2023 GLCMF Program Book

30th Anniversary: Turning Points

JUNE 10 - 24 | 2023

Welcome to the 2023 Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival!

This year’s festival marks our 30th season, and in recognition of this milestone, I am delighted to offer you a program which is celebratory, eclectic and, at times, deeply personal to me.

I am writing this letter at home, in New York, looking out at an imposing larch tree, which overshadows our house and is just beginning to show its young spring leaves. Almost exactly 10 years ago, our family prepared to leave our life in London and begin a new chapter in the United States. As winter turned to spring in the UK, I think we were all aware that we were at a turning point. Moving to another country with my wife and young daughters has certainly been one of the most significant events I have experienced and has taken me in unanticipated directions. I knew that I was going to replace David Finckel as cellist of the Emerson String Quartet, but beyond that I did not know what to expect. One of the happiest surprises that came shortly after our arrival was an invitation from Maury Okun and Michael Morin to lead the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, following James Tocco’s retirement. I could never have imagined such an opportunity, but after 9 years as Artistic Director, I can’t believe my luck.

Please forgive me for waxing nostalgic, but I wanted to share with you the inspiration for this year’s theme, Turning Points. I am at a moment of looking forward and looking back. In this season, I look forward to new collaborations, and look back on my life-changing time with the Emerson String Quartet. The extraordinary roster of artists that we have gathered together is too lengthy to list here – just leaf through the program book and you will discover a feast of musicians, all of whom I am thrilled to welcome to the festival.

I extend my thanks, respect and enormous admiration to all of you who have supported the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival and enabled it to flourish over the last 30 years.

Warmly,

Paul Watkins Artistic Director

Artistic Director

Paul Watkins

Artistic Director emeritus

James Tocco

shouse institute Director

Philip Setzer

chAirs

Virginia & Michael Geheb, Board Chairs

Marguerite Munson Lentz

Janelle McCammon & Raymond Rosenfeld

BoArD of Directors

Kathleen Block

Nicole Braddock

Cathleen Corken

Christine Goerke

Robert D. Heuer

Michael Leib

Judith Greenstone Miller

Gail & Ira Mondry

Bridget & Michael Morin

Frederick Morsches & Kareem George

Sandi & Claude Reitelman

Randolph Schein

Franziska Schoenfeld

Lauren Smith

Jill & Steven Stone

Rev. Msgr. Anthony Tocco

Michael Turala

Gwen & S. Evan Weiner

ex-officio memBers

Cantor Rachel Gottlieb Kalmowitz

Rabbi Mark Miller

Maury Okun

trustee ADvisory committee

Cecilia Benner

Linda & Maurice Binkow

Cindy & Harold Daitch

Lillian Dean

Nathalie Doucet

Afa Dworkin

Adrienne & Herschel Fink

Jackie Paige-Fischer & David Fischer

Barbara & Paul Goodman

Barbara Heller

Fay B. Herman

William Hulsker

Rayna Kogan

Martha Pleiss

Kristin Ross

Marc Schwartz

Josette Silver

Isabel & Lawrence Smith

Kimberley & Victor Talia

James Tocco

Beverly & Barry Williams

stAff Administration

Maury Okun, President & CEO

Jennifer Laredo Watkins, Director of Artistic Planning

Community Engagement

Jainelle Robinson, Community Engagement Officer

Development

Jocelyn (Zelasko) Conselva, Development Officer

Priya Mohan, Grants & Communications Manager

Gramm Drennen, Development & Patron Engagement Associate

Marketing

Bridget Favre, Director of Marketing

Rob Hall, Multimedia Marketing Associate

Sabrina Rosneck, Marketing Associate

Lauren Cichocki, Marketing Associate

Lei Min, Arts Administration Intern

Finance

Triet Huynh, Controller

Phuong Huynh, Finance Assistant

Operations

Chloe Tooson, Artistic Operations Manager

Lane Warren, Arts Administration Associate

Emily Mastenbrook, Arts Administration Intern

founDing memBers

Wendy & Howard Allenberg

Kathleen & Joseph Antonini

Toni & Corrado Bartoli

Margaret & William Beauregard

Nancy & Lee Browning

Nancy & Christopher Chaput

Julie & Peter Cummings

Aviva & Dean Friedman

Patricia & Robert Galacz

Rose & Joseph Genovesi

Elizabeth & James Graham

Susan & Graham Hartrick

Linda & Arnold Jacob

Rosemary Joliat

Penni & Larry LaBute

Emma & Michael Minasian

Beverly & Thomas Moore

Dolores & Michael Mutchler

Nancy & James Olin

Helen & Leo Peterson

Marianne & Alan Schwartz

Leslie Slatkin

Sandra & William Slowey

Wilda Tiffany

Rev. Msgr. Anthony Tocco

Debbie & John Tocco

Georgia & Gerald Valente

Thelma & Ganesh Vattyham

Nancy & Robert Vlasic

Gwen & S. Evan Weiner

Barbara & Gary Welsh

sPeciAL thAnKs to

Lynne Dorando Hans, Graphic Design

Peter Laki, Program Notes

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS AND FUNDERS OF THE 2023 GREAT LAKES CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL

senghor

reiD: EvEry Night DrEams 5

Artist statement: turning Points

“Focusing on gratitude, courage, and radical introspection has provided me with the space to expand the focus of my artistic practice and creativity. I often use my interactions with nature, specifically water, as a vehicle for reflection, healing, and restorative practice. Specifically using water as a subject matter often provides me with multiple pathways for attaining higher levels of personal awakening. Water is a turning point, a shapeshifter, always evolving out of itself and back into itself. It is still and in motion, reflective and transparent, pure, and polluted. I intend for the subsequent narrative created by my work to inspire viewers to willingly engage water and evoke consideration of it as a sacred treasure and catalyst for enlightenment. My goal is to provide a series of visual devices to facilitate the reintegration of our most important natural resource into our daily living and discourse.”

our mission

Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival brings together the world’s finest musicians to offer extraordinary musical performances and experiences. We celebrate, preserve and advance the intimate musical dialogue that is unique to chamber music through performance and education, enhancing the cultural environment of the Great Lakes Region for generations to come.

Burton A. Zipser & Sandra D. Zipser Foundation

Mary Thompson Foundation

Maxine & Stuart Frankel Foundation

Phillip & Elizabeth Filmer Memorial Charitable Trust

Wilda C. Tiffany Trust

SATurdAy, JuNE 10 | 7:30 pm

ADvEnturEs in HArMOny

Kerrytown Concert House

Sponsored by Pearl Planning

ALESSIO BAx, piano

TESSA LARK, violin

NATHAN STARK, bass-baritone

PELIA STRING QUARTET, Shouse ensemble

prOgrAm

Béla Bartók string Quartet no. 3, sz. 85 (1881-1945)

Prima parte: Moderato

Seconda parte: Allegro

Ricapitolazione della prima parte: Moderato

Coda: Allegro molto

Pelia String Quartet

Ludwig van Beethoven Der Kuß (The Kiss), Op. 128 (1770-1827) Die Ehre Gottes aus der Natur (The Glory of God in Nature) from Six Songs, Op. 48

Erlkönig (The Erl King), WoO 131 (based on Beethoven’s sketches and reconstructed by Cees Nieuwenhuizen)

Bax, Stark

franz schubert Der Atlas from Schwanengesang, D. 957 (1797-1828) Prometheus, D. 674

Bax, Stark

intErMissiOn

Alan hankers Elapse (WorLD Premiere) (b. 1992) Pelia String Quartet

césar franck sonata for violin and Piano in A major (1822-90)

Allegretto ben moderato

Allegro molto

Recitativo-Fantasia: Ben moderato

Allegretto poco mosso

Bax, Lark

prOgrAm NOTES

Béla

Bartók: string Quartet no. 3 (1927)

The third and fourth of Bartók’s six string quartets represent the acme of the composer’s modernism. At first hearing, the listener may well be engaged by the highly advanced harmonic and rhythmic idiom of these works. Yet the folk-music influence, so important in Bartók’s music, is never far from the surface. For all its “modernity,” the Third Quartet is full of references (some veiled, some more overt) to Hungarian folk music. Bartók’s strategy consists in using only one parameter of his sources at a time: he will either quote a typical pentatonic cadence from Hungarian folk music (G - C - A) without the rest of the tune, or use a melodic structure derived from folk music, but filled out by markedly non-folkloric pitch material. In this way, the traditional and non-traditional elements of his style are seamlessly fused.

The Third Quartet is in a single movement but is divided into four clearly demarcated segments. A slow Prima parte and a fast Seconda parte are followed by a varied recapitulation of Part I and a coda based on Part II. The Prima parte is a masterful example of “organic growth”: a complex and variegated movement arises from two or three tiny motifs that are themselves interrelated. One of the most important moments comes at the end of the section, where these tiny motifs coalesce into a long, pentatonic musical phrase (played by the second violin and the viola). The Seconda parte brings together a string of themes in various dance meters, both symmetrical and asymmetrical. The dance becomes more and more excited; the themes are developed in contrapuntal imitation, almost as if the dancers tripped over one another. The end of the section was best characterized by Hungarian musicologist János Kárpáti, in his book Bartók’s Chamber Music: “The composer’s ‘scalpel’ continues to strip off the thematic and motivic layers—penetrating right down to the ‘skeleton’ of the themes.” This is followed by the return of the slow tempo (Ricapitulazione della prima parte) in which the short motifs of the work’s opening are “reconfigured” to form a completely new musical entity. Finally, the Coda presents the main thematic material of the Seconda parte in a condensed version, culminating in a climactic ending. © 2023 Peter Laki

Ludwig van Beethoven: Der Kuß (1822); Die Ehre gottes aus der Natur (1803); Erlkönig (reconstruction by cees nieuwenhuizen, 2003)

franz schubert: Der atlas (1828); Prometheus (1819)

Even though they both lived in Vienna, Beethoven and Schubert moved in very different social circles and probably never met in person. Schubert only admired his older contemporary from afar. As for Beethoven, it is said that he read through some Schubert songs and was impressed. With his unique sensitivity to poetry, Schubert made the art song one of the central genres not only within his own oeuvre, but showed the way to the many great composers of Lieder who came after him. The song played a less crucial role for Beethoven, but he, too, made numerous important contributions to the song literature.

Tonight’s selections will begin with Der Kuß (“The Kiss”), a little story—not much more than a simple joke, really—by Christian Felix Weiße, who wrote everything from tragedies to children's books. The anecdote about the girl who protests, but not too much, could have fallen flat in the hands of a lesser composer. Yet Beethoven was able to turn even such a trifle into a delicious musical comedy sketch. As a complete

contrast, Die Ehre Gottes aus der Natur (“The Glory of God in Nature”) is one of a set of spiritual songs after Christian Fürchtegott Gellert, an 18th-century poet and moralist. Here Beethoven conveys the ineffable mysteries of divinity, using the simplest musical means possible. It is this awe before the heavenly powers which Beethoven expressed on a much larger scale in the last movement of the Ninth Symphony, at the moment where “the Cherub stands before God.”

