Telegraph Quartet Presented by Friends of Chamber Music Portland in Two Performances
Telegraph Quartet Presented by Friends of Chamber Music Portland in Two Performances
January 22 & 23, 2024 at 7:30pm
Lincoln Performance Hall at Portland State University
Photo of the Telegraph Quartet by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution at: www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/telegraph-quartet
Telegraph Quartet Presented by Friends of Chamber Music Portland in Two Performances
January 22 & 23, 2024 at 7:30pm
Lincoln Performance Hall at Portland State University
1620 SW Park Ave. | Portland, OR
Tickets & Information
Latest Album: Divergent Paths (Azica Records)
Available Now
Portland, OR – The San Francisco-based b (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello), a group described by The Strad as having "precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication,” will be presented by Friends of Chamber Music Portland in two concerts – First Time’s a Charm featuring music by Walker, Britten, Vivian Fung, and Dvořák on Monday, January 22 and Unlikely Muses featuring music by Beethoven, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, and Berg on Tuesday, January 23, both at 7:30pm.
First Time’s a Charm explores examples of composers’ first attempts at the string quartet form, which they approached with great respect and individual exploration, and includes George Walker’s String Quartet No. 1 “Lyric;” Britten’s String Quartet No. 1 in D Major, Op. 25; Vivian Fung’s “Pizzicato” from String Quartet No. 1; and Dvořák’s String Quartet No. 14 in A-flat Major, Op. 105. George Walker composed his first quartet in a neo-romantic style when he was 23 years old, at a time when classical music in America was turning toward a more severe, mathematical approach. Britten completed his first string quartet within three months after he accepted a commission from the great devotee and supporter of chamber music Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge. Composing a work at her invitation earned him a $400 fee, and also added his name to an elite roster of composers (Bartók, Schoenberg, Copland, et al.) who had benefited from her commissions. Canadian composer Vivian Fung wrote her first string quartet using one of the most iconic tools of the medium, the pizzicato. Fung says, “Inspired by listening to Asian folk music, the piece is influenced partly by the music of the Chinese plucked instruments pipa and qin as well as by the energetic rhythms of Indonesian gamelan.” In contrast to the theme, the program closes with Dvořák’s last string quartet. For nearly three years, beginning in 1892, Antonin Dvořák lived with his family in New York City, where he was engaged as the director of the American Conservatory of Music. Dvořák became well acquainted with the musical cultures of this country. Upon returning to his homeland, Dvořák continued to work on the composition he started before leaving the United States. However, Dvořák had come home, and his new quartet spoke his language, the language of the Bohemian culture.
Unlikely Muses reflects deep relationships each composer had with another during their life that affected the course of their work and includes Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 6 in B-flat Major, Op. 18 No. 6; Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s String Quartet; and Berg’s Lyric Suite. The last of Beethoven’s first six string quartets owes its wit, levity, and exploratory nature to Beethoven’s teacher Josef Haydn, the grandfather of the quartet. Though Beethoven and Haydn often clashed over their styles, later in life, Beethoven would acknowledge his musical debt to Haydn and the evolution of his quartets from their Haydn-esque beginnings. Although Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel did not have a public career as a composer like her brother Felix, the two were close musical confidants throughout their lives and influenced each other’s work deeply, as can be heard in her string quartet. Lastly, Alban Berg’s unlikely muse is Hanna Fuchs-Robettin, the inspiration of his Lyric Suite, discovered much later through a miniature score of the composer outlining a secret love narrative. In 1925 an affair began between them––both were married––and Berg composed the work over the next year as a musical manifestation of the excitement, trepidation, and suffering of their secret relationship, going so far as to include their initials in musical cryptograms throughout.
The Telegraph Quartet’s latest album, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths, was released on August 25 via Azica Records. The first in the Telegraph’s three-album series focused on string quartets of the first half of the 20th century, Divergent Paths explores the bewildering and unbridled creativity of the period through the music of Arnold Schoenberg and Maurice Ravel, whose music on this album weaves threads of great contrast and surprising similarity. The album has been met with critical acclaim, with The New York Times reporting, “[I]n the Schoenberg, they achieve something truly special, meticulously guiding its often wayward progress. At times Schoenberg makes the four strings sound almost orchestral, but the Telegraph players can also make his contrapuntal tangles radiantly clear. Every minute of their account sounds gripping and purposeful, which is one of the highest compliments you can pay the piece.”
About Telegraph Quartet: The Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello) formed in 2013 with an equal passion for standard and contemporary chamber music repertoire. Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “…an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape” and “powerfully adept… with a combination of brilliance and subtlety,” the Telegraph Quartet was awarded the prestigious 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.
The Quartet has performed in New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Chamber Masters Series, and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Emilia Romagna Festival. They have collaborated with pianists Leon Fleisher and Simone Dinnerstein; cellists Norman Fischer and Bonnie Hampton; violinist Ian Swensen; composer-vocalist Theo Bleckmann; St. Lawrence Quartet, and the Henschel Quartett. A fervent champion of 20th- and 21st-century repertoire, the Telegraph Quartet has premiered works by John Harbison, Osvaldo Golijov, Robert Sirota, and Richard Festinger. In 2018 the Quartet released its debut album, Into the Light, featuring works by Anton Webern, Benjamin Britten, and Leon Kirchner on the Centaur label. The Telegraph Quartet released its new album, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths – which features Ravel’s renowned quartet and Schoenberg’s first quartet – on August 25 via Azica Records.
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Quartet is currently on the chamber music faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as the Quartet-in-Residence and has given master classes at the SFCM Collegiate and Pre-College Divisions, through the Morrison Artist Series at San Francisco State University, and abroad at the Taipei National University of the Arts, National Taiwan Normal University, and in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Telegraph has also served as artists-in-residence at the Interlochen Adult Chamber Music Camp, SoCal Chamber Music Workshop, and Crowden Music Center Chamber Music Workshop. In November 2020, the Telegraph Quartet launched ChamberFEAST!, a chamber music workshop in Taiwan and in fall 2020, Telegraph launched an online video project called TeleLab, in which the ensemble collectively breaks down the components of a movement from various works for quartet.
For more information, visit www.telegraphquartet.com.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: The award-winning Telegraph Quartet, described by The New York Times as being “full of elegance and pinpoint control,” is presented in concert by Friends of Chamber Music Portland on Monday, January 22 and Tuesday January 23, 2024 at 7:30pm. The Bay Area ensemble will perform a different program each evening–First Time’s a Charm and Unlikely Muses. The first concert will feature music by Walker, Britten, Vivian Fung, and Dvořák, while the second performance will feature the work of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Beethoven, and Berg.
Short description: The Telegraph Quartet, which is described as “full of elegance and pinpoint control” (The New York Times), is presented by Friends of Chamber Music Portland in two unique performances on January 22 and 23, 2024. The first concert will include works by Walker, Britten, Vivian Fung, and Dvořák. The second performance will feature music by Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Beethoven, and Berg.
Concert details:
Who: Telegraph Quartet
Presented by Friends of Chamber Music Portland
What: Music by Walker, Britten, Vivian Fung, and Dvořák; Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Beethoven, and Berg
When: Monday January 22 and Tuesday January 23, 2024 at 7:30pm
Where: Lincoln Performance Hall at Portland State University, 1620 SW Park Ave., Portland, OR 97214
Tickets and information: www.focm.org/concerts/2023-24-season/telegraph-quartet-2023-24/6263/
March 8: Sony Classical to release Lucas Debargue's next album - Fauré’s Complete Music for Solo Piano
Sony Classical Presents Lucas Debargue's Recording of Fauré’s Complete Music for Solo Piano
Sony Classical Presents
Lucas Debargue's Remarkable Recording of Fauré’s Complete Music for Solo Piano
First Single - 3 Romances sans paroles,
Op. 17: Romance No. 3 Andante Moderato
Out Now
Album Release Date: March 8, 2024
Preorder Now
A key release for the anniversary of French composer Gabriel Fauré, as 2024 marks the 100th anniversary of the composer’s death (1845 - 1924)
This 4-album set with 68 tracks is a remarkable new release as it covers the complete piano oeuvre of Gabriel Fauré written over 60 years
Includes extensive liner notes by Debargue on the music, its significance, and the composer's life
Recorded on a special piano (Opus 102 by Stephen Paulello) with 102 keys that has never before been heard in recital or on a recording
Upcoming US Performances:
Jan. 28, 2024: Horowitz Center in Columbia, MD
Presented by the Candlelight Concert Society
Tickets and Information
Feb. 2, 2024: Carnegie Hall in New York, NY
Presented by Cherry Orchard Festival
Tickets and Information
For his latest release on Sony Classical, pianist Lucas Debargue turns to one of the unsung treasuries of the piano repertoire - the works of Gabriel Fauré. In a remarkable undertaking, Debargue has recorded every note of his compatriot’s piano music - all on a newly designed piano rarely heard on record until now.
For many years, Debargue was mystified by what he describes as the ‘gentle melancholy and harmonic sophistication’ of Fauré’s piano music. He played the French composer’s early piano works but steered clear of the Bagatelles, Nocturnes and Preludes that enjoy a special reputation among certain pianists.
Turning Point
The turning point came when Debargue encountered Fauré’s Nine Preludes Op 103. These elusive masterpieces, written in 1910-11, ‘revealed the profound originality and mastery’ of the composer, says Debargue. They encompass, the pianist believes, ‘a vast emotional range from serene contemplation to extreme anguish.’
For his new recording, Debargue has reexamined Fauré’s entire output for piano, starting from the beginning. Across 4 CDs, he ‘retraces the journey that the composer had taken from his earliest works for the piano to his last contribution to the medium.’ Recording it, reports the pianist, has ‘transformed my life both as a person and as a musician.’
Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) lived through a time of great change in France. He was born into a country entrenched in tradition but by the end of his life had witnessed the arrival of radical new trends including the birth of modernism and the shifting of the centre of musical gravity from Vienna to his own city, Paris.
Delicacy, accuracy and precision are often cited as key elements of Fauré’s music, which has a reputation for understated elegance but is just as often passionate and disruptive. It was famously referred to by Aaron Copland as ‘intensity on a background of calm’. Like Beethoven, Fauré was afflicted by encroaching deafness with increasing age - a feature of his biography that influenced his later music.
Piano music ranks alongside chamber music and song as the most important genre in Fauré’s production. The composer spent 60 years exploring the piano and developing his specific philosophy of the instrument. In his piano music, the expressive rubs shoulders with the reserved, the spontaneous with the austere, violence with calm - sometimes within the space of a single bar. In his works for the instrument, the composer’s trademark clarity and concision are combined with sinuous melodies and tantalizing harmonic ambiguity.
A Rarely Heard Instrument
It is Debargue’s firm belief that Fauré’s piano music deserves a very particular instrumental sound. He has found the instrument to provide it in the ‘Opus 102’ piano, designed and built by Stephen Paulello - a boutique piano maker based in Bourgogne, France.
The instrument’s name comes from its extended range of 102 keys, encompassing eight octaves plus a fourth. It is a ‘barless’ piano, in which no part of the metal frame is laid over resonating strings, resulting in unconstrained resonance across every string and therefore, every note. Parallel strings and nickel-coated wires help create a different piano sonority.
When Debargue first played the Paulello Opus 102 piano, he was surprised and intrigued. ‘The instrument resembled no other,’ he says: ‘not only did if fill me with considerable enthusiasm, it also left me feeling disorientated.’
What the pianist describes as the ‘ideal clarity’ in the instrument led him to conclude that this would be the partner piano for his Fauré recordings. Among its qualities, he cites, is its ability to change sound at a moment’s notice, ‘to switch from a velvety sound to something more acidulous.’
Fauré and the Piano
Fauré wrote piano works throughout his creative life, resulting in an oeuvre stretching over some sixty years. His first published piano pieces, Trois romances sans parole, cannot be precisely dated but are thought to have been written around 1863. They show the influence of Mendelssohn and the German school, but with Gallic charm. Also included here are Fauré’s frequently overlooked Pièces brèves Op 84, written later in the 1860s.
Among the works that followed were an 1875 Mazurka in stylistic tribute to Chopin, with touches of grace and melancholy, and the Ballade for solo piano (written 1877-79), known for its intricate piano writing.
Perhaps Fauré’s best known piano collection is his set of Barcarolles, written over 41 years from 1880 and second only to the Nocturnes in offering a comprehensive survey of what the composer could draw from a piano in service of his wider musical worldview. The set moves from straightforward but charming lyricism to music of unearthly transparency.
The ornate Impromptus followed in 1881, while the Valses-caprices, a collection started in 1882 and added to for twelve years, reveal the improvisatory elements to Fauré’s writing (a quality particularly suited to the Paulello Opus 102, says Debargue). Other works of the period include a sturdy Theme and Variations of 1895.
Fauré’s late sets of 13 Nocturnes and Nine Preludes are without doubt his most remarkable works for the piano. The Nocturnes appears to alternate light and dark, passion and serenity, in which there are references to the abyss of the First World War. The Nine Preludes, from 1910-11, are elusive masterpieces that gradually reveal their truths from a place of cool serenity.
Fauré’s hallmarks make themselves felt throughout these works - a sinuous musical language that combines ancient modes with modern conventions, and whose emotional breadths have rarely been matched. Fauré’s music can appear to show both courage and despair, but its most admirable and consistent quality is widely believed to be its charm.
Fauré 2024
Lucas Debargue’s recording of Fauré’s complete piano works is set to be a major recording event of the Fauré anniversary, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the composer’s death in 1924. Its 68 tracks will be available digitally as well as physically in a 4 CD box . A comprehensive set of sleeve notes notes includes Debargue’s own commentary on each piece, an analysis of Fauré’s approach to the piano writing and full details of the Paulello Opus 102 instrument. The pianist will include Fauré in his recitals throughout the coming year.
Link to the Album: https://Lucasdebargue.Lnk.To/Faure
More About Lucas Debargue
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Nov 27: Simone Dinnerstein performs Philip Glass's Tirol Concerto with Brooklyn Orchestra at Roulette; plus NY Premiere of Glass's Symphony No. 14
GRAMMY-nominated Pianist Simone Dinnerstein performs as soloist in Philip Glass’s “Tirol” Concerto for Piano and Orchestra with the Brooklyn Orchestra
Concert features the New York Premiere of Glass’s Symphony No. 14 Conducted by Olivier Glissant
Photo of Simone Dinnerstein by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution at: https://jensen-artists.squarespace.com/artists-profiles/simone-dinnerstein
GRAMMY-nominated Pianist Simone Dinnerstein performs as soloist in
Philip Glass’s “Tirol” Concerto for Piano and Orchestra with the Brooklyn Orchestra
Concert features the New York Premiere of Glass’s Symphony No. 14
Conducted by Olivier Glissant
Monday, November 27, 2023 at 7:30pm
Roulette Intermedium | 509 Atlantic Avenue | Brooklyn, NY
Tickets & Information
www.simonedinnerstein.com | www.brooklynorchestra.org
New York, NY – GRAMMY-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein, who is described by The Washington Post as, “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” will be the featured soloist in Philip Glass’s “Tirol” Piano Concerto (Piano Concerto No. 1) in a performance with the Brooklyn Orchestra conducted by Olivier Glissant, on Monday, November 27, 2023 at 7:30pm at Roulette Intermedium (509 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn). This will be the Brooklyn native’s first performance at the venue. Glass’s “Tirol” Piano Concerto, composed in 2000, has not been played in New York in 20 years. The concert will also include the New York premiere of Glass’s Symphony No. 14 (“Liechtenstein Suite”), composed in 2020 for the LGT Young Soloists, which gave the world premiere in 2021 at the Royal College of Music in London.
Simone Dinnerstein is heralded for her distinctive musical voice and is becoming known for her interpretations of Philip Glass’s music. She recorded and extensively performed his Piano Concerto No. 3, which he wrote for her in 2017, co-commissioned by twelve orchestras. NPR reported of her recording of the piece, “Dinnerstein's creamy tone and elastic phrasing gives the music an air of Schubertian warmth and wistfulness.” The Washington Post writes of her interpretation of Mad Rush, “The vast architecture of Glass’s Mad Rush was shot through with ever-changing light, creating a hypnotic effect with a delicate symbiosis of the physical and spiritual.”
Dinnerstein began performing Glass’s “Tirol” Piano Concerto No. 1 earlier this year. The seldom-performed work is based on melody fragments of traditional Austrian Volkslied, or folk music, in the Tyrolean tradition. It was commissioned by Festival Klangspuren and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra in 2000. Dinnerstein says of the piece, “The second movement of the ‘Tirol’ is what first drew me to it. Built almost as a set of variations, the sound is lush and pulsating, and its mood relates to his Symphony No 3 for strings. I love the play between intense lyricism and a feeling of austerity, so reminiscent of Schubert’s writing.”
The Brooklyn Orchestra is a symphonic ensemble dedicated to new music, striving to focus on contemporary composers. Created in 2015 by composer/conductor Olivier Glissant, the group was conceived to fuse genres of music that rarely meet on the classical stage and to bring music from multiple cultures to the orchestral repertoire, in an effort to make symphonic music accessible to a wider and more diverse audience.
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.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: GRAMMY-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New Yorker as an artist of “lean, knowing, and unpretentious elegance,” performs Philip Glass’s “Tirol” Piano Concerto on a concert that also includes the New York premiere of his Symphony No. 14 with the Brooklyn Orchestra conducted by Olivier Glissant at Roulette.
