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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Presented by University of Georgia Performing Arts Center

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

“contemporary music dynamos”
– NPR 

ACME: www.acmemusic.org

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Emerald City Music Presents Oboe / Oboe

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

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

Violinist Kristin Lee, Artistic Director

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

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

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

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

www.emeraldcitymusic.org

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Emerald City Music (ECM) is the Pacific Northwest home for eclectic, intimate, and vibrant classical chamber music experiences. Known for their casual environment combined with award winning artists, ECM has gained recognition from several high-profile publications like Seattle Times, The City Arts deemed ECM “the beacon for the casual-classical movement.” Unique to only ECM attendees are encouraged to wear casual clothes, enjoy the open bar and walk around in order to increase the satisfaction of each of the ECM concerts. The Seattle Times calls ECM’s programming “very different,” noting its “nontraditional atmosphere,” which often “doesn’t have a stage separating performers from the audience, and artists mingle with the audience during the intermission.”

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

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

About Kristin Lee, ECM Artistic Director:

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

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

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

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

About ECM:

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

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

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

Follow ECM on Social Media

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

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

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

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

Downloads and CDs available to press on request

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

www.neavetrio.com | www.chandos.net

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Total Time: [83:10]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conducted by Colonel Don Schofield

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

Tickets: www.bit.ly/SimoneDinnersteinLibraryOfCongress212224

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

www.simonedinnerstein.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

www.simonedinnerstein.com

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

For Calendar Editors:

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

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

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

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

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

Conducted by Christian Thielemann

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

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

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

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

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

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

Experiential Orchestra and Videmus Announce

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

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

Complete programming and the festival schedule will be announced in January

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Complete programming and the festival schedule will be announced in January

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

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

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

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

Tuesday, February 6, 2024 at 7:30pm
University of Illinois | Foellinger Great Hall
500 S Goodwin Ave. | Urbana, IL

Tickets and Information at
https://krannertcenter.com/events/jupiter-string-quartet-soyeon-kate-lee-piano

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

www.jupiterquartet.com | www.SoyeonKateLee.com

Urbana, IL – The Jupiter String Quartet –– the quartet-in-residence at the University of Illinois since 2012 and internationally acclaimed winners of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and the Banff International String Quartet Competition –– continues their 2023-2024 concert series presented by Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in Foellinger Great Hall (500 S. Goodwin Ave) on Tuesday, February 6, 2024 at 7:30pm, performing together with pianist Soyeon Kate Lee.

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

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

The Jupiter Quartet says of performing with Soyeon Kate Lee:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For Calendar Editors:

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

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

Concert details:

Who: Jupiter String Quartet and pianist Soyeon Kate Lee
Presented by Krannert Center
What: Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Bela Bartók, and Johannes Brahms
When: Tuesday, February 6, 2024 at 7:30pm
Where: University of Illinois, Krannert Center, Foellinger Great Hall, 500 S Goodwin Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
Tickets and information: www.krannertcenter.com/events/jupiter-string-quartet-soyeon-kate-lee-piano

Jan. 26: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein in The Eye is The First Circle Presented by the Gogue Performing Arts Center

Photo by Maria Baranova available in high resolution at: www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/simone-dinnerstein

Simone Dinnerstein in The Eye is The First Circle
Presented by the Gogue Performing Arts Center

Second of Three Performances at the Gogue Center this Season

Friday, January 26, 2024 at 7pm
Woltosz Theatre at Gogue Performing Arts Center
910 South College Street | Auburn, AL
Tickets & Information

Excerpts from The Eye is the First Circle: Watch Now

Featured on NPR’s All Things Considered: Listen Now

www.simonedinnerstein.com

Kansas City, MO – GRAMMY-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New Yorker as an artist of “lean, knowing, and unpretentious elegance,” is presented by the Gogue Performing Arts Center in the multimedia production that she performs, conceived, and directs – The Eye is the First Circle – on January 26, 2024 at the Woltosz Theatre at Gogue Performing Arts Center (910 South College Street). This is the second of Dinnerstein’s three performances at the Gogue Center this season. Her final performance, with her ensemble Baroklyn, will be on April 5, 2024.

With The Eye Is the First Circle, which was premiered at Montclair State University in October 2021, Simone Dinnerstein ventures into bold interdisciplinary artistic territory in collaboration with projection designer Laurie Olinder and lighting designer Davison Scandrett. Conceived and directed by Dinnerstein, this dynamic production deconstructs and collages elements from two iconic works of art – her father Simon Dinnerstein’s Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’s Piano Sonata No. 2 (Concord).

The Fulbright Triptych places a family portrait (including an infant Simone) within the tradition of Medieval altar paintings, against a wall teeming with art historical references, and the Concord Sonata expresses the imaginative and natural world of the Transcendentalists through an ecstatic and fractured musical lens. Olinder pulls visuals including animated elements of the painting and real-time video to all points of the stage, and Scandrett’s lighting gives them breathtaking theatricality.

Dinnerstein’s searching performance sits within this disorientingly immersive visual space. The piece asks: How do our origin stories mold us? How can a sense of self come from the musical and visual fragments we remember from childhood? The Eye Is the First Circle shows us what it is to draw a new circle around the one we stand in, at the edge of what we can see.

Dinnerstein says, “The Eye is the First Circle is a very personal piece that, at its core, explores how my family’s world shaped my relationship to art. I devised it using my father Simon Dinnerstein’s Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’s Concord Sonata. My intellectual, emotional and artistic response to each work, and to the connections I saw between them, is what formed the larger circle I drew. . . While creating this production, I discovered that I had an aptitude for visual composition and for directing. It was as if I discovered a sixth sense that I had never used before, and I felt the joy of generating an artistic experience that expanded beyond music, the area where I am most used to expressing myself. When I began, I did not know what the end point would be. As Emerson wrote, ‘The one thing which we seek with insatiable desire is to forget ourselves, to be surprised out of our propriety, to lose our sempiternal memory, and to do something without knowing how or why; in short, to draw a new circle.’”

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.

The Eye Is the First Circle is one of the projects Dinnerstein has created in recent years that express her broad musical interests. In addition, 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

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Washington Post as “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” is presented by the Gogue Performing Arts Center in The Eye is the First Circle. A multimedia production conceived, directed, and performed by Dinnerstein in collaboration with projection designer Laurie Olinder and lighting designer Davison Scandrett, this production highlights elements from two iconic works of art: Dinnerstein’s father Simon Dinnerstein’s Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’s Piano Sonata No. 2. Dinnerstein describes the production as “a very personal piece that, at its core, explores how my family’s world shaped my relationship to art.”

Short Description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, who is described as “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” (The Washington Post) is presented by the Gogue Performing Arts Center in her multimedia production The Eye is the First Circle, in collaboration with projection designer Laurie Olinder and lighting designer Davison Scandrett.