The famous ballad Erlkönig by Goethe was set to music numerous times, most famously by the eighteen-year-old Schubert in 1815. It is not well known that Beethoven, too, attempted a setting, which he never finished. His draft, which probably dates from the years between 1805 and 1810, was first completed by Reinhold Becker, a German violinist and composer, at the end of the 19th century. Surprisingly, Béla Bartók orchestrated this version of Erlkönig, although his orchestration was never published. Yet Becker’s work was deemed unsatisfactory by many critics, so in 2003, Cees Nieuwenhuizen made a new version that is much closer to Beethoven’s spirit. The Dutch composer has been studying the minutest details of Beethoven’s way of writing for decades, and completed several of his unfinished works. This realization of Erlkönig allows us to see some characteristics Beethoven’s setting shares with Schubert’s, the most striking being the recitative at the end, where the child dies. Beethoven also highlighted the different speakers (narrator, father, child, the Erl King) by means of key changes, even if he did not do so as consistently as Schubert. Other times, Beethoven did not dramatize the story the way Schubert did, preferring to simply narrate it. (This interpretation is actually closer to Goethe’s original concept.)

The two Schubert selections are both intensely dramatic, portraying mythological characters enduring their tribulations with great strength and heroism. Der Atlas, one of six songs Schubert wrote on poems by the great Romantic Heinrich Heine, was published as part of the posthumous song cycle Schwanengesang (“Swan Song”). The song represents Atlas, the titan who was condemned to carry the entire world on his shoulders, and finds his suffering almost unbearable.

Prometheus, another titan who was punished by Zeus for stealing the fire from the gods and giving it to humankind, becomes, in Goethe’s retelling, a quintessential Romantic rebel who openly challenges divine authority. Schubert portrayed both heroes through a highly innovative musical language with what were radically modern harmonies at the time. Prometheus is almost like an operatic scene combined recitative and aria; this magnificent soliloquy stretches the boundaries of the Lied as commonly practiced by composers, and is exceptional even among Schubert’s own works. © 2023

Peter Laki

césar franck: sonata for violin and Piano in A major (1886)

César Franck’s father had destined his son for the career of a traveling piano virtuoso à la Franz Liszt. These dreams, however, did not come true, and Franck had to settle for a less glamorous existence. For many years, he worked as an organist at the Parisian church of Sainte Clotilde. His first major break did not come until he was fifty; in 1872, he was appointed to the Paris Conservatoire as a professor of organ. But even that did not necessarily mean success as a composer. His large-scale oratorios and other sacred works failed to make an impression. It was only during the last decade of his life that he wrote the series of masterpieces (including the A major Sonata, the Symphony, and the String Quartet) for which he is remembered to this day.

The Sonata was written in 1886, as a wedding present for the great violinist Eugène Ysaÿe, like Franck a native of Liège, Belgium. The first public performance was given by Ysaÿe in Brussels at a concert devoted to Franck’s works. The Sonata had an enormous success. The director of the Brussels Conservatoire congratulated the composer with the words: “You have transformed chamber music: thanks to you a new vision of the future has been revealed to our eyes.”

The director was not exaggerating. Franck had introduced into chamber music certain techniques never previously used in that medium. Inspired by Liszt's symphonic poems, Franck linked the four movements of the Sonata together by a network of thematic recurrences. The characters of the themes are sometimes fundamentally transformed in this process. Franck also used counterpoint more extensively than did most Romantic composers—in part because, as an organ player, he was deeply immersed in the music of J.S. Bach. Moreover, Franck had been touched by the style of Richard Wagner, who had died in 1883 but was still the most controversial modern composer in Europe. In the Violin Sonata, Franck repeatedly used a variant of the famous “Tristan” chord. He combined all these influences, however, with a boundless melodic invention all his own.

The Sonata has an unusual movement sequence. In most sonatas, the longest and weightiest movement comes at the beginning. In the Franck, this movement stands in second place, preceded by a dreamy Allegretto ben moderato. The passionate second movement is followed by a Recitativo-Fantasia that, in what was an extraordinary move in 1886, entirely dispenses with the idea of a main tonal center. The key changes constantly as the violin plays two unaccompanied cadenzas, separated by a nostalgic recollection of the first movement’s opening melody on the piano. The movement continues with an “aria” for violin that is in turn lyrical and dramatic, with a molto lento e mesto (“very slow and sad”) ending. Finally, the fourth movement crowns the Sonata with a real tour de force: its initial melody is played by the two instruments in canon—that is, the melodic lines are the same, with the violin starting one measure after the piano. The remaining themes derive from the third movement, turning the “aria” into a major dramatic outburst. A recapitulation of the canon theme and an exuberant coda ends this great sonata. ©

2023 Peter Laki

COMPOSER’S NOTES

Alan Hankers, Elapse

I started writing this string quartet for the Great Lakes Music Festival in February 2020. A few weeks into composing, the implications of COVID-19 cast a shadow over life as we all knew it. Without knowing it at the time, the music took an autobiographical turn that documented my experience during the quarantine. Like most, I spent those spring and summer months in isolation, observing the change of seasons and passing of time through the windowpanes in my apartment, where the world was adapting and transforming rapidly on the outside.

Though it wasn't my initial intention, Elapse explores the malleability of time. The musical material expands, contracts, contorts, and plateaus - representing the temporal experience of watching the world change. There's a consistent pulse that lies beneath the surface for most of the work, which captures the anxiety and hope surrounding the unfolding events.

The work was commissioned by the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival for the Pelia String Quartet. © Alan Hankers

SuNdAy, JuNE 11 | 5 pm

OPEninG niGHt: MAstErFul MOzArt

seligman Performing Arts Center

Sponsored by Aviva & Dean Friedman

ALESSIO BAx, piano

NATHAN STARK, bass-baritone

ABEO QUARTET, Sphinx Apprentice

Ensemble

HESPER QUARTET, Shouse ensemble

FRANCESCO MILIOTO, conductor

DETROIT OPERA RESIDENT ARTISTS

ELIZABETH POLESE, soprano

MELANIE SPECTOR, soprano

GABRIELLE BARKIDJIJA, mezzo-soprano

LEO WILLIAMS, tenor

BEN REISINGER, baritone

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DETROIT CHAMBER WINDS & STRINGS

AMANDA BlAIkIE, lute

MERIDETH ESTEvEZ, oboe

GEOffREy JOHNSON, oboe

JACk WAlTERS, clarinet

MARCuS SCHOON, bassoon

GREG QuICk, bassoon

SCOTT STRONG, horn

NATAlIE fRITz, horn

DEREk lOCkHART, trumpet

CARRIE SCHAfER, trumpet

DOuGlAS PERkINS, timpani

kIM kENNEDy, violin

yvONNE lAM, violin

JAMES vANvAlkENBuRG, viola

DAvID lEDOux, cello

CHRIS HAMlEN, double bass

W. A. mozart Piano concerto no. 21 in c major, K. 467 (1756-91) Allegro maestoso

Andante

Allegro vivace assai

Bax, Detroit Chamber Winds & Strings, Shouse Institute Members, Milioto

intErMissiOn

W. A. mozart Così fan tutte, K. 588 Act I

Detroit Opera Resident Artists, Stark, Detroit Chamber Winds & Strings, Milioto

oPening night Dinner

Sponsored by Virginia & Michael Geheb

Join the artists after the performance for our Opening Night Dinner, kicking off the 2023 Festival. Catered by Plum Market. Call 248-559-2097 for more information.

prOgrAm NOTES

Wolfgang Amadeus

mozart: Piano concerto no. 21 in c major, K. 467 (1785)

The late H. C. Robbins Landon, a world authority on Viennese classicism, called Mozart’s decade in Vienna (1781-91) his “golden years” in the title of an insightful book on the composer. In the first five or six years of that decade, Mozart was in the center of the imperial capital’s musical life. His works, pouring forth from his pen at an astonishing speed, were widely admired. He made many friends among the influential Viennese aristocracy and high bourgeoisie, and even the Emperor, Joseph II, followed his activities with interest (though Mozart never received the court position he hoped for). In Robbins Landon’s words, “Mozart’s name was on every tongue.” The present concerto is a product of this glorious period in Mozart’s career. In Classical music, C major is usually a festive key; works in that tonality almost always include trumpets and timpani, which greatly affect their sound and their whole atmosphere. The first movement immediately establishes this mood with its march-like opening theme. As in many Mozart piano concertos, the soloist comes in “through the back door,” as it were, playing virtuoso runs before taking over the melody. Once this happens, however, the piano always remains in the foreground. The movement has what seems an over-abundance of melodies—more than the scheme of sonata form would call for. The movement doesn’t lack its moment of minor-mode melancholy (one moment seems directly to anticipate a passage in the great G minor symphony), yet the overall character of the music is joyful, serene, and majestic.

With the second-movement Andante, we enter the “holy of holies” of Mozart’s art. Against an even motion of triplets, played by muted strings, the first violins, also muted, play one of Mozart’s most transcendent melodies (once made popular by the 1967 movie Elvira Madigan), filled with wide leaps and great dynamic contrasts. The delicate minor second clashes and the tender modulations probably played a role in Leopold Mozart’s strong reaction to the work. As Mozart’s father wrote to his daughter Nannerl, he had been moved to tears by the beauties of the work (and also the enthusiastic reception it received).

The third movement achieves the great feat of not being a comedown after this exceptional Andante. There are many spirited dialogues between the piano and the wind section and quite a few delightful musical surprises to enjoy. © 2023 Peter Laki

Act i from Così fan tutte, ossia la scuola degli amanti (“All Women Are Like that, or the school of Lover s,” K. 588, 1790) music by W. A. mozart

Libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte

In the two hundred and thirty-three years since its premiere, many people have thought there was something wrong with Così fan tutte. Critics and analysts have complained about its allegedly immoral, frivolous and misogynistic libretto, which they saw as being at odds with Mozart’s sublime music. In fact, the premise of the opera seems cruel and cynical enough. Who could possibly approve of a plot that revolves around two young men disguising themselves to seduce each other’s girlfriends, in order to prove a “philosophical” point about “all women” being by nature unfaithful? Yet if one looks beneath the surface, the plot reveals some unexpected psychological insights about both men and women that are reinforced and made even more profound by the music.

What is so extraordinary about Così is that, unlike other operas where the commitment of the central pair of lovers can never be questioned, here you are allowed to wonder which pairing is right: the original constellation Fiordiligi-Guglielmo and Dorabella-Fernando, or the second one, where the partners are switched. Da Ponte and Mozart had the audacity to suggest that maybe the “switched” pairing is the right one after all, and the voice types (among other clues) give it all away. According to operatic convention, the soprano (Fiordiligi) always goes with the tenor (Fernando), and the mezzo (Dorabella) with the baritone (Guglielmo). When we see the two couples in Act I, everything is fairly conventional between them; the real sparks don’t start flying until Act II, when the men are in disguise.

At the beginning of Act I, the two officers affirm that their girlfriends could never be unfaithful to them. Their friend, the philosopher Don Alfonso, challenges them to a bet. In the meantime, the two girls gush over the portraits of their lovers.