Concert details:
Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein with the Brooklyn Orchestra
Conducted by Olivier Glissant
What: Philip Glass’s “Tirol” Piano Concerto and New York premiere of his Symphony No. 14
When: Monday, November 27, 2023 at 7:30pm
Where: Roulette Intermedium, 509 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
Tickets and information: www.brooklynorchestra.org/calendarmain.html
Pianist Simone Dinnerstein is Soloist in Concert at Carnegie Hall Presented by Chamber Orchestra of New York
GRAMMY-nominated Pianist Simone Dinnerstein performs as soloist with Chamber Orchestra of New York at Carnegie Hall
Photo of Simone Dinnerstein by Arianna Dominguez available in high resolution at: https://jensen-artists.squarespace.com/artists-profiles/simone-dinnerstein
GRAMMY-nominated Pianist Simone Dinnerstein performs as soloist with
Chamber Orchestra of New York at Carnegie Hall
Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467
Conducted by Music Director Salvatore DiVittorio
Presented by Chamber Orchestra of New York
Thursday, December 14, 2023 at 7pm
Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall | 57th St. and 7th Ave. | NYC
Tickets: www.carnegiehall.org, CarnegieCharge 212.247.7800, or the Carnegie Hall Box Office
“lean, knowing, and unpretentious elegance”
– The New Yorker
Simone Dinnerstein: www.simonedinnerstein.com
New York, NY – GRAMMY-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein, who is described by The Washington Post as “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” will be the featured soloist with Chamber Orchestra of New York conducted by Salvatore Di Vittorio, in a concert on Saturday, December 14, 2023 presented by Chamber Orchestra of New York at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall.
Dinnerstein, an American pianist who is heralded for her distinctive musical voice and commitment to sharing classical music with everyone, will be the featured soloist in a performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467. The concert program will also include Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker Suite, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial Suite by John Williams, and the world premiere of Salvatore Di Vittorio’s Suite Verdiana – a transcription of five of Verdi’s favorite operas.
The Washington Post has called Simone Dinnerstein “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.” As a musician who embraces collaboration and inclusiveness with her artistry and performances, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467 holds particular significance for Dinnerstein. Not only is the piece included on her 2017 album, Mozart in Havana, but the concerto served as a point of artistic connection between Dinnerstein and the Havana Lyceum Orchestra, with which she performed the piece while visiting Cuba in 2015, at the invitation of her teacher and esteemed pianist, Solomon Mikowsky. Gramophone describes Dinnerstein’s performance of the C Major K 467 concerto as having “heartfelt directness, purity of line,”
Of the personal significance behind Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major and her cherished memories performing it, Dinnerstein says:
“This Mozart concerto has been one of my favorites since I was a child. I’ve had many memorable experiences performing it, from the thrilling experience of performing it in Vienna, where Mozart lived, to recording it in Havana with the extraordinary Havana Lyceum Orchestra and subsequently touring it with them in the United States. The writing is reminiscent of Mozart’s operatic output, and it is a complete joy to sing on the piano. I am excited to perform this work, collaborating for the first time with Salvatore DiVittorio and Chamber Orchestra of New York!”
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.
About Chamber Orchestra of New York: Chamber Orchestra of New York is a premier ensemble that features a seasoned roster of our city’s most flourishing musicians. The orchestra is internationally distinguished for championing unique repertoire that bridges the classical and modern traditions, including iconic film music, through premieres and world premiere recordings of rediscovered masterworks. Through all-embracing approaches with its distinct programs – from performances to educational outreach – the orchestra aims to cultivate a broader audience across generations for the future of classical music. The orchestra has received commissions from The Morgan Library & Museum, Dolce & Gabbana at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the United Nations, and Star Wars under Disney, among others. The orchestra’s albums for Naxos Records, including its work championing Respighi, continue to air worldwide to much acclaim. It has also established The Respighi Prize music competition, New York Conducting Workshop, and Maestro Juniors education program.
About Salvatore Di Vittorio: Salvatore Di Vittorio is an internationally respected, published composer and conductor, recognized for his uniquely lyrical, melodic orchestral music “following in the footsteps of Ottorino Respighi” – the revered 20th century composer who inspired great composers in both classical and film music. In 2008, the great nieces of Respighi, Elsa and Gloria Pizzoli, entrusted Di Vittorio with the restoration of several early orchestral works, including the completion of the first Concerto for violin (in A Major). With his profound natural gift of melody throughout all his memorable music, Di Vittorio’s forte of orchestration and arrangement is evidenced not only through his own original works but numerous elaborations across the spectrum from Claude Debussy to John Barry. A multifaceted career, doubling as an orchestral conductor, as Music Director of Chamber Orchestra of New York, further distinguishes Salvatore Di Vittorio from most orchestral composers today.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: GRAMMY-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New Yorker as an artist of “lean, knowing, and unpretentious elegance,” is presented as a guest soloist with Chamber Orchestra of New York in for a performance conducted by Salvatore Di Vittorio at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, featuring the music of Mozart, John Williams, Tchaikovsky, and the world premiere of Salvatore Di Vittorio’s Suite Verdiana.
Short description: GRAMMY-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein, an artist of “lean, knowing, and unpretentious elegance” (The New Yorker), is presented in concert at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall with Chamber Orchestra of New York, led by Salvatore Di Vittorio. The concert will include music by Mozart, John Williams, Tchaikovsky, and the world premiere of Salvatore Di Vittorio’s Suite Verdiana.
Concert details:
Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein with Chamber Orchestra of New York
Presented by Chamber Orchestra of New York
Conducted by Salvatore Di Vittorio
What: Music by Mozart, John Williams, Tchaikovsky, and the world premiere of Salvatore Di Vittorio’s Suite Verdiana
When: Saturday, December 14, 2023 at 7:30pm
Where: 57th St. and 7th Ave., New York, NY 10019
Tickets and information: www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2023/12/14/Chamber-Orchestra-of-New-York-0700PM
San Francisco Girls Chorus Explores Folk Songs of the World with Latin Grammy Nominee Sam Reider at Davies Symphony Hall
San Francisco Girls Chorus Presents SFGC Winter Concert: Folk Songs of the World at Davies Symphony Hall on December 11
With Special Guest Latin Grammy Nominee Accordionist Sam Reider; Valérie Sainte-Agathe, Artistic Director
Photos available in high resolution at www.sfgirlschorus.org/press-room.
San Francisco Girls Chorus Presents SFGC Winter Concert: Folk Songs of the World
at Davies Symphony Hall on December 11
With Special Guest Latin Grammy Nominee Accordionist Sam Reider
Valérie Sainte-Agathe, Artistic Director
Monday, December 11, 2023 at 7pm
Davies Symphony Hall | 201 Van Ness Ave. | San Francisco, CA
Tickets & Information: www.sfgirlschorus.org/performances
San Francisco Girls Chorus: www.sfgirlschorus.org
Press Room: www.sfgirlschorus.org/press-room
San Francisco, CA – The San Francisco Girls Chorus (SFGC) continues its 2023-2024 season with its highly anticipated annual concert at Davies Symphony Hall, SFGC Winter Concert: Folk Songs of the World, on Monday, December 11, 2023 at 7pm. The concert will feature hundreds of singers from the Premier Ensemble, the entire six-level Chorus School, SFGC alumnae, and special guest accordionist and 2023 Latin Grammy nominee, Sam Reider. Led by Artistic Director Valérie Sainte-Agathe, SFGC is celebrating 45 years of empowering young women through music this season.
SFGC Winter Concert: Folk Songs of the World is inspired by folk music traditions from around the world, combining traditional favorites (including Silent Night), new works, and hidden gems from the holiday choral repertoire. "One of my favorite moments in the year is the concert at Davies Symphony Hall, when we have 300 children on stage,” says Sainte-Agathe. “You hear and feel the power of the sound. One reason our singers remain motivated is that each time they're on stage, they have this feeling that they are performing, and doing it really well after practicing so much. They realize that their music is moving and touching to people; sometimes people are so moved that they’re crying. That's so powerful. There is really nothing else like it."
Guest artist Sam Reider, who is based in San Francisco, has performed, recorded, and collaborated with a range of artists including Jon Batiste, Jorge Glem, Sierra Hull, Laurie Lewis, and Paquito d’Rivera. From his genre-bending acoustic ensemble The Human Hands to his duo collaboration with Grammy-nominated Venezuelan artist Jorge Glem, his unique compositional voice and melodicism runs throughout his eclectic projects.
Since 1978, SFGC has provided girls and young women the unique opportunity not only to perform at the highest artistic caliber, but also to develop self-confidence, leadership skills, and an awareness of the role of the arts in civic engagement. A leader in the Bay Area and national music scenes, SFGC produces award-winning concerts, recordings and tours; empowers young women in music and other fields; and sets the international standard for the highest level of performance and education. SFGC has been recognized through numerous honors including five GRAMMY Awards, four ASCAP/Chorus America Awards for Adventurous Programming, and in 2002, becoming the first youth chorus to receive Chorus America's prestigious Margaret Hillis Achievement Award for Choral Excellence. Each year, hundreds of singers of diverse backgrounds from 45 Bay Area cities ranging in age from age four to eighteen participate in SFGC’s programs. The organization consists of a six-level Chorus School training program and the Premier Ensemble, a professional-level chorus of treble voices.
Under the direction of Valérie Sainte-Agathe, SFGC has achieved an incomparable sound that underscores the unique clarity and force of impeccably trained treble voices fused with expressiveness and drama. As a result, the SFGC vibrantly performs 1,000 years of choral masterworks from plainchant to the most challenging and nuanced contemporary works, many created expressly for them, in programs that are as intelligently designed as they are enjoyable and revelatory to experience. The SFGC 2023-2024 season is no exception.
SFGC's season continues on March 9, 2024 when the Premier Ensemble performs Vivaldi’s Juditha Triumphans at Z Space, with music direction by Valérie Sainte-Agathe and stage direction by Céline Ricci. The Premier Ensemble’s season concludes with a collaboration with renowned percussionist and composer Haruka Fujii on May 19, 2024 at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. On May 30, 2024, the Chorus School will showcase singers from Levels 1 through IV at its annual Chorus School Spring Concert at the Scottish Rite Masonic Center, coming together to celebrate their accomplishments from the year individually and as a school. In addition, SFGC ensembles will perform throughout the Bay Area in collaboration this season with other organizations and artists including the East Bay Philharmonic, Sunset Music & Arts, Lisa Mezzacappa, and the Amateur Music Network.
More about the San Francisco Girls Chorus: www.sfgirlschorus.org/about
More about Valérie Sainte-Agathe: www.sfgirlschorus.org/valerie-sainte-agathe
More about Sam Reider: www.samreidermusic.com/about
San Francisco Girls Chorus - Upcoming Highlights
SFGC Winter Concert: Folk Songs of the World
with Latin Grammy-Nominee Accordionist Sam Reider
December 11, 2023 at 7pm
Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Ave, San Francisco, CA
SFGC Premier Ensemble in Vivaldi’s Juditha Triumphans
Music direction by Valérie Sainte-Agathe & stage direction by Celine Ricci
March 9, 2024 at 7:30pm & March 10, 2024 at 2pm
Z Space, 450 Florida St, San Francisco, CA
SFGC Premier Ensemble with Percussionist & Composer Haruka Fujii
May 19, 2024 at 3pm
San Francisco Conservatory of Music, 50 Oak St, San Francisco, CA
Chorus School Spring Concert
Featuring a World Premiere by SFGC Composer-in-Residence Sahba Aminikia
May 30, 2024
Scottish Rite Masonic Center, 2850 19th Ave, San Francisco, CA
Tickets & information: www.sfgirlschorus.org
The San Francisco Girls Chorus receives support from Grants for the Arts, The Kimball Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Sequoia Trust, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc., The Sam Mazza Foundation, The Bernard Osher Foundation, and The Morris Stulsaft Foundation.
GatherNYC continues in Nov and Dec with Orpheus + Boyd Meets Girl, Dalí Quartet, and Project Trio at MAD in Columbus Circle
GatherNYC continues in Nov and Dec with Orpheus + Boyd Meets Girl, Dalí Quartet, and Project Trio at MAD in Columbus Circle
GatherNYC Continues 2023-2024 Season at Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) in Columbus Circle
Every Other Sunday Morning at 11AM
Up Next:
NOV 19 • Orpheus + Boyd Meets Girl
DEC 3 • Dalí Quartet
DEC 17 • Project Trio
JAN 7 • 9 Horses + Jacob Jolliff (mandolin)
JAN 21 • Parker Ramsay (harp) + Brandon Patrick George (flute)
FEB 4 • Douglas J Cuomo + The Overlook: Seven Limbs
FEB 18 • Duo Kayo
MAR 3 • Invoke
MAR 17 • Borromeo Quartet
MAR 31 • Juilliard Quartet
APR 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 three upcoming concerts in November and December. 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.
Up next:
Nov 19: Orpheus + Boyd Meets Girl
GatherNYC Artistic Directors Rupert Boyd and Laura Metcalf team up with violinist Abi Fayette and trumpeter Louis Hanzlik, two of the Artistic Directors of the legendary, Grammy-winning Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, for a joyous collaborative program that spans many genres including Baroque, tango, jazz and more.
Dec 3: Dalí Quartet
The award-winning Dalí Quartet is acclaimed for bringing Latin American quartet repertoire to an equal standing alongside the Classical and Romantic canon. Their program “Classical Roots, Latin Soul” has been praised worldwide for its fresh approach to music from Brahms and Haydn to Piazzolla and Paquito d’Rivera.
Dec 17: PROJECT Trio
PROJECT Trio, made up of saxophone, double bass and beatboxing flute, is a dynamic and innovative music group known for their genre-blending performances and captivating stage presence. The trio pushes the boundaries of traditional chamber music with their unique fusion of classical, jazz, hip-hop, and world music influences. Their creative and adventurous approach to music-making has earned them a devoted following (their YouTube channel alone has over 100 million views), making them a trailblazing force in the contemporary music landscape.
Jan 7: 9 Horses with Jacob Jolliff
Supergroup 9 Horses (Sara Caswell, violin; Joseph Brent, mandolin; Andrew Ryan, bass) returns to GatherNYC along with mandolin virtuoso Jacob Jolliff of the Bela Fleck Band to present their electrifying program that blends bluegrass with Bach and Vivaldi.
Jan 21: Brandon Patrick George (flute) + Parker Ramsay (harp)
Grammy-winning flutist Brandon Patrick George, a “knockout musician with a gorgeous sound” (Philadelphia Inquirer) is joined by harpist Parker Ramsay, hailed as “remarkably special” (Gramophone) for an unforgettable duo recital. Together they perform a lyrical program spanning centuries and continents.
Feb 4: Douglas J Cuomo + The Overlook: “Seven Limbs”
The Overlook returns to GatherNYC to present Douglas J Cuomo’s meditative and ecstatic work Seven Limbs for string quartet and improvised electric guitar. This piece is inspired by an ancient Tibetan Buddhist meditation practice called The Seven Limbs, which is a method of purifying the mind, allowing it to become more patient, peaceful, loving, and compassionate; filled with joyful energy.
Feb 18: Duo Kayo
Duo Kayo is the dynamic pairing of violist Edwin Kaplan and cellist Titilayo Ayangade, both star chamber musicians and veterans of esteemed string quartets (the Tesla and Thalea Quartets, respectively). The duo is on a mission to become a vessel for new and exciting music, which they have already shared with audiences across the country, as well as closer to home at Lincoln Center. Their expressive, richly harmonic programs creatively blend the classical with the contemporary.
Mar 3: Invoke
Described as “...not anything but everything: Classical, Folk, Bluegrass, Americana and a sound yet to be termed seamlessly merged into a perfect one” (David Srebnik, SiriusXM Classical), Invoke strives to successfully dodge even the most valiant attempts at genre classification. The multi-instrumental quartet encompasses traditions from across America, including bluegrass, Appalachian fiddle tunes, jazz, and minimalism. Fueled by their passion for storytelling, Invoke weaves all of these styles together to form a unique contemporary repertoire, featuring original works composed by and for the group.
Mar 17: Borromeo Quartet
One of the most influential quartets of our time, the Borromeo Quartet has held residencies at both New England Conservatory and the Taos School of Music for 25 years. Their vivid performances and fearless approach to music making have inspired many generations of musicians, and led them to be recognized with some of the industry’s most prestigious awards: the Cleveland Quartet Award, the Avery Fisher Career Grant, and the Martin Segal Award of Lincoln Center.
Mar 31: Juilliard String Quartet
Founded in 1946 and hailed by The Boston Globe as “the most important American quartet in history,” the ensemble draws on a deep and vital engagement to the classics, while embracing the mission of championing new works, a vibrant combination of the familiar and the daring. Each performance of the Juilliard String Quartet is a unique experience, bringing together the four members’ profound understanding, total commitment, and unceasing curiosity in sharing the wonders of the string quartet literature. Based out of the Juilliard School in New York City, where the four members of the quartet serve on the faculty, the reach of this venerable quartet is worldwide.
April 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.
Pianists Sarah Cahill, Adam Sherkin, and Adrienne Kim Presented by Piano Lunaire on December 9th
Pianists Sarah Cahill, Adam Sherkin, and Adrienne Kim Presented by Piano Lunaire in COMPOSERS IN PLAY VI: Portrait of a Canadian Minimalist Performing the Music of Ann Southam
Saturday, December 9, 2023 at 8pm at the Tenri Cultural Institute
Pianists Sarah Cahill, Adam Sherkin, and Adrienne Kim
Presented by Piano Lunaire in
COMPOSERS IN PLAY VI: Portrait of a Canadian Minimalist
Performing the Music of Ann Southam
Saturday, December 9, 2023 at 8pm
Tenri Cultural Institute | 43 W. 13th St. | New York, NY 10011
Tickets and more information:
www.pianolunaire.org/composersinplay
“Pianist Sarah Cahill commands a near-godlike status among fans of contemporary classical music”
– NPR Music
Sarah Cahill | Adrienne Kim | Adam Sherkin
New York, NY – On Saturday, December 9, 2023 at 8pm, “sterling pianist” (The New York Times) Sarah Cahill will be presented in concert by Piano Lunaire alongside pianists Adrienne Kim and Adam Sherkin (Artistic Director of Piano Lunaire) at the Tenri Cultural Institute (43 W. 13th St.). This concert, titled Portrait of a Canadian Minimalist, is the sixth installment in the Composers in Play series presented by Piano Lunaire.
