New Music in the Kaplan Penthouse - November 5, 2015

David Finckel and Wu Han, Artistic Directors

NEW MUSIC IN THE KAPLAN PENTHOUSE Thursday Evening, November 5, 2015 at 7:30 Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse 3,489th Concert

MICHAEL BROWN, piano NICHOLAS CANELLAKIS, cello SOOYUN KIM, flute JAMES AUSTIN SMITH, oboe JOSE FRANCH-BALLESTER, clarinet MARC GOLDBERG, bassoon ERIC REED, horn

2015-2016 Season

The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center 70 Lincoln Center Plaza, 10th Floor New York, NY 10023 212-875-5788 www.ChamberMusicSociety.org

Thanks to Millbrook Vineyards & Winery, official wine sponsor of Kaplan Penthouse Concerts.

This concert is made possible, in part, by The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, the Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation, and the Aaron Copland Fund for Music.

NEW MUSIC IN THE KAPLAN PENTHOUSE Thursday Evening, November 5, 2015 at 7:30 MICHAEL BROWN, piano NICHOLAS CANELLAKIS, cello SOOYUN KIM, flute JAMES AUSTIN SMITH, oboe JOSE FRANCH-BALLESTER, clarinet MARC GOLDBERG, bassoon ERIC REED, horn

GEORGE PERLE (1915-2009)

Selections from Six Celebratory Inventions for Piano (1981-95) For Ernst Krenek at 85 For Gunther Schuller at 70 For Leonard Bernstein at 70 BROWN

JONATHAN HARVEY (1939-2012)

Nataraja for Piccolo/Flute and Piano (1983) KIM, BROWN

PAUL LANSKY (b. 1944)

The Long and Short of It for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, and Horn (CMS Co-commission, New York premiere) (2014-15) Prelude (Flute) Braided Counterpoint Interlude I (Bassoon) The Joy of B-flat Minor Interlude II (Oboe) Long Short Interlude III (Horn) LaDiDaDiDaDa DiDaDaDiDa DiDa Postlude (Clarinet) KIM, SMITH, FRANCH-BALLESTER, GOLDBERG, REED

—INTERMISSION— Please turn off cell phones, pagers, and other electronic devices.

Photographing, sound recording, or videotaping this performance is prohibited.

This evening’s performance is being streamed live at www.ChamberMusicSociety.org/WatchLive, and is being recorded for future broadcast.

...program continued...

ANDREW NORMAN (b. 1979)

Garden of Follies for Oboe and Piano (2006) Spandrels Crossed Paths Blue Mountain Thoughts The Fourth Act Regarding Crystals SMITH, BROWN

FRIEDRICH CERHA (b. 1926)

Five Pieces for Clarinet, Cello, and Piano (2000) I. Sehr ruhig II. = 108 III.  = 46 IV. Heftig V. Ruhig

FRANCH-BALLESTER, CANELLAKIS, BROWN

PERLE

Quintet No. 4 for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, and Horn (1984) Invention Scherzo Pastorale Finale KIM, SMITH, FRANCH-BALLESTER, GOLDBERG, REED

notes on the

PROGRAM

Selections from Six Celebratory Inventions for Piano George PERLE Born May 6, 1915 in Bayonne, New Jersey.

Died January 23, 2009 in New York City.

Composed in 1981-95.

Premiered January 17, 1997 in Boston by pianist Russell Sherman.

Tonight is the first CMS performance of this piece.

Duration: 6 minutes The Chamber Music Society is proud to be joining the centennial celebration of George Perle, who occupies a commanding position among American composers of our time. The recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, and an array of other major awards, Perle has received major commissions for significant works, among them Serenade III (1983) for solo piano and chamber orchestra, choreographed by American Ballet Theater and nominated for a Grammy Award for its 1986 Nonesuch recording; Piano Concerto No. 1 (1990), commissioned for Richard Goode during Perle’s residency with the San Francisco Symphony; Piano Concerto No. 2 (1992), commissioned by Michael Boriskin; Transcendental Modulations for Orchestra, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for its 150th anniversary; and Thirteen Dickinson Songs (1978) commissioned by Bethany Beardslee. Perle's compositions have figured on the programs of Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York

Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, BBC, and other major orchestras in the US and abroad. He was a frequent visiting composer at the Tanglewood Music Festival and composer-in-residence with the San Francisco Symphony.