Don Alfonso brings the fake news of the immediate departure of the men to the battlefield. The women nearly swoon from their distress as the men depart. Don Alfonso expounds his anti-woman philosophy. Soon afterwards, we hear the anti-man counterpart from the young ladies’ maid, Despina, who soon takes charge, telling Fiordiligi and Dorabella that men are by nature inconstant and that they might as well take advantage of their grass-widowhood.

Don Alfonso bribes Despina to help him introduce two “strangers” to her mistresses. Ferrando and Guglielmo enter, disguised as exotic Albanians. They immediately begin to make advances—each to his friend's girlfriend, but are vehemently rebuffed by Fiordiligi, and the ladies flee in disgust. The men are overjoyed; they believe they have already won their bet, but Don Alfonso urges them to wait until tomorrow. Unlike the somewhat coarse and flippant Guglielmo, Ferrando displays significant depths of emotion in his aria, in which he anticipates the joys of an “amorous hour”— at this point, presumably, still with his official fiancée Dorabella (although who knows for sure?).

The “Albanians” now resort to blackmail, pretending to have taken poison in their despair at having been rejected. The compassionate women begin to take pity on the strangers. Their call for a doctor is answered by Despina who appears disguised as a physician, complete with a false mustache. In a delicious parody of the then-famous magnetic therapy of Dr. Mesmer (who “mesmerized” his patients), Despina pulls the poison out of the “patients” with a big piece of iron. Emboldened, the men ask the women for a kiss —but once again they have gone too far. Fiordiligi and Dorabella exit in indignation while the men, once again, feel triumphant, although Despina and Don Alfonso begin to see signs of a change of heart. © 2023

Peter Laki

The Levy Group of Companies celebrates the Chamber’s mission of bringing together the world’s most celebrated artists to deliver extraordinary musical performances and experiences for all.

Thank you for your commitment to an inclusive and welcoming culture where differences are valued so that the community may experience these outstanding artists performing chamber music at its best!

Detroit Opera Resident Artists

TuESdAy, JuNE 13 | 7 pm

EvEry MOvE, EvEry DECisiOn

st. Hugo of the Hills - Gathering space

Sponsored by Marguerite Munson Lentz & David Lentz

ALESSIO BAx, piano

GILLES VONSATTEL, piano

ROBYN BOLLINGER, violin

YVONNE LAM, violin

TESSA LARK, violin

HSIN-YUN HUANG, viola

ERIC NOWLIN, viola

PAUL WATKINS, cello

PETER WILEY, cello

HESPER QUARTET, Shouse ensemble

prOgrAm

Joseph haydn string Quartet in g major, op. 77, no. 1, “Lobkowitz” (1732-1809)

Allegro moderato

Adagio

Minuet: Presto – Trio

Finale: Presto

Hesper Quartet

camille saint-saëns cello sonata no. 1 in c minor, op. 32 (1835-1921)

Allegro

Andante tranquillo sostenuto

Allegro moderato

Vonsattel, Watkins

intErMissiOn

carlos simon be still and know (b. 1986) Bax, Lam, Watkins

Ludwig van Beethoven string Quintet in c major, op. 29 (1770-1827)

Allegro moderato

Adagio molto espressivo

Scherzo: Allegro

Presto

Lark, Bollinger, Huang, Nowlin, Wiley

prOgrAm NOTES

Joseph haydn: string Quartet in g major, op. 77, no. 1 “Lobkowitz” (1799)

In 1799, two years after completing his celebrated series of six string quartets for Count Erdödy (Op. 76), Haydn started work on yet another set, this time for Prince Lobkowitz. He only completed two of the six, however. Were the 67-year-old master’s creative powers waning? Or was there another reason for his withdrawal?

Around the same time Haydn was working on string quartets for Lobkowitz, a younger composer by the name of Ludwig van Beethoven was doing the very same thing. Beethoven completed his set of six quartets (later published as Op. 18) in the spring of 1800. It may well be that Haydn stopped work on his project at least in part because of the arrival on the scene of the unruly young genius. Haydn used to call Beethoven, his rebellious former student, the “Grand Mogul,” in a mocking reference to the younger man’s boundless ambition, though he was the first to recognize Beethoven’s exceptional talent. Haydn understandably wanted to avoid direct competition with Beethoven, who was already a darling of the aristocratic salons in Vienna and one of the most sought-after musicians in the city.

The least one can say of the two quartets of Op. 77 is that Haydn rose to his younger colleague’s challenge in every way. Some moments in the two works have even been said to be echoes or reflections of what we now call “early” Beethoven. The first of the two quartets opens with an Allegro moderato that fills out its regular sonata-form scheme with many subtle surprises and delicate touches. The second movement is in E-flat major, a tonality rather far removed from the original key of G. It is one of Haydn’s greatest Adagios, with themes of a rich singing quality and a harmonic range that is sometimes reminiscent of Beethoven. The first violin part adds some elaborate ornaments to the highly expressive melodies.

The third movement (Minuet and Trio) is even more “Beethovenian.” Many of the movement’s features are most unusual for Haydn and announce a new era. The tempo is extremely fast for a minuet. Off-beat accents abound in the theme. Almost all repeats are written out (instead of being indicated by repeat signs), and important changes are introduced the second time around. Most astonishingly, no clear separation exists between minuet and trio; the trio arrives without warning by way of an unexpected jump into the key of E-flat major, visiting that remote tonality for the second time in the quartet. The ending of this highly dramatic trio is left open, as the music gradually modulates back to G.

The following Presto is Haydn’s last word on the “contradanse” finale, one of his favorite movement types for decades. The main theme is presented twice at the beginning: the first time in unison and then with harmonies. This duality of simplicity and sophistication remains the principal driving force throughout the movement, right up to the ending, for which Haydn saved some delicious last-minute surprises. ©

2023

Peter Laki

camille saint-saëns: cello sonata no. 1 in c minor, op. 32 (1872)

No composer has ever been able to match the unbelievable precocity of Mozart, who wrote his first symphony at the age of eight. Saint-Saëns, however, came close. He first played the piano in public at the age of five, and at ten gave his formal debut at Paris’s Salle Pleyel, performing Mozart and Beethoven concertos and offering to play any of Beethoven’s sonatas from memory as an encore.

Saint-Saëns

eventually grew up to become a national institution in France, one of the country’s most prominent composers, pianists and organists, who was universally respected, though far from uncontroversial.

Though not a string player himself, Saint-Saëns had a strong affinity for string instruments. He wrote three concertos and numerous other solo works for violin, as well as two concertos and two sonatas for cello (not to mention “The Swan,” that most beloved of cello solos from The Carnival of the Animals). A third cello sonata survives in fragmentary form, and has recently been completed and published.

The first cello sonata was written in close proximity to the first cello concerto, and premiered at the Société Nationale de Musique, a society for the promotion of chamber music which Saint-Saëns had co-founded in 1871. Auguste Tolbecque played the cello part, with the composer at the piano.

The key of C minor traditionally inspired works that were intensely dramatic in tone, and the present sonata is no exception. The first and last movements continue the best Sturm und Drang (“storm and stress”) tradition in Classical and Romantic music, with the central Andante, which has echoes of Bach and Schumann, as a muchneeded respite. The piano part is so difficult that some commentators have spoken about a “piano sonata with cello accompaniment,” but that description is not quite accurate. The cello has many of the great melodies, and they are often placed in the low register of the instrument, which requires the pianist to be careful not to drown out the cello. While the upper strings of the cello can sing like an operatic tenor, the low C and G strings, if not covered up, have a very special, powerful ring to them, which Saint-Saëns exploited to the fullest.

There is an amusing anecdote about this sonata, reported by Charles-Marie Widor, the great French organist and composer (1844-1937) who had at one point been Saint-Saëns’s assistant at the church of the Madeleine. According to Widor, SaintSaëns’s mother did not like the last movement, and, in just a few days, the composer wrote a new finale, which is the one we know today. Swedish cellist Mats Lidström, who recorded the sonata, noted that the last movement contains quotes from Giacomo Meyerbeer’s opera L’Africaine (1864)—“possibly a favorite of Saint-Saëns’s mother’s.” © 2023 Peter

Laki

Ludwig van Beethoven: String Quintet in C major, Op. 29 (1801)

Beethoven arranged two of his early wind compositions for string quintet, and wrote two more (partially completed) quintets in his late period. The present work, however, is his only full-fledged original composition for the “enhanced” string quartet. But the scoring is not the only unique feature of Op. 29. It is in many ways an exceptional work, with many features that appear either for the first time, or even the only time, in Beethoven’s music.

The quintet used to be known under the nickname “The Storm,” on account of the opening of its last movement, with the thunder-like tremolos in the four lower instruments against the “lightning” theme in the first violin. Yet we don’t have to wait until the finale to be surprised. Already the first movement features some distant modulations and other novel forms of thematic development that announce what we recognize, with hindsight, as Beethoven’s middle period—a period that the composer, at the age of thirty, was just about to enter.

As in the Mozart string quintets, the addition of a second viola strengthens the lower end of the sound spectrum. The second viola can either reinforce the middle voices (second violin, first viola), or else double the cello at the octave, thereby achieving a quasi-orchestral effect, similarly to the way the contrabasses double the cellos in an orchestra.

The C major quintet has one of Beethoven’s most effusive slow movements. It is an expansive lyrical song introduced by the first violin, but it is the ever-changing inner voices that give the movement its special character: pizzicatos (plucked notes), quick note repeats, pulsating syncopations and more make sure that something new is happening at every turn.

The third movement is a scherzo—a playful, fast piece of the kind that Beethoven, building on Haydn’s example, had thoroughly made his own already in his early Viennese works from the 1790s. Here, like elsewhere, he makes the most of a simple theme of only a few notes; the high energy of the movement doesn’t diminish, even in the central trio section.

Yet it is the “stormy” last movement that has the greatest number of stylistic novelties. Following that most unusual opening already mentioned, Beethoven wrote a rhythmically intricate development section where a whole fugato (section based on imitation) is superimposed on top of the storm music. And if that were not enough, the recapitulation is interrupted by a graceful minuet that seems to come out of nowhere. After a return of the “storm,” the minuet even reappears for a second time. As a final surprise, the last appearance of the storm theme suddenly veers off into a distant key, from which Beethoven then has to make his way back to his home tonality of C major. © 2023 Peter

Laki

Composer’s Notes

Carlos Simon, be still and know (2016)

This piece was inspired by an interview with Oprah Winfrey, in which she said:

“I have felt the presence of God my whole life. Even when I didn’t have a name for it, I could feel the voice bigger than myself speaking to me, and all of us have that same voice. Be still and know it. You can acknowledge it or not. You can worship it or not. You can praise it, you can ignore it or you can know it. Know it. It’s always there speaking to you and waiting for you to hear it in every move, in every decision.” - Oprah Winfrey, May 25, 2011

© Carlos Simon

Alessio Bax

WEdNESdAy, JuNE 14 | 7 pm

tHE FEstivAl in rEsiDEnCE: WinDsOr

the Capitol theatre, Windsor

Sponsored by the Morris & Beverly Baker Foundation

HSIN-YUN HUANG, viola

PETER WILEY, cello

HESPER QUARTET, Shouse ensemble

p rO grA m

the first two “Razumovsky” quartets, the C major does not contain an original Russian melody, identified as such in the score. Yet the musicologist Mark Ferraguto traced the theme of this Andante to a Russian song published in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung. But Beethoven did not quote the tune in its original form and only used a characteristic melodic turn from it, making the melody even more exotic by adding an augmented second that was not present in the original. This mysterious first theme is followed by a second idea, which evokes a graceful dance. A haunting new melody is heard at the end of the movement, in a coda that seems to vanish in a Romantic mist.