The three pianists will perform a program highlighting the work of Canadian composer Ann Southam. Cahill will give the New York premiere of Commotion Creek (2007) and perform Glass Houses No. 5 and No.7 (1981) and Rivers Series 1 No. 1 and Rivers Series 2 No. 7 (1979). Sherkin will give the New York premieres of Fiddle Creek (2008), Pond Life III (2008), Fidget Creek (2008) and Pond Life IV (2008). Kim and Sherkin will also be performing original works by Sherkin, with Sherkin giving the U.S. premiere of his work, This Constant Song (Homage to Southam). Kim will also perform Franz Schubert’s Gretchen am Spinnrade (arr. by Franz Liszt) (1814) and Southam’s Remembering Schubert (1993).
An unlikely champion of the Minimalist aesthetic, Southam worked tirelessly throughout her career, experimenting with style and structure, always staying true to her own voice and musicality. Later in life, as she embraced minimalism - particularly at the keyboard - she navigated her own brand of lyricism, intimacy and efficiency of line not only as feminist, but as an individual artist born of unquestionably North American sensibilities. She advocated for women in the arts and cultivated her own – very unique – career, all the while cohabitating a compositional world heavily dominated by men. CBC Producer Eitan Cornfield once said: “Ann Southam blasts the stereotype of the Canadian composer. She is proudly, politically female, in a stuffy male universe.”
In 2023, now thirteen years after her death, she is revered more than ever. This performance celebrates the major piano cycles Southam wrote over a late twenty-year span, forming her final creative period: Glass Houses, Rivers and Pond Life. These works are the most popular of Ann Southam’s cycles to be sold in print and be performed.
Of collaborating with Cahill for this program honoring Ann Southam, Sherkin says:
“We are honored to be collaborating with Sarah Cahill on this exciting presentation of Ann Southam’s piano music. Cahill is among the most sensitive proponents of Southam’s catalogue, particularly here in the US. Her dedication to Southam’s art has yielded expert renditions, both on stage and in the recording studio. Additionally, Cahill’s career has seen dynamic partnerships with celebrated American minimalist composers, offering a unique depth of understanding when performing Southam. This exceptional profile of West Coast meeting a Canadian sensibility, is ideal for contextualizing Southam in a dynamic new perspective for 2023. It is our hope that fresh audiences will come to discover and appreciate Ann Southam’s work, both at the piano and beyond.”
Of Ann Southam’s music and the works she’ll be performing in this concert, Kim says:
“Ann Southam’s approach to minimalism speaks to me on so many levels. She wanted to shine a light on the repetitive and meditative qualities of so-called ‘women’s work’, the daily work of mending and sewing, that was so important and beautiful but often unnoticed. There is something about the work done by hands, whether holding a needle or playing the piano, that allows contemplation and rumination and the deepest exploration. In this program, I’m weaving together a transcription of one of Franz Schubert’s most famous songs - portraying the innermost thoughts of a woman sitting at a spinning wheel, with Ann Southam’s “Remembering Schubert”, and pairing these with two gorgeous pieces by Adam Sherkin, which seem to me to be of a similar handicraft, though across centuries.”
Cahill says of this special performance dedicated to Ann Southam’s work and performing alongside Kim and Sherkin:
“It’s a great honor to be joining two esteemed colleagues, Adam Sherkin and Adrienne Kim, for this special celebration of Ann Southam’s music. Adam has an especially close relationship to Southam’s music, through his extensive research and deep understanding of her work, and as a fellow Canadian composer. For a few decades now, Southam has been one of my favorite composers to play, but Adam encouraged me to explore more of her work, for which I’m very grateful. Southam is often left out of the history books and lists of great minimalist composers, so this concert presented by Piano Lunaire is particularly meaningful, to introduce her to new audiences and generate more interest in her extraordinarily profound and transcendent music.”
About Sarah Cahill: Sarah Cahill, hailed as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by The New York Times, has commissioned and premiered over seventy compositions for solo piano. Composers who have dedicated works to Cahill include John Adams, Terry Riley, Frederic Rzewski, Pauline Oliveros, Julia Wolfe, Roscoe Mitchell, Annea Lockwood, and Ingram Marshall. She was named a 2018 Champion of New Music, awarded by the American Composers Forum (ACF). Sarah Cahill’s discography includes more than twenty albums on the New Albion, CRI, New World, Tzadik, Albany, Innova, Cold Blue, Other Minds, Irritable Hedgehog, and Pinna labels. Her three-album series, The Future is Female, was released on First Hand Records between March 2022 and April 2023. These albums encompass 30 compositions by women from around the globe, from the 17th century to the present day, and include many world premiere recordings.
Cahill’s radio show, Revolutions Per Minute, can be heard every Sunday evening from 6 to 8pm on KALW, 91.7 FM in San Francisco. She is on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory and is a regular pre-concert speaker with the San Francisco Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
For more information, visit www.sarahcahill.com.
About Adrienne Kim: Pianist Adrienne Kim has performed in Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, Weill Recital Hall, Bargemusic, Symphony Hall, Phillips Gallery and Ravinia's Rising Stars series in Chicago. She has been soloist with the Central Philharmonic Orchestra of Beijing, and the Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Mexico among others. Adrienne was a member of Chamber Music Society Two, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's two-year residency program. She is the pianist of the Alcott Trio and a founding member of the New York Chamber Music Co-Op. She performs regularly as a member of the Bronx Arts Ensemble and participated in the National Endowment for the Arts/Chamber Music America Rural Residency. She has recorded for the Koch, Centaur, Capstone, Albany and Innova labels. Her newest recording of solo piano and chamber works by the composer Ilari Kaila, with the Aizuri Quartet and flutist Isabel Lepanto Gleicher, was released last year on Innova Recordings.
Adrienne is on the faculty of Mannes College and heads the Secondary Piano department there. She recently joined the faculty of Manhattan School of Music Pre-College and Interharmony Music School. She also teaches at Kinhaven’s Young Artist Seminar and taught at the senior session for 12 summers. She is the founder and director of Wild Plums Recording Retreat, a boutique festival in Vermont devoted to the art of recording, and ScherziMusic Academy, which offers online workshops in piano and composition. She studied at Indiana University and Manhattan School of Music as a student of Menahem Pressler and Leon Fleisher.
About Adam Sherkin: Acclaimed for “dazzling displays of hand and ear virtuosity” (Opus One), “technical prowess and uncommon lyricism” (Musical Toronto), Adam Sherkin is a dynamic artist who commands a multi-dimensional approach to performance and composition. Admired for innovative programming and engaging virtuosity, Sherkin has performed at significant venues throughout Canada, the United States and Britain. His solo repertoire features music from the Baroque to present-day, with a specialization in keyboard works from North America (including his own). Recently, Sherkin’s music has been premiered in Mexico, the United States, the Netherlands and Asia. In 2018, Adam Sherkin founded “Piano Lunaire,” a new-gen organization that serves as platform for contemporary performances, houses a record label and collaborates with the new music community at large. Sherkin’s recordings are available on all major streaming services; he currently resides in New York City.
About Piano Lunaire: Innovating, Piano-Side, since 2018: Founded in October 2018 under a full Hunter's Moon, Piano Lunaire is a contemporary classical music organization based in New York and Toronto, pursuing the presentation of artistic excellence in the 21st Century. The company’s portfolio is three-fold: we produce monthly full moon performances, house a record label, and collaborate with the musical community at large, in capacity of both fundraiser and pedagogical platform.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: Pianists Sarah Cahill, described by The New York Times as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde,” Adam Sherkin, and Adrienne Kim are presented in concert by Piano Lunaire. Cahill will perform several selections by composer Ann Southam, as part of a program titled: Portrait of a Canadian Minimalist. The concert will also feature original works by Sherkin –– including the U.S. premiere of This Constant Song (Homage to Southam) – as well as music by Franz Schubert.
Short description: Pianists Sarah Cahill, “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” (The New York Times), Adam Sherkin, and Adrienne Kim, are presented by Piano Lunaire. The program features works by Ann Southam, Adam Sherkin, and Franz Schubert.
Concert details:
Who: Pianists Sarah Cahill, Adam Sherkin, and Adrienne Kim
Presented by Piano Lunaire
What: Music by Ann Southam, Adam Sherkin, and Franz Schubert
When: Saturday, December 9, 2023 at 8pm
Where: Tenri Cultural Institute, 43 W. 13th St., New York, NY 10011
Tickets and information: www.pianolunaire.org/composersinplay
Emerald City Music Presents Inspired by Gamelan – Featuring the Washington State Debut of Gamelan Gita Asmara led by Artistic Director Putu Swaryandana Ichi Oka
Emerald City Music Presents Inspired by Gamelan – Featuring the Washington State Debut of Gamelan Gita Asmara led by Artistic Director Putu Swaryandana Ichi Oka
Plus Percussionist Svet Stoyanov, Violinist Kristin Lee, and Pianist Michael Stephen Brown with Music by Steve Reich, Claude Debussy, and Lou Harrison
Emerald City Music Presents Inspired by Gamelan
Featuring the Washington State Debut of Gamelan Gita Asmara
led by Artistic Director Putu Swaryandana Ichi Oka
Plus Percussionist Svet Stoyanov, Violinist Kristin Lee,
and Pianist Michael Stephen Brown
with Music by Steve Reich, Claude Debussy, and Lou Harrison
Violinist Kristin Lee, Artistic Director
Friday, December 15, 2023 at 8pm
415 Westlake
415 Westlake Avenue N | Seattle, WA
Tickets: www.emeraldcitymusic.org/season/inspired-by-gamelan
Saturday, December 16, 2023 at 7:30pm
Capital High School Performing Arts Center
2707 Conger Avenue NW | Olympia, WA
Tickets: www.emeraldcitymusic.org/season/inspired-by-gamelan-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
Seattle & Olympia, WA – On Friday, December 15, 2023 at 8pm in Seattle at 415 Westlake (415 Westlake Avenue N) and Saturday, December 16, 2023 at 7:30pm in Olympia at the Capital High School Performing Arts Center (2707 Conger Avenue NW), Emerald City Music (ECM) presents Inspired by Gamelan –– a concert program dedicated to Balinese gamelan, featuring Gamelan Gita Asmara, founded by Dr. Michael Tenzer and led by Artistic Director Putu Swaryandana Ichi Oka, in the ensemble’s Washington State debut. Violinist and ECM Artistic Director Kristin Lee, percussionist Svet Stoyanov, and pianist Michael Stephen Brown will also be returning to ECM as featured performers. The first half of the performance will feature Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint, III. Fast (1987), Claude Debussy’s Estampes For Solo Piano, L.100 (1903), and Varied Trio For Violin, Piano And Percussion by Lou Harrison (1987), followed by a 30 minute experience of the gamelan as the second half of the performance. The concerts are supported in part by the American-Indonesian Cultural & Educational Foundation.
Composers over the centuries found inspiration in folk music from around the world, and in the late 20th century, many composers found their influence in gamelan music from Indonesia. ECM presents an experience of the Balinese gamelan alongside three chamber music works that transform the indelible instrument into each composer’s own style and setting. Debussy paints with its harmonic color palette and common melodic shapes. Steve Reich lives within its rhythmic systems and poignant expression through repeated figures, while Lou Harrison captures its overall textures and tells an evocative story through the sense of gamelan’s coordinated interlocking parts. The concerts promise to transport audiences with the gamelan in both its urtext and re-textualization.
Of their upcoming Washington State performance debut, Gamelan Gita Asmara says:
“Gamelan Gita Asmara performs traditional and contemporary music of Bali, Indonesia, using a set of instruments called gamelan semaradana, imported from Bali. The group was founded in Vancouver in 1996 by Michael Tenzer, a Professor in the School of Music at UBC. It performs every year throughout British Columbia, and played an extensive tour of Bali in 2013. In these, our first concerts in Washington, we will present two early twentieth-century compositions by the celebrated composer Wayan Lotring, and premiere a new work, Sekar Ura, by our Artistic Director Putu Swaryandana Ichi Oka.”
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
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Pianist Simone Dinnerstein is Presented by The Catskill Mountain Foundation in Basically Bach with the Windham Festival Chamber Orchestra
Pianist Simone Dinnerstein is Presented by The Catskill Mountain Foundation in Basically Bach with the Windham Festival Chamber Orchestra, Conducted by Robert Manno
Saturday, November 25, 2023 at 7:30pm - Orpheum Performing Arts Center
Photo of Simone Dinnerstein by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution at: https://jensen-artists.squarespace.com/artists-profiles/simone-dinnerstein
Pianist Simone Dinnerstein is Presented by
The Catskill Mountain Foundation in Basically Bach
with the Windham Festival Chamber Orchestra
Conducted by Robert Manno
Saturday, November 25, 2023 at 7:30pm
Orpheum Performing Arts Center | 6050 Main St | Tannersville, NY
Tickets and information: www.catskillmtn.org/orpheum-performing-arts-center/
“an utterly distinctive voice in the forest of Bach interpretation”
– The New York Times
Simone Dinnerstein: www.simonedinnerstein.com
Tannersville, NY – Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New Yorker as an artist of “lean, knowing, and unpretentious elegance,” will be the featured guest soloist with the Windham Festival Chamber Orchestra conducted by Robert Manno in a concert titled Basically Bach, on Saturday, November 25, 2023 at the Orpheum Performing Arts Center (6050 Main St.).
Dinnerstein, an American pianist who is heralded for her distinctive musical voice and commitment to sharing classical music with everyone, and who has come to be recognized and celebrated for her appreciation of J.S. Bach’s work, will be the featured soloist in performances of Bach’s keyboard concertos: Keyboard Concerto #6 in F Major BWV 1057 and Keyboard Concerto #2 in E Major BWV 1053. The concert program will also include Bach’s Orchestral Suite #3 in D Major BWV 1068, Handel’s Entrance of the Queen of Sheba from Solomon, and Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Cellos in G Minor, with cellists David Heiss and Ashley Bathgate.
The Washington Post has called Simone Dinnerstein “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.”
Of her thoughts leading up to this Bach-centric program and collaborating with Robert Manno and the Windham Festival Chamber Orchestra, Dinnerstein says:
“I am really looking forward to collaborating with Bob [Manno] and the musicians of the Windham Festival Chamber Orchestra on this repertoire, which is so special to me. It will be my first performance of the F Major keyboard concerto, and it’s always fun to have musical dialogue with one flute, let alone with two! I think the audience will enjoy the bubbly joy of this particular work. The second movement of the E Major keyboard concerto has its origins in one of Bach’s cantatas, and it will be a joy to sing this music on the piano with Bob as my partner, given his experience and expertise in the world of opera.”
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 Catskill Mountain Foundation: The Catskill Mountain Foundation is a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation dedicated to arts, culture and educational enhancements in the northern Catskill Mountain region.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New York Times as “an utterly distinctive voice in the forest of Bach interpretation,” is presented as a guest soloist with the Windham Festival Chamber Orchestra in a performance led by Robert Manno titled Basically Bach, featuring the music of J.S. Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, and George Frideric Handel.
Short description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, “an utterly distinctive voice in the forest of Bach interpretation” (The New York Times), is presented as the featured guest soloist with the Windham Festival Chamber Orchestra led by Robert Manno, in Basically Bach. The concert will include music by J.S. Bach, Vivaldi, and Handel.
Concert details:
Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
Presented by The Catskill Mountain Foundation
Conducted by Robert Manno
What: Music by J.S. Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, and George Frideric Handel
When: Saturday, November 25, 2023 at 7:30pm
Where: Orpheum Performing Arts Center 6050 Main St Tannersville, NY 12485
Tickets and information: www.catskillmtn.org/orpheum-performing-arts-center/
Sony Classical Presents Cleveland Quartet – The Complete RCA Album Collection
Sony Classical Presents Cleveland Quartet – The Complete RCA Album Collection
Sony Classical Presents
Cleveland Quartet – The Complete RCA Album Collection
The complete RCA Red Seal Recordings of the Cleveland Quartet from 1972 to 1979, featuring the major works for string quartet in analogue recorded sound
18 out of 23 LPs in this set appearing on CD for the first time, remastered from the original master tapes using 24 bit / 192 kHz technology
Collaborations with Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax, Pinchas Zukerman, Richard Stoltzman and more
Original LP sleeves and labels, booklet with full discographical notes
Release Date: December 1, 2023
Pre-order: www.clevelandquartet.lnk.to/RCAcollection
Immediately upon their debut at the 1969 Marlboro Festival, four brilliant young American musicians calling themselves the Cleveland Quartet were hailed as a chamber ensemble of exceptional quality. Over the next quarter century, they performed on every continent, including nearly 30 complete Beethoven cycles in the US and Europe. At their peak, the Cleveland Quartet gave more than 100 concerts a year. They became the first classical artists to play on the televised Grammy awards and performed at the White House for President’s Carter inauguration.
“A quartet in the great tradition,” declared Stereo Review’s critic, commenting on the Cleveland’s Beethoven for RCA Victor, their exclusive label between 1972 and 1987. Most of the ensemble’s recordings for RCA had never appeared on CD until now. Sony Classical is pleased to present this entire, critically acclaimed discography in a box set of 23 discs.