Though Perle was above all a composer, the breadth of his musical interests led to significant contributions in theory and musicology as well. He published numerous articles in scholarly journals and seven books, including the awardwinning operas of Alban Berg. After graduation from DePaul University, where he studied composition with Wesley LaViolette, and subsequent private studies with Ernst Krenek, Perle served in the US Army during World War II. After the war, he took postgraduate work in musicology at New York University. His PhD thesis became his first book, Serial Composition and Atonality, now in its sixth edition.

Michael Brown writes, "Composed between 1981 and 1995, each of the Six Celebratory Inventions marks a milestone birthday for one of Perle’s composing friends. The first celebrates the 85th birthday of Perle’s teacher, Ernst Krenek, and features imitative and rapid chromatic scale-like gestures. For Gunther Schuller at 70 is plaintive and reflective. For Leonard Bernstein’s 70th birthday, Perle begins his invention with the same jazzy subject that Bernstein used in one of his own Anniversaries for piano which Perle infuses with a rhythmic and contrapuntal expansion of  the original."

Nataraja for Piccolo/Flute and Piano Jonathan HARVEY Born May 3, 1939 in Sutton Coldfield, England.

Died December 4, 2012 in Lewes, England.

Composed in 1983.

Premiered on April 20, 1984 in Lewes, England by flutist Philippa Davies and pianist Julian Jacobson.

Tonight is the first CMS performance of this piece.

Duration: 8 minutes British composer Jonathan Harvey's music integrates a broad sense of spirituality with a rigorous compositional technique (he studied with Milton Babbitt and Schoenberg champions Erwin Stein and Hans Keller). An invitation from Boulez to work at IRCAM in the early 1980s set the composer on a path that has influenced his whole career, and which resulted in two pieces for the Ensemble Intercontemporain; the celebrated tape piece Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco; Bhakti for ensemble and electronics; and String Quartet No. 4 with live electronics. Harvey also composed for most other genres: orchestra (including Tranquil Abiding, White as Jasmine, and Madonna of Winter and Spring— the latter performed by the Berliner Philharmoniker and Simon Rattle in 2006), chamber (four string quartets,

Soleil Noir/Chitra, and Death of Light, Light of Death) as well as works for solo instruments. He also wrote many widely-performed unaccompanied works for choir and three operas— Passion and Resurrection, Inquest of Love, and Wagner Dream. The BBC marked its appreciation of Harvey’s international standing in 2012 with a weekend dedicated to his music at the Barbican. His two books, on inspiration and spirituality, were published in 1999. Harvey was a chorister at St Michael’s College, Tenbury and later gained doctorates from the universities of Glasgow and Cambridge. He was a professor at Sussex University between 1977 and 1993 and between 1995 and 2000 he taught at Stanford University.

He wrote: "Nataraja was commissioned by the Nicholas Yonge Society.

Nataraja is the name given to Shiva in his aspect as the four-armed dancer whose movements created and destroy matter throughout eternity. His image was the starting point of this piece, which was composed in 1983. The outer sections are characterized by dancing rhythms; they frame a middle section in which a more tranquil melody winds through static harmonies, though there is a suggestion of the flames which encircle the god in one more energetic moment." 

The Long and Short of It for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, and Horn Paul LANSKY Born June 18, 1944 in New York City.

Composed in 2014-15.

Premiered on October 24, 2015 at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC by Windsync (flutist Garrett Hudson, oboist Emily Tsai, clarinetist Jack Marquardt, bassoonist Tracy Jacobson, and hornist Anni Hochhalter).

Tonight is the New York premiere of this piece.

Commissioned by The Library of Congress' Carolyn Royall Just Fund and The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Duration: 25 minutes Paul Lansky is one of the pioneers of computer music but in recent years he has been turning his attention to instrumental music. Recent works include Ricercare Plus for string quartet, written for the Brentano Quartet, With the Grain, a guitar concerto written for David Starobin, Shapeshifters, for two pianos and orchestra (for Quattro Mani), Etudes and Parodies (horn, violin, and piano) for Bill Purvis (winner of the 2005 International Horn Society competition) Threads, written for Sō Percussion, and Travel Diary, commissioned by the Meehan/Perkins Duo. He has recently been writing orchestral music and was composer in residence with the Alabama Symphony in 2009-10. His orchestral work Imaginary Islands, commissioned by that group, was premiered in May 2010. A CD of his orchestral music was

released on Bridge Records in 2012.