Ludwig van Beethoven string Quartet no. 9, op. 59, no. 3 (1770-1827)

intErMissiOn

Andante con moto – Allegro vivace

Andante con moto quasi allegretto

Menuetto

Allegro molto

Hesper Quartet

Johannes Brahms string sextet no. 1 in B-flat major, op. 18 (1833-97)

Allegro ma non troppo

Andante, ma moderato

Scherzo: Allegro molto

Rondo: Poco allegretto e grazioso

Huang, Wiley, Hesper Quartet

prOgrAm NOTES

Ludwig van Beethoven: string Quartet in c major, op. 59, no. 3 (1806)

The present quartet is the last in a set of three that Beethoven composed for Count Andrey Razumovsky, the Russian ambassador in Vienna at the height of his so-called “heroic,” or middle period. It is a lively and dynamic work that is definitely heroic in the boldness of its themes. The first movement begins with a slow introduction consisting of a mysterious sequence of chords that do not define any particular tonality and do not arrive at the home key of C major until the very end. (It was evidently influenced by the famous opening of Mozart’s “Dissonant” quartet [K. 465], also in C major.) Even the Allegro vivace gets off to a somewhat tentative start, with an unaccompanied flourish for the first violin, punctuated by brief chords in the other instruments. Despite the obvious allusions to Mozart, there is a fierce intensity here that we never find in earlier music. The principal generating idea of the movement is to make amorphous material gradually more organized. By the development section, the loose textures of the exposition are solidified into a strict canon based on a twonote pattern. The violin flourish that serves as the movement’s first theme is lavishly ornamented when it returns to announce the recapitulation.

The second movement Andante has “an aura of remote, almost mythical melancholy and remoteness,” in the words of musicologist William Kinderman. Unlike

The graceful third-movement minuet is a nostalgic evocation of the past. The choice of a minuet is significant, for by 1806 Beethoven was much more likely to write fast-paced, surprise-filled scherzos in both chamber and symphonic music. In the trio section Beethoven strikes a more modern note, with some characteristic offbeat accents (a device he was particularly fond of) and an unusually high first violin part. The recapitulation of the minuet is followed by an extensive coda, introducing a sad, minor-key variation of the minuet theme that leads directly into the last movement—a perpetual motion that begins as a fugue, its lengthy subject introduced by the viola. By the time all four instruments have entered, fugal counterpoint gives way to chordal writing; the two kinds of texture alternate throughout the movement. The extremely fast tempo generates a high level of excitement that culminates in the surprise rest just before the end, after which the mad rush continues with even more fire than before. © 2023

Peter Laki

Johannes Brahms: string sextet no. 1 in B-flat major (1858-60)

The two sextets for two violins, two violas, and two cellos are Brahms’s earliest chamber works without piano, preceding the string quartets and quintets by many years. They reveal a composer full of youthful energy yet possessed of an emotional maturity well beyond his years.

Brahms in his mid-twenties did not feel quite ready to write a string quartet. In that genre, Beethoven’s legacy seemed particularly oppressive. Although the performing forces are larger, a string sextet actually presented a lesser challenge. First of all, sextets did not have such a daunting history (in fact, they hardly had any history at all), and second, chamber ensembles of six or more players (not necessarily all strings) had previously been associated with lighter, serenade-type music. Brahms, who had composed two orchestral serenades in the late 1850s, adapted their genial atmosphere to the chamber music medium in his first sextet, premiered in Hannover by Joseph Joachim and five of his colleagues on October 20, 1860.

Joachim was not only one of the greatest violinists of his time, he was also a composer in his own right. During their long friendship, Brahms often asked Joachim for his opinion in compositional matters. In the case of the first sextet, Joachim felt that the opening theme of the first movement needed to be stated twice, lest the subsequent modulations begin too soon. Brahms heeded the advice, and added ten measures at the beginning of the work. The first cello thus received the honor of announcing the lyrical theme, before it is taken over by the first violin. The character of this tender and romantic movement is best defined by the performance instructions espressivo, tranquillo, and dolce, found frequently in the score. (A recent study shows that in making these suggestions, Joachim was inspired by Beethoven’s String Quintet Op. 29, performed at our last concert.)

The second movement, a theme and variations, contains some unmistakable echoes of Bach’s famous Chaconne from the D minor partita for unaccompanied violin (a piece that Brahms later arranged for piano left hand). The D minor melody, like many Baroque variation themes, is dominated by a descending harmonic progression, but Brahms enriched it with some characteristic modal (that is, neither major nor minor) inflections. There are five variations, of which the first three grow gradually more and more impassioned. In variations IV and V, the key changes to D major, and the music evolves from gentle lyricism to a moment of supreme magic. The theme then reappears in its original form but in a much more subdued instrumentation.

The third movement is a brief scherzo in the Beethovenian mold, with allusions to the Fifth and Seventh Symphonies. The main section, already quite fast, frames a Trio that is even more animated. Some of the trio’s thematic material returns, à la Beethoven, as the movement’s coda.

The last movement’s graceful theme is passed from the first cello to the first violin, as in the opening movement. The light serenade tone prevails throughout, except for a brief moment where the music becomes more agitated. Each time the main theme returns, its instrumentation changes. The work ends with a spirited coda, getting faster and faster to the end.

©

2023 Peter Laki

Wednesday, June 14 | 7:30 Pm

TasTing noTes: Diver TimenTo wiTh a siDe of PimenTo mongers’ Provisions – Berkley

Sponsored by Joy & Allan Nachman and Linda Goodman in memory of Dolores Curiel

KImBErLy KaLoyanIDES KEnnEDy, violin

PhILIP SETzEr, violin

PauL WaTKInS, cello

LInDa SETzEr, narrator

Program

W. A. Mozart Divertimento No. 2 in C major, K.Anh.229/439b (1756-91) Setzer, Kennedy, Watkins

Béla Bartók Selections from 44 Duos for 2 Violins, Sz. 98 (1881-1945)

16. Burlesque

19. a Fairy Tale

38. romanian Whirling Dance

37. Prelude and Canon

42. arabian Dance

43. Pizzicato

28. Sorrow

44. Transylvanian Dance

Setzer, Kennedy

Alan Ridout Ferdinand the Bull, for speaker and violin (1934-96) Philip Setzer, Linda Setzer

ThurSdAy, JuNE 15 | 7 pm

yOutHFul invEntiOns

temple Beth El

Sponsored by Plante Moran

ALESSIO BAx, piano

YVONNE LAM, violin

TESSA LARK, violin

HSIN-YUN HUANG, viola

PETER WILEY, cello

ABEO QUARTET, Sphinx Apprentice Ensemble

PELIA STRING QUARTET, Shouse ensemble

prOgrAm

Johannes Brahms Piano Quintet in f minor, op. 34

(1833-97) Allegro non troppo

Andante, un poco adagio

Scherzo: Allegro

Finale: Poco sostenuto – Allegro non troppo

Bax, Abeo Quartet

Kian ravaei the Little things (WorLD Premiere)

(b. 1999)

I. I’ll Tell You How the Sun Rose

II. High from the Earth I Heard a Bird

III. Two Butterflies Went Out at Noon

IV. A Narrow Fellow in the Grass

V. The Moon Was But a Chin of Gold

VI. A Spider Sewed at Night

VII. If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking

Abeo Quartet

felix mendelssohn octet in e-flat major, op. 20, mWv r20

(1809-47) Allegro moderato ma con fuoco

Andante

Scherzo: Allegro leggerissimo

Presto

Lark, Lam, Huang, Wiley, Pelia String Quartet

prOgrAm NOTES

Johannes Brahms: Piano Quintet in f minor, op. 34 (1864)

Several of Brahms’s major works started life as sonatas for two pianos, and assumed their final forms later. This is true of the First Piano Concerto (whose original two-piano version is lost) and the Haydn Variations. The case of the Piano Quintet is more complicated because the two-piano version was preceded by yet another incarnation, for string quintet. This early form, which was the only time Brahms followed Schubert’s string quintet scoring (with two cellos) as opposed to Mozart’s (with two violas), is lost, but the Sonata for Two Pianos, Op. 34b, is a staple in the repertoire of all two-piano teams. Brahms’s lifelong friend, the great pianist Clara Schumann, wrote to the composer: “It is masterly from every point of view, but -- it is not a sonata, but a work whose ideas you might — and must — scatter over an entire orchestra… Please, for this once take my advice and recast it.” Brahms did recast the work, but not for orchestra. Reluctant to let go of the piano sound, he decided in favor of the piano quintet. It was in this form that Op. 34 was published in 1865 and became a classic of the chamber music literature. (The two-piano version was published six years later.)

The Piano Quintet bursts with energy, power, and that serious yet never austere bearing so characteristic of Brahms. The four movements are extremely contrasted yet they are connected through subtle motivic links. The first movement’s dark unison opening theme generates much of the musical material of the entire work. This Allegro non troppo is unrelentingly dramatic, only occasionally tempered by the gentle lyricism of a second theme. Unusual tonal relationships—with the movement’s secondary key a half-step higher than expected—increase the intensity of the musical processes.

The Andante, un poco adagio that follows is a calm, songlike movement in a regular A - BA form that, with its sweet parallel thirds and sixths, is like a Romantic dream. Yet even here, the harmonic movement “overshoots the mark” by a half-step (going from A-flat major to E major, not the expected E-flat), giving the music an extra edge of tension.

The third movement, now mysterious, now heroic in mood, was described as “perhaps the most ‘demonic’ of Brahms scherzi” by Malcolm MacDonald, author of an excellent survey of Brahms’s life and work. The scherzo is characterized by an irresistible rhythmic drive that persists even in the Trio, where the gloomy C minor tonality temporarily changes to major.

The finale opens with a remarkable Poco sostenuto introduction, described by MacDonald as “numb, ghostly string figures groping their way in glacial imitation into perhaps the most emotionally afflicted music the work has yet encompassed.” The fast tempo arrives with a serene and relaxed main theme that, however, alternates with stormier episodes. Near the end, the music again assumes the impassioned tone of the first movement. © Peter Laki

felix mendelssohn: octet for strings in e-flat major, op. 20 (1825)

Mendelssohn wrote his Octet in 1825, the same year Beethoven composed his String Quartet in B-flat major (Op. 130) which originally ended with the Great Fugue. At 55, Beethoven was nearing the end of his career; the 16-year-old Mendelssohn was just starting his. Much ink has been spilled over who was “modern” and who was “conservative,” who was “Classical” and who was “Romantic.” Mendelssohn never tried to explode Classical forms the way Beethoven did in his late quartets, filled with unconventional movement sequences and dramatic interruptions. Yet the younger composer infused those traditional forms with a new energy in ways that were absolutely unheard of. He invented a whole new genre with his Octet, which calls for what can be considered either a large chamber group or a small

orchestra. Mendelssohn noted in his manuscript: “This Octet must be played by all instruments in symphonic orchestral style. Pianos and fortes must be strictly observed and more strongly emphasized than is usual in pieces of this character.”