The earliest entry, first released in 1973, comprises the three Brahms quartets, idiomatic performances that Gramophone’s enthusiastic reviewer heard as “suffused with a warm and mellow light. Scrupulous attention is given to every detail and yet lyrical phrases are allowed their head. … There is no other complete set of these three works that effectively rivals this new recording.”
The same magazine also acclaimed the next Cleveland release, Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden”: “I know of no string quartet with more sumptuous tone than the Cleveland. Their style of music-making is equally generous: they squeeze the last drop of expression out of every bar. … The recording is excellent in catching their tonal body and bloom.”
And so the story continued, with quartets by Haydn, Ives (“A definitive performance” – High Fidelity) and Barber, as well as collaborations with Emanuel Ax in the piano quintets of Schumann, Brahms and Dvořák, which Stereo Review in 1977 deemed “the finest thing the Cleveland Quartet has yet given us – simply gorgeous playing that is totally integrated, within the foursome and with the pianist, at every point.”
There are also two octets. In Mendelssohn’s, the Cleveland players are joined by the Tokyo Quartet, in Schubert’s by such distinguished British soloists as Barry Tuckwell on horn and Jack Brymer on clarinet. And, not least, there is the Schubert String Quintet with Yo-Yo Ma as second cellist, recorded and originally released by CBS. Gramophone called the performance “splendid”, one that goes “to the very heart of this wonderful work.”
But the core of the Cleveland Quartet’s RCA discography is surely the complete Beethoven cycle they recorded between 1974 and 1979. Stereo Review was thoroughly impressed in the Early Quartets by the “(seemingly) effortless agilità, rhythmic vitality and flexibility, and feel for structure and the big line”, and its reviewer found the performances of the Middle Quartets “full of intensity and flexibility with never a hint of self-indulgence, romantic excess, or, for that matter, academicism or over study. The string sound is gorgeous and beautifully recorded.” And, writing about the Cleveland’s Late Quartets, the magazine called it “a true capstone” to the series.
SET CONTENTS
DISC 1:
Brahms: String Quartet No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 51 No. 1
Brahms: String Quartet No. 2, Op. 51 No. 2
DISC 2:
Brahms: String Quartet No. 3 in B-Flat Major, Op. 67
DISC 3:
Schubert: String Quartet in D Minor, D. 810 "Death and the Maiden"
Mozart: Adagio and Fugue in C Minor, K. 546
DISC 4:
Schubert: Octet in F Major, D. 803
DISC 5:
Haydn: String Quartet in D Major, Hob.III:63 "The Lark"
Haydn: String Quartet in D Minor, Hob.III:76 "Erdody, Fifths"
DISC 6:
Barber: String Quartet in B Minor, Op. 11
Ives: String Quartet No. 2
Ives: Scherzo for String Quartet
DISC 7:
Brahms: Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet in B Minor, Op. 115
DISC 8:
Dvořák: Piano Quintet in A Major, Op. 81
DISC 9:
Mendelssohn: String Octet, Op. 20
Mendelssohn: Variations and Scherzo for String Quartet, Op. 81
DISC 10:
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 7 in F Major, Op. 59 No. 1 "Rasoumovsky"
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 8 in E Minor, Op. 59 No. 2 "Rasoumovsky"
DISC 11:
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 9 in C Major, Op. 59 No. 3 "Rasoumovsky"
DISC 12:
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 10 in E-Flat Major, Op. 74 "Harp"
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 11 in F Minor, Op. 95 "Serioso"
DISC 13:
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 1 in F Major, Op. 18
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 2 in G Major, Op. 18
DISC 14:
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 3 in D Major, Op. 18
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 4 in C Minor, Op. 18
DISC 15:
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 5 in A Major, Op. 18
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 6 in B-Flat Major, Op. 18
DISC 16:
Brahms: String Sextet No. 1 in B-Flat Major, Op. 18
Brahms: String Sextet No. 2 in G Major, Op. 36
DISC 17:
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 12 in E-Flat Major, Op. 127
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 16 in F Major, Op. 135
DISC 18:
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 13 in B-Flat Major, Op. 130
DISC 19:
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 14 in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 131
Beethoven: Grosse Fuge in B-Flat Major, Op. 133
DISC 20:
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 15 in A Minor, Op. 132
DISC 21:
Schubert: String Quintet in C Major, D. 956, Op. 163
DISC 22:
Brahms: Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34
DISC 23:
Schumann: Piano Quartet in E-Flat, Op. 47
Schumann: Piano Quintet in E-Flat, Op. 44
Donato Cabrera Conducts the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra on November 18, 2023
Donato Cabrera Guest Conducts the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra
Saturday November 18, 2023 at 8pm
Photo by Stefan Cohen available in high resolution at www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/donato-cabrera
Donato Cabrera Guest Conducts the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra
Saturday November 18, 2023 at 8pm
Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts
300 N. Elm Street | Greensboro, NC
Tickets and information: www.greensborosymphony.org/event/donato-cabrera-maestro-candidate-2/
“Donato Cabrera naturally embraces both his musicians and his audiences as if they’re part of a multigenerational extended family”
– San Francisco Classical Voice
www.greensborosymphony.org | www.donatocabrera.com
Greensboro, NC – Conductor Donato Cabrera will conduct the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra (GSO) as a Music Director finalist in an upcoming concert on Saturday, November 18, 2023 at 8pm at the Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts (300 N. Elm Street).
For this special performance, Cabrera conducts the GSO in a concert program featuring Short Ride in a Fast Machine by John Adams, Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, and Mahler's Symphony No. 4 in G major. Soprano Maria Valdes will join Cabrera and the GSO as a featured vocalist in the GSO’s performances of Knoxville: Summer of 1915 and Mahler’s Symphony No. 4.
“I’m very excited about the music I’ve chosen for my concert with the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, as well as being able to introduce the wonderful soprano, Maria Valdes, to the Greensboro community,” says Cabrera. “These three pieces by John Adams, Samuel Barber, and Gustav Mahler deal with memories that are formed during one’s youth. Indeed, with Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, the entire symphony is meant to be heard as if through children’s ears! In hearing these works by three completely different composers performed together, we will not only have the opportunity to experience the impact these memories had in the creation of these pieces, but will give us the opportunity to reflect upon the memories and experiences that continue to shape our lives.”
“I am eagerly looking forward to sharing the stage again with Maestro Cabrera, reprising two works which we performed together several years ago,” says Valdes. “Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915 was the first piece I ever performed with orchestra at the age of 19, so it is incredibly dear to my heart. And there is absolutely nothing that compares to being part of a Mahler Symphony. I can't wait to join Donato and the Greensboro Symphony to share such beautiful pieces once again!”
Mexican-American conductor Donato Cabrera is the Artistic and Music Director of the California Symphony and the Music Director of the Las Vegas Philharmonic. He served as the Resident Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony and the Wattis Foundation Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra from 2009-2016. Cabrera is one of only a handful of conductors in history who has conducted performances with the San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Opera, and the San Francisco Ballet. He is dedicated to adventurous programming, a leading advocate for living composers and digital innovation, and is keenly focused on outreach, engagement, and programming that reflects the communities he is serving. Cabrera co-founded the New York-based American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME), which is dedicated to the outstanding performance of masterworks from the 20th and 21st centuries.
Cabrera has made debuts with the Chicago, London, National, and New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, Orquesta Filarmónica de Jalisco, Philharmonic Orchestra of the Staatstheater Cottbus, Orquesta Filarmónica de Boca del Río, Orquesta Sinfónica Concepción, Hartford Symphony, Greensboro Symphony, Nevada Ballet Theatre, New West Symphony, Kalamazoo Symphony, Monterey Symphony, and the Reno Philharmonic. In his Carnegie Hall debut, Cabrera led the world premiere of Mark Grey’s Ătash Sorushan with soprano Jessica Rivera.
Deeply committed to diversity and education through the arts, Cabrera evaluates the scope, breadth, and content of the California Symphony’s music education programs, including its nationally recognized Sound Minds program and adult-education oriented Fresh Look: The Symphony Exposed weekly summer lecture series. As Resident Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony, Cabrera worked closely with its then Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, and frequently conducted the orchestra in a variety of concerts, including all of the education and family concerts, reaching over 70,000 children throughout the Bay Area every year.
Cabrera is equally at home in the world of opera, frequently conducting productions in the United States and abroad. He was the Resident Conductor of the San Francisco Opera from 2005-2008 and has also been an assistant conductor for productions at the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Ravinia Festival, Festival di Spoleto, the Aspen Music Festival, and the Music Academy of the West. Since 2008, he has frequently conducted productions in Concepción, Chile. In 2021 he made his debut with Opera San José and in spring 2023, Cabrera appeared with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music conducting Gian Carlo Menotti's The Consul.
Awards and fellowships include a Herbert von Karajan Conducting Fellowship at the Salzburg Festival and conducting the Nashville Symphony in the League of American Orchestra’s prestigious Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview. Cabrera was recognized by the Consulate-General of Mexico in San Francisco for his contributions to promoting and developing the presence of the Mexican community in the Bay Area.
About Maria Valdes: American soprano Maria Valdes was recently described as a "first-rate singing actress and a perfectly charming Gilda" (The New York Times). The upcoming 2023-2024 is filled with multitudes of thrilling symphonic and recital debuts. On the symphonic stage, Ms. Valdes joins the Greensboro Symphony to sing Knoxville: Summer of 1915 and Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, is featured as the soprano soloist in Handel’s Messiah with both the Atlanta Symphony and St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, and she returns to the Phoenix Symphony for Strauss’s Four Last Songs. In recital, she is featured with Il Cenacolo Italian Club, the Cathedral of St. Paul, the First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta, Spanish River Concerts, and OperAloha. Additionally, Ms. Valdes makes her return to Houston Grand Opera covering Maria in The Sound of Music.
Also an accomplished recitalist, Ms. Valdes has appeared in concert with Martin Katz, and made her New York recital debut with NYFOS performing with Steven Blier and Michael Barrett in Compositora, a recital of female Latin American composers. She also attended the Steans Institute at the Ravinia Festival which included several concert appearances and Ms. Valdes can be heard singing Mendelssohn’s “Hear my prayer” on the album Evening Hymn released by Gothic Records and acclaimed in the American Record Guide. An award-winner in the regional Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions, Ms. Valdes is also the winner of the top prize at the Corbett Opera Scholarship Competition at Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and is the recipient of a Shoshana Foundation Grant.
About the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra: The mission of the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra (GSO) is to enrich the cultural life of Greensboro and surrounding areas through the development, promotion, and maintenance of a program of quality music and music education. Its primary vehicle for the conduct of these activities is the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, which presents concerts, special events, educational opportunities, and related activities.
Engaged in its 64th season, the GSO has a long history of support within the Triad community, bringing a diverse range of internationally renowned guest artists to perform in the new Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts. With one of the largest suites of music education programs in the southeast, the GSO serves approximately 50,000 students across four NC counties in a given season. To learn more about the GSO, visit greensborosymphony.org
Tina Davidson's new album Hymn of the Universe explores musical connection with metaphysical and divine themes
Tina Davidson Announces Hymn of the Universe with VocalEssence Singers and Conductor Philip Brunell.
Tina Davidson Announces Hymn of the Universe
with VocalEssence Singers and Conductor Philip Brunelle
“a mystical revelation, complex and compelling… seemingly propelled by the very energy of creation”
– Star Tribune
Release Date: December 1, 2023
Meyer Media LLC
www.tinadavidson.com | www.meyer-media.com
Composer Tina Davidson announces her newest album, Hymn of the Universe, set for worldwide release on December 1, 2023 on Meyer Media LLC. A highly regarded American composer, Davidson is lauded for her authentic musical voice with The New York Times praising her, “vivid ear for harmony and colors.” OperaNews called her works, “transfigured beauty,” and the Philadelphia Inquirer writes that she creates, “real music, with structure, mood, novelty and harmonic sophistication – with haunting melodies that grow out of complex, repetitive rhythms.”
Hymn of the Universe follows the publication earlier this year of Davidson’s memoir Let Your Heart Be Broken (Boyle & Dalton), which was praised in The Marginalian as “a consummate read in its entirety,” written with “uncommon sensitivity and poetic insight.” Let Your Heart Be Broken traces Davidson’s extraordinary life in equally lyrical language, juxtaposing memories, journal entries, notes on compositions in progress, and insights into the life of an artist – and a mother – at work. VAN Magazine calls the book, "an unequivocally poetic memoir on love, loss, and music." Review copies of the memoir are available upon request.
Davidson’s new album Hymn of the Universe includes three of her choral works – Antiphon for the Virgin, Hymn of the Universe, and Tu Autem, Domine – and features VocalEssence Singers conducted by Philip Brunelle in the first two works and the Society for Universal Sacred Music led by Roger Davidson in Tu Autem, Domine.
Drawing on sacred and spiritual texts, Hymn of the Universe explores a musical connection with larger metaphysical and divine themes. Tim Smith writes in The Baltimore Sun, “When it comes to beautifully crafted works that speak freshly through fundamentally familiar idioms, Tina Davidson is as persuasive as they come. The Hymn of the Universe is instantly appealing. Davidson subtly sets all the material to music that flows with a lyrical gracefulness. The choral writing is clean, clear and immediately communicative. In the closing passages, the choral writing reaches a radiant height so that the last sounds resonated in a suggestion of cosmic darkness.”
Davidson describes the impetus for this exploration in her composer’s notes:
“In the third decade of my composing life I began to turn towards a new sense of spirituality, a connectedness to something larger than myself. I grew up in a household with a strange combination of Episcopalian, fundamentalism and Unitarianism. It was endlessly interesting – high rules, high drama and fun Sunday school with snacks – but never personal. In my forties, however, I felt the pull to rename and reclaim whatever was out there; higher power, God, spirit, nature, or the energy of the cosmos.”
Antiphon for the Virgin was written in 1998 as part of a larger work, River of Love, River of Light, which comprises seven spiritual texts on the Virgin Mary. Antiphon for the Virgin draws on Hildegard of Bingen’s eponymous psalm, in which the Virgin Mary epitomizes the glory of women with the power to transform life and death in her womb.
Anchoring the album, Hymn of the Universe was commissioned in 2003 by VocalEssence Singers under the direction of Philip Brunelle. Written in four movements, the work is based on the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit scientist and prolific religious writer. As both a paleontologist and an ardent Christian, Chardin is best known for his mystical evolutionary writings, in which he argued the material and spiritual worlds would develop into a final spiritual unity, a divine presence. Using texts from Chardin’s hymn-like prayer of The Mass of the World and Hymn to Matter, Tina Davidson’s Hymn of the Universe musically delves into the fiery energy of divine love and compassion at the center of Chardin’s texts. The work is capped by a final prayer, Mane Domine – “stay with us Lord” – one of Chardin’s most frequently used quotes from the Bible.
The Star Tribune reported of the piece, “The major work Hymn of the Universe … was both intellectually rigorous and deeply moving. The first movement seemed to vibrate like a mystical revelation, complex and compelling. By contrast, the second was a lullaby to the soul, utterly transparent in its simplicity. The third movement was an extroverted song of praise, seemingly propelled by the very energy of creation. The work concluded with an a cappella movement of quiet grace.”
Written in 2004 as a commission from the Society for Universal Sacred Music, Tu Autem, Domine draws on the Latin and English text from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The text celebrates being one with God, culminating musically in a joyous and resounding “Lock me up, lock me up, Lord!”
More about Tina Davidson: Over her forty-five-year career, Tina Davidson has been commissioned by well-known ensembles such as National Symphony Orchestra, OperaDelaware, Roanoke Symphony, VocalEssence, Kronos Quartet, Cassatt Quartet, and public television (WHYY-TV). Her music has been widely performed by many orchestras and ensembles, including The Philadelphia Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Relâche Ensemble, and Orchestra 2001.Davidson was commissioned by Grammy Award-winning violinist Hilary Hahn as part of her 27 Encore project. The work, Blue Curve of the Earth, was released on Deutsche Grammophon in 2013, and again in 2018 on Hahn’s new album, Retrospective.
Long-term residencies play a major role in Ms Davidson’s career. As composer-in-residence with the Fleisher Art Memorial (1998-2001), she was commissioned to write for the Cassatt Quartet, Voces Novae et Antiquae, and members of the Philadelphia Orchestra. She also created the city-wide Young Composers program to teach inner city children how to write music through instrument building, improvisation, and graphic notation. She was composer-in-residence as part of the innovative Meet The Composer “New Residencies” with OperaDelaware, the Newark Symphony and the YWCA in Delaware (1994-97). During this residency, she wrote the critically acclaimed full-length opera, Billy and Zelda, as well as created community partner programs for homeless women, and with students at a local elementary school.
The recipient of numerous prestigious grants and fellowships, Davidson was the first classical composer to receive a $50,000 Pew Fellowship. She has been awarded four Artist’s Fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, CAP grants from the American Music Center and numerous Meet the Composer grants. Her work, Transparent Victims, was selected by the American Public Radio as part of the International Rostrum of Composers, held at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris.
Born in Stockholm, Sweden, Tina Davidson grew up in Oneonta, NY and Pittsburgh, PA. She received her BA in piano and composition from Bennington College in 1976 where she studied with Henry Brant, Louis Calabro, Vivian Fine and Lionel Nowak. She currently lives in Lancaster PA. Learn more at www.tinadavidson.com.
About VocalEssence: VocalEssence, the choral organization Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones says “sings magnificently,” provides opportunities that draw upon the power of singing together to nurture community, inspire creativity, affirm the value of all persons, and expand the impact of choral music. VocalEssence was founded in 1969 and through its performance series has debuted more than 300 commissions and world premieres. VocalEssence Learning & Engagement programs help people of all ages bridge, create, and learn across cultures by connecting them with renowned choral experts to provide exceptional role models, grow community self-esteem, self-expression, and engagement. For more information, visit www.vocalessence.org.