Concert details:
Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
Presented by Gogue Performing Arts Center
What: A performance of multimedia production, The Eye is the First Circle
When: Friday, January 26, 2024 at 7:00pm
Where: Woltosz Theatre at Gogue Performing Arts Center, 910 South College Street, Auburn, AL
Tickets and information: www.goguecenter.auburn.edu/simone-dinnerstein-the-eye-is-the-first-circle

Jan. 21: Pianist Sarah Cahill in The Future is Female Presented by Desert Hot Springs Classical Concerts

Photo of Sarah Cahill by Kristen Wrzesniewski available in high-resolution at www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/sarah-cahill

Pianist Sarah Cahill in The Future is Female
Presented by Desert Hot Springs Classical Concerts

Sunday, January 21, 2024 at 4pm
Grace Church | 17400 Bubbling Wells Rd. | Desert Hot Springs, CA

Free and Open to the Public - Donations Welcome
More information: www.dhsclassicalconcerts.org

“Sarah Cahill plays a wide-ranging selection of music composed by women on the final volume of a series distinctive for its finesse and conviction.”
– Gramophone Magazine on The Future is Female

Sarah Cahill: www.sarahcahill.com

Watch Sarah Cahill’s NPR TIny Desk Concert

Desert Hot Springs, CA – On Sunday, January 21, 2024 at 4pm, Sarah Cahill, described as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by The New York Times, is presented in concert by Desert Hot Springs Classical Concerts. The performance will be held at Grace Church (17400 Bubbling Wells Rd.). The concert is free and open to the public but donations are welcome.

For the first time since the April 28, 2023 release of The Future is Female Vol. 3, At Play –– the last volume in the album trilogy counterpart to Cahill’s project The Future is Female –– the Bay Area pianist will perform a diverse program of works by several composers featured as part of The Future is Female. The Future is Female is a research and performance project, which celebrates and highlights women composers from the 17th century to the present day. These albums encompass 30 compositions by women from around the globe and include many new commissioned works and world premiere recordings. Cahill has also released a three-volume series of recordings of the same name on First Hand Records.

The concert will include excerpts from Keyboard Suite in D minor (1687) by Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Two Etudes, Op. 26 (1839) by Louise Farrenc, Lieder Op. 8, Nos. 1 and 3 (1846) by Fanny Mendelssohn, Presentiment by Emahoy Tsege Maryam Gebru, Troubled Water (1967) by Margaret Bonds, She Dances Naked Under Palm Trees (2019) by Theresa Wong, and Piano Poems (2020) Regina Harris Baiocchi. In July 2023, Cahill performed excerpts from Baiocchi’s Piano Poems and Emahoy Tsege Maryam Gebru’s Presentiment as part of a NPR Tiny Desk Concert featuring works from her project The Future is Female - watch here.

Listen to The Future is Female, Vols. 1-3 (First Hand Records):

Vol. 1: https://lnkfi.re/CahillFutureisFemaleVol1
Vol. 2: https://lnkfi.re/CahillFutureisFemaleVol2
Vol. 3: https://lnkfi.re/CahillFutureisFemaleVol3

Sarah Cahill began working on The Future is Female, which now encompasses more than 70 compositions, in 2018. “For decades I had been working with many living American composers, including Pauline Oliveros, Tania León, Eve Beglarian, Mary D. Watkins, Julia Wolfe, Ursula Mamlok, Meredith Monk, Annea Lockwood, and many more, but felt an urgent need to explore neglected composers from the past, and from around the globe,” she explains. “Like most pianists, I grew up with the classical canon, which has always excluded women composers as well as composers of color. It is still standard practice to perform recitals consisting entirely of music written by men. The Future is Female, then, aims to be a corrective towards rebalancing the repertoire. It does not attempt to be exhaustive, in any way, and the three albums in this series represent only a small fraction of the music by women which is waiting to be performed and heard. Since recording these three albums in August 2021, I’ve performed extraordinary music by Louise Farrenc, Maria Szymanowska, Helen Hopekirk, Dora Pejačević and Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, Reena Esmail, Arlene Sierra, Viola Kinney, Marion Bauer, and many other composers who should rightfully be included in this series. The possibilities are, in fact, limitless.”

Recent and upcoming performances of The Future is Female include concerts at The Barbican, Carolina Performing Arts, National Gallery of Art, Carlsbad Music Festival, Detroit Institute of Arts, University of Iowa, Bowling Green New Music Festival, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, North Dakota Museum of Art, Mayville State University, the EXTENSITY Concert Series’ Women Now Festival in New York, and the Newport Classical Music Festival.

Of collaborating with Desert Hot Springs Classical Concerts and performing works from The Future is Female now that her album trilogy has been completed and released, Cahill says:

"It's such an honor to be part of Danny Holt's Desert Hot Springs Classical Concerts series. We've been friends and colleagues for more than twenty years, and I'm looking forward to our animated conversations about new music. I'm excited to be sharing music by women from 1687 onwards, including pieces I commissioned from Theresa Wong and Regina Harris Baiocchi. This is the first time I've played works from my project 'The Future is Female' since the last of a trilogy of albums was released earlier this year on the First Hand label, so it's especially meaningful to be revisiting this program."

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 8 to 10 pm 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 Desert Hot Springs Classical Concerts: When concert pianist Danny Holt moved from Los Angeles to Desert Hot Springs, he noticed a hunger for more arts and culture in his newly adopted hometown. In 2014 he took it upon himself to do something about it, creating Desert Hot Springs Classical Concerts to bring first-rate classical music to the city. The reaction from the community was overwhelming: there is an enthusiastic audience for live classical music in Desert Hot Springs!

In recent years the series has expanded its offerings, presenting concerts at numerous venues throughout the city and building on our partnership with the local schools. Now in our tenth season, our concerts feature established professional artists who are gifted at bringing classical music to life through their performances–inspiring and informing the audience about the music through their fun, insightful, and dynamic presentations. Admission to the concerts is free, thanks to underwriting from the City of Desert Hot Springs, local businesses and community organizations, and generous support from individual donors. Cash donations at the door at each concert are always appreciated, and are a crucial part of sustaining the concert series. (And now donations can be made online too!)

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,” is presented by Desert Hot Springs Classical Concerts. Cahill will perform a program featuring music from her project, The Future is Female: Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Two Etudes, Op. 26 (1839) by Louise Farrenc, Lieder Op. 8, Nos. 1 and 3 (1846) by Fanny Mendelssohn, Presentiment by Emahoy Tsege Maryam Gebru, Troubled Water (1967) by Margaret Bonds, She Dances Naked Under Palm Trees (2019) by Theresa Wong, and Piano Poems (2020) Regina Harris Baiocchi. The performance is free and open to the public but donations are welcome.