Yet there were really no other “pieces of this character” to speak of. True, Louis Spohr had written some works for eight string players, but those were double quartets, conceived as dialogs between two separate groups. Mendelssohn, on the other hand, treated his eight players as a single, integrated unit, which was a totally unprecedented compositional approach.

As for the young prodigy’s melodic style, one need only compare the Octet’s opening with the “sunrise” theme at the beginning of Haydn’s String Quartet in B-flat, Op. 76, No. 4 (1796-97). Mendelssohn was apparently inspired by that opening, but Haydn’s theme is to Mendelssohn’s what a sunrise would be to a solar flare. The Octet begins with a true stroke of genius, and the continuation is in every way worthy of that exceptional opening.

In all four movements, Classical gestures are similarly magnified and expanded upon. The second movement, in C minor, begins and ends in a gentle pianissimo, evoking a nocturnal mood, but there are some extremely powerful emotional outbursts in between. The third movement is the first in a long line of Mendelssohnian scherzos in a very fast tempo and of a light and impish character. It is cast in a modified sonata form, and is therefore not really a scherzo, structurally speaking. Felix didn’t take the time to relax in a contrasting trio section as one might have expected in a scherzo. In the concluding Presto, finally, the young composer pulled out all the stops. He wrote a brilliant fugue, as a bow to the music of the Baroque which he had already begun to study and which would play such an important role in his later life. The quote from Handel’s Messiah (“And He shall reign for ever and ever”) cannot be missed. But there is also plenty of playfulness in the movement, along with some harmonic surprises that would have made Handel—and probably Beethoven, too—raise his eyebrows in disbelief, mixed with admiration. © 2023 Peter

Laki

COmpOSEr’S NOTES

Kian

ravaei, the Little things

All seven titles which comprise The Little Things come from Emily Dickinson, who never fails to direct our attention toward nature’s easily overlooked wonders. Movements II, III, IV, and VI evoke various animal life, while I and V portray the sun and moon respectively. The order of the movements suggests the cyclic journey of all living things from morning to night to a new morning. © Kian

Ravaei

In the final movement, we hear the voice of Nature singing Dickinson’s famous lines:

If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain;

If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.

The Little Things was co-commissioned by Chamber Music Northwest, the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival and the Seattle Chamber Music Society as part of a new annual collaboration, supported by the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation.

FridAy, JuNE 16 | 11 Am

MOrninG GlOriEs

temple Beth El Chapel

Sponsored by Beverly Baker & Dr. Edward Treisman

HSIN-YUN HUANG, viola

KENNETH THOMPKINS, trombone

JOSEPH BECKER, percussion

AYA PIANO TRIO, Shouse ensemble

prOgrAm

Jeff scott silenced angels speak (b.1967) African Violet

Our Midnight Place

Thompkins, Becker

Ludwig van Beethoven Piano Quartet in e-flat major, op. 16 (1770-1827) Grave – Allegro ma non troppo

Andante cantabile

Rondo: Allegro, ma non troppo

Huang, AYA Piano Trio

intErMissiOn

Johannes Brahms Piano trio no. 1, op. 8 (1833-97) Allegro con brio

Scherzo: Allegro molto

Adagio

Allegro

AYA Piano Trio

This concert will be followed by a reception with Festival Visual Artist Senghor Reid at 1 p.m. Reid draws inspiration for his paintings from current events and from his hometown of Detroit.

prOgrAm NOTES

Ludwig van Beethoven: Quartet in e-flat major, op. 16 (1796)

Beethoven’s only piano quartet is a reworking of his quintet for piano and winds. It was one in a series of compositions that made the composer’s name known in Vienna soon after the young musician had moved there from his native Bonn in 1792. Mozart’s influence is apparent at every turn, yet there are many signs revealing the birth of one of the most individual styles in musical history.

In its original form as a quintet, Beethoven’s piece was modeled on Mozart’s quintet for piano and winds. Not only do the two works share the same key of E-flat major, their second movements are also in the same tonality (B-flat), and they have a number of

continued on page 16

continued from page 15

additional points in common, most notably the slow introductions which were much more frequent in symphonies than in chamber works. Yet, as British musicologist Nicholas Marston has observed, Beethoven has a tendency “to be symphonic in a non-symphonic medium,” and to indulge in a certain “over-extravagance” shown by the fact that the first movement is unusually long and contains many more themes than the standard sonata scheme would call for.

The Grave introduction is built around a solemn motif in dotted rhythm. It strikes a serious tone after which the light and graceful melodies of the Allegro ma non troppo come both as a relief and a contrast. Only in the development section does the music become more tempestuous, and then only for a while. The most “Beethovenian” feature (that is, the one most strongly anticipating his mature style) is the extended coda, introduced by a piano cadenza.

The second movement (Andante cantabile) has a song-like theme that receives more and more extensive ornamentation each time it returns. The recurrences of the theme are separated by two more agitated episodes.

The third movement opens with a melody that resembles several of Mozart’s finale themes. It is cheerful and lighthearted music with only occasional and transient clouds on the horizon. In the coda, Beethoven breaks up the main theme into small fragments (this procedure would remain one of his favorite methods of motivic development) and plays many delightful games with it. As in many of his later works, the end is announced by a long piano trill. © 2023 Peter Laki

Johannes Brahms: Piano trio no. 1 in B major, op. 8 (1854, rev. 1889)

Written in 1854, the Piano Trio in B major was radically revised by Brahms 35 years later. Interestingly, the composer did not withdraw the first version but rather allowed it to co-exist with the recomposition. However, the work is almost always heard in its 1889 form, which managed to combine the exuberance of the 21-year-old genius (who, in Schumann’s words, had, “like Minerva, sprung fully armed from the head of Jove”) with the consummate artistry of the mature master of fifty-six.

Many of the gorgeous melodies that fill this masterwork had been there from the start. The recomposition had to do mostly with the development of the themes, and with making the transitions smooth and coherent, more classical in spirit than they were in the early version, which occasionally indulged in some Romantic excesses. “It will not be as wild as it was before,” Brahms wrote to Clara Schumann while at work on the revision, “but whether it will be better—?”

In fact, one of the most stunning things about this trio is how its opening melody—a quiet theme with a solemn, dignified gait—is gradually and seamlessly transformed into a fiery and impassioned statement. These two temperaments—and the major and minor modes—alternate throughout the movement. The final coda section switches to a slower Tranquillo tempo, instead of a faster one as might be expected, only resuming the original speed again for the energetic closing chords.

The second movement Scherzo, in B minor, was left almost entirely intact from the 1854 original. The utter simplicity of its opening theme has reminded some commentators of Mendelssohn’s scherzo from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, though the continuation, and especially the major mode middle section (Trio) with its glorious melody in parallel sixths, is pure Brahms. Particularly ingenious is the way the melody

of the middle section grows out of a characteristic motif in the scherzo proper, providing a subtle connection between the two parts of the movement.

In the third movement Adagio (again in B major) the soft chord progressions of the piano are in dialog with the expressive melody of the two string instruments. Eventually, a more continuous texture develops as the cello begins a new melody with a more sustained piano accompaniment. The opening material (alternating piano chords and string duet) returns, with the difference that this time the piano adds a sensitive countermelody. At the end of the movement, all three instruments take over the slow chordal theme that grows ever softer and softer.

The last movement, though in an Allegro tempo, begins with a lyrical cello theme in B minor; it only gathers more momentum with the muscular second theme in D major. (This theme was new in the 1889 version, replacing another that was too strongly reminiscent of Beethoven and Schumann, and had too many personal associations with Clara.) Both themes are subsequently repeated before we reach the final section, in which the first theme takes on a much more tempestuous character than before. Contrary to all expectations, this major mode piano trio ends dramatically in B minor (it is much more frequent to see a minor mode work end in major than vice versa). Although totally rewritten, the minor mode ending is a remnant of the original version of 1854, true to the restless spirit of the artist as a young man. © 2023 Peter

Laki

COmpOSEr’S NOTES

Jeff scott: silenced angels speak

Silenced Angels Speak offered a fun exploration in the musical expression of a complex emotion. Even more joyous was the non- traditional combination of instruments offered as the conduits. I imagined the percussionist and trombonist as angels. Angels, rendered voiceless and tasked to return to earth to demonstrate the importance and power of love, expressed without words. Each of the four movements are based on and titled after poems of love. African Violet by Miguel Edwards, Our Midnight Place by Vee Bdosa, Love by DeVonta Reese and Bookmark by Kewayne Wadley. ©Jeff Scott

FridAy, JuNE 16 | 7 pm

sHOusE: sCHuMAnn & sHOstAKOviCH

Detroit institute of Arts rivera Court

HESPER QUARTET, Shouse ensemble

PELIA STRING QUARTET, Shouse ensemble

prOgrAm

robert schumann string Quartet no. 3 in A major, op. 41, no. 3 (1810-56) Andante espressivo – Allegro molto moderato

Assai agitato

Adagio molto

Finale: Allegro molto vivace – Quasi Trio

Hesper Quartet

Dmitri shostakovich two Pieces for string octet, op. 11 (1906-75) Prelude: Adagio – Più mosso – Adagio

Scherzo: Allegro molto – Moderato – Allegro

Hesper Quartet, Pelia String Quartet

int E r M issi O n

Dmitri shostakovich string Quartet no. 15 in e-flat minor, op. 144

Elegy: Adagio

Serenade: Adagio

Intermezzo: Adagio

Nocturne: Adagio

Funeral march: Adagio molto

Epilogue: Adagio

Pelia String Quartet

Friday, June 16 | 7:30 pm

The FesTival in Residence: ann aRboR

Kerrytown concert house

Gilles Vonsattel, piano

YVonne lam, violin

tessa lark, violin

Paul Watkins, cello

program

Maurice Ravel Sonata for Violin and Cello, M. 73 (1875-1937) allegro

très vif

lent

Vif, avec entrain

Lark, Watkins

Ludwig van Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 26 in E-flat major, Op. 81a, “Les Adieux” (1770-1827) Das Lebewohl (the Farewell): adagio – allegro

Abwesenheit (absence): andante espressivo

Das Wiedersehen (the return): Vivacissimamente Vonsattel

in T e RM ission

Dmitri Shostakovich Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 67 (1906-75) andante – moderato

allegro con brio

largo

allegretto – adagio

Vonsattel, Lam, Watkins

program noTeS

Maurice Ravel: Sonata for Violin and Cello (1922)

ravel’s sonata for Violin and Cello was dedicated to the memory of Claude Debussy, who had died in 1918. one of only a few works for violin-cello duo in the repertoire, it was preceded by Zoltán kodály’s Duo, op. 7 (1914), which, according to ravel biographer arbie orenstein, was known to the French master. orenstein even detected traces of Hungarian style in the last movement of the sonata. if that is true, then we have an interesting case of mutual influence, for the young kodály’s visit to Paris in 1907 and his encounter with the music of Debussy and ravel had a decisive impact on his whole career.