About Philip Brunelle: Philip Brunelle, artistic director and founder of VocalEssence, is an internationally renowned conductor, choral scholar and visionary. He has made his lifelong mission the promotion of the choral art in all its forms, especially rarely heard works of the past and outstanding new music. Under his leadership, VocalEssence has commissioned more than 300 works to date. Philip has conducted symphonies (New York Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, and Minnesota Orchestra among others) as well as choral festivals and operas on six continents. He is editor of two choral series for Boosey & Hawkes and chairman of the review committee for Walton Music. Philip is also Organist-Choirmaster at Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis. Learn more at www.philipbrunelle.org.
About Society for Universal Sacred Music: The Society for Universal Sacred Music was founded by composer and conductor Roger Davidson in 2000 for the purpose of developing a repertoire of music – primarily vocal – that expresses the unconditional and eternal love of God for us all, and our fundamental brotherhood and sisterhood as eternal children of God. Beyond interfaith work, this music is meant to build bridges throughout the world by singing of that which unites us the most: the Light within each of our souls, regardless of one’s circumstances in any given lifetime on Earth. For more information, visit www.universalsacredmusic.org.
Tina Davidson: Hymn of the Universe
Meyer Media LLC
Release Date: December 1, 2023
1. Antiphon for the Virgin [5:14]
Hymn of the Universe
2. I. The Offering [8:56]
3. II. Fold Your Wings, My Soul [7:49]
4. III. Hymn To Matter [10:22]
5. IV. Stay with Us, Lord [1:33]
6. Tu Autem, Domine [4:27]
Total Time: 38:21
Antiphon for the Virgin
In performance, Plymouth Congregational, Minneapolis, MN, December 3, 2000
VocalEssence Singers; Philip Brunell, conductor
Hymn of the Universe
In performance, St. Olaf Catholic Church, Minneapolis, MN, March 13, 2004
VocalEssence Singers
Philip Brunell, conductor
Tina James, English Horn; James Riccardo, violin; Mark Bjork, violin; Susan Janda, viola; Dale Newton, cello; David Hagedorn, marimba
Tu Autem, Domine
In performance, October 29, 2005, New York, NY
Society for Universal Sacred Music; Roger Davidson, conductor
Sony Classical Presents Artur Rodziński – The Cleveland Orchestra
Sony Classical Presents Artur Rodziński – The Cleveland Orchestra
The Complete Columbia Album Collection
The first ever collection of Artur Rodziński’s complete Cleveland recordings for Columbia Masterworks on 13 CDs
Sony Classical Presents
Artur Rodziński – The Cleveland Orchestra
The Complete Columbia Album Collection
The first ever collection of Artur Rodziński’s complete Cleveland recordings for Columbia Masterworks on 13 CDs
All 29 works appearing on CD for the first time
First release ever of the 1942 Mendelssohn violin concerto recording with Nathan Milstein
All CDs remastered from the original analog discs and tapes using 24 bit / 96 kHz technology
Original LP sleeves and labels, booklet with full discographical notes
Release Date: November 10, 2023
Pre-order: www.bit.ly/SonyOrderArturRodzinskiClevelandOrch
Following Sony Classical’s recent 16-CD release of Artur Rodziński’s New York Philharmonic recordings, here is the label’s eagerly awaited 13-disc collection of his complete recordings with the Cleveland Orchestra, which Rodziński headed from 1933 to 1943.
The fiery, volatile Polish conductor (1892–1958) – whose lean, propulsive style emulated that of his idol Toscanini – earned a reputation as a builder of great orchestras: he led and developed the Los Angeles Philharmonic before taking up his position in Cleveland. In 1935, he brought nationwide attention to the midwestern orchestra when he conducted it in the US première of Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District.
During his tenure in Cleveland, Rodziński moulded its orchestra into a brilliant ensemble which his successor, George Szell, would then elevate to international pre-eminence. Meanwhile, Rodziński was also active in Europe, becoming the first naturalized American to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic at the Salzburg Festival. There Toscanini admired his work and in 1938 picked him to train his new NBC Symphony Orchestra.
In Cleveland between 1939 and 1942, Rodziński conducted a number of important recordings for Columbia Masterworks, all of them contained in this new set. With dedicatee Louis Krasner as soloist, he made the first studio recording of the Berg Violin Concerto. His other acclaimed 78-sets include the Berlioz Symphonie fantastique, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade (“among the finest statements ever given this incorrigibly popular score” – High Fidelity), Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben, the Fifth Symphony of Tchaikovsky (“Remarkable here is the tension of the second movement and the heroic close to the first” – Gramophone) as well as those of Sibelius and Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet (“Unsullied excitement” – Gramophone), Debussy’s La Mer and the orchestral “scenario” from Jerome Kern’s Show Boat – plus a previously unreleased recording of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with Nathan Milstein.
Until now, most of these albums have only been released on 78s and reissued on LP. Thus Sony Classical’s meticulously transferred and mastered 13-disc collection of Rodziński’s Cleveland recordings fills a large gap in this still widely admired conductor’s CD discography.
SET CONTENTS
DISC 1:
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2, M. 57b
Ravel: Rapsodie espagnole, M. 54
Ravel: Miroirs, M. 43: No. 4, Alborada del gracioso (Version for Orchestra)
DISC 2:
Debussy: La mer, L. 109
Kern: Show Boat (Scenario for Orchestra)
DISC 3:
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5 in D Minor, Op. 47
DISC 4:
Strauss, R.: Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche Op. 28
Strauss, R.: Salome, Op. 54 - Salomes Tanz (Dance of the seven veils)
Strauss, R.: Der Rosenkavalier, Op. 59, Act II: Waltz Suite
DISC 5:
Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy, TH 42 (1880 Version)
Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture, Op. 49, TH 49
Tchaikovsky: Marche Slave, Op. 31, TH 45
Mussorgsky: Khovantchina: Dawn Over the Moscow River (Prelude to Act I)
DISC 6:
Sibelius: Symphony No. 5 in E-Flat Major, Op. 82
Järnefeldt: Præludium
Sibelius: Finlandia, Op. 26
DISC 7:
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, Op. 64, TH 29
DISC 8:
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 10
DISC 9:
Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade, Op. 35
Weinberger: Variations and Fugue on "Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree"
DISC 10:
Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21
Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream. Overture, Op. 21
Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream. Incidental Music, Op. 61
DISC 11:
Strauss, R.: Ein Heldenleben, Op. 40, TrV 190
Weber: Der Freischütz: Overture
DISC 12:
Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique, Op. 14
DISC 13:
Schoenberg: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 36
Berg: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra "To the Memory of an Angel"
Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64
Jupiter Quartet is Presented by Music at Kohl Mansion on November 19
The Jupiter String Quartet is Presented by Music at Kohl Mansion
Performing Music by Elizabeth Maconchy, Carlos Simon, Nathan Shields, William Bolcolm, and Ludwig van Beethoven
Sunday, November 19, 2023 at 7pm
Photo of the Jupiter Quartet by Todd Rosenberg available in high resolution at www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/jupiter-string
The Jupiter String Quartet is Presented by
Music at Kohl Mansion
Performing Music by Elizabeth Maconchy, Carlos Simon, Nathan Shields,
William Bolcolm, and Ludwig van Beethoven
Sunday, November 19, 2023 at 7pm
Kohl Mansion | 2750 Adeline Drive | Burlingame, CA
Tickets and Information at
www.musicatkohl.org/jupiter-string-quartet-2023-11-19
“technical finesse and rare expressive maturity”
– The New Yorker
Burlingame, CA – The Jupiter String Quartet – internationally acclaimed winners of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and the Banff International String Quartet Competition – will be presented in concert by Music at Kohl Mansion on Sunday, November 19, 2023 at 7pm. St. Lawrence String Quartet cellist and educator Christopher Costanza will offer an informative and lively pre-performance lecture at 6pm in the Kohl Mansion Library before all series concerts. The concert includes a complimentary post-performance reception with the artists.
Giving concerts all over the country, the Jupiter String Quartet is a particularly intimate group, consisting of violinists Nelson Lee and Meg Freivogel, violist Liz Freivogel (Meg’s older sister), and cellist Daniel McDonough (Meg’s husband, Liz’s brother-in-law). Brought together by ties both familial and musical, the Jupiter Quartet has been performing together since 2001 and has been the quartet-in-residence at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign since 2012. Exuding an energy that is at once friendly, knowledgeable, and adventurous, the Quartet celebrates every opportunity to bring their close-knit and lively style to audiences. Their connections to each other and the length of time they’ve shared the stage always shine through in their intuitive performances.
For this Sunday evening performance, the er Quartet will perform a musically bold and emotionally charged program that they have titled Upheaval. The program will begin with the hauntingly powerful third quartet of the esteemed Irish-English composer Elizabeth Maconchy. An avowed socialist who supported the Republican forces fighting off Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War, Maconchy wrote this work among the shadows of 1930s Europe. Next, Nathan Shields’ new quartet, Medusa –– composed for the Jupiter Quartet for Shields’ Guggenheim Fellowship –– uses the scintillating paintings of Caravaggio as an inspiration for exploring the effects of various types of political and social violence. The first half of the program will be rounded out by Carlos Simon’s heartbreaking Elegy, a memorial to the Black American victims of police violence, and William Bolcolm’s gently melancholy rag, The Graceful Ghost. After the intermission, the quartet will delve into the wonderful intricacies of Ludwig van Beethoven’s epic eighth quartet—one of the many works he wrote during a time of immense political turmoil.
Jupiter Quartet says of this program and performing it for audiences at Kohl Mansion:
“We are looking forward to sharing this intense and colorful program with the audience at Kohl Mansion. Its subject matter—a grappling with the realities and effects of violence—is unfortunately very much in the forefront of all of our minds as we witness current events. We hope this music will bring time for both reflection and inspiration as we confront such difficulties.”
More About Jupiter String Quartet: This tight-knit ensemble is firmly established as an important voice in the world of chamber music. Artists-in-residence at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana since 2012, the Jupiter Quartet maintain private studios and direct the University’s chamber music program.
The Jupiter Quartet has performed in some of the world’s finest halls, including New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, Boston’s Jordan Hall, Mexico City's Palacio de Bellas Artes, Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center and Library of Congress, Austria’s Esterhazy Palace, and Seoul’s Sejong Chamber Hall. Their major music festival appearances include the Aspen Music Festival and School, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, Rockport Music Festival, Music at Menlo, the Seoul Spring Festival, and many others. In addition to their performing career, they have been artists-in-residence at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign since 2012, where they maintain private studios and direct the chamber music program.
Their chamber music honors and awards include the grand prizes in the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition; the Young Concert Artists International auditions in New York City; the Cleveland Quartet Award from Chamber Music America; an Avery Fisher Career Grant; and a grant from the Fromm Foundation. From 2007-2010, they were in residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Two.
About Music at Kohl Mansion: Inspired by the belief that the arts strengthen communities, Music at Kohl Mansion presents world-class chamber concerts at the historic Kohl Mansion and music education in public schools on the San Francisco Peninsula. Outreach programs provide access to interactive musical experiences for diverse audiences of all ages.
Music at Kohl Mansion (MAKM), the longest-running chamber-music-only presenter on the S.F. Peninsula, is deeply committed to community building through the arts, both in its highly praised mainstage concert series founded in 1983 and in education and community programs that connect people and promote human understanding. MAKM programs enhance the quality of life of Bay Area residents and visitors by reaching out to individuals of all ages, ethnicities and socio-economic backgrounds.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: The Jupiter Quartet, the Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, who are described by The New Yorker as an ensemble of “technical finesse and rare expressive maturity,” is presented by Music at Kohl Mansion for a performance at Kohl Mansion (2750 Adeline Drive). The Jupiter Quartet will perform a bold program anchored around one of Beethoven’s “Razumovsky” String Quartets (No. 8 in E minor, Op. 52 No. 2), as well as music by living American composers: Carlos Simon’s Elegy and Nathan Shields’ Medusa, in addition to Irish-English composer Elizabeth Maconchy’s String Quartet No. 3. St. Lawrence String Quartet cellist and educator Christopher Costanza will give a pre-concert lecture at 6pm.
Short description: The Jupiter Quartet, an ensemble of “technical finesse and rare expressive maturity” (The New Yorker), is presented by Music at Kohl Mansion for a performance featuring the music of Elizabeth Maconchy, Carlos Simon, Nathan Shields, and Ludwig van Beethoven.
Concert details:
Who: Jupiter String Quartet
Presented by Music at Kohl Mansion
What: Music by Elizabeth Maconchy, Carlos Simon, Nathan Shields, William Bolcolm, and Ludwig van Beethoven, plus a pre-concert lecture by St. Lawrence String Quartet cellist and educator Christopher Costanza
When: Sunday, November 19, 2023 at 7pm. Pre-concert lecture at 6pm (Kohl Mansion Library)
Where: Kohl Mansion, 2750 Adeline Drive, Burlingame, CA 94010
Tickets and information: www.musicatkohl.org/jupiter-string-quartet-2023-11-19/
Pianist Simone Dinnerstein Presented by Spivey Hall Performing Music From her Album Undersong on November 5
Pianist Simone Dinnerstein Presented by Spivey Hall
Performing Music by Couperin, Schumann, Glass, and Satie From her Album Undersong
Sunday, November 5, 2023 at 3:00pm
Photo of Simone Dinnerstein by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution at: https://jensen-artists.squarespace.com/artists-profiles/simone-dinnerstein
Pianist Simone Dinnerstein Presented by Spivey Hall
Performing Music by Couperin, Schumann, Glass, and Satie From her Album Undersong
Sunday, November 5, 2023 at 3:00pm
Spivey Hall | 2000 Clayton State Blvd. | Morrow, GA 30260
Tickets and information: www.spiveyhall.org/events/event/simone-dinnerstein-piano/#sec-2015-1
“an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity”
– The Washington Post
Simone Dinnerstein: www.simonedinnerstein.com
Morrow, GA – GRAMMY-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Washington Post as “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” is presented in concert November 5, 2023 at Spivey Hall (2000 Clayton State Boulevard).
Dinnerstein, who is heralded for her distinctive musical voice and commitment to sharing classical music with everyone, will make her Spivey Hall debut, performing several selections found on her 2022 Orange Mountain Music album Undersong – the final installment in a trilogy of albums recorded at her home in Brooklyn during the pandemic between 2020 and 2022, which also includes A Character of Quiet (Orange Mountain Music, 2020) and Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic (Supertrain Records, 2021). The latter surpassed two million streams on Apple Music and was nominated for a 2021 Grammy Award in the category of Best Classical Instrumental Solo. The concert program will include: Robert Schumann’s Arabesque, in C Major, Op. 18 and Kreisleriana, Op. 16; François Couperin’s Les Barricades Mysterieuses and Tic-Toc-Choc; Philip Glass’s Mad Rush; and Erik Satie’s Gnossienne No. 3.
Dinnerstein explains of Undersong’s title: “Undersong is an archaic term for a song with a refrain, and to me it also suggests a hidden text. Glass, Schumann, Couperin and Satie all seem to be attempting to find what they want to say through repetition, as though their constant change and recycling will focus the ear and the mind. This time has been one of reflection and reconsidering for many of us, and this music speaks to the process of revisiting and searching for the meaning beneath the notes, of the undersong.”
Reflecting on Schumann’s Arabesque, in C Major, Op. 18, Dinnerstein explains that it’s “a very beautiful, poetic piece of music but it ends with a separate type of epilogue that's something different from the piece and modern in a way. There's a rest before you play it and the rest serves as a bridge to Philip Glass’s Mad Rush. It's unclear to the listener whether it's Schumann or Glass. I really like that blurring of the composer's languages with each other."
Dinnerstein offers this connective observation between Schumann’s Kreisleriana, Op. 16 and Schumann’s, Arabesque “The Arabesque has some quick changes in mood and the most breathtaking coda at the end that completely takes it someplace else, written in Schumann’s music language but sounding absolutely contemporary. In comparison, Kreisleriana changes on a dime. Suddenly, you’ll be in a completely different headspace. I think that’s as much about Schumann himself, as about his love for Clara.”
Sequenza21 describes Dinnerstein’s approach to Couperin’s Les Barricades Mysterieuses as “sonorous [and] eschewing ornamentation in favor of unadorned, shapely melodies.” Meanwhile, the tempo of Couperin’s Tic-Toc-Choc is thought to mirror the rhythmic precision of a clock and the full title (Le Tic-Toc-Choc, ou Les Maillotins), references little hammers or mallets. The San Francisco Classical Voice says Dinnerstein’s performance of the piece makes it appear as if she “magically transform[s] the piano into a harpsichord.”
With its distinctly repetitious compositional structure, Philip Glass’s Mad Rush, a piece originally composed for organ at New York City’s St. John the Divine, underscores the collectively seamless nature of this program’s repertoire. The New Criterion describes Dinnerstein’s performance of the piece as “transcendent – the picture of introspection interrupted by unexpected vision.”
Of Erik Satie’s Gnossienne No. 3, Dinnerstein says, “Erik Satie published three Gymnopédie and three Gnossienne together, though he eventually wrote more Gnossienne, a fantastical term that he came up with. The markings in the score for Gnossienne No. 3 are bizarre: “Plan carefully”; “Provide yourself with clear sightedness”; “Alone for a moment”; “So as to get a hollow”; “Quite lost”; “Carry this further”; “Open your mind”. These are written right over the notes. The commentary is dada-esque.”
About Simone Dinnerstein: American pianist Simone Dinnerstein has a distinctive musical voice. The Washington Post has called her “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity.” She first came to wider public attention in 2007 through her recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, reflecting an aesthetic that was both deeply rooted in the score and profoundly idiosyncratic. She is, wrote The New York Times, “a unique voice in the forest of Bach interpretation.”