Short Description: Pianist Sarah Cahill, “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” (The New York Times), is presented by Desert Hot Springs Classical Concerts in The Future is Female. The free concert features works by Louise Farrenc, Fanny Mendelssohn, Emahoy Tsege Maryam Gebru, Margaret Bonds, Theresa Wong, and Regina Harris Baiocchi

Concert details:

Who: Pianists Sarah Cahill, Adam Sherkin, and Adrienne Kim
Presented by Desert Hot Springs Classical Concerts
What: Music by Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Louise Farrenc, Fanny Mendelssohn, Emahoy Tsege Maryam Gebru, Margaret Bonds, Theresa Wong, and Regina Harris Baiocchi from Cahill’s ongoing project, The Future is Female
When: Sunday, January 21, 2024 at 4pm
Where: Grace Church, 17400 Bubbling Wells Rd., Desert Hot Springs, CA 92241
Tickets and information: https://www.dhsclassicalconcerts.org/

Sony Classical Announces Jonas Kaufmann in Parsifal – Wagner’s Complete Opera Recorded Live From Vienna State Opera’s Hit 2021 Production

Sony Classical Announces Jonas Kaufmann in Parsifal
Wagner’s Complete Opera Recorded Live From
Vienna State Opera’s Hit 2021 Production

Album Release Date: March 1, 2024
Preorder Now

Stellar cast and musicians includes Jonas Kaufmann, Ludovic Tézier, Elīna Garanča and Wolfgang Koch, as well as Wagner-specialist Philippe Jordan conducting the Vienna State Opera orchestra and chorus

Jonas Kaufmann sings the title role in a new live recording of Wagner’s Parsifal that Sony Classical will release on March 1, 2024. It derives from performances at the Vienna State Opera under conductor Philippe Jordan with Elīna Garanča as Kundry, Georg Zeppenfeld as Gurnemanz and Ludovic Tézier as Amfortas.

Press reactions following the first night in the spring of 2021 were unanimously positive. Der Standard spoke of “a feast of fine singing” and even of “a sensational cast”, while Die Zeit hailed the achievements of “a luxurious ensemble”. Time and again the critics mentioned the wealth of nuance in the musical interpretation. As the “innocent fool” Parsifal, Jonas Kaufmann was praised for his ability to modulate between a bewitching mezza voce and the most thrilling dramatic outbursts. Two singers were tackling their roles for the very first time: Elīna Garanča was making her long-awaited debut as Kundry, to which she brought sovereign authority, while Ludovic Tézier was singing his first Amfortas. Both Tézier and Georg Zeppenfeld as Gurnemanz brought a bel canto beauty to their roles in the spirit that Wagner himself had always valued. Internationally acclaimed as Hans Sachs in Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Wolfgang Koch gave a riveting performance as Klingsor.

The production had been eagerly awaited but had to be presented – and recorded – without an audience when it was finally unveiled in April 2021 at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. The director Kirill Serebrennikov took his cue from the line “Here time becomes space” and set the work in a prison. Serebrennikov had spent a number of years under house arrest and on probation and at the time in question was banned from leaving his homeland with the result that he had to direct his new production from a distance, while a team of associates worked on the staging in Vienna. His concept of the work as what the Süddeutsche Zeitung called an “opera on the theme of liberation” and as what Der Standard described as “a multilayered drama about human relationships” proved convincing. Die Welt spoke of a compelling “futuristic dystopia”.

It is unsurprising that Wagner’s final music drama continues to fascinate audiences to this day thanks to its Grail-related mysticism, its Christian symbolism, and its underlying questions about guilt and atonement. Nor should we forget its harmonically dense narrative vein, its complex use of tonality and tone colors, its psychoanalytical advance on Wagner’s earlier works, its highly metaphorical and detailed symbolism and, last but not least, its duration. All of these elements represent a tremendous musical challenge for both the orchestra and the soloists.

Philippe Jordan had already conducted a whole series of other productions of the work elsewhere, including the 2012 Bayreuth Festival, and so he was intimately familiar with the score’s musical demands. But, as the Swiss-born conductor has observed, “Every Parsifal conductor must do more than simply guide the performance, he must also allow certain aspects to run their own course if he is to do justice to a work of such monumental proportions.”

Wagner’s Parsifal with Jonas Kaufmann, Elīna Garanča, Georg Zeppenfeld, Ludovic Tézier, Wolfgang Koch, the Chorus and Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera under the direction of Philippe Jordan will be released by Sony Classical on CD and digital formats on March 1, 2024.

ECM New Series releases Gidon Kremer's Songs of Fate

ECM New Series Releases

Gidon Kremer: Songs of Fate

Vida Miknevičiūtė, Soprano
Gidon Kremer, Violin
Magdalena Ceple, Violoncello
Andrei Pushkarev, Vibraphone
Kremerata Baltica

Barcode: CD 0028948598502
Catalogue number: ECM 2745
Release Date: January 19, 2024

Weinberg's Aria, Op 9
First Single Available Now: https://ecm.lnk.to/SongsOfFateFP

Press downloads available upon request.

"Gidon Kremer has perhaps never before revealed himself as intimately and as existentially focused as on this recording," observes Wolfgang Sandner in his liner note accompanying the Latvian violinist's new album Songs of Fate, recorded in July 2019 and July 2022 and set for release by ECM New Series on January 19, 2024. The first single, Weinberg's Aria, Op. 9, is available now. 

Together with his Kremerata Baltica chamber ensemble and soprano Vida Mikneviciüte, Kremer approaches scores by Baltic composers Raminta Serksnyte, Giedrius Kuprevitius, Jekabs Janevskis and the Polish-Jewish composer Mieczysiaw Weinberg. 

In a performer's note, Kremer explains how, reflecting on the different threads that create the fabric of this programme, "I realise - to my own surprise - that in many ways, this project revolves around the notion of 'Jewishness'." 

Poignant deliveries of excerpts from the chamber symphony The Star of David and Kaddish by Giedrius Kuprevitius as well as the Jewish Songs by Mieczyslaw Weinberg emphasize this connotation. Bookending Songs of Fate are premiere recordings of Raminta Serksnyte's This too shall pass and Jekabs Janevskis's Lignum, bringing the voices of a younger generation of composers to the fore.

Feb. 2: Sony Classical to Release Winter The New Album from Lavinia Meijer

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

Album Release Date: February 2, 2024
Preorder Now

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Feb. 3: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein in The Eye is The First Circle Makes her Harriman-Jewell Series Debut

Photo by Maria Baranova available in high resolution at: www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/simone-dinnerstein

Simone Dinnerstein in The Eye is The First Circle
Makes her Harriman-Jewell Series Debut

Saturday, February 3, 2024 at 7 pm
Folly Theater | 300 West 12th Street | Kansas City, MO
Tickets & Information

Excerpts from The Eye is the First Circle: Watch Now

Featured on NPR’s All Things Considered: Listen Now

www.simonedinnerstein.com

Kansas City, MO – GRAMMY-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New Yorker as an artist of “lean, knowing, and unpretentious elegance,” is presented by the Harriman-Jewell Series in the multimedia production that she performs, conceived, and directs – The Eye is the First Circle – on February 3, 2024 at the Folly Theater (300 West 12th Street). This performance of The Eye is the First Circle will mark Dinnerstein’s Harriman-Jewell Series debut.