Originally a horn player he played with the Dorian Wind Quintet during 1966-67. In 1969 he joined the faculty at Princeton University, where he is now William Shubael Conant Professor of Music Emeritus. He received his bachelor’s degree from Queens College, where he studied harmony, counterpoint, and composition with George Perle, and his doctorate from Princeton University, where he worked with Milton Babbitt and Earl Kim. While at Princeton, he sent Perle a letter about compositional theory that sparked a lively creative collaboration in the late 1960s and early 70s. The discoveries and insights they had eventually led to Perle’s book Twelve-Tone Tonality and inspired a number of Perle’s works.

Lansky wrote: "The Long and Short of It was inspired by the third movement, Adagio, of Mozart's Serenade for Winds, K. 361. I've long felt that the throbbing accompaniment was the ultimate expression of breath in music. Nothing else quite captures the same sense of wind instruments inhaling and exhaling as only winds can. The work consists of nine movements: a Prelude, a Postlude, and three short Interludes, each consisting of Mozart's rhythm accompanying a solo for a different instrument in the quintet.

There are four short main movements, each of which is more abstractly 'about' a musical concept: rhythm, harmony, counterpoint." 

Garden of Follies for Oboe and Piano Andrew NORMAN Born October 31, 1979 in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Composed in 2006.

Tonight is the first CMS performance of this piece.

Duration: 12 minutes A lifelong enthusiast for all things architectural, Andrew Norman writes music that is often inspired by forms and textures he encounters in the visual world. His symphonic works, often noted for their clarity, physicality, and wit, have been performed by leading orchestras worldwide, including the Los Angeles and New York Philharmonics, the Philadelphia and Minnesota Orchestras, the BBC, Seattle, and St. Louis Symphonies, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and the Tonhalle Orchester Zurich. He is the recipient of the 2005 ASCAP Nissim Prize, the 2006 Rome Prize, the 2009 Berlin Prize, and in 2012 his string trio The Companion Guide to Rome was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in music. He has served as composer in residence for Young Concert Artists, the Heidelberg Philharmonic, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and he currently holds that post with both the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and Opera Philadelphia. The newly appointed director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Composer Fellowship Program, he is writing a work for

the orchestra that will premiere in the spring. This season also sees the premieres of new concertos for pianist Jeffrey Kahane and the New York Philharmonic and percussionist Colin Currie and the Utah Symphony. He lives in Los Angeles and teaches at the USC Thornton School of Music. His works are published by Schott.

Garden of Follies was originally written for saxophone and piano; Andrew Norman created this version for James Austin Smith earlier this year. The composer wrote: "The title of this work makes use of the term "follies" in its very specific, architectural sense. A folly is any small, purposeless structure— often a garden pavilion—built in an extravagant, fanciful, or exotic style.

These five pieces...are musical follies first in the sense that they are all miniatures, and second in the sense that each is wrought in its own unique and—given the recent trajectory of my work—exotic style. I made no attempt to unify them as a set, and they share nothing in common except perhaps an extravagant disunity with one another.

"But there is another sense in which these pieces are follies. I found most all of the raw musical material for this work in my discarded sketches of the recent past. I am happy that this material, once judged unsuitable to build more imposing musical structures, has found a home in this collection of miniatures." 

Five Pieces for Clarinet, Cello, and Piano Friedrich CERHA Born February 17, 1926 in Vienna.

Composed in 1999-2000.

Premiered on November 18, 2001 in Vienna by clarinetist Paul Meyer, cellist Heinrich Schiff, and pianist Alexander Lonquich.

Tonight is the first CMS performance of this piece.

Duration: 17 minutes Friedrich Cerha has long been considered one of the most important contemporary Austrian composers.

His profound impact on Austria music began in 1958, when he founded the influential new music ensemble die reihe, which he directed for decades.

In 1960 and 1961, he composed a work that became central to his compositional output—the large-scale orchestral cycle Spiegel, which explored sound blocks in new ways. In 1979, he completed the orchestration of Berg’s Lulu, for which he gained international attention.