Dinnerstein has played with orchestras ranging from the New York Philharmonic and Montreal Symphony Orchestra to the London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Rai. She has performed in venues from Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center to the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus, Seoul Arts Center and Sydney Opera House. She has made thirteen albums, all of which topped the Billboard charts. During the pandemic she recorded three albums which form a trilogy: A Character of Quiet, An American Mosaic, and Undersong. An American Mosaic was nominated for a Grammy.
In recent years, Dinnerstein has created projects that express her broad musical interests. She gave the world premiere of The Eye Is the First Circle at Montclair State University, the first multi-media production she conceived, created, and directed, which uses as source materials her father Simon Dinnerstein’s painting The Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’s Piano Sonata No. 2. She premiered Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic, a tribute to those affected by the pandemic, in a performance on multiple pianos throughout Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. Following her recording Mozart in Havana, she brought the Havana Lyceum Orchestra from Cuba to the U.S. for the first time, performing eleven concerts. Philip Glass composed his Piano Concerto No. 3 for her, co-commissioned by twelve orchestras. Working with Renée Fleming and the Emerson String Quartet, she premiered André Previn and Tom Stoppard’s Penelope at the Tanglewood, Ravinia and Aspen music festivals, and performed it at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and presented by LA Opera. Dinnerstein has also created her own ensemble, Baroklyn, which she directs. The Washington Post comments, “it is Dinnerstein’s unreserved identification with every note she plays that makes her performance so spellbinding.” In a world where music is everywhere, she hopes that it can still be transformative. www.simonedinnerstein.com
About Spivey Hall: Spivey Hall, located on the campus of Clayton State University, is a 400-seat, acoustically-superior performing arts venue that has presented the best in jazz and classical music to the metro Atlanta area since 1991.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Washington Post as “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” is presented in concert by Spivey Hall. Dinnerstein will perform several selections found on her 2022 Orange Mountain Music album, Undersong, including Robert Schumann’s Arabesque, in C Major, Op. 18 and Kreisleriana, Op. 16; François Couperin’s Les Barricades Mysterieuses and Tic-Toc-Choc; Philip Glass’s Mad Rush; and Erik Satie’s Gnossienne No. 3.
Short description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Washington Post as “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” is presented in concert by Spivey Hall, performing selections by François Couperin, Robert Schumann, Philip Glass, and Erik Satie From her 2022 album Undersong.
Concert details:
Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
Presented by Spivey Hall
What: Music by François Couperin, Robert Schumann, Philip Glass, and Erik Satie
When: Sunday, November 5, 2023 at 3pm
Where: Spivey Hall, 2000 Clayton State Boulevard, Morrow, GA 30260
Tickets and information: www.spiveyhall.org/events/event/simone-dinnerstein-piano/#sec-2015-1
Invoke Presented by the Moss Arts Center Performing Original Music
Invoke Presented by the Moss Arts Center Performing Original Music
Plus Enigma for the Night by Jocelyn C. Chambers and Tenebrae by Osvaldo Golijov
Thursday, November 16, 2023 at 7:30pm
Photo by Marshall Tidrick. Available in hi-resolution at: www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/invoke
Invoke Presented by the Moss Arts Center Performing Original Music
Plus Enigma for the Night by Jocelyn C. Chambers and Tenebrae by Osvaldo Golijov
Thursday, November 16, 2023 at 7:30pm
Anne and Ellen Fife Theatre in the Street and Davis Performance Hall
190 Alumni Mall | Blacksburg, VA
Tickets and more information:
(Tickets $20-$55; $10 students with ID and youth 18 and under)
www.artscenter.vt.edu/performances/invoke.html
“The special thing about Invoke is…how its lively spirit and playfulness are essential to the way they approach every piece of music.”
– Austin Chronicle
Blacksburg, VA – On Thursday, November 16, 2023, Austin-based, multi-instrumental quartet Invoke (Nick Montopoli, violin/banjo/vocals; Zach Matteson, violin/vocals; Karl Mitze, viola/mandolin/vocals; Geoff Manyin, cello/vocals) – a group the Austin Chronicle says “infuse[s] their performances with such a down-home joyfulness” – will make their Blacksburg, VA debut in a concert presented by the Moss Arts Center at the Anne and Ellen Fife Theatre at Street and Davis Performance Hall (190 Alumni Mall). Invoke will perform a program featuring selections of their original music, including several from their new album Evolve & Travel, plus Jocelyn C. Chambers’ Enigma for the Night and Tenebrae by Osvaldo Golijov.
Of Invoke making its Blacksburg debut at the Moss Arts Center and performing Osvaldo Golijov’s Tenebrae, violinist Zach Matteson says,
“We’re very excited to be visiting Blacksburg for the very first time! This will be our debut on the Moss Arts Center stage. We’re excited to share Golijov’s tremendous spiritual work with you and with the added massive sound that incorporates Geoff [Manyin’s] 6-string cello beautifully.”
Driven by a passion for storytelling, Invoke’s performances feature original works composed by and for the group, which form a unique contemporary repertoire inspired by many different musical styles –– from minimalism, to jazz, to American fiddle tunes, and bluegrass. This appreciation for different genres and collaborations can be seen through Invoke’s performance history, which includes sharing stages with some of the most acclaimed chamber groups in the country: the Westerlies, Miró and Ensō Quartets, and the U.S. Army Field Band, as well as chamber rock group San Fermin, indie group Never Shout Never, and DC beatboxer/rapper/spoons virtuoso Christylez Bacon. Iconic spaces where Invoke has performed include Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Green Music Center, among others.
Invoke recently marked their tenth anniversary together with Evolve & Travel, their first album on the Sono Luminus label, which was released on October 27, 2023. This new record features seven original works by the group. Each song reflects Invoke’s growth as people, composers, and as friends with a rich history of shared creative experiences and personal memories.
Evolve & Travel was born out of Invoke's experience of and evolution during the pandemic and of being back on the road, traveling again. After a strenuous touring schedule from 2018 to 2020, like all other musicians in spring 2020, the members of Invoke found themselves without an agenda.
Violinist Zach Matteson summarizes the experience: "The unexpected bright side of the pandemic lockdown was an excess of time and a newfound drive to be creating music that connected with people in a virtual space on a regular basis. We dug deep to create new work at a faster pace than ever before and Evolve & Travel is a direct result of that. A lot of the new tunes have individual inspirations, but certainly you can say they express an aspect of what we were interested in during our time in lockdown -- from books that we were reading and other periods of history that we were looking back on, to a need for hope and optimism in the face of great doubt. Coming out in our tenth year together as a group, Evolve & Travel is a culmination of lessons we have learned along the way. From the straight-ahead sound of the string quartet to a blend of voice, mandolin, banjo, and strings, this album showcases the entire scope of our growth as musicians, composers, and collaborators."
With Evolve & Travel, Invoke demonstrates their well-honed ability to write and perform works that weave together threads of classical technique, folk improvisation, and musical camaraderie.
Of her piece Enigma for the Night, written when she was just 16 years old, Jocelyn Chambers explains, “It's really vulnerable and breathy and reminds me [of] car rides home with granddaddy after music school let out for the day. [It’s] one of my more personal pieces.“
Osvaldo Golijov explains the contrasting ways in which one can hear and interpret Tenebrae: “I wrote Tenebrae as a consequence of witnessing two contrasting realities in a short period of time in September 2000. I was in Israel at the start of the new wave of violence that is still continuing today, and a week later I took my son to the new planetarium in New York, where we could see the Earth as a beautiful blue dot in space. I wanted to write a piece that could be listened to from different perspectives. That is, if one chooses to listen to it “from afar", the music would probably offer a "beautiful" surface but, from a metaphorically closer distance, one could hear that, beneath that surface, the music is full of pain.”
More about Invoke: Invoke was selected to be the Young Professional String Quartet in Residence at the University of Texas at Austin from 2016-2018. The group also participated in the Emerging String Quartet Program at Stanford, and was selected as an Artist in Residence at Strathmore, the Emerging Young Artist Quartet at Interlochen, and the Fellowship String Quartet at Wintergreen Performing Arts. In 2018, Invoke was named a winner of the Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition in New York, NY, received First Prize at the M-Prize International Chamber Arts competition in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and received First Prize in the Coltman Competition in Austin, Texas.
Invoke’s discography includes their debut album, Souls in the Mud (2015), featuring works by composer Danny Clay as well as original works composed by the group; Furious Creek (2018), featuring original compositions and arrangements; and Fantastic Planet (2021), an original soundtrack composed by the group inspired by the 1973 French animated feature. Fantastic Planet is a companion album to their summer 2019 commission by the Austin Chamber Music Festival. The album features Invoke’s standard instrumentation as well as the addition of the electric cello and the igil, a horsehead fiddle from Tuva, Siberia.
Invoke has performed and recorded numerous world performers, including works by Joseph C. Phillips Jr., Armando Bayolo, and Geoff Sheil. The group’s recording credits appear on bassist/composer Ethan Foote’s solo album Fields Burning, singer/songwriter Marian McLaughlin’s Spirit House, jazz/soul singer Rochelle Rice’s EP Wonder, and many more.
About the Moss Arts Center: Located at the crossroads of Virginia Tech and downtown Blacksburg, Virginia, on the corner of Main Street and Alumni Mall, the Moss Arts Center is a thriving community where the arts are a catalyst for engagement, inspiration, and discovery. The center operates as both a presenting organization and as a 147,000-square-foot, top-caliber arts center. Since opening in 2013, the center has brought innovative, significant, and diverse programming to the campus and the region. The Moss Arts Center is named in tribute to artist and philanthropist Patricia Buckley Moss, who committed $10 million toward construction of the facility on the campus of Virginia Tech.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: Austin-based, multi-instrumental quartet Invoke – which the Austin Chronicle says “infuse[s] their performances with such a down-home joyfulness” – will give a performance at the Anne and Ellen Fife Theatre at Street and Davis Performance Hall (190 Alumni Mall), presented by the Moss Arts Center. Invoke’s music weaves together threads of classical technique, folk improvisation, and musical camaraderie. In addition to performing many original works – including selections from their Sono Luminus debut album Evolve & Travel – Invoke will perform Enigma for the Night by Jocelyn C. Chambers and Tenebrae by Osvaldo Golijov.
Short description: Invoke – whose music weaves together threads of classical technique, folk improvisation, and musical camaraderie – brings a “down-home joyfulness” (Austin Chronicle) to their Blacksburg, VA debut at the Moss Arts Center. Invoke will perform original music, including works from their new album Evolve & Travel, plus Enigma for the Night by Jocelyn C. Chambers, in addition to Tenebrae by Osvaldo Golijov.
Concert details:
Who: Invoke
Presented by Moss Arts Center
What: Original Music by Invoke Plus Enigma for the Night by Jocelyn C. Chambers and Tenebrae by Osvaldo Golijov
When: Thursday, November 16, 2023 at 7:30pm
Where: Anne and Ellen Fife Theatre at Street and Davis Performance Hall 190 Alumni Mall | Blacksburg, VA 24061
Tickets and information: www.tickets.luther.edu/Online/default.asp
Sony Classical Presents Eugene Ormandy - The Philadelphia Orchestra
Sony Classical Presents
Eugene Ormandy - The Philadelphia Orchestra
The Columbia Stereo Collection 1958–1963
78 works released on on 88 CDs for the first time
Many CDs available for the first time internationally
Sony Classical Presents
Eugene Ormandy - The Philadelphia Orchestra
The Columbia Stereo Collection 1958–1963
78 works released on on 88 CDs for the first time
Many CDs available for the first time internationally
Release Date: November 17, 2023
Pre-order: bit.ly/SonyOrderEugeneOrmandyPhiladelphiaOrchestra
Following up on the success of Sony Classical’s recent large-scale Ormandy collections – his monaural discographies with the Minneapolis Symphony and Philadelphia orchestras – the label now presents the conductor’s stereo recordings from Philadelphia containing all recordings released from 1958 to 1963 (plus some fillers from later years).
Eugene Ormandy took over the music directorship in Philadelphia from Leopold Stokowski in 1938 and held the position for 42 years. During that time his name and the orchestra’s became inseparable as he cultivated and further developed the voluptuous sound that originated with his predecessor. “Any conductor reflects clearly the instrument he played,” the Budapest-born Ormandy (1899–1985) once said. “My sound is what it is because I was a violinist.” As one commentator put it: “Every piece Ormandy touched was characterized by a ripened string tone around which the rest of the orchestra could glow.”
Ormandy and his Philadelphians were among the most prolific recording artists of all time. Between 1944 and 1968 (preceded and followed by contracts with RCA Victor), they were associated exclusively with Columbia Masterworks. Ormandy was a committed recording enthusiast, working quickly and readily accommodating the company’s planning in order to produce best-sellers.
Sony Classical’s new Ormandy/Philadelphia stereo box is filled with familiar and unfamiliar works by virtually every well-known composer (and many forgotten figures), spanning the centuries and covering the stylistic waterfront from Bach (the sons as well as the father) to Beethoven, Berlioz, Borodin, Bartók and beyond. It would be impossible (and pointless) to list them all.
There are numerous CD premières in the new collection. Among them: Ormandy’s complete 1958 recording of Debussy’s Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien with soprano Hilde Gueden and Vera Zorina as the narrator; Bach’s B minor Mass and the Brahms Requiem from 1962; as well as symphonies by Haydn and other works by Borodin, Glinka, Wagner, Poulenc, Casella and American composers including Yardumian, Barati, Rochberg and Dello Joio.
In 1963, Ormandy and the Philadelphians made the first US recording of Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony. Surveying Ormandy’s stereo discography on Columbia recently, the ClassicsToday reviewer lauded his “voluptuous” Scheherazade, his “outstanding Vaughan Williams Fantasia on ‘Greensleeves’, his Bach transcriptions (“Wonderfully done, they highlight Ormandy’s gifts as a post-Stokowski Bach arranger, an important part of his legacy”) and his special affinity for Russian music, including “his glorious Tchaikovsky Fifth Symphony and Serenade for Strings, his magnificent Rachmaninov Second, and his classic Shostakovich Cello Concerto with Rostropovich coupled to an excellent First Symphony. The composer himself attended these sessions and was dazzled by both conductor and orchestra. These are all must-have recordings. Ormandy was also known during his lifetime as the best concerto accompanist in the business, and this coupling of Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn violin concertos shows his cordial collaboration with Isaac Stern operating at the very highest level.”
Other listeners and commentators will have no hesitation in adding their own favorites to that brief selection of must-have Ormandy recordings. Indeed, for the conductor’s many enthusiasts and collectors, Sony Classical’s comprehensive new box set – all items presented in new or best available remasterings – is self-recommending.