With The Eye Is the First Circle, which was premiered at Montclair State University in October 2021, Simone Dinnerstein ventures into bold interdisciplinary artistic territory in collaboration with projection designer Laurie Olinder and lighting designer Davison Scandrett. Conceived and directed by Dinnerstein, this dynamic production deconstructs and collages elements from two iconic works of art – her father Simon Dinnerstein’s Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’s Piano Sonata No. 2 (Concord).

The Fulbright Triptych places a family portrait (including an infant Simone) within the tradition of Medieval altar paintings, against a wall teeming with art historical references, and the Concord Sonata expresses the imaginative and natural world of the Transcendentalists through an ecstatic and fractured musical lens. Olinder pulls visuals including animated elements of the painting and real-time video to all points of the stage, and Scandrett’s lighting gives them breathtaking theatricality.

Dinnerstein’s searching performance sits within this disorientingly immersive visual space. The piece asks: How do our origin stories mold us? How can a sense of self come from the musical and visual fragments we remember from childhood? The Eye Is the First Circle shows us what it is to draw a new circle around the one we stand in, at the edge of what we can see.

Dinnerstein says, “The Eye is the First Circle is a very personal piece that, at its core, explores how my family’s world shaped my relationship to art. I devised it using my father Simon Dinnerstein’s Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’s Concord Sonata. My intellectual, emotional and artistic response to each work, and to the connections I saw between them, is what formed the larger circle I drew. . . While creating this production, I discovered that I had an aptitude for visual composition and for directing. It was as if I discovered a sixth sense that I had never used before, and I felt the joy of generating an artistic experience that expanded beyond music, the area where I am most used to expressing myself. When I began, I did not know what the end point would be. As Emerson wrote, ‘The one thing which we seek with insatiable desire is to forget ourselves, to be surprised out of our propriety, to lose our sempiternal memory, and to do something without knowing how or why; in short, to draw a new circle.’”

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.

The Eye Is the First Circle is one of the projects Dinnerstein has created in recent years that express her broad musical interests. In addition, 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 Harriman-Jewell Series: More than 1,000 performances have come to Kansas City by way of the Harriman-Jewell Series, including 25 American recital debuts by prominent artists. With the addition of our free Educational Events that allow interaction with musicians and dancers, and our free Discovery Concerts that eliminate the barrier of cost, the Harriman-Jewell Series offers even more life-enriching opportunities for our community's youth and lifelong learners. Since the inception of the Harriman-Jewell Series, we have sought to bring the best of the performing arts to Kansas City, and to bring them to local audiences first. We continue to seek new voices and emerging artists alongside artists and ensembles who are leaders in their craft. Artistic programming follows our core tenets - Quality, Variety, Diversity, and Discovery.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Washington Post as “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” is presented by the Harriman-Jewell Series in The Eye is the First Circle. A multimedia production conceived, directed, and performed by Dinnerstein in collaboration with projection designer Laurie Olinder and lighting designer Davison Scandrett, this production highlights elements from two iconic works of art: Dinnerstein’s father Simon Dinnerstein’s Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’s Piano Sonata No. 2. Dinnerstein describes the production as “a very personal piece that, at its core, explores how my family’s world shaped my relationship to art.”

Short Description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, who is described as “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” (The Washington Post) is presented by the Harriman-Jewell Series in her multimedia production The Eye is the First Circle, in collaboration with projection designer Laurie Olinder and lighting designer Davison Scandrett.

Concert details:
Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
Presented by Harriman-Jewell Series
What: A performance of multimedia production, The Eye is the First Circle
When: Saturday, February 3, 2024 at 7:30pm
Where: Folly Theater, 300 West 12th Street, Kansas City, MO, 64105
Tickets and information: www.hjseries.org/events/2324simone-dinnerstein

California Symphony presents Gershwin in New York featuring the Marcus Roberts Trio

CALIFORNIA SYMPHONY PRESENTS GERSHWIN IN NEW YORK

Led by Donato Cabrera, Artistic & Music Director

In Concert January 27 & 28, 2024
At Walnut Creek’s Lesher Center for the Arts

Featuring the Marcus Roberts Trio celebrating the 100th Birthday of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue

Plus William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony & Samuel Barber’s Symphony No. 1

Continuing a season of performances honoring trailblazing composers and unique artists

Tickets & Information: www.californiasymphony.org

Meet the Trailblazers of Gershwin in New York

WALNUT CREEK, CA – California Symphony and Artistic and Music Director Donato Cabrera continue the 2023-24 season, featuring concerts that honor trailblazing composers and unique artists, with Gershwin in New York, a program that spotlights the promise of the American Dream, on Saturday, January 27, 2024 at 7:30pm and Sunday, January 28, 2024 at 4pm, at the Lesher Center for the Arts (1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek).

Gershwin in New York features famed jazz combo the Marcus Roberts Trio – jazz pianist Marcus Roberts, NEA Jazz Master drummer Jason Marsalis, and bassist Marty Jaffe – in a modern interpretation to George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, which celebrates its 100th birthday in 2024. The trio comes to the California Symphony directly after their Carnegie Hall performance of this work with the Philadelphia Orchestra. The program opens with Symphony No. 1 by Samuel Barber, most famously known for his Adagio for Strings. Barber’s symphony takes the major elements of a traditional four-movement symphony and condenses them into one. William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony takes its themes from traditional spirituals. The piece enjoyed a rapturous reception at its Carnegie Hall debut in 1934. A New York Times critic called it “the most distinctive and promising American symphonic proclamation which has so far been achieved," while the New York World-Telegram praised the work for its “imagination, warmth, drama – (and) sumptuous orchestration.” Despite its early success, it soon disappeared into obscurity and is only now being rediscovered and celebrated almost a century later. 

“In celebrating the centennial of Gershwin’s extraordinary Rhapsody in Blue, I wanted to showcase other pieces that had also received momentous performances in New York City, performances that not only changed the trajectory of the composition itself, but also the career of the composer who wrote it,” says Cabrera. “Alongside his Adagio for Strings, the initial performances of Samuel Barber’s Symphony No. 1, especially the March 24, 1937 Carnegie Hall performance with Artur Rodzinski and the New York Philharmonic, firmly established Barber’s presence as a new voice for American music. I can’t think of another composition with such a lauded premiere as William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony to then fall into such absolute obscurity. After its November 1934 Carnegie Hall premiere by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra, a performance that was enthusiastically received by the audience and lauded by the critics, the Negro Folk Symphony became an unfortunate tragedy of racism. Dawson couldn’t entice a single publisher to publish it, or a single conductor to program it. With a new edition finally available just this year, I am very excited to offer this masterpiece to the California Symphony audience!” 