He has spent much of his career delving into various 20th century musical styles, such as twelve-tone technique, neoclassicism, and serial music. He has also maintained an interest in replicable emotional developments, which permeate both his orchestral and chamber works. In the late 1970s, Cerha became interested in Bertolt Brecht’s Baal and produced a work of the same name that grappled with the relationship between the individual and society. This work was followed by Der Rattenfänger (1984-86) and Der Riese vom Steinfeld (1997). In 2011, for the

composer’s 85th birthday, the Salzburg Biennial and the Wien Modern Festival celebrated his music and this season Wigmore Hall held a Cerha Day, in honor of his upcoming 90th birthday, that saw the premiere of Piccola Commèdia for bassoon, oboe, trumpet, viola, and percussion. Other recent premieres include the comic opera Onkel Präsident in 2013. Cerha taught at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna until 1988 and is a recipient of the Grand Austrian State Prize, a member of the European Academy of Arts and Sciences, an officer of the Order of Arts and Letters, and winner of the 2012 Ernst von Siemens Music Prize.

The Venice Biennale awarded him the Golden Lion for his life’s work in 2006.

Cerha wrote: "Heinrich Schiff often gave to me the inspiration for different types of compositions. Five Pieces was an homage at the occasion of his 50th birthday. It is not just a stringing together of movements, but a real cycle. Movements 1, 3, and 5 are in a slow tempo, numbers 2 and 4 are fast.

Piece no. 1 sets moving octaves in the piano against the other two instruments.

The linking element for the three instruments is a small ff-phrase in the middle section. The second piece starts and ends with an aggressive piano section and complementary sixteenthnote quintuplets of clarinet and cello that embrace a middle section: a pppresto in contrasting 6/8 meter. The character of the third piece brings dark colors into the work. The elements are two rapid phrases and a choralelike forte-section. The impetuous and fast piece no. 4 contrasts—like piece

no. 2—different types of complementary motion. The final piece is very slow.

There is a clarinet line, contrasted by a wailing, often repeated glissandolamento-phrase of the cello. In the

middle section there is a chorale episode reminiscent of piece no. 3. At the end an insistent quarter-note figure reaches a fff-climax followed by a slow fade-out." 

Quintet No. 4 for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, and Horn George PERLE Composed in 1984.

Premiered October 2, 1985 in New York City by the Dorian Wind Quintet.

Tonight is the first CMS performance of this piece.

Duration: 20 minutes George Perle’s Fourth Wind Quintet was composed in 1984, premiered in 1985, and won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1986. The panel, consisting of composer Leon Kirchner, composer William Schuman, and music critic Martin Bernheimer, wrote, "The work is characterized by an elegant individuality of craft. In four contrasting movements, Perle reveals an engaging delicacy of nuance and clarity of form." Widely recognized as an extremely influential theorist, and expert on the music of Alban Berg, Perle enjoyed increasing recognition for his own compositions later in his career. A few months after

winning the Pulitzer, Perle was awarded a $300,000 MacArthur Foundation Grant; he also received a Grammy nomination that year. These awards marked a trend of increased exposure for Perle’s music that continued for the rest of his life.

The Fourth Wind Quintet was Perle’s only wind quintet to be fully written in twelve-tone tonality, his unique compositional language which combines elements of serialism and tonality. Describing the piece, Perle said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times: "The title of the first movement, Invention, was suggested by Bach of course, but it departs from the Bach model in its continual change of texture and in the frequent interpolation of purely chordal progressions." The other three movements are also based on traditional forms—the Scherzo is playful and has a carnival-like quality, the Pastorale is calmly serene, and the last movement is a delightful, lighthearted Finale. 

meet tonight’s

ARTISTS

Winner of a 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Michael Brown has been described by the New York Times as a “young piano visionary” and “one of the leading figures in the current renaissance of performer-composers.” His recent schedule includes debuts with the Seattle and Maryland symphony orchestras, a Carnegie Hall Stern Auditorium debut with the New York Youth Symphony, and recitals at Wigmore Hall, the Louvre, Alice Tully Hall, and Weill Hall.

Recent commissions of his own compositions include a piano concerto for the Maryland Symphony Orchestra and works for the Look & Listen Festival, Bargemusic, and the Stecher and Horowitz Foundation. His compositions have been performed at Tanglewood, Ravinia, and Chamber Music Northwest, and in such venues as the Kennedy Center, (Le) Poisson Rouge, and SubCulture.