SET CONTENTS
DISC 1:
Respighi: Pini di Roma: Symphonic Poem
Respighi: Fontane di Roma: Symphonic Poem
Respighi: Feste Romane: Symphonic Poem
DISC 2:
Grofé: Grand Canyon Suite
DISC 3:
Prokofiev: Symphony No. 5 in B-Flat Major, Op. 100
DISC 4:
Grieg: Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 16
Rachmaninov: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43
DISC 5:
Sibelius: Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 43
Sibelius: Symphony No. 7 in C Major, Op. 105
DISC 6:
Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsodies, S. 359: No. 1 in F Minor
Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsodies, S. 359: No. 2 in C-Sharp Minor
Enescu: 2 Romanian Rhapsodies, Op. 11: No. 1 in A Major
Enescu: 2 Romanian Rhapsodies, Op. 11: No. 2 in D Major
Liszt (arr. Herbert): Liebesträume No. 3 'O Lieb, so lang', S541, No. 3 (Rêve d'amour)
DISC 7:
Dello Jojo: Air Power Suite
Dello Jojo: War Scenes
DISC 8:
Bizet: Carmen Suite
DISC 9:
Mozart, W.A.: Sinfonia Concertante in E-Flat Major, K. 297 B
Haydn: Sinfonia Concertante for Oboe, Bassoon, Violin, Cello & Orchestra in B-Flat Major, Hob. I: 105
Haydn: Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra in E-flat Major, Hob. VIIe: 1
DISC 10:
Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf, A Musical Tale for Children, Op. 67
Britten: The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell, Op. 34
DISC 11:
Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35
Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64
DISC 12:
Brahms: Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 68
DISC 13:
Robertson: The Lord's Prayer
Robertson: Come, Come Ye Saints
Brahms: A German Requiem, Op. 45: I. Blessed Are They That Mourn
McGranahan (arr. Gates): O, My Father
McIntyre: How Great the Wisdom and the Love
Gounod: St. Cecilia Mass, CG 56: Holy, Holy, Holy
Holst: 148th Psalm
Handel: Messiah, HWV 56: For Unto Us A Child Is Born
Billings (arr. Siegmeister): David's Lamentation
Anonymous (arr. Baldwin): Londonderry Air
Howe (arr. Wilhousky): Battle Hymn of the Republic
Schubert (arr. Riegger): Ave Maria, D. 839
Gounod: The Redemption - Unfold, Ye Portals
Mozart, W.A.: Requiem aeternam "Give unto the meek" - Kyrie eleison "Show Thy mercy"
Robertson: Oratorio from the Book of Mormon: "Old Things Are Done Away"
Malotte: The Lord's Prayer
DISC 14:
Franck: Variations symphoniques, FWV 46
d'Indy: Symphonie sur un chant montagnard français, Op. 25
DISC 15:
Liszt: Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-Flat Major, S. 124
Liszt: Piano Concerto No. 2 in A Major, S. 120, R. 456
DISC 16:
Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture, Op. 49, TH 49
Borodin: In the Steppes of Central Asia
Borodin: Polovtsian Dances (From "Prince Igor")
Mussorgsky: Night on Bald Mountain
Khachaturian: Masquerade Suite: Galop
Khachaturian: Gayane Ballet Suite: Dance of the Young Maidens
Shostakovich: Polka from "The Age of Gold"
Rimsky-Korsakov: Polonaise from Christmas Eve Suite
Rimsky-Korsakov: The Snow Maiden: Dance of the Tumblers
Kabalevsky: Comedian's Galop (From "The Comedians")
Mussorgsky: Sorochinsty Fair: Gopak
Khachaturian: Sabre Dance from "Gayne Ballet Suite"
DISC 17:
Debussy: Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, L. 86
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2, M. 57b
Debussy: La mer, L. 109
DISC 18:
Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 23
Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Minor, Op. 21
DISC 19:
Mozart, W.A.: Serenade No. 13 in G Major, K. 525 "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" (2013 Remastered Version)
Bach, J.S.: Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major, BWV 1068: II. Air on the G String (2013 Remastered Version)
Corelli: Concerto grosso in G Minor, Op. 6 No. 8 "Christmas Concerto" (2013 Remastered Version)
Mendelssohn: Octet for Strings in E-Flat Major, Op. 20: III. Scherzo (2013 Remastered Version)
DISC 20/21:
Handel: Messiah, HWV 56
DISC 22:
Rimsky-Korsakov: Le coq d'or Suite
Rimsky-Korsakov: Russian Easter Festival, Op. 36
Glinka: Ruslan and Lyudmila Overture
Tchaikovsky: Marche slave, Op. 31, TH 45
Balakirev (orch. Casella): Islamey (Oriental Fantasy)
DISC 23:
Handel (arr. Hamilton Harty): Royal Fireworks Suite
Corelli (arr. Pinelli): Suite for Strings
Handel (arr. Harty): Water Music Suite
DISC 24:
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, Op. 64, TH 29
DISC 25:
Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2 in E Minor, Op. 27
DISC 26:
Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-Flat Major, Op. 107
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 10
DISC 27:
Mendelssohn: Piano Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 25, MWV O 7
Mendelssohn: Piano Concerto No. 2 in D Minor, Op. 40, MWV O 11
DISC 28:
Brahms: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77
Wieniawski: Violin Concerto No. 2 in D Minor, Op. 22
DISC 29:
Debussy: The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, L. 124
DISC 30:
Prokofiev: Symphony No. 4 in C Major, Op. 112
DISC 31:
Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-Flat Major, Op. 83
DISC 32:
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 74, TH 30 "Pathétique"
DISC 33:
Sibelius: Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op. 47
Sibelius: Lemminkäinen Suite, Op. 22: II. The Swan of Tuonela
DISC 34:
Orff: Carmina Burana
DISC 35:
Ravel: Boléro, M. 81
Ravel: Le tombeau de Couperin, M. 68a
Ravel: Miroirs, M. 43: No. 4, Alborada del gracioso (Version for Orchestra)
Chabrier: España
Ravel: Pavane pour une infante défunte
Debussy (arr. orch.): Suite bergamasque, L. 75: III. Clair de lune (Arr. for Orchestra)
Ravel: La Valse
DISC 36:
Vincent: Symphonic Poem After Descartes
Vincent: Symphony in D (A Festival Piece In One Movement)
DISC 37:
Bach, J.S. (arr. Ormandy): Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565
Bach, J.C.: Sinfonia for Double Orchestra in E-Flat Major, Op. 18, No. 1
Bach, J.S. (arr. Ormandy): Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C Major, BWV 564
Bach, J.S. (arr. Ormandy): Passacaglia in C Minor, BWV 582
DISC 38:
Vivaldi: The Four Seasons, Violin Concerto in E Major, RV 269 "Spring"
Vivaldi: The Four Seasons, Violin Concerto in G Minor, RV 315 "Summer"
Vivaldi: The Four Seasons, Violin Concerto in F Major, RV 293, "Autumn"
Vivaldi: The Four Seasons, Violin Concerto in F Minor, RV 297 "Winter"
DISC 39:
Grieg: Peer Gynt, Op. 23 - Suite No. 1, Op. 46
Sibelius: 2 Pieces from Kuolema, Op. 44: No. 1, Valse triste
Alfén: Midsommarvaka, Op. 19 "Swedish Rhapsody No. 1"
Sibelius: Finlandia, Op. 26
Sibelius: En Saga, Op. 9
DISC 40:
Walton: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra
Lalo: Symphonie espagnole in D Minor, Op. 21
DISC 41:
Vivaldi: Concerto for 2 Violins in D Minor, RV 514
Vivaldi: Concerto for 2 Violins in C Minor, RV 509
Vivaldi: Concerto for 2 Violins in G Minor, RV 517
Vivaldi: Concerto for 2 Violins in D Major, RV 512
DISC 42:
Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances, Op. 45
Casella: Paganiniana Op. 65
DISC 43:
Tchaikovsky: Serenade in C Major, Op. 48, TH 48
Borodin (arr. Sargent): Nocturne for String Orchestra
Barber: Adagio for Strings, Op. 11
Vaughan-Williams (arr. Greaves): Fantasia on Greensleeves from Sir John In Love
Grieg: Two Elegiac Melodies, Op. 34
Schubert (arr. Harris): Serenade, D. 957, No. 4
MacDowell (arr. Frost): 10 Woodland Sketches, Op. 51: No. 1, To a Wild Rose (Arr. T. Frost for Orchestra)
Massenet: Meditation from "Thaïs"
DISC 44:
Strauss, Johann II: Frühlingsstimmen, Op. 410
Strauss, Johann II: Kaiser-Walzer, Op. 437
Strauss, Johann II: Wiener Blut, Op. 354
Strauss, Johann II: An der schönen blauen Donau, Op. 314
Strauss, Johann II: Geschichten aus dem Wienerwald, Op. 325
DISC 45:
Yardumian: Passacaglia, Recitative and Fugue for Piano and Orchestra
Yardumian: Choral Prelude
Yardumian: Cantus animae et cordis
Yardumian: Symphony No. 2 "Psalms": I Psalm 130
DISC 46:
Reger: Piano Concerto in F Minor, Op. 114
DISC 47:
Weber: Invitation to the Dance, Op. 65
Liszt: 2 Episoden aus Lenau's Faust, S. 110: No. 2, Der Tanz in der Dorfschenke "Mephisto Waltz"
Saint-Saens: Danse Macabre, Op. 40
Brahms (orch. Dvorák): 21 Hungarian Dances, WoO 1
Glière: The Red Poppy: Russian Sailor's Dance
Weber: Euryanthe, Op. 81, J. 291: Overture
Weinberger: Svanda dudák (Schwanda the Bagpiper): Polka & Fugue
DISC 48:
Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14, H. 48
Saint-Saens: Samson et Dalila, Op. 47: Bacchanale
Dukas: L'apprenti sorcier
DISC 49:
R. Strauss: Ein Heldenleben, Op. 40, TrV 190
DISC 50:
Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 11
Liszt: Totentanz, S. 126 "Danse macabre"
DISC 51:
Walton: Belshazzar's Feast
Roussel: Baccus et Ariane, Suito No. 2
DISC 52:
Ravel: Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D Major, M. 82
Mozart, W.A.: Concerto for 2 Pianos and Orchestra No. 10 in E-Flat Major K 365/316a (2019 Remastered Version)
DISC 53:
Bartók: Violin Concerto No. 1, Sz. 36
Viotti: Violin Concerto No. 22 in A Minor
DISC 54:
Mozart, W.A.: Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-Flat Major, K. 482
Mozart, W.A.: Piano Sonata No. 4 in E-Flat Major, K. 282 (Philippe Entremont, piano)
DISC 55:
Tchaikovsky: The Sleeping Beauty, Op. 66, TH 13
DISC 56:
Franck: Symphony in D Minor, FWV 48
DISC 57:
Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35, TH 59
DISC 58:
Brahms: Piano Concerto No 1 in D Minor, Op. 15
DISC 59:
Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake, Op. 20, TH 12 (Excerpts)
DISC 60:
Strauss, R.: Don Juan, Op. 20
Strauss, R.: Tod und Verklärung, Op. 24
DISC 61:
Bach, J.C.: Sinfonia for Double Orchestra in D Major, Op. 18, No. 3
Bach, W.F.: Sinfonia for 2 Flutes and Strings in D Minor, F. 65
H. Casadesus: Concerto for Orchestra in D Major
DISC 62:
Tchaikovsky (ed. Bogatyrev): Symphony No. 7 in E-Flat Major
DISC 63:
Strauss, Josef: Fire-Bell Polka (Feuerfest)
Strauss, Johann II: Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka, Op. 214
Strauss, Johann II: Roses from the South (Rosen aus dem Süden), Op. 388
Strauss, Johann II: Hunting Polka (Auf der Jagd, Polka schnell), Op. 373
Strauss, Johann II: New Pizzicato Polka (Neue Pizzicato Polka), Op. 449
Strauss, Johann II: Unter Donner und Blitz, Op. 324
Strauss, Johann II: Explosions Polka, Op. 43
Strauss, Johann II: Wine, Women and Song (Wein, Weib und Gesang), Op. 333
Strauss, Johann II: Annen Polka, Op. 117
Strauss, Johann II: Thousand And One Nights (Tausend und eine Nacht), Op. 346
Strauss, Johann II: Young-in-Heart Polka (Leichtes Blut Polka)
DISC 64:
Rimsky-Korsakov : Scheherazade, Op. 35
DISC 65:
Mendelssohn: Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
Davies: O Little Town of Bethlehem
Mason: Joy to the World
Adam: O Holy Night (Cantique de Noël)
Traditional: O Come, O Come, Emanuel
Traditional: God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
Schubert: Ave Maria
Wade: O Come, All Ye Faithful (Adeste Fideles)
Traditional: The First Noël
Traditional: Deck the Halls With Boughs of Holly
Traditional: O Sanctissima (O du fröhliche)
Beethoven: The Worship of God
Traditional: O Come, Little Children
Gruber: Silent Night, Holy Night
DISC 66:
Delius: Brigg Fair: An English Rhapsody
Delius: A Dance Rhapsody No. 2 - Mazurka Tempo
Delius: On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring
Delius: In a Summer Garden, Rhapsody for Orchestra, RT VI/17
DISC 67:
Barati: Chamber Concerto
Rochberg: Symphony No. 2
DISC 68:
Sibelius: Symphony No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 39
Sibelius: Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op. 47
DISC 69:
Poulenc: Concerto in G Minor for Organ, Strings and Tympani
R. Strauss: Festival Prelude for Organ and Orchestra, Op. 61
Barber-Ormandy: Toccata Festiva, Op. 36
DISC 70:
Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 1, Sz. 83
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 4 in B-Flat Major, Op. 53
DISC 71:
Smith (arr. Asper): The Star-Spangled Banner
Elgar(arr. Fagge): Land of Hope and Glory
Berlin: Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor
DeLisle: The Marseillaise
Sibelius (arr. Matthews): On Great Lone Hills - From "Finlandia"
Traditional (arr. Robertson): Hatikva
arr. Jenskins: The Maple Leaf Forever
Ward (arr. Asper): America, The Beautiful
Jacobs (arr. Lowell, Durham): This Is My Country
Shaw (arr. Schreiner): O Columbia The Gem Of The Ocean
Berlin (arr. R. DeCormier and E. Sauter): God Bless America
Sousa: Washington Post March
Gottschalk (arr. Kay): Grand Walkaround from Cakewalk
Ives (arr. Schuman): Variations on "America"
Copland: Rodeo: V. Hoedown
Smith (arr. Asper): The Star-Spangled Banner
DISC 72:
Bartók: Bluebeard's Castle, Sz. 48
DISC 73/74:
Bach, J.S.: Mass in B Minor, BWV 232
DISC 75:
Wagner: Lohengrin, WWV 75: Prelude to Act III
Wagner: Siegfried, WWV 86C: Waldweben
Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, WWV 96: Prelude to Act III & Dance of the Apprentices & Entrance of the Meistersingers
Wagner: Tannhäuser, WWV 70: Overture and Venusberg Music
Wagner: Siegfried-Idyll, WWV 103
DISC 76:
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4 in C Minor, Op. 43
DISC 77:
Walton: Façade
Ibert: Divertissment from Un chapeau de paille d'Italie
Ibert: Escales
DISC 78:
Mozart, W.A.: Concerto in B-Flat Major for Bassoon and Orchestra, K. 191
Mozart, W.A.: Concerto No. 1 in G Major for Flute and Orchestra, K. 313
DISC 79:
Mozart, W.A.: Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra in C Major, K. 314
Mozart, W.A.: Concerto in A Major for Clarinet and Orchestra, K. 622
DISC 80:
Yardumian: Symphony No. 1
Yardumian: Violin Concerto
DISC 81:
Saint-Saens: Symphony No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 78 "Organ"
Saint-Saens: The Carnival of the Animals, R.125
DISC 82:
Sousa: The Stars and Stripes Forever
Meyerbeer: Coronation March from "Le Prophete"
Beethoven: Die Ruinen von Athen, Op. 113: No. 4, Marcia alla turca
Gounod: Marche funèbre d'une marionnette
Gould: American Salute (When Johnny Comes Marchin' Home)
Verdi: Grand March from "Aida"
Bizet: March of the Toreadors from "Carmen"
Herbert: March of the Toys
Schubert: Marche Militaire
Prokofiev: March from "The Love for Three Oranges"
Strauss, Johann II: Radetzky March
Knipper: Meadowlands (Cavalry of the Steppes) from Symphony No. 4
Elgar: Pomp and Circumstance No. 1
DISC 83:
Brahms: A German Requiem, Op. 45
DISC 84:
Prokofiev: Symphony No. 6, Op. 111
DISC 85:
Mozart, W.A.: Concerto for 3 Pianos and Orchestra in F Major, K. 242
Bach, J.S.: Concerto for 3 Pianos and Orchestra in D Minor, BWV 1063
Bach, J.S.: Concerto in F Major, BWV 971 "Italian" (Robert Casadesus, piano)
DISC 86:
Chopin (arr. Douglas): Les Sylphides - Ballet
Délibes: Sylvia (Ballet Suite) Excerpts
Délibes: Coppelia
Chopin (arr. Harris): Nocturne in E-Flat Major, Op. 9, No. 2 (Arr. for Orchestra)
DISC 87:
R. Strauss: Don Quixote, Op. 35 - Fantastische Variationen über ein Thema ritterlichen Characters
DISC 88:
Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-Sharp Minor, Op. 1
Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Minor, Op. 40
Award-Winning Telegraph Quartet Presented by the University of Michigan Performing Music by Bacewicz, Britten, and Weinberg
Telegraph Quartet Presented by the University of Michigan
Performing Music by Grażyna Bacewicz, Benjamin Britten, Mieczysław Weinberg
Monday, November 13, 2023 at 8pm
Britton Recital Hall at University of Michigan
Photo of the Telegraph Quartet by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution at: www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/telegraph-quartet
Telegraph Quartet Presented by the University of Michigan
Performing Music by Grażyna Bacewicz, Benjamin Britten, Mieczysław Weinberg
Monday, November 13, 2023 at 8pm
Britton Recital Hall at University of Michigan
1100 Baits Dr. | Ann Arbor, MI
Free and Open-to-the-Public
Information at: www.smtd.umich.edu/event/13-november-2023-3/
“full of elegance and pinpoint control...”
– The New Yorker
Ann Arbor, MI – The Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello), a group described by The Strad as having "precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication,” will be presented in concert by The University of Michigan on Monday, November 13, 2023 at 8pm, as part of a residency with the University from November 12-14, 2023, which includes a Masterclass on Sunday, November 12 at 7pm. The concert and masterclass are both free and open to the public. For their performance, Telegraph Quartet will perform a program featuring String Quartet No. 4 (1951) by Grażyna Bacewicz, String Quartet No. 1 (1941) by Benjamin Britten, and String Quartet No. 6 in E minor Op. 35 (1946) by Mieczysław Weinberg.
Known for their technical prowess and appreciation for the history behind music, the Telegraph Quartet brings a concert program to the University of Michigan that’s steeped in the mystery, tension, and global turmoil of World War II. Intricate and stylistically intense compositions intertwine with the feelings and perceptions imparted into each work by their respective composers, as a result of the unique but highly charged circumstances all three faced during the war. These works channel a dark era in human history but give Telegraph Quartet an exciting opportunity to display their performative precision and unified musical expression through works that beautifully blend compositional complexity with many strong emotions..
The Telegraph Quartet’s new release, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths was released on August 25 via Azica Records. The first album in a three record series focused on string quartets of the era, Divergent Paths offers a glimpse into the beginning of the 20th century. The Telegraph Quartet explores this time bewildering and unbridled creativity through the work of Arnold Schoenberg and Maurice Ravel, whose music on this album weaves threads of great contrast and surprising similarity. The works the Telegraph Quartet is performing for the University of Michigan make up the program that will be recorded on the second volume in the series.
The New York Times says of the first installment in the trilogy:
“[I]n the Schoenberg, they achieve something truly special, meticulously guiding its often wayward progress. At times Schoenberg makes the four strings sound almost orchestral, but the Telegraph players can also make his contrapuntal tangles radiantly clear. Every minute of their account sounds gripping and purposeful, which is one of the highest compliments you can pay the piece.”
Joseph Maile of the Telegraph Quartet says:
“All of the works on this program and future album reflect each composers’ emotional state as they wrestled with the consequences of these traumatic times. While foreboding, anger, uncertainty and longing pervade the works, each one finds its own way to a life-affirming optimism, whether defiant or joyous. We are very excited to be coming to the University of Michigan and working with all of the talented and dedicated students there! Along with our Masterclass, we look forward to also working one-on-one with the students and sharing these intense and profound works with them and the overall community.”