Marcus Roberts and his trio first performed Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with orchestra in Chicago in 1995. Jazz critic Howard Reich wrote, “To say that Roberts ‘improvised’ this Rhapsody actually may be an understatement, for it implies that he simply embellished Gershwin’s score. In fact, Roberts radically reconceived the piano part, using Gershwin’s basic melodic material to create new themes, unexpected harmonies and bracing, utterly modern dissonances. ... By offering sections of stride piano, steeped-in-blue chord progressions and plaintive countermelodies of his own, Roberts made this his Rhapsody as much as Gershwin’s.”

William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony is only now widely being recognized as an American masterpiece, 90 years after its premiere, with orchestras across the country performing it over the last three years. In a feature about the piece, NPR reported, “The three-movement piece is emotionally charged and rigorously constructed. Dawson said he wasn't out to imitate Beethoven or Brahms, but wanted those who heard it to know that it was ‘unmistakably not the work of a white man.’ He found inspiration for the piece in traditional spirituals, which he preferred to call ‘Negro folk-music.’”

Composed when he was 25 years old, Samuel Barber wrote his Symphony No. 1 (In One Movement) in 1934 while studying at the American Academy in Rome, later revising it in 1942. In it, he combines the elements of a four-movement symphony, capturing the lyricism, drama, and intensity of a full symphony, all within one movement. “Probably no other American composer has ever enjoyed such early, such persistent and such long-lasting acclaim,” wrote The New York Times about Barber.

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

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

FOR CALENDAR EDITORS:

WHAT: California Symphony presents Gershwin in New York

The California Symphony conducted by Artistic and Music Director Donato Cabrera presents Gershwin in New York, a program that spotlights the promise of the American Dream. Famed jazz combo the Marcus Roberts Trio – jazz pianist Marcus Roberts, NEA Jazz Master drummer Jason Marsalis, and bassist Marty Jaffe – brings a modern interpretation to George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, which celebrates its 100th birthday in 2024. The concert opens with Symphony No. 1 by Samuel Barber, most famously known for his Adagio for Strings. Barber’s symphony takes the major elements of a traditional four-movement symphony and condenses them into one. William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony takes its themes from traditional spirituals. The piece enjoyed a rapturous reception at its Carnegie Hall debut in 1934, and a New York Times critic called it “the most distinctive and promising American symphonic proclamation which has so far been achieved." Despite its early success, it soon disappeared into obscurity and is only now being rediscovered and celebrated almost a century later.

California Symphony takes the stuffiness out of the concert experience: Take selfies at the photo booth, order a signature cocktail, and sip at your seat. Tickets include a free 30-minute pre-concert talk by award-winning instructor Scott Foglesong, starting one hour before the show.

WHEN: Saturday, January 27, 2024 at 7:30pm
Sunday, January 28, 2024 at 4:00pm

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

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

WHAT: California Symphony presents Handel–Rivers of Inspiration

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

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

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

CONCERT:
GERSHWIN IN NEW YORK
7:30pm, Saturday, Jan. 27
4:00pm, Sunday, Jan. 28
Donato Cabrera, conductor
California Symphony
The Marcus Roberts Trio
PROGRAM:
Samuel Barber: Symphony No. 1, in One Movement
George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue
William Dawson: Negro Folk Symphony

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

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

PHOTOS: Available here.

Jan. 7: Pianist Sarah Cahill Presented by Old First Concerts

Photo of Sarah Cahill by Kristen Wrzesniewski available in high-resolution at www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/sarah-cahill

Pianist Sarah Cahill Presented by Old First Concerts

Performing Music by
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Amy Beach, Ruth Crawford,
Terry Riley, Ann Southam, Evan Ziporyn

Friday, January 7, 2024 at 2pm
Old First Church | 1751 Sacramento Street | San Francisco, CA

General Admission In-Person Tickets: $25
Senior (65+): $20
Full-time student w/ ID: $5
Livestream Suggested Donation: $20

More information:
www.oldfirstconcerts.org/performance/sarah-cahill-sunday-january-7-at-2-pm/

“Pianist Sarah Cahill commands a near-godlike status among fans of contemporary classical music”
– NPR Music

Watch Sarah Cahill’s NPR TIny Desk Concert

Sarah Cahill: www.sarahcahill.com

San Francisco, CA – On Sunday, January 7, 2024 at 2pm, Sarah Cahill, described as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by The New York Times, commences 2024 with a performance presented by Old First Concerts. Cahill will celebrate the beginning of a new year performing an extensive program of works from the 20th and 21st centuries, including Forest Scenes, Op. 66 by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1907); Hermit Thrush at Eve, Op.92 No. 1 (1921) by Amy Beach; Preludes 5, 6, 7, and 9 (1924) by Ruth Crawford; The Walrus in Memoriam (1993) by Terry Riley; Commotion Creek (2007) and Rivers Series 1 No. 1 (1979) by Ann Southam; and You Are Getting Sleepy (2015) by Evan Ziporyn.

The concert will be held at Old First Church (1751 Sacramento Street). General admission is $25. The concert will also be available to watch online as a livestream with a suggested donation of $20.

Praised by Time Out New York as “A brilliant and charismatic advocate for modern and contemporary composers,” Cahill is highlighting several composers on this program who are not only known for their pioneering work but are deeply respected musical figures who have impacted Cahill as a musician. Cahill has performed and recorded several works by Terry Riley, working with the esteemed composer/pianist since 1997. In 2015, Cahill commissioned several new solo piano works from many other accomplished composers and artists –– including Evan Ziporyn –– all of which she performed at a tribute concert honoring Riley for his eightieth birthday. Works by Amy Beach, Ruth Crawford Seeger, and Ann Southam are all highlighted as part of Cahill’s project, The Future is Female. Cahill and Evan Ziporyn have collaborated on many occasions, including on a critically acclaimed recording of Lou Harrison’s Concerto for Piano with Javanese Gamelan released in 2021 and made commercially available through the CMA’s Recorded Archive Editions.

Cahill says of starting the new year with a return to Old First Concerts and the music on this adventurous, contrast driven program:

"Old First Concerts is a Bay Area treasure, and I've been fortunate to play regularly on the series for the past 25 years. They have always encouraged exploration, innovation, and creative programming. Over the years I've enjoyed combining early 20th century compositions and newer works, which speak to each other across the decades, and also revisiting favorites while learning new repertoire. I'm obsessed with Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Forest Scenes, with its love story of a Forest Maiden and a Phantom. Ruth Crawford and Ann Southam have been favorites for thirty years now. Pianist Matt Bengtson recently introduced me to Amy Beach's Hermit Thrush at Eve -- every pianist who hears it immediately wants to play it. Terry Riley and Evan Ziporyn are two composers I've been very lucky to work with, and always love revisiting their music. This program has a lot of stylistic contrast, and yet each work resonates with the possibilities of past and future."