He has recorded several albums, including an all-George Perle CD for Bridge Records and a solo album for CAG Records. Recordings with pianist Jerome Lowenthal, cellist Nicholas Canellakis, and violinist Elena Urioste are all scheduled for release in 2015. A native New Yorker, Mr. Brown earned dual bachelor’s and master’s degrees in piano and composition from The Juilliard School, where he studied with pianists Jerome Lowenthal and Robert McDonald and composers Samuel Adler and Robert Beaser. He is the first prize winner of the 2010 Concert Artists Guild Competition and was recently appointed adjunct assistant professor of piano at Brooklyn College. He is a Steinway Artist and a member of Chamber Music Society Two. Hailed as a “superb young soloist” (The New Yorker), Nicholas Canellakis has become one of the most sought-after and innovative cellists of his generation, captivating audiences throughout the United States and abroad. In the New York Times his playing was praised as “impassioned” and “soulful,” with “the audience seduced by Mr. Canellakis's rich, alluring tone.” In the spring of 2015 he made his Carnegie Hall concerto debut, performing Leon Kirchner’s Music for Cello and Orchestra with the American Symphony Orchestra in Isaac Stern Auditorium. A former member of CMS Two, he performs regularly with the Chamber Music Society in Alice Tully Hall and on tour. He performs numerous recitals throughout the country each season with his duo partner, pianist/composer Michael Brown, and has been a guest artist at many of the world's leading music festivals, including Santa Fe, La Jolla, Music@Menlo, Ravinia, Bridgehampton, Verbier, Mecklenburg, Moab, and Bowdoin. He is also the co-artistic director of the Sedona Winter MusicFest in Arizona. He is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and New England Conservatory, where his teachers included Orlando Cole, Peter Wiley, and Paul Katz. He is on the faculty of the Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music. Filmmaking is a special interest of Mr. Canellakis. He has produced, directed, and starred in several short films and music videos, including his popular comedy web series “Conversations with Nick Canellakis.”

Clarinetist Jose Franch-Ballester is a captivating performer of “poetic eloquence” (The New York Sun) and “technical wizardry” (New York Times).

He plays regularly at the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, the Saratoga Chamber Music Festival, the Skaneateles Festival, Camerata Pacifica, and Music from Angel Fire. He has also appeared at the Usedomer Musikfestival in Germany, the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, the Cartagena Festival Internacional de Música in Colombia, and the Young Concert Artists Festival in Tokyo, Japan. As a soloist, he has appeared with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Santa Barbara Orchestra, and numerous Spanish orchestras. Winner of the 2004 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, he was presented in debut recitals in New York and in Washington, DC at the Kennedy Center. In 2008, he won a coveted Avery Fisher Career Grant. He was awarded the Cannes’ Midem Prize, which aims to introduce artists to the classical recording industry. With the Chamber Music Society, he has recorded Bartók’s Contrasts on the Deutsche Grammophon label. Born in Moncofa, Spain into a family of clarinetists and Zarzuela singers, Mr. Franch-Ballester graduated from the Joaquin Rodrigo Music Conservatory. He earned a bachelor’s degree from The Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Donald Montanaro and Pamela Frank. He is a former member of Chamber Music Society Two. A member of the New York Woodwind Quintet, Marc Goldberg is principal bassoonist of Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, the American Ballet Theater, the NYC Opera Orchestra, the Riverside Symphony, and a member of the American Symphony Orchestra. Previously the associate principal bassoonist with the New York Philharmonic, he has also been a frequent guest of the Metropolitan Opera, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and Orpheus, touring with these ensembles across four continents and joining them on numerous recordings. Solo appearances include performances throughout the US, in South America, and across the Pacific Rim with the Brandenburg Ensemble, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra, Jupiter Symphony, New York Chamber Soloists, and the New York Symphonic Ensemble. He has been a guest of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Da Camera Society of Houston, the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, Musicians from Marlboro, Music@Menlo, the Brentano Quartet, Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Band, and the Boston Chamber Music Society.

He has appeared at the summer festivals of Spoleto, Ravinia, Chautauqua, Tanglewood, Caramoor, Saito Kinen, and Marlboro, and has been associated with the Bard Music Festival since its inception. He is on the faculty of The Juilliard School Pre-College Division, Mannes College, The Hartt School, Bard College Conservatory of Music, and New York University.

Praised as “A rare virtuoso of the flute” by Libération, Sooyun Kim has established herself as one of the rare flute soloists in the classical music scene.

