s Concert on January 1st, 2024.”

March 2024: Experiential Orchestra and Videmus Celebrate Julia Perry - Composer Whose Music is Being Rediscovered - with Four-Day Festival in New York

Experiential Orchestra and Videmus Announce

The Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival in New York City
March 13-16, 2024

Closing Night Concert: March 16, 2024 at Lincoln Center, Alice Tully Hall
Experiential Orchestra performs Perry’s Violin Concerto
James Blachly, Music Director | Curtis Stewart, Violin Soloist | with Youth Ensembles
Presented by National Concerts

Complete programming and the festival schedule will be announced in January

Information: www.experientialorchestra.com/projects/julia-perry-festival

From March 13-16, 2024, Experiential Orchestra (EXO) and Videmus will present the Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival in New York City, celebrating her brilliance and legacy and illustrating the vibrance and importance of her music historically, today, and tomorrow.

The festival will include performances of Perry's chamber music by PUBLIQuartet; a series of talks and discussions organized by Dr. Louise Toppin, founder of the African Diaspora Music Project and Artistic Director of Videmus; and a side-by-side rehearsal and reading of Perry's music by EXO with students from New York City conservatories and music schools.

A shared performance by Experiential Orchestra and youth ensembles led by EXO Music Director James Blachly and presented by National Concerts on March 16 at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall passes Perry’s musical legacy to the next generation. The concert culminates in four-time-Grammy nominee Curtis Stewart performing Perry's virtuosic Violin Concerto, with young musicians sitting side-by-side the EXO professionals in the orchestra.

The Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival follows the release of American Counterpoints, a new album from Experiential Orchestra and Curtis Stewart, conducted by James Blachly, that includes the world premiere recording of Perry's Violin Concerto plus music by Stewart and Coleridge Taylor-Perkinson. The album will be released by Bright Shiny Things on March 1, 2024.

Excerpted from A Biographical Sketch of Julia Perry by Fredara M. Hadley, Ph.D.; The Juilliard School:

Julia Perry may be new to 21st Century listeners, but she was well-known in her lifetime. Listening to her compositions and learning about her life is an act of rediscovery in the purest sense of the word because the world had, indeed, discovered her. Julia Perry was a woman born in 1924 in Lexington, Kentucky, to an educated Black family. She grew up in Akron, Ohio, the fourth of five sisters in a time where classical musical training was typical for a well-to-do Black family such as hers. She was innately gifted and studied both voice and violin.

In the 1940s, Perry continued her studies at Westminster College where she studied voice, piano, and composition. . . the 1950s were a productive era for her in which studied composition with Luigi Dallapiccola at the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood, Massachusetts. While at Tanglewood she completed her Stabat Mater and performed it to great acclaim. She then received two Guggenheim Fellowships in 1952 and 1954 to travel and study with Dallapiccola in Florence, Italy and then with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Yet again, Perry was recognized for her compositional talent when she won the Boulanger Grand Prix for her Viola Sonata. . . One of the clearest examples of her new musical horizons was in her Short Piece for Orchestra which premiered in 1952 and was performed and recorded by The New York Philharmonic in 1965. . .Upon her return to the United States she crafted her own responses to the Civil Rights Era which was then cresting. She wrote pieces including her Fifth Symphony (“Integration Symphony) for Chamber Orchestra and her Tenth Symphony (“Soul Symphony) that incorporated elements of black popular music. . .

Unfortunately, by the 1960s mental and health challenges began to take their toll. Perry, who never married and had no children, was her own primary means of financial and creative support. Through physical paralysis she continued to write. When her right side became incapacitated, she taught herself to write with her left hand. Many urged her to donate her prolific oeuvre to an archive, but Perry, who had received so much commercial success in her lifetime kept her manuscripts in hopes that another publication opportunity would emerge. 

Sadly, that was not to be, and Julia Perry passed away on April 24, 1979. Although many of her compositions are lost or only exist in manuscript form, listeners should listen to Julia Perry as a composer who followed her own call to freedom in an era where that was denied for many others. And perhaps Julia Perry was right, and her dreams of continuing acclaim are coming true after all.