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).

Cahill’s latest project is The Future is Female, an investigation and reframing of the piano literature featuring more than seventy compositions by women around the globe, from the Baroque to the present day, including new commissioned works. Recent and upcoming performances of The Future is Female include concerts at The Barbican, Carolina Performing Arts, National Gallery of Art, Carlsbad Music Festival, Detroit Institute of Arts, University of Iowa, Bowling Green New Music Festival, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, North Dakota Museum of Art, Mayville State University, the EXTENSITY Concert Series’ Women Now Festival in New York, and the Newport Classical Music Festival. Cahill also performed music from The Future is Female for NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concert series.

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 8 to 10 pm 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 Old First Concerts: Since its founding in 1970, Old First Concerts has grown to be an important part of the San Francisco cultural landscape. In a beautiful historic space with excellent acoustics, Old First Concerts presents rich and diverse high-quality concert experiences of classical music, jazz and world music. We feature eclectic and adventurous programming including works and performances by women, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ community alongside more established classical music repertoire. Our audiences discover a like-minded community of music lovers eager to explore the energy and excitement of the new music and performers of today, re-engage with old favorites, and help build the musical culture in San Francisco by supporting local musicians. Many of our concerts include our Hamburg Steinway concert grand piano, a favorite of local pianists. The piano is meticulously maintained by David Love (www.davidlovepianos.com).

All concerts are held at the Old First Church, home to an affirming and welcoming congregation with a long history of social activism, located on the corner of Sacramento Street and Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco. Please note that Old First Concerts is a completely separate 501(c)3 organization with no religious affiliation and we strive to feature music that is welcoming and inclusive to all people regardless of their race, culture, gender identity, sexuality, age or any other identifying characteristic.

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,” is presented by Old First Concerts in a performance of music from the 20th and 21st centuries. Cahill will commemorate the start of 2024 with a concert program featuring Forest Scenes, Op. 66 by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1907); Hermit Thrush at Eve, Op.92 No. 1 (1921) by Amy Beach; Preludes 5, 6, 7, and 9 (1924) by Ruth Crawford; The Walrus in Memoriam (1993) by Terry Riley; Commotion Creek (2007) and Rivers Series 1 No. 1 (1979) by Ann Southam; and You Are Getting Sleepy (2015) by Evan Ziporyn. In addition to an in-person performance, the concert will be available for live stream.

Short description: Pianist Sarah Cahill, “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” (The New York Times), is presented by Old First Concerts in a performance featuring music of the 20th and 21st centuries. The program includes works by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Amy Beach, Ruth Crawford, Terry Riley, Ann Southan, and Evan Ziporyn.

Concert details:

Who: Pianists Sarah Cahill, Adam Sherkin, and Adrienne Kim
Presented by Old First Concerts
What: Music by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Amy Beach, Ruth Crawford, Terry Riley, Ann Southam, and Evan Ziporyn
When: Sunday, January 7, 2024 at 2pm
Where: Old First Church, 1751 Sacramento Street, San Francisco, CA 94109
Tickets and information: www.oldfirstconcerts.org/performance/sarah-cahill-sunday-january-7-at-2-pm/

Jan 24-25: Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Major Orchestral Work ARCHORA in French Premiere by the Orchestre de Paris Conducted by Klaus Mäkelä

Photo by Saga Sigurdardottir available in high resolution at www.annathorvalds.com/photos

Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Major Orchestral Work ARCHORA
in French Premiere Performances by the Orchestre de Paris
Conducted by Klaus Mäkelä at Philharmonie de Paris

“Thorvaldsdottir a vraiment un style à elle, reconnaissable et renouvelé” – Le Monde

“Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s natural instrument is the symphony orchestra, but in her hands it is reborn as a natural organism.”
– The Guardian

January 24 and 25, 2024 at 8pm
Philharmonie de Paris | 221 Av. Jean Jaurès, 75019, Paris
Tickets & Information

First Commercial Recording of ARCHORA is Available Now on Sono Luminus
Press downloads available upon request.

Schedule: www.annathorvalds.com/performances 

Read a Q&A with Anna about ARCHORA from Wise Music Classical

Composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s latest major orchestral work, ARCHORA, will receive its French premiere performances by the Orchestre de Paris (a co-commissioner of the work) conducted by Klaus Mäkelä in concerts on January 24 and 25, 2024 at 8pm, at the Philharmonie de Paris. The program also includes Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with guest soloist Daniil Trifonov and Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben.

Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s “seemingly boundless textural imagination” (The New York Times) and “riveting” (The Times) sound world has made her “a leading voice in contemporary music” (The Guardian). Her music is composed as much by sounds and nuances as by harmonies and lyrical material – it is written as an ecosystem of sounds, where materials continuously grow in and out of each other, often inspired in an important way by nature and its many qualities, in particular structural ones, like proportion and flow. “Thorvaldsdottir is incapable of writing music that doesn’t immediately transfix an open-eared listener,” reports The New York Times in its review of ARCHORA.

ARCHORA was commissioned by the BBC Proms and co-commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, and Klangspuren Schwaz. Of the world premiere, The Guardian reported, “Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s music is about mass and density, how different planes of sounds collide and combine, and how intricately detailed textures evolve over time. Those qualities make the orchestra the obvious medium for her work, and it has largely been through her sequence of strikingly effective orchestral scores that the Iceland-born composer has become recognised as one of the most distinctive voices in European music today." The premiere was selected as among The Guardian’s Classical Highlights of 2022.

ARCHORA is featured on Anna’s latest portrait album, ARCHORA / AIŌN, which was recorded by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra conducted by Eva Ollikainen and released on the Sono Luminus label. (Press downloads available upon request).

Anna writes of ARCHORA:

The core inspiration behind ARCHORA centres around the notion of a primordial energy and the idea of an omnipresent parallel realm – a world both familiar and strange, static and transforming, nowhere and everywhere at the same time. The piece revolves around the extremes on the spectrum between the Primordia and its resulting afterglow – and the conflict between these elements that are nevertheless fundamentally one and the same. The halo emerges from the Primordia but they have both lost perspective and the connection to one another, experiencing themselves individually as opposing forces rather than one and the same. As with my music generally, the inspiration is not something I am trying to describe through the music as such – it is a way to intuitively approach and work with the core energy, structure, atmosphere and material of the piece.

All of Anna’s orchestral music is now available on Sono Luminus. In addition to ARCHORA / AIŌN, in spring 2023 the label released Anna’s major orchestral work CATAMORPHOSIS as part of the album Atmospheriques, conducted by Daníel Bjarnason. Sono Luminus’s previous releases include METACOSMOS in 2019; AERIALITY, originally released by Deutsche Grammophon in 2014 and re-released in a remastered version on Sono Luminus in 2022; and Dreaming, originally released on a portrait album by Innova Recordings in 2011 and re-released on Sono Luminus in 2020.