Since her concerto debut with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra at age ten, she has enjoyed a flourishing career performing with orchestras around the world including the Bavarian Radio, Munich Philharmonic, Munich Chamber, and Boston Pops orchestras. She has been presented in recital series worldwide in Budapest, Paris, Munich, Kobe, Helsinki, Stockholm, the Algarve in Portugal, and Seoul; and at the Gardner Museum, Kennedy Center, and Carnegie and Jordan halls. Her European debut recital at the Louvre was streamed live on medici.tv to great acclaim. This season’s highlights include orchestral appearances with the Glacier Symphony, Kobe City Chamber, and Amadeus Festival orchestras performing concertos of Christopher Rouse, Mercadante, and Mozart. Also, as a member of ThirdSound, she will perform music of American composers at the Havana Contemporary Music Festival in Cuba. A winner of the Georg Solti Foundation Career Grant, Ms. Kim has received numerous international awards and prizes including the third prize at the ARD International Flute Competition. An avid chamber musician, her summer appearances include the Music@Menlo, Spoleto USA, Yellow Barn, Rockport, Olympic, and Chamber Music Northwest festivals. A former member of CMS Two, she studied at the New England Conservatory under the tutelage of Paula Robison. Ms. Kim performs on Verne Q. Powell Flutes.

Hornist Eric Reed has appeared as a soloist, chamber musician, and educator throughout North and South America, Australia, Europe, and Asia. He is the newest member of the American Brass Quintet, joining the venerable ensemble in its 54th season in 2014. He performs regularly with the Orchestra of St. Luke's, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Burning River Brass, and the International Contemporary Ensemble. He was previously a member of the Canadian Brass, Harrisburg Symphony, Ensemble ACJW, and Spectrum Brass. Among his Broadway credits are Les Misérables, Cinderella, and the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. He was also a member of the Oregon Symphony and New World Symphony, and has performed with the New York Philharmonic, New York City Opera, Kansas City Symphony, Sarasota Symphony, and Florida Orchestra.

He has appeared as faculty and guest artist of the Aspen Music Festival and School, Music Academy of the West, Pacific Music Festival, and Round Top Festival Institute, and was a fellow at Tanglewood, where he was awarded the Harry Shapiro Award for outstanding brass playing. Mr. Reed is on the faculty of The Juilliard School, where he earned a Master of Music degree in 2008.

He holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Rice University. He resides in New York City with his wife, violinist Sarah Zun.

Praised for his “virtuosic,” “dazzling,” and “brilliant” performances (New York Times) and his “bold, keen sound” (The New Yorker), oboist James Austin Smith performs equal parts new and old music across the United States and around the world. Mr. Smith is an artist of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) and Talea as well as co-artistic director of Decoda, the Affiliate Ensemble of Carnegie Hall. He is a member of the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music and Purchase College and is co-artistic director of Tertulia, a chamber music series that takes place in restaurants in New York and San Francisco.

His festival appearances include Marlboro, Music@Menlo, Lucerne, Chamber Music Northwest, Schleswig-Holstein, Stellenbosch, Bay Chamber Concerts, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and Spoleto USA; he has performed with the St. Lawrence, Orion, and Parker string quartets and recorded for the Nonesuch, Bridge, Mode, and Kairos labels. His debut solo recording Distance was released in early 2015 on South Africa's TwoPianists Record Label. Mr. Smith holds a Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music and Bachelors of Arts (Political Science) and Music degrees from Northwestern University.

He spent a year as a Fulbright Scholar at the Mendelssohn Conservatory in Leipzig, Germany and is an alumnus of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble ACJW. Mr. Smith’s principal teachers are Stephen Taylor, Christian Wetzel, Humbert Lucarelli, and Ray Still.

upcoming

EVENTS

CHANNEL CROSSING: MUSIC OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE

Tuesday, November 10, 7:30 PM • Alice Tully Hall Explore musical connections that cross the English Channel. The music of Purcell begins this journey of influence from the Baroque to the present day.

THE NIELSEN CYCLE

Thursday, November 12, 7:30 PM • Daniel and Joanna S. Rose Studio Performed by the Danish String Quartet.

Streamed live at www.ChamberMusicSociety.org/watchlive

THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE VIOLIN

Sunday, November 15, 5:00 PM • Alice Tully Hall Experience a program that celebrates the zenith of the expressive violin style epitomized by the legendary Fritz Kreisler.

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