Grażyna Bacewicz’s String Quartet No. 4 was composed in 1951, several years after the end of World War II. During this time, Bacewicz lived through the Nazi occupation of Warsaw. The work opens with a kind of sorrow-tinged hope that builds to a joyous third movement.
Benjamin Britten and his future partner Peter Pears fled England in 1939 with the rumblings of war with Germany on their heels, in part to avoid their inevitable jailing if war broke out due to their pacifist beliefs. War did break out shortly and by 1941, the homesick Britten was writing his first quartet, with a nostalgia for his island home that is reflected in the wave-like motions of the work’s third movement.
During World War II Weinberg fled his homeland of Poland and having failed to convince his family to come with him, almost all of them would be murdered in the concentration camps. His String Quartet No. 6 (1946) contains an innocent mundanity that erupts throughout the work into desperation, sorrow, and tragic indignation as he dealt with the ramifications of his exile and learned to live warily in his newfound home of the Soviet Union.
About Telegraph Quartet: The Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello) formed in 2013 with an equal passion for standard and contemporary chamber music repertoire. Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “…an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape” and “powerfully adept… with a combination of brilliance and subtlety,” the Telegraph Quartet was awarded the prestigious 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.
The Quartet has performed in New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Chamber Masters Series, and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Emilia Romagna Festival. They have collaborated with pianists Leon Fleisher and Simone Dinnerstein; cellists Norman Fischer and Bonnie Hampton; violinist Ian Swensen; composer-vocalist Theo Bleckmann; St. Lawrence Quartet, and the Henschel Quartett. A fervent champion of 20th- and 21st-century repertoire, the Telegraph Quartet has premiered works by John Harbison, Osvaldo Golijov, Robert Sirota, and Richard Festinger. In 2018 the Quartet released its debut album, Into the Light, featuring works by Anton Webern, Benjamin Britten, and Leon Kirchner on the Centaur label. The Telegraph Quartet released its new album, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths – which features Ravel’s renowned quartet and Schoenberg’s first quartet – on August 25 via Azica Records.
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Quartet is currently on the chamber music faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as the Quartet-in-Residence and has given master classes at the SFCM Collegiate and Pre-College Divisions, through the Morrison Artist Series at San Francisco State University, and abroad at the Taipei National University of the Arts, National Taiwan Normal University, and in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Telegraph has also served as artists-in-residence at the Interlochen Adult Chamber Music Camp, SoCal Chamber Music Workshop, and Crowden Music Center Chamber Music Workshop. In November 2020, the Telegraph Quartet launched ChamberFEAST!, a chamber music workshop in Taiwan and in fall 2020, Telegraph launched an online video project called TeleLab, in which the ensemble collectively breaks down the components of a movement from various works for quartet.
For more information, visit www.telegraphquartet.com.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: The award-winning Telegraph Quartet, described by The New York Times as being “full of elegance and pinpoint control,” is presented in concert by the University of Michigan on Monday, November 13, 2023 at 8pm. On Sunday November 12, 2023 at 7pm, the Quartet will give a masterclass. Both events are free and open to the public. For the performance, the Bay Area ensemble will perform a program highlighting works of the mid 20th century, including Grażyna Bacewicz’s String Quartet No. 4, Benjamin Britten’s String Quartet No. 1, and Mieczysław Weinberg’s String Quartet No. 6 in E minor Op. 35 (1946).
Short description: The Telegraph Quartet, which is described as being “full of elegance and pinpoint control” (The New York Times), is presented by the University of Michigan for a masterclass on November 12 and performance on November 13, featuring the music of Grażyna Bacewicz, Benjamin Britten, and Mieczysław Weinberg. Both events are free and open to the public.
Concert details:
Who: Telegraph Quartet
Presented by the University of Michigan
What: Music by Grażyna Bacewicz, Benjamin Britten, and Mieczysław Weinberg
When: Monday November 13, 2023 at 8pm; Masterclass on Sunday, November 12 at 7pm
Where: Britton Recital Hall at University of Michigan, 1100 Baits Dr., Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Tickets and information (Free and Open to the Public): www.smtd.umich.edu/event/13-november-2023-3/
Jupiter Quartet Continues its Concert Series Presented by Krannert Center with Folk Encounters
Jupiter Quartet Continues its Concert Series Presented by Krannert Center with Folk Encounters Featuring Guest Violist Kirsten Docter
Friday, November 10, 2023 at 7:30pm
Photo of the Jupiter Quartet by Todd Rosenberg available in high resolution at www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/jupiter-string
The Jupiter String Quartet Continues its Concert Series Presented by Krannert Center for the Performing Arts with Folk Encounters
Featuring Guest Violist Kirsten Docter
Performing Music by Su Lian Tan, Wynton Marsalis, and Antonin Dvořák
Friday, November 10, 2023 at 7:30pm
University of Illinois | Foellinger Great Hall
500 S Goodwin Ave. | Urbana, IL
Tickets and Information at
https://krannertcenter.com/events/jupiter-string-quartet-kirsten-docter-viola
“technical finesse and rare expressive maturity”
– The New Yorker
Urbana, IL – The Jupiter String Quartet – the quartet-in-residence at the University of Illinois since 2012 and internationally acclaimed winners of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and the Banff International String Quartet Competition – continues their 2023-2024 concert series presented by Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in Foellinger Great Hall (500 S. Goodwin Ave) on Friday, November 10, 2023 at 7:30pm, in a collaborative performance with violist Kirsten Docter. The Jupiter’s series at Krannert Center also includes a third performance on February 6, 2024.
The Jupiter Quartet will perform a program of works that spans more than a century and highlights a range of musical styles, including excerpts from "At the Octoroon Balls," String Quartet No. 1 by Wynton Marsalis (1995), Antonin Dvořák’s Viola Quintet In E-flat Major “American,” Op. 97 B. 180 (1893), and Su Lian Tan’s “Life in Wayang” (2002).
The Jupiter Quartet says of collaborating with Kirsten Docter:“We are so pleased to bring one of our longtime mentors, the wonderful violist Kirsten Docter, to campus to share the stage with us and give wise advice to our students. Antonin Dvorak’s viola quintet is a fantastic, joyful work, and we are excited to share it with our hometown crowd at Krannert.”
Based in Urbana and giving concerts all over the country, the Jupiter String Quartet is a particularly intimate group, consisting of violinists Nelson Lee and Meg Freivogel, violist Liz Freivogel (Meg’s older sister), and cellist Daniel McDonough (Meg’s husband, Liz’s brother-in-law). Brought together by ties both familial and musical, the Jupiter Quartet has been performing together for 23 years. Exuding an energy that is at once friendly, knowledgeable, and adventurous, the Quartet celebrates every opportunity to bring their close-knit and lively style to audiences.Their connections to each other and the length of time they’ve shared the stage always shine through in their intuitive performances.
Up next on February 6, 2024, the Jupiter Quartet will conclude its concert series with a program that features the work of Michi Wiancko, Béla Bartók, and Johannes Brahms, with Soyeon Kate Lee joining the Quartet on piano.
More About Jupiter String Quartet: This tight-knit ensemble is firmly established as an important voice in the world of chamber music. Artists-in-residence at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana since 2012, the Jupiter Quartet maintain private studios and direct the University’s chamber music program.
The Jupiter Quartet has performed in some of the world’s finest halls, including New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, Boston’s Jordan Hall, Mexico City's Palacio de Bellas Artes, Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center and Library of Congress, Austria’s Esterhazy Palace, and Seoul’s Sejong Chamber Hall. Their major music festival appearances include the Aspen Music Festival and School, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, Rockport Music Festival, Music at Menlo, the Seoul Spring Festival, and many others. In addition to their performing career, they have been artists-in-residence at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign since 2012, where they maintain private studios and direct the chamber music program.
Their chamber music honors and awards include the grand prizes in the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition; the Young Concert Artists International auditions in New York City; the Cleveland Quartet Award from Chamber Music America; an Avery Fisher Career Grant; and a grant from the Fromm Foundation. From 2007-2010, they were in residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Two.
About Kirsten Docter: Kirsten Docter is associate professor of viola and chamber music at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. First-prize wins at the Primrose International and American String Teachers Association Viola Competitions launched her on a career that includes a 23-year tenure with the Cavani Quartet, concerts on major series and festivals, and numerous appointments as a master class clinician and teacher.
Docter’s festival appearances include performances at the Aspen Music Festival, Seattle Chamber Music Society, and Kneisel Hall. Her work can be heard on the Azica, Albany, and New World labels. Docter formerly served on the chamber music and viola faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music and the University of Michigan. She has been a jury member of the Primrose International Viola, Fischoff National Chamber Music, and Sphinx competitions. In the summer she serves on the viola faculty of the Perlman Music Program and Bowdoin International Music Festival.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: The Jupiter Quartet, the Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign who are described by The New Yorker as having “technical finesse and rare expressive maturity,” is presented by Krannert Center for a performance with violist Kirsten Docter in Foellinger Great Hall (500 S Goodwin Ave.). The ensemble will perform a stylistically diverse, collaborative program that includes excerpts from "At the Octoroon Balls," String Quartet No. 1 by Wynton Marsalis, and Su Lian Tan’s Life in Wayang. and Antonin Dvořák’s Viola Quintet In E-flat Major “American,” Op. 97 B. 180, performed with violist Kirsten Docter.
Short description: The Jupiter Quartet, who are described as having an ensemble of “technical finesse and rare expressive maturity” (The New Yorker), is presented by Krannert Center for a performance with violist Kirsten Docter, featuring the music of Wynton Marsalis, Su Lian Tan, and Antonin Dvořák.
Concert details:
Who: Jupiter String Quartet and violist Kirsten Docter
Presented by Krannert Center
What: Music by Su Lian Tan, Wynton Marsalis, and Antonin Dvořák.
When: Friday, November 10, 2023 at 7:30pm
Where: University of Illinois, Krannert Center, Foellinger Great Hall, 500 S Goodwin Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
Tickets and information: www.krannertcenter.com/events/jupiter-string-quartet-kirsten-docter-viola
Pianist Simone Dinnerstein Presented by Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center Performing Music by From her Album Undersong
Pianist Simone Dinnerstein Presented byBlack Mountain College Museum + Arts Center
Performing Music by Couperin, Schumann, Glass, and Satie From her Album Undersong
Wednesday, November 8, 2023 at 7pmBlack Mountain College Museum + Arts Center
Photo of Simone Dinnerstein by Tanya Braganti available in high resolution at: https://jensen-artists.squarespace.com/artists-profiles/simone-dinnerstein
Pianist Simone Dinnerstein Presented by
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center
Performing Music by Couperin, Schumann, Glass, and Satie From her Album Undersong
Wednesday, November 8, 2023 at 7pm
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center
120 College Street | Asheville, NC
Tickets and information: www.blackmountaincollege.org/simone-dinnerstein/
“an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity”
– The Washington Post
Simone Dinnerstein: www.simonedinnerstein.com
Asheville, NC – GRAMMY-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Washington Post as an “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” is presented in concert November 8, 2023 at Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (120 College Street).
Dinnerstein, who is heralded for her distinctive musical voice and commitment to sharing classical music with everyone, will perform several selections found on her 2022 Orange Mountain Music album Undersong –– the final installment in a trilogy of albums recorded at her home in Brooklyn during the pandemic between 2020 and 2022, which also includes A Character of Quiet (Orange Mountain Music, 2020) and Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic (Supertrain Records, 2021). The latter surpassed two million streams on Apple Music and was nominated for a 2021 Grammy Award in the category of Best Classical Instrumental Solo. The concert program will include: Robert Schumann’s Arabesque, in C Major, Op. 18 and Kreisleriana, Op. 16; François Couperin’s Les Barricades Mysterieuses and Tic-Toc-Choc; Philip Glass’s Mad Rush; and Erik Satie’s Gnossienne No. 3.
Dinnerstein explains of Undersong’s title: “Undersong is an archaic term for a song with a refrain, and to me it also suggests a hidden text. Glass, Schumann, Couperin and Satie all seem to be attempting to find what they want to say through repetition, as though their constant change and recycling will focus the ear and the mind. This time has been one of reflection and reconsidering for many of us, and this music speaks to the process of revisiting and searching for the meaning beneath the notes, of the undersong.”
Reflecting on Schumann’s Arabesque, in C Major, Op. 18, Dinnerstein explains that it’s “a very beautiful, poetic piece of music but it ends with a separate type of epilogue that's something different from the piece and modern in a way. There's a rest before you play it and the rest serves as a bridge to Philip Glass’s Mad Rush. It's unclear to the listener whether it's Schumann or Glass. I really like that blurring of the composer's languages with each other."
Dinnerstein offers this connective observation between Schumann’s Kreisleriana, Op. 16 and Schumann’s, Arabesque “The Arabesque has some quick changes in mood and the most breathtaking coda at the end that completely takes it someplace else, written in Schumann’s music language but sounding absolutely contemporary. In comparison, Kreisleriana changes on a dime. Suddenly, you’ll be in a completely different headspace. I think that’s as much about Schumann himself, as about his love for Clara.”
Sequenza21 describes Dinnerstein’s approach to Couperin’s Les Barricades Mysterieuses as “sonorous [and] eschewing ornamentation in favor of unadorned, shapely melodies.” Meanwhile, the tempo of Couperin’s Tic-Toc-Choc is thought to mirror the rhythmic precision of a clock and the full title (Le Tic-Toc-Choc, ou Les Maillotins), references little hammers or mallets. The San Francisco Classical Voice says Dinnerstein’s performance of the piece makes it appear as if she “magically transform[s] the piano into a harpsichord.”
With its distinctly repetitious compositional structure, Philip Glass’s Mad Rush, a piece originally composed for organ at New York City’s St. John the Divine, underscores the collectively seamless nature of this program’s repertoire. The New Criterion describes Dinnerstein’s performance of the piece as “transcendent – the picture of introspection interrupted by unexpected vision.”
Of Erik Satie’s Gnossienne No. 3, Dinnerstein says, “Erik Satie published three Gymnopédie and three Gnossienne together, though he eventually wrote more Gnossienne, a fantastical term that he came up with. The markings in the score for Gnossienne No. 3 are bizarre: “Plan carefully”; “Provide yourself with clear sightedness”; “Alone for a moment”; “So as to get a hollow”; “Quite lost”; “Carry this further”; “Open your mind”. These are written right over the notes. The commentary is dada-esque.”
About Simone Dinnerstein: American pianist Simone Dinnerstein has a distinctive musical voice. The Washington Post has called her “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity.” She first came to wider public attention in 2007 through her recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, reflecting an aesthetic that was both deeply rooted in the score and profoundly idiosyncratic. She is, wrote The New York Times, “a unique voice in the forest of Bach interpretation.”
Dinnerstein has played with orchestras ranging from the New York Philharmonic and Montreal Symphony Orchestra to the London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Rai. She has performed in venues from Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center to the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus, Seoul Arts Center and Sydney Opera House. She has made thirteen albums, all of which topped the Billboard charts. During the pandemic she recorded three albums which form a trilogy: A Character of Quiet, An American Mosaic, and Undersong. An American Mosaic was nominated for a Grammy.
In recent years, Dinnerstein has created projects that express her broad musical interests. She gave the world premiere of The Eye Is the First Circle at Montclair State University, the first multi-media production she conceived, created, and directed, which uses as source materials her father Simon Dinnerstein’s painting The Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’s Piano Sonata No. 2. She premiered Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic, a tribute to those affected by the pandemic, in a performance on multiple pianos throughout Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. Following her recording Mozart in Havana, she brought the Havana Lyceum Orchestra from Cuba to the U.S. for the first time, performing eleven concerts. Philip Glass composed his Piano Concerto No. 3 for her, co-commissioned by twelve orchestras. Working with Renée Fleming and the Emerson String Quartet, she premiered André Previn and Tom Stoppard’s Penelope at the Tanglewood, Ravinia and Aspen music festivals, and performed it at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and presented by LA Opera. Dinnerstein has also created her own ensemble, Baroklyn, which she directs. The Washington Post comments, “it is Dinnerstein’s unreserved identification with every note she plays that makes her performance so spellbinding.” In a world where music is everywhere, she hopes that it can still be transformative. www.simonedinnerstein.com
About Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center: The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (BMCM+AC) preserves and continues the legacy of educational and artistic innovation of Black Mountain College (BMC). We achieve our mission through collection, conservation, and educational activities including exhibitions, publications, and public programs. Arts advocate Mary Holden founded BMCM+AC in 1993 to celebrate the history of Black Mountain College as a forerunner in progressive interdisciplinary education and to explore its extraordinary impact on modern and contemporary art, dance, theater, music, and performance. Today, the museum remains committed to educating the public about BMC’s history and raising awareness of its extensive legacy. Our goal is to provide a gathering point for people from a variety of backgrounds to interact through art, ideas, and discourse.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Washington Post as “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” is presented in concert by Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center. Dinnerstein will perform several selections found on her 2022 Orange Mountain Music release, Undersong, including Robert Schumann’s Arabesque, in C Major, Op. 18 and Kreisleriana, Op. 16; François Couperin’s Les Barricades Mysterieuses and Tic-Toc-Choc; Philip Glass’s Mad Rush; and Erik Satie’s Gnossienne No. 3.
Short description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described as an artist of “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity” (The Washington Post) is presented in concert by Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, performing selections by François Couperin, Robert Schumann, Philip Glass, and Erik Satie from her 2022 album Undersong.
Concert details:
Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein and Caroga Arts Ensemble Conducted by Music Director Alexander Platt
Presented by Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center
What: Music by Music by François Couperin, Robert Schumann, Philip Glass, and Erik Satie
When: Wednesday, November 8, 2023 at 3pm
Where: 120 College St, Asheville, NC 28801
Tickets and information: www.blackmountaincollege.org/simone-dinnerstein/