Read more about Julia Perry in Garrett Schumann’s feature in The New York Times and in The Marginalian.

For more information about the presenters and participants in the Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival: 

Experiential Orchestra: www.experientialorchestra.com
Videmus: www.videmus.org
Dr. Louise Toppin: www.louisetoppin.com
African Diaspora Music Project: www.africandiasporamusicproject.org
James Blachly: www.jamesblachly.com
Curtis Stewart: www.curtisjstewart.com
PUBLIQuartet: www.publiquartet.com

American Counterpoints, Bright Shiny Things: Paula Mlyn, paula@a440arts.com

Complete programming and the festival schedule will be announced in January

Feb. 6: The Jupiter Quartet Presented by Krannert Center in Third Series Concert Featuring Guest Pianist Soyeon Kate Lee

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

The Jupiter String Quartet
Presented by Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
in Third Series Concert

Featuring Guest Pianist Soyeon Kate Lee
Performing Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Béla Bartók, and Johannes Brahms

Tuesday, February 6, 2024 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-soyeon-kate-lee-piano

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

www.jupiterquartet.com | www.SoyeonKateLee.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 Tuesday, February 6, 2024 at 7:30pm, performing together with pianist Soyeon Kate Lee.

The Jupiter Quartet will perform a program of works by composers at the height of their creative powers: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Quartet K. 575, Béla Bartók’s Quartet No. 6 (1939), and the Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34 by Johannes Brahms (1864).

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 since 2001. 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.

The Jupiter Quartet says of performing with Soyeon Kate Lee:

“We are very excited to bring the wonderful pianist Soyeon Kate Lee to the University of Illinois campus. We have enjoyed teaching side by side with her at the Bowdoin International Music Festival for several summers, and are always amazed by her sensitive musicality and formidable technique in the many performances we have witnessed there. The Krannert audience is in for a real treat.”

Mozart wrote his Quartet in D Major, K. 575, as part of a set of three composed in the final period of his life. Professionally and financially he was struggling, but this quartet in particular is full of joy and beauty, with all four voices of the quartet actively engaged. Bartok’s sixth quartet similarly comes from the closing years of of his life and features a composer very comfortable with the demands of writing for the string quartet medium. The quartet was conceived during the second world war as he struggled to deal both with the turmoil in his homeland of Hungary and his mother’s acute illness. He eventually fled to the United States after his mother’s death. Initially, Brahms composed his popular four movement Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34 as a string quintet meant to include two cellos. From there, the piece came to be altered into a sonata for two pianos, and eventually took on a final arrangement as a piano quintet. The work is dedicated to Princess Anna of Hesse.

More About Jupiter String Quartet: 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, Caramoor International Music Festival, Music at Menlo, Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival, the Banff Centre, the Seoul Spring Festival, and many others. In addition to their performing career, they have been artists-in-residence at the University of Illinois 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. 

The Jupiter String Quartet feels a strong connection to the core string quartet repertoire; they have presented the complete Bartok and Beethoven string quartets on numerous occasions. Also deeply committed to new music, they have commissioned string quartets from Nathan Shields, Stephen Andrew Taylor, Michi Wiancko, Syd Hodkinson, Hannah Lash, Dan Visconti, and Kati Agócs; a quintet with baritone voice by Mark Adamo; and a piano quintet by Pierre Jalbert. 

The quartet's latest album is a collaboration with the Jasper String Quartet (Marquis Classics, 2021), produced by Grammy-winner Judith Sherman. This collaborative album features the world premiere recording of Dan Visconti’s Eternal Breath, Felix Mendelssohn’s Octet in E-flat, Op. 20, and Osvaldo Golijov’s Last Round. The Arts Fuse acclaimed, “This joint album from the Jupiter String Quartet and Jasper String Quartet is striking for its backstory but really memorable for its smart program and fine execution.” The quartet’s discography also includes numerous recordings on labels including Azica Records and Deutsche Grammophon. 