Anna’s 2023-2024 season (September 2023 to June 2024) includes performances of her music across at least sixteen countries, including Iceland, England, Ireland, China, the United States, Canada, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Switzerland, and Slovenia. Her current schedule is available on her website.

More about Anna Thorvaldsdottir: Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s “detailed and powerful” (The Guardian) orchestral writing has garnered her awards from the New York Philharmonic, Lincoln Center, the Nordic Council, and the UK’s Ivors Academy, as well as commissions by many of the world’s top orchestras. CATAMORPHOSIS was premiered by the Berlin Philharmonic and Kirill Petrenko in January 2021, following the orchestra’s European premiere of METACOSMOS with Alan Gilbert in 2019. CATAMORPHOSIS received its UK premiere by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Ludovic Morlot in June 2022, with the US premiere with the New York Philharmonic and Santtu-Matias Rouvali taking place in January 2023. ARCHORA - the latest addition to Anna’s “ever-growing and ever more essential catalogue of orchestral pieces” (BBC Radio 3) - was premiered at the BBC Proms in August 2022, by the BBC Philharmonic and Eva Ollikainen. The work received its US premiere with the LA Philharmonic and Eva Ollikainen in May 2023. And “while [she] has made the symphony orchestra her own,” according to Gramophone magazine, “her chamber music is cut from the same cloth and somehow sounds with much the same combination of immensity and intimacy.” Anna’s recent string quartet Enigma was recorded and released by Sono Luminus in August 2021, performed by the Spektral Quartet, and was one of the New York Times’s recordings of the year (“a masterly entrance to the genre”). Portrait albums with Anna’s works have appeared on Deutsche Grammophon, Sono Luminus, and Innova.

Anna’s music is widely performed internationally and has been commissioned by many of the world’s leading orchestras, ensembles, and arts organizations – such as the Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, International Contemporary Ensemble, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Danish String Quartet, BBC Proms, and Carnegie Hall. Among the many other orchestras and ensembles that have performed her music include the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Quatuor Bozzini, BBC Singers, The Crossing, the Bavarian Radio Choir, Münchener Kammerorchester, Avanti Chamber Ensemble, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, and Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

Portrait concerts with Anna’s music have been featured at several major venues and music festivals, including Wigmore Hall, Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival in NYC, London’s Spitalfields Music Festival, Münchener Kammerorchester’s Nachtmusic der Moderne series, the Composer Portraits Series at NYC’s Miller Theatre, the Leading International Composers series at the Phillips Collection in Washington DC, Knoxville’s Big Ears Festival, Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, Brooklyn’s National Sawdust, and Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra’s Point Festival. Other prominent venues and festivals include the BBC Proms, Aldeburgh Festival, London’s Royal Opera House, Southbank Centre, Lucerne Festival, Tanglewood Music Festival, Darmstadt Summer Course, Pierre Boulez Saal Berlin, ISCM World Music Days, Nordic Music Days, Ultima Festival, Beijing Modern Music Festival, Reykjavik Arts Festival, Tectonics, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Helsinki’s Musica Nova Festival, and the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. 

Anna is currently based in the London area. She regularly teaches and gives presentations on composition, in academic settings, as part of residencies, and in private lessons. Invited lectures and presentations include Stanford, Columbia, Cornell, NYU, Northwestern, University of Chicago, Sibelius Academy, and the Royal Academy of Music in London. Anna is currently Composer-in-Residence with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra - in 2023, she is also in residence at the Aldeburgh Festival and at the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music. She holds a PhD (2011) from the University of California in San Diego.

For more information: www.annathorvalds.com

Jan. 12-13: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein is Soloist with the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra Performing Concertos of J.S. Bach and Philip Glass Conducted by Michael Butterman

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

GRAMMY-nominated Pianist Simone Dinnerstein performs as Soloist with the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra

In the Piano Concertos of J.S. Bach and Philip Glass
Conducted by Michael Butterman

Friday, January 12, 2024 at 7:30pm
Saturday, January 13, 2024 at 2:30pm
Saturday, January 13, 2024 at 7:30pm

Gardner Theatre in Lancaster Country Day School
725 Hamilton Rd. | Lancaster, PA

Tickets: www.lancastersymphony.org/concert-calendar/bach-and-glass

“an utterly distinctive voice in the forest of Bach interpretation”
– The New York Times

www.simonedinnerstein.com | www.brooklynorchestra.org

Lancaster, PA – 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 Lancaster Symphony Orchestra in three performances on Friday, January 12 at 7:30pm, Saturday, January 13, at 2:30pm, and Saturday January 13 at 7:30pm. All three concerts will be held at Gardner Theatre in Lancaster Country Day School (725 Hamilton Rd.).

Dinnerstein, who is heralded for her distinctive musical voice and commitment to sharing classical music with everyone and known for her adventurous artistic instincts, will perform two piano concertos as part of this program. Dinnerstein’s selections will reflect not only a notable contrast in historical placement but will nod to two very different composers –– J.S. Bach and Philip Glass –– Bach’s Concerto for Harpsichord No 2 in E major, BWV 1053 and Philip Glass’s seldom performed “Tirol” Concerto No. 1 for piano and orchestra. Additionally, the program will also include Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night (version 1943). The performance will be conducted by Michael Butterman and a free, 25-minute, pre-concert talk will be held one hour before each performance.

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. Recognized and celebrated for her appreciation of J.S. Bach’s work, she is, wrote The New York Times, “a unique voice in the forest of Bach interpretation.” Much further down the timeline of history from Bach, the music of Philip Glass is of equal intrigue and passion to Dinnerstein –– earning praise from critics and even Glass himself, who has written music for specifically for her. The Philadelphia Inquirer has said of Dinnerstein’s live performance of Bach and Glass: “Bach and Glass are about patterns and formal structure. Within the rigor, though, Simone Dinnerstein found a great deal of joy and liberation.” Of her approach to Glass’s work, EarRelevent writes that Dinnerstein has “a great affinity for the composer’s music.”

On reuniting with conductor Michael Butterman and performing this engaging, two concerto program with the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra for her first concerts of 2024, Dinnerstein says:

It is always a joy to collaborate with my dear friend, Michael Butterman. Michael has the most natural and fluid approach to interpretation, both of which lend themselves particularly well to the music of Bach and Glass. And this will be my first time performing with the musicians of the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra, so I am looking forward to meeting them!