What ravel’s sonata shares with kodály’s duo is a taste for pentatonic melodies built of symmetrical phrases and a predilection for the interval of the perfect fourth. But ravel mixed pentatonic elements with daring dissonances and rhythmic complexities all his continued on page 18

Pelia String Quartet

own. The unity of the work is strengthened by numerous melodic links between the movements.

The first movement has a warm and lyrical opening melody, contrasted by a second theme with a series of dissonant major seventh leaps and a syncopated third idea. The second movement is a scherzo in an extremely fast tempo that plays ambivalent games with the major and minor modes on one hand and duple and triple meters on the other. There are extended bitonal passages (different keys heard simultaneously); both instruments play pizzicato (plucking the strings) for long stretches of time. At the end, the cello’s final note, C, comes as a great surprise, since the entire movement suggested A as the main tonal center.

In the slow third movement, the main melody gradually becomes louder and faster, only to return to its initial state at the end. At the climactic moment, the majorseventh theme from the first movement returns (we will hear it again in the finale).

The last movement is extremely lively. It strings together several folk-dance-like tunes, some of which are in changing meter and make use of bold harmonies and several special playing techniques. Like the second movement, the fourth ends with a surprise pizzicato C, this time written as a chord for both instruments.

The Sonata marks an important departure from Ravel’s pre-war compositions. Gradually turning away from his earlier “impressionism,” he began to write in a crisper and wittier way, ushering in a new style that would culminate in his last major works, the two piano concertos completed between 1929 and 1931. © 2023 Peter Laki

Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 26 in E-flat major, Op. 81/a “Les Adieux” (1809-10)

The farewell, absence and return that this famous sonata commemorates were by no means ordinary events. The person who made these moves was the 21-year-old Archduke Rudolph, the youngest brother of the Austrian Emperor Francis I, who was forced to flee Vienna in the wake of Napoleon’s invasion. Rudolph was a talented musician who studied piano and composition with Beethoven. Teacher and pupil formed a strong bond, and the composer obviously missed his exiled young friend.

The present sonata was the only one Beethoven ever wrote with an explicit program in mind. The motives of farewell, absence and return lent themselves naturally for the three-movement outline of the sonata (fast-slow-fast), and the extra-musical context threw that outline in even sharper relief.

Beethoven wrote the word Lebewohl (Farewell) over the first three notes of the sonata. These three notes, together with their added second voice, unmistakably evoke a pair of horns, which in turn alludes to the signal given by the stagecoaches in which one (though not necessarily the royals) traveled in those days. The motif is developed in a brief Adagio introduction that soon gives way to an agitated Allegro that expresses the whole range of feelings inspired by this particular parting.

The second movement, in Beethoven’s tragic key of C minor, depicts the pain of the separation. But the pain does not last long: the relatively brief movement continues without interruption, with an explosion of joy at the long-awaited return of the missed friend. The tempo marking is Vivacissimamente, most lively, and, except for a brief slow-down just before the end, the music retains its extraordinary momentum all the way through.

©

2023 Peter Laki

Dmitri Shostakovich: Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 67 (1944)

Russian composers had a tradition of commemorating the departed with piano trios: Tchaikovsky wrote his trio in memory of Nikolai Rubinstein, Rachmaninoff composed his Trio élégiaque in memory of Tchaikovsky; and Anton Arensky’s celebrated trio commemorates the cellist Karl Davydov. Shostakovich might have been thinking about these antecedents when, upon learning of the death of his best friend Ivan Ivanovich Sollertinsky, he turned to the piano trio. (He had already written one trio in his youth, a brief essay in a post-Romantic style.) Sollertinsky, who had been four years Shostakovich’s senior, was a polymath active in many fields; he died of a heart attack in February 1944, at the age of 42. “I have no words with which to express the pain that racks my entire being,” a devastated Shostakovich wrote to their mutual friend, Isaak Glikman.

In fact, Shostakovich had made sketches for a piano trio in 1943, but these were not used in the work we know today. The E minor trio took what for Shostakovich was an unusually long time to write: he spent much of the spring on the first movement alone, completing the other three during the summer, at the retreat of the Union of Soviet Composers in the village of Ivanovo.

Unlike the Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff trios, Shostakovich’s work adheres to the classical four-movement structure (as does the Arensky trio). This layout allowed the composer to write music in many different moods, paying tribute to Sollertinsky’s complex personality. The trio moves from a sad and mysterious opening to a wild and ferocious scherzo, from there to a lament in the form of a passacaglia, followed by the finale.

The cello opens the work with a theme played all in harmonics in an extremely high register. This eerie music, which seems to come from a great distance, later gives way to some angry and powerful outbursts. The second-movement scherzo seems to allude to Sollertinsky’s sense of humor and the many happy moments the two friends had shared. The slow passacaglia (a set of variations over an unchanging bass line) is somber and mournful; it is followed without pause by the dance finale. However, this is obviously not a happy ending. Much of the material is distorted klezmer (Jewish folk music), where the cheerful rhythms are combined with painfully dissonant intervals in the melody. It is no coincidence that Shostakovich started to be drawn to Jewish music during the years of World War II and the Holocaust. One of his favorite composition students, Veniamin Fleischmann, had died in 1941 during the siege of Leningrad. His memory probably played a role in the shaping of the finale, in which the Jewish dance melodies sometimes take on a positively tragic tone. Reminiscences of the earlier movements make the emotional content of the work even more ambivalent, and nothing seems to be resolved when the trio ends with a few broken chords and other isolated musical gestures.

Shostakovich played the piano part when the trio received its world premiere in Leningrad on November 14, 1944. His partners were Dmitri Zyganov (violin) and Sergei Shirinsky (cello) of the Beethoven Quartet.

© 2023 Peter Laki Gilles Vonsattel

saturday, June 17 | 11 am

ClassiCal Family: little Red Riding Hood

Bloomfield township Public library

Sponsored by Gwen & S. Evan Weiner

The Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival’s "Classical Family: Little Red Riding Hood" is an enchanting performance that tells the story of this classic fairy tale through music. The whole family will be captivated by the whimsical and evocative sounds of the instruments as they journey through the beloved story. Admission is free, all ages are welcome, register at greatlakeschambermusic.org.

HespeR QuaRTeT, Shouse ensemble

JoCeLyn (ZeLasko) ConseLva, narrator

Program

Jordyn Davis Songs for Little Red Riding Hood (b. 1995) Hesper Quartet

Songs for Little Red Riding Hood was co-commissioned by the Detroit Chamber Winds & Strings and the Detroit Institute of Arts.

saturday, June 17 | 7 Pm

In Search of the SublIme

Seligman Performing arts center

Sponsored by JPMorgan Chase

Gilles Vonsattel, piano

tessa lark, violin

PhiliP setzer, violin

hsin-Yun huanG, viola

Paul Watkins, cello

Peter WileY, cello

aYa Piano trio, Shouse ensemble

Program

W. A. Mozart Piano Trio in B-flat major, K. 502 (1756-91) allegro

larghetto

allegretto

AYA Piano Trio

Carlos Simon Sleep Well (b. 1986) Vonsattel

Lickety Split

Vonsattel, Watkins

IntermISSIon

Franz Schubert String Quintet in C major, Op. 163, D. 956 (1797-1828) allegro ma non troppo

adagio

scherzo: Presto – trio: andante sostenuto

allegretto

Setzer, Lark, Huang, Watkins, Wiley

This concert will be preceded by a pre-concert talk with Carlos Simon and Paul Watkins at 6:15 p.m.

Program notes

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Piano Trio in B-flat major, K. 502 (1786)

the earliest works for piano, violin, and cello were, in essence, keyboard sonatas with string accompaniment—just like the earliest violin sonatas. in trios, the cello would often merely duplicate the bass line already present in the left hand of the piano, and the violin would offer little more than some ornamental commentary on the piano melody.

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Jocelyn Zelasko Conselva

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In Mozart’s five mature trios, written between 1786 and 1788, this is definitely not the case. Although the piano still predominates, the strings make extremely important contributions. Mozart displays the three instruments in ever-changing combinations that represent an entirely new approach to scoring in chamber music. The participants engage in musical conversation; they constantly listen and respond to one another, continue one another’s thoughts and raise new ideas at the appropriate moments.

The Trio in B-flat is as rich in ideas and as profound in its emotional world as anything Mozart wrote during those years, when he was at the height of his creative powers. The opening theme, played in sweet parallel thirds, also functions as the movement’s second theme—an example of the “monothematic” construction that Mozart’s friend Joseph Haydn was especially fond of. This particular construction serves to enhance the motivic unity of the work and to provide a gentle surprise; at the moment when a cultivated audience would expect a new theme, a new version of the old one appears instead. Variety is supplied in other ways: in the instrumental combinations already mentioned, and in the new theme that does eventually materialize, in the movement’s central development section.

In Mozart’s music, the tempo marking Larghetto always indicates a slow movement of great emotional intensity. K. 502 is no exception. It is a deeply expressive statement that takes the form of a rondo. In between returns of the extraordinarily beautiful main theme, new ideas emerge and explore both sides of the movement’s central tonality of E-flat major: up a fifth to B-flat and down a fifth to A-flat. The sonorous low notes of the cello add a whole new dimension to the lyrical exchanges between the piano and the violin.

The brilliant last movement follows a special hybrid design known as the “sonatarondo” that combines the light-heartedness of the rondo with the more intellectual world of the sonata, with some rather extensive thematic transformations in the central development section. © 2023

Peter Laki

Franz Schubert: String Quintet in C major, D. 956 (1828)

Did the 31-year-old Schubert know in the summer of 1828 that his time was running out? With his health seriously compromised—it is no secret that he was suffering from syphilis—he composed at a feverish speed, producing a body of work in the months before his death on November 19 that is unmatched even in terms of sheer quantity. The last three piano sonatas, the monumental Mass in E-flat, and the fourteen songs later published as Schwanengesang (“Swan Song”) were all written during this period. What is more, each of these works is a masterpiece of the very first order, richer in both form and expression than anything Schubert had ever written.

The Quintet in C, perhaps the crowning achievement of Schubert’s last year, is a composition like no other in the literature. The vastness of its concept, the extraordinary rhythmic drive and lyrical intensity place this work in a class all by itself. By adding a second cello to the string quartet (and not a second viola as Mozart and Beethoven had done), Schubert gave extra weight to the bass register, increasing the resonance and creating an almost orchestral sound in the most powerful passages. (It is often remarked that Italian composer Luigi Boccherini had written many quintets with two cellos before Schubert; but in fact, Schubert has little in common with Boccherini in either form, sound, or the handling of the instruments.)

The wonders of the Schubert quintet begin right at the outset, with an opening that gathers its momentum gradually, rising by almost imperceptible degrees from the somewhat hesitant first measures to the great explosion that soon follows. The second theme, with its unspeakably sweet parallel thirds, is another wonder, as are the successive waves of rising and subsiding tension in the central portion of the movement.