Highlights of the Jupiter Quartet’s 2023-24 season include performances presented by Music at Kohl Mansion, San Antonio Chamber Music Society, Camerata Musica, UNLV Chamber Music Series, and Feldman Chamber Music Society and Chamber Music Society of Williamsburg with pianist Soyeon Kate Lee, as well as residencies at San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the University of Idaho as part of the Auditorium Chamber Music Series. As artists-in-residence at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, they also perform a series of concerts at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.

The quartet chose its name because Jupiter was the most prominent planet in the night sky at the time of its formation and the astrological symbol for Jupiter resembles the number four. 

About Soyeon Kate Lee: First prize winner of the Naumburg International Piano Competition and the Concert Artist Guild International Competition, Korean-American pianist Soyeon Kate Lee has been lauded by The New York Times as a pianist with "a huge, richly varied sound, a lively imagination and a firm sense of style," and by the Washington Post for her "stunning command of the keyboard.”

Highlights of recent seasons include appearances at the National Gallery, Library of Congress, Gina Bachauer Concerts, Purdue Convocations, Music@Menlo, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center on tour, San Francisco Performances, Camerata Pacifica tour, Chamber Music Chicago, and the Cleveland Art Museum. She was a member of Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society’s Bowers program, and is a regular participant in numerous chamber music festivals including the Great Lakes, Santa Fe and Music Mountain Chamber Music Festivals. Ms. Lee has collaborated with conductors Carlos Miguel Prieto, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Jahja Ling, and Jorge Mester with the London, San Diego, Hawaii, Louisiana, Naples symphony orchestras among others.

She has commissioned works by prominent composers and has given world premieres of works written by Frederic Rzewski, Marc-André Hamelin, Alexander Goehr, Gabriela Lena Frank, Texu Kim, and Huang Ruo.

As a Naxos recording artist, her discography spans a wide range of repertoire from two volumes of Scarlatti Sonatas, Liszt Opera Transcriptions, two volumes of Scriabin, and Clementi Sonatas. Ms. Lee’s recording of Re!nvented under the E1/Entertainment One (formerly Koch Classics) label garnered her a feature review in the Gramophone Magazine and the Classical Recording Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year Award.

A second prize and Mozart Prize winner of the 2003 Cleveland International Piano Competition and a laureate of the Santander International Piano Competition in Spain, Ms. Lee has worked extensively with Richard Goode, Robert McDonald, Ursula Oppens, and Jerome Lowenthal. A graduate of The Juilliard School, Ms. Lee was awarded the William Petschek Piano Debut Award at Lincoln Center and the Arthur Rubinstein Award and received her Doctor of Musical Arts from The Graduate Center, City University of New York.

In 2022, Soyeon Kate Lee joined the piano faculty at the Juilliard School, and serves on the piano faculty at the Bowdoin International Music Festival during the summers. She resides in New York with her husband, pianist Ran Dank, and their two children, Noah and Ella.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: The Jupiter Quartet, the Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign which The New Yorker describes as “an ensemble of eloquent intensity,” is presented by Krannert Center for a performance with pianist Soyeon Kate Lee in Foellinger Great Hall (500 S Goodwin Ave.). The ensemble will perform a bold and stylistically diverse concert program, featuring Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Quartet No. 21 K. 575 (1789), Béla Bartók’s Quartet No. 6 (1939), and Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34 by Johannes Brahms (1864), which the Quartet will perform with guest pianist, Soyeon Kate Lee.

Short description: The Jupiter Quartet, who are described as “an ensemble of eloquent intensity” (The New Yorker), is presented by Krannert Center for a performance with pianist Soyeon Kate Lee featuring the music of Michi Wiancko, Béla Bartók, and Johannes Brahms.

Concert details:

Who: Jupiter String Quartet and pianist Soyeon Kate Lee
Presented by Krannert Center
What: Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Bela Bartók, and Johannes Brahms
When: Tuesday, February 6, 2024 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-soyeon-kate-lee-piano