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 Lancaster Symphony Orchestra: The LSO is a non-profit organization governed by a board of community volunteers and managed by a professional staff. The LSO gratefully acknowledges support from Godfrey, Barley Snyder, Willow Valley, Hershey, Ephrata National Bank, Tiger’s Eye, the Holiday Inn Lancaster, and UPMC, along with donations from hundreds of corporate and private benefactors which underwrite the Symphony’s invaluable contribution to the quality of life in South-Central Pennsylvania. To learn more about the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra, please visit www.lancastersymphony.org.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New York Times as “an utterly distinctive voice in the forest of Bach interpretation,” is presented as the featured guest soloist with The Lancaster Symphony Orchestra in a performance led by Michael Butterman. Dinnerstein, who is known for her appreciation of and skill with the music of both Bach and Philip Glass, will perform two concertos as part of the evening’s program: Bach’s Concerto for Harpsichord No 2 in E major, BWV 1053 and Philip Glass’s “Tirol” Concerto No. 1 for piano and orchestra. Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night (version 1943) will also be included in the performance.

Short Description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described as “an utterly distinctive voice in the forest of Bach interpretation,” (The New York Times) is presented as the featured soloist in concert with The Lancaster Symphony Orchestra led by Michael Butterman, in a concert that will feature Dinnerstein performing Bach’s Concerto for Harpsichord No 2 in E major, BWV 1053 and Philip Glass’s “Tirol” Concerto No. 1. The performance will also include Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night (version 1943).

Concert details:
Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
Presented by the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Michael Butterman
What: Music by J.S. Bach, Schoenberg, and Philip Glass
When: Friday, January 12 at 7:30pm and January 13, 2024 at 2:30pm and 7:30pm.
Where: Gardner Theatre in Lancaster Country Day School, 725 Hamilton Rd., Lancaster, PA 17603
Tickets and information: www.lancastersymphony.org/concert-calendar/bach-and-glass

GatherNYC concerts continue with Joe Lovano & The Overlook, 9 Horses & Jacob Jolliff, Brandon Patrick George & Parker Ramsay, Duo Kayo 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

Coming Up Next in December, January, February:
DEC 17 • Project Trio
JAN 7 • 9 Horses + Jacob Jolliff (mandolin)
JAN 21 • Parker Ramsay (harp) + Brandon Patrick George (flute)
FEB 4 • Joe Lovano* + Douglas J Cuomo + The Overlook: Seven Limbs
FEB 18 • Duo Kayo
*newly added!

Spring 2024 Concerts:
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 five upcoming concerts in December, January and February. The season runs through May 2024, with concerts held every other Sunday at 11am in The Theater at MAD. Coffee and pastries are served before each performance at 10:30am.

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

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

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

Up next:

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.

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

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.

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

Jupiter Quartet Presented by Auditorium Chamber Music Series at The University of Idaho

The Jupiter String Quartet is Presented by
Auditorium Chamber Music Series at The University of Idaho

Performing Music by Michi Wiancko, Bela Bartók, and Ludwig van Beethoven

Thursday, January 25, 2024 at 7:30pm
University of Idaho Administration Auditorium
851 Campus Dr | Moscow, ID

Tickets and Information at
www.uidaho.edu/class/acms/concerts

“The Jupiter String Quartet, an ensemble of eloquent intensity, has matured into one of the mainstays of the American chamber-music scene.”
– The New Yorker

www.jupiterquartet.com

Moscow, ID – On Thursday, January 25, 2024 at 7:30pm, 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 the Auditorium Chamber Music Series at The University of Idaho. The performance will be held in the University of Idaho Administration Auditorium (851 Campus Drive).

The award-winning ensemble will perform an assortment of bold selections from the early 19th century through to the present day: Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 8 in E minor, Op. 59 No. 2. (1808), Bela Bartók’s String Quartet No. 6 (1939), and Michi Wiancko’s To Unpathed Waters, Undreamed Shores (2020) –– a work written specifically for the Jupiter Quartet, which was commissioned by Bay Chamber Concerts in partnership with the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts/University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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.

Of these three emotive works, which highlight notably different points of inspiration across several centuries, the Jupiter Quartet says:

“We are pleased to present three of our favorite dramatic works for the audience in Idaho—the timely “To Unpathed Waters, Undreamed Shores” by Michi Wiancko, which addresses topics related to climate change; the wonderful last quartet of Bela Bartok, which is full of both haunting beauty and biting sarcasm; and the volatile and electric Op. 59 No. 2 Quartet by Beethoven, with its sublimely transcendent slow movement.”

Beethoven’s epic eighth quartet, one of his “Razumovsky” String Quartets, is one of the many works he wrote during a time of immense political turmoil. Bartók’s sixth and final string quartet was also conceived during the second world war as he struggled to deal both with the turmoil in his homeland of Hungary and his mother’s acute illness. He eventually fled to the United States after his mother’s death.

Michi Wiancko’s Unpathed Waters, Undreamed Shores was written for the Jupiter Quartet and is a response to climate change. Over the work’s seven movements, Wiancko traverses a broad spectrum of emotional depth: the joy of curiosity around nature’s complexity, mourning the ongoing struggles of those most in need, urgency in the face of increasing environmental crises, and an energized call for positive change through humanity’s collective bond.

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 the Auditorium Chamber Music Series: Since 1986, the Auditorium Chamber Music Series has presented some of the world's finest small ensembles in the beautiful neo-gothic auditorium in the heart of the University of Idaho campus. Four ensembles visit the Palouse each year, performing for the series and enriching the region through school residencies, informal performances in community venues and master classes. The Auditorium Series embraces a wide variety of types and styles of ensemble, from string quartets to eight-voice a cappella choirs to ethnic improvisational ensembles. The same great ensembles that audiences from New York to Seattle flock to hear — the Beaux Arts Trio, Masters of Persian Music, Kronos Quartet, Chanticleer, eighth blackbird and the Chamber Orchestra Kremlin — have all graced the Auditorium Chamber Music Series.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: The Jupiter Quartet, described by The New Yorker as an ensemble of “technical finesse and rare expressive maturity,” is presented by Auditorium Chamber Music Series at The University of Idaho for a performance in the University of Idaho Administration Auditorium (851 Campus Drive). The Jupiter Quartet will perform a diverse program featuring one of Beethoven’s “Razumovsky” String Quartets (No. 8 in E minor, Op. 52 No. 2), as well as Michi Wiancko’s To Unpathed Waters, Undreamed Shores, and Bela Bartók’s String Quartet No. 6.

Short description: The Jupiter Quartet, an ensemble of “technical finesse and rare expressive maturity” (The New Yorker), is presented by the Auditorium Chamber Music Series at the University of Idaho for a performance featuring the music of Michi Wiancko, Bela Bartók, and Ludwig van Beethoven.

Concert details:

Who: Jupiter String Quartet
Presented by Auditorium Chamber Music Series at University of Idaho
What: Music by Michi Wiancko, Bela Bartók, and Ludwig van Beethoven
When: Thursday, January 25, 2024 at 7:30pm.
Where: University of Idaho Administration Auditorium, 851 Campus Drive, Moscow, ID
Tickets and information: www.uitickets.com