And what is one to say about the serenely floating opening melody of the slow movement, with its pizzicato (plucked) accompaniment, a single and seemingly endless melodic line that projects a beguiling image of peace and harmony (though not without a tinge of sadness)? A great surprise awaits, however, in the form of a passionately dramatic middle section, whose key, rather unusually, is a half step above the movement’s initial key (F minor as opposed to E major). When the opening melody returns, the first violin adds some exquisite melodic filigree that enhances the excruciating beauty of the melody even more.

The third movement is a greatly expanded Scherzo with dance elements and highly innovative harmonies. As before, contrast is maximized in the middle section, an almost independent slow movement that strikes a tragic tone in a distant key (once more emphasizing the half step above the main key, D-flat against C).

Contrast and ambiguity continue in the finale, which is ostensibly a cheerful rondo; yet it begins in the dark key of C minor, which keeps intruding throughout the movement. At the end of a spirited coda, when one would think that all the tensions have finally been resolved, the dramatic juxtaposition of D-flat against C returns to conclude the quintet in a truly startling manner. © 2023

Peter Laki

COMPOSER’S NOTES

Carlos Simon, Sleep Well

Sleep Well is a short, gracefully flowing work written in 2018 for Peace Dixon, the nephew of the composer. It was commissioned by Abundant Silence, a publishing imprint of the Festival for Creative Pianists, a non-profit, new music and arts education organization that supports the work of 21st Century musical artists and develops unique and creative learning opportunities for pianists of all ages. © Carlos Simon

Carlos Simon, Lickety Split

As a young boy, I worked with my grandfather during the summers paving driveways in Rocky Mount, Virginia. He was a task master. Things had to be done the right way and with haste when he asked for it in his own playful way. He would say, “Pull those weeds up lickety split!” or “Shovel that dirt lickety split!” It was tortuous work during the hot summer days but ultimately proved quite lucrative at the end of the day when my grandfather paid me for the day’s work.

This piece, in its whimsical character, draws on inspiration from that colloquial phrase, Lickety Split, coined in the 1860s. It meant to do something quickly or in a hurry. I used the rhythmic syllabic stresses of the phrase (li-ke-ty split) as a main motif for the piece. To create a playful mood, I used bouncing pizzicato lines in the cello part over wildly syncopated rhythms played by the piano. Harmonically, the central idea moves in parallel motion in thirds between the voices. As the piece develops to an agitated state, both instruments relentlessly rhythmically drive to a climactic ending - done so in a lickety split fashion… © Carlos Simon

Sunday, JunE 18 | 2 pm

Juneteenth Chamber reCital - Carlos simon & Friends

detroit institute of arts

Sponsored by Sandra & Claude Reitelman and Lauren & Dwight Smith

Gilles Vonsattel, piano

njioma GreVious, violin*

james KanG, viola*

Brian Gladlow, cello*

Paul watKins, cello program

CAEN THOMASON-REDUS, flute

NICOLE JOSEPH, soprano

HESPER QUARTET, Shouse ensemble

*Members of the Abeo Quartet

selections to be performed from the following works:

Carlos Simon Loop (b. 1986) Grevious, Kang, Gladlow Sleep Well

Vonsattel

Jasmine Barnes Songs for the African Violet (b. 1991) Joseph, Watkins, Vonsattel

Carlos Simon Between Worlds

Grevious

Elegy Hesper Quartet Lickety Split Watkins, Vonsattel

Shawn Okpebholo On a Poem by Miho Nonaka: Harvard Square (b. 1981) Thomason-Redus

Carlos Simon Generations Simon

COMPOSER’S NOTES

Carlos Simon: Loop

The pandemic of COVID-19 has continued to influence my social, professional and personal life in ways that I never imagined. Day to day life has been like a continuous “loop”; a never-ending quarantine loop. This piece reflects my feelings about the mandated stay-at-home order during the crisis. © Carlos Simon

Carlos Simon: Sleep Well

Sleep Well is a short, gracefully flowing work written in 2018 for Peace Dixon, the nephew of the composer. It was commissioned by Abundant Silence, a publishing imprint of the Festival for Creative Pianists, a non-profit, new music and arts education organization that supports the work of 21st Century musical artists and develops unique and creative learning opportunities for pianists of all ages. © Carlos

Simon

Jasmine

Barnes: Songs for the African Violet

The African Violet as a flower holds special characteristics similar to Black women: they bloom continuously even throughout the darker months of winter; they come in a variety of vibrant colors and sizes and are notable for their velvety texture; they possess an ability to rid the air of toxic by-products; they’re one of the longest living flowers and with great care can grow for several year; though they are lovely and popular domestic plants, they are at threat of extinction in the wild.

When someone sees a beautiful flower, they often want to savor it by picking it - thus cutting it off from growing just for the flower picker’s selfish wants, not seeing that the act killed the flower, and once the flower is dried up and dead, it’s discarded, forgotten, undesirable. This reflects the treatment of Black Women. Loved for the vibrancy she brings to the world and utilized for pop culture, yet plucked from growth and discarded for dead. “Songs for the African Violet,” by comparison to African Violets, pays homage to Black Women, describing her in ways not oft described and urging the world to take care of her, rather than plucking her from the ground.

© Jasmine Barnes

Carlos Simon: Between Worlds

Bill Traylor was born a slave in Alabama in 1853 and died in 1949. He lived long enough to see the United States of America go through many social and political changes. He was an eyewitness to the Civil War, Emancipation, Reconstruction, Jim Crow segregation and the Great Migration. As a self-taught visual artist, his work reflects two separate worlds: rural and urban, black and white, old and new. In many ways the simplified forms in Traylor’s artwork tell of the complexity of his world, creativity, and inspiring bid for self-definition in a dehumanizing segregated culture. This piece is inspired by the evocative nature as a whole and not one piece by Traylor. Themes of mystical folklore, race, and religion pervade Traylor’s work. I imagine these solo pieces as a musical study, hopefully showing Traylor’s life between disparate worlds. © Carlos

Simon

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carlos simon: elegy

This piece is an artistic reflection dedicated to those who have been murdered wrongfully by an oppressive power: namely Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and Michael Brown. The stimulus for this composing piece came as a result of prosecuting attorney Robert McCulloch announcing that a selected jury had decided not to indict police officer Darren Wilson after fatally shooting an unarmed teenager, Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri.

The evocative nature of the piece draws on strong lyricism and a lush harmonic charter. A melodic idea is played in all the voices of the ensemble at some point of the piece, either whole or fragmented. The recurring ominous motif represents the cry of those struck down unjustly in this country. While the predominant essence of the piece is sorrowful and contemplative, there are moments of extreme hope represented by bright consonant harmonies. © Carlos Simon

carlos simon: Lickety split

As a young boy, I worked with my grandfather during the summers paving driveways in Rocky Mount, Virginia. He was a task master. Things had to be done the right way and with haste when he asked for it in his own playful way. He would say, “Pull those weeds up lickety split!” or “Shovel that dirt lickety split!” It was tortuous work during the hot summer days but ultimately proved quite lucrative at the end of the day when my grandfather paid me for the day’s work.

This piece, in its whimsical character, draws on inspiration from that colloquial phrase, Lickety Split, coined in the 1860s. It meant to do something quickly or in a hurry. I used the rhythmic syllabic stresses of the phrase (li-ke-ty split) as a main motif for the piece. To create a playful mood, I used bouncing pizzicato lines in the cello part over wildly syncopated rhythms played by the piano. Harmonically, the central idea moves in parallel motion in thirds between the voices. As the piece develops to an agitated state, both instruments relentlessly rhythmically drive to a climactic ending - done so in a lickety split fashion… © Carlos Simon

shawn okpebholo: On a Poem by miho Nonaka: harvard square

This composition – inspired by Harvard Square, a poem by the Japanese poet, Miho Nonaka – is a work for solo flute, composed for and premiered by virtuoso flutist Caen Thomason-Redus. It was not my intention to, necessarily, text paint each word of the poem; rather, I tried to evoke the essence of the poem’s meaning. In one word, Nonaka describes her poem as being about “resonance.” A natural term In the music world, the word “resonance,” figuratively speaking, can also mean evoking images, memories and emotions, which she beautifully achieves in Harvard Square. This composition is for the virtuoso flutist, utilizing various extended flute techniques. For example, the composition begins with the flute playing bamboo tones, a way for the modern western flute to sound like a shakuhachi, a Japanese bamboo flute, by using nontraditional fingerings (which I notated in the score). © Shawn

Okpebholo

carlos simon: generations

My patriarchal heritage shows three generations of preachers: my great grandfather, Bishop Henry C. Brooks, who began preaching in 1925, my grandfather, Bishop Charles W. Hairston in 1947 and my father Bishop Carlos O. Simon, Sr. in 1994. I chose to use audio clips from past sermons after discovering an old LP and several old cassette tapes of sermons from my great grandfather and grandfather.

I strove to use musical elements that would enhance the message of each proclamation while giving a personal insight to each man. Sow Good Seeds features several sounds that give the impression of something blooming or growing. The Last Days includes a processed Fender Rhodes which my grandfather bought in 1966 at the opening of his church and willed to me at his death in 2010. An ominous bed of dark textures are utilized to create “perilous times”. I used the Hammond organ interspersed throughout Follow the Plan to create a realistic experience of actually being in a worship service. There is a three note (or sometimes chord) motif that appears several times throughout both movements that represent the passion for each one’s vocation. The goal of this work is to recreate the moment at which the sermon was given and to display a musical and cultural heritage that should be celebrated. ©

Carlos Simon

TuESdAy, JuNE 20 | 7 pm

EMErsOn strinG QuArtEt: turninG POints

Kirk in the Hills

Sponsored by Nancy Duffy

EMERSON STRING QUARTET prOgrAm

henry Purcell chacony in g minor, Z. 730 (1659-97) Eugene Drucker, first violin

arr. Benjamin Britten (1913-76)

Joseph haydn string Quartet op. 33, no. 5, hob. iii:41 (1732-1809) Vivace assai

Largo e cantabile

Scherzo: Allegro

Finale: Allegretto

Eugene Drucker, first violin

W. A. mozart string Quartet no. 15 in D minor, K. 421/417b (1756-91) Allegro moderato Andante

Menuetto and Trio: Allegretto

Allegretto ma non troppo – Più allegro

Eugene Drucker, first violin intErMissiOn

Ludwig van Beethoven string Quartet no. 8, op. 59, no. 2 “razumovsky” (1770-1827) Molto adagio: Si tratta questo pezzo con molto di sentimento

Allegretto – Maggiore, Thème russe

Finale: Presto

Philip Setzer, first violin

emerson string Quartet Performance sponsors

Purcell/Britten Chacony / Isabel & Lawrence Smith

Haydn Quartet Op. 33, No.5 / Aviva & Dean Friedman

Mozart Quartet K. 421 / Adrienne & Herschel Fink

Beethoven Quartet Op. 59, No. 2 / Gail & Ira Mondry

Major support of the Emerson String Quartet by David Nathanson

PROGRAM NOTES

Henry Purcell (arr. Benjamin Britten): Chacony in G minor (arr.1948, rev.1963)

A chaconne (like its close relative, the passacaglia) is a set of variations over a recurrent ground bass or a recurrent harmonic progression. Purcell was very fond of this form, which he used in several of his stage works, most famously in Dido and Aeneas.

The present “Chacony” (to use the original spelling) is an independent piece, in which the composer handled the variation form with remarkable freedom and virtuosity. In addition to altering the rhythm and ornamenting the melody, he varied the instrumentation as well, occasionally omitting the bass altogether and at one point assigning the bass melody to the treble.

Benjamin Britten had a life-long love for Purcell’s music. He performed and recorded it frequently with his partner, the great tenor Peter Pears, and published many modern editions and realizations which contributed considerably to the Purcell renaissance in the 20th century. © 2023 Peter Laki

Joseph Haydn: String Quartet in G major, Op. 33, No. 5 (1781)

“They are written in a new and special way, for I have not composed any for 10 years.” With these words did Haydn introduce his most recent set of six string quartets in December 1781 to prospective buyers of the sheet music. The exact same sentence appears in three different surviving letters (and there were probably even more similar announcements that have been lost). Some musicologists have dismissed this description as a mere sales pitch, while others have seen it as a sort of stylistic manifesto.

Without falling into either extreme, it cannot be denied that, if we compare the quartets of Op. 33 to Haydn’s previous set, Op. 20 (1772), the differences are enormous. The novelties include a more pervasive technique of motivic development involving sophisticated ways of thematic transformation. Another significant innovation is the appearance of a lighter tone in general, and clear signs of a delicious sense of humor that became, from this point onward, a hallmark of Haydn’s style. Op. 33 includes the quartet known as “The Joke,” where you never know exactly when the piece is over. And it is the set that used to be referred to as Gli Scherzi, for it was here that Haydn, for the first time, replaced the traditional minuet by a scherzo—a witty, fast movement filled with musical surprises of all kinds. The great Haydn scholar H. C. Robbins Landon noted that Haydn had a special reason to be in a good mood in 1781: trapped in a bad marriage, he was in a happy relationship with the Italian singer Luigia Polzelli. (The six quartets of Op. 33 are also occasionally called the “Russian quartets,” because they were published with a dedication to Grand Duke Paul, the future Czar Paul I.)

The very beginning of the G major quartet is a subtle joke: it is a closing figure in an opening position that defines the progress of the movement in a multitude of fascinating ways. Syncopations (strong notes on weak beats), unexpected harmonic changes and general rests punctuate this Vivace assai, which ends exactly as it began, with the closing figure now assuming its proper concluding function.

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The second movement Largo cantabile is a gorgeous instrumental aria where the first violin reigns supreme throughout, with the expressive accompaniment of the other three instruments. In the Scherzo, the humorous effect is produced by a motif of two beats that runs counter to the triple meter, and a general rest that delays the end of the phrase. The middle section, or “Trio,” is more regular; it provides a brief respite before the return of the Scherzo proper. The last movement is a set of variations on a theme in the form of the siciliano dance. In the course of the variations, the instruments take turns embellishing the theme; the tempo then speeds up for the coda, or concluding section. © 2023 Peter Laki

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: String Quartet in D minor, K. 421 (1783)

Mozart did not always compose with the ease and speed one usually associates with his name. Even he had to struggle with some of his compositions. The six string quartets dedicated to Franz Joseph Haydn are a case in point. In paying homage to his older colleague and friend, Mozart subjected himself to an enormous challenge. Haydn had turned the string quartet into one of the most highly developed instrumental genres of his time and, especially after his epoch-making set of six quartets, Op. 33 (1781), he became the undisputed master of the form with an international reputation. Mozart, eager to live up to these high standards, took three years to complete his set of six quartets which constitute his response to Haydn’s Op. 33. Here was music for the connoisseur, sophisticated in technique and complex in elaboration—the work of a genius making a conscious effort to outdo himself (if that is possible at all). For the publication of these quartets, Mozart wrote a beautiful dedicatory letter to Haydn (in Italian, the international language of music) in which he acknowledged the “long and hard work” the quartets had cost him, and asked Haydn to be a loving “father, guide and friend” to these “children” which the composer was sending out into the world to live their own lives.

The D minor quartet was the second in the set of six. Mozart followed Haydn’s custom of including one quartet in a minor key in the group; such works were usually darker, more tragic in tone and more innovative in harmonic language than their “siblings” in major tonalities. The D minor quartet is no exception: its mood is agitated almost from beginning to end. One area of relative calm is the second theme of the first movement, in which the tonality switches to major, in accordance with expectations. Yet when this theme returns in the recapitulation (after a rather stormy development), it undergoes some striking melodic transformations that effectively change its character from lyrical to dramatic.

The second movement is a (mostly) calm Andante in F major. The third is a minuet, but without the usual graceful character of the dance; this minuetto serio (serious minuet) in the tragic key of D minor is filled with chromatic harmonies and complex imitative textures. Its stern atmosphere is relieved by the Trio, in which the first violin plays a tune reminiscent of yodeling (a kind of folk singing from the mountainous regions of Austria, characterized by wide melodic leaps).

The last movement is a set of variations on a theme in which the rhythm of the siciliano dance is imbued with a strong proto-Romantic feeling. Contrary to what happens in many minor key works where the tensions are eased by a final modulation to the major, in this movement the variation in the major remains a passing episode and the work ends on a rather disconsolate note. © 2023 Peter

Ludwig van Beethoven: string Quartet in e minor, op. 59, no. 2 (1806)

The three quartets of Op. 59, known as the “Razumovsky” quartets, were written shortly after the Third Symphony (“Eroica”) and the F minor Piano Sonata (“Appassionata”). In those works, Beethoven made a bold leap into the future: music had never expressed such intense emotions before, nor had the formal conventions of music been changed so radically in such a short time. With Op. 59, Beethoven extended his musical revolution to the quartet medium, producing three masterworks after which the genre was never the same again.

One of the most striking features of Beethoven’s “heroic” style is a reduction of the thematic material to a small number of motifs and an expansion of the techniques that serve to develop those motifs. The most extreme example is probably the first movement of the Fifth Symphony, with its famous four-note theme, but the opening of the E minor quartet is equally striking. Beethoven begins suspensefully with a pair of chords, followed by a short phrase, which is punctuated by rests and repeated a half step higher, immediately calling the E minor tonality into question. Eventually, continuity is restored, but the form remains rather fragmented, reflecting an agitated state of mind. We hear many insistent syncopated rhythms and rapid passages in unison or parallel motion, in dramatic contrast with the occasional gentler moments.

Beethoven inscribed the second movement Molto Adagio with the words Si tratta questo pezzo con molto sentimento (“This piece must be treated with much feeling”). Here is one of his great hymn-like slow movements, with the quiet majesty of the later “Emperor” Concerto and Ninth Symphony—yet entirely within the intimate world of chamber music. The melody is enriched by chromatic harmonies and surrounded by complex figurations. Then, at the end of the movement, all embellishments are stripped away and the melody is stated by the four instruments in bold fortissimo chords, with harsh harmonies and strong accents—before the gentle closing measures end the movement in an idyllic mood.

Beethoven refrained from calling the third movement a “scherzo,” and surely the first section of the movement is too serious to qualify as a “joke.” Yet its syncopated motion and sudden dynamic and harmonic changes are definitely scherzo-like features. The high point of the movement, however, is the second section (which elsewhere would be called “Trio”). In honor of his dedicatee, Beethoven inserted a Russian theme here (marked thème russe in the score). The source of the theme was the important folk-song collection published by Nikolai Lvov and Ivan Prach in 1790. (This melody, “Glory to the Sun,” was famously used again by Mussorgsky in the coronation scene of Boris Godunov.) Beethoven had the four instruments take turns in repeating this melody identically over and over again, against a fast-moving counterpoint that also makes its rounds among the four players. As in several other Beethoven works, the usual A-B-A scheme of the scherzo is expanded to A-B-A-B-A, with the thème russe section appearing twice and the opening section three times.

Laki

The finale is a galloping sonata rondo where Beethoven constantly plays games with our (possibly subconscious) tonal expectations. Seemingly reluctant to establish the home key of E minor, he keeps the first few measures in C major before making a sudden shift just before the end of the phrase. (The last movement of the Fourth Piano Concerto, Op. 58, written around the same time, uses a similar strategy.) The rhythmic momentum never flags, though the galloping pulse is temporarily replaced by quieter motion in the lyrical second theme. Yet the main theme never stays away for very long; and as if the initial Presto tempo weren’t fast enough, Beethoven demands Più presto (“faster”) for the final measures. © 2023 Peter Laki

WEdNESdAy, JuNE 21 | 7:30 pm

tAstinG nOtEs: CiACCOnA n CHEEsE

Mongers’ Provisions – Berkley

Sponsored by Joy & Allan Nachman and Linda Goodman in memory of Dolores Curiel

ROBYN BOLLINGER, violin

prOgrAm

Arr. robyn Bollinger ciaccona: the Bass of time (b. 1991) Bollinger

ThurSdAy, JuNE 22 | 10 Am

BEyOnD tHE nOtEs: MusiC MEEts MinDFulnEss temple Beth El

HESPER QUARTET, Shouse ensemble

Enjoy a 60-minute yoga class for everybody with yoga maestra Gail Mondry, accompanied by the Hesper Quartet.

ThurSdAy, JuNE 22 | 11 Am

sHOusE: BEEtHOvEn & BABAjAniAn st. Matthew’s & st. joseph’s Episcopal Church

AYA PIANO TRIO, Shouse ensemble

PELIA STRING QUARTET, Shouse ensemble

prOgrAm

Arno Babajanian Piano trio in f-sharp minor (1921-83) Largo – Allegro espressivo Andante

Allegro vivace

AYA Piano Trio

Ludwig van Beethoven string Quartet no. 10, op. 74 “harp” (1770-1827) Poco adagio – Allegro

Adagio ma non troppo

Presto – Più presto quasi prestissimo

Allegretto con variazioni

Pelia String Quartet

Thursday, June 22 | 7 pm

EmErson string QuartEt: romantic Visions

Kirk in the Hills

Sponsored by Josette Silver

Shai WoSner, piano emerSon String Quartet program

Felix Mendelssohn String Quartet No. 1 in E-flat major, Op. 12 (1809-47) adagio non troppo – allegro non tardante

Canzonetta: allegretto

andante espressivo

molto allegro e vivace

Eugene Drucker, first violin

Johannes Brahms String Quartet No. 3 in B-flat major, Op. 67 (1833-97) Vivace

andante

agitato (allegretto non troppo)

Poco allegretto con variazioni

Philip Setzer, first violin

intErmission

Antonín Dvor˘ák Piano Quintet No. 2 in A major, Op. 81, B. 155 (1841-1904) allegro, ma non tanto

Dumka: andante con moto

Scherzo (Furiant): molto vivace

Finale: allegro

Wosner, Emerson String Quartet (Philip Setzer, first violin)

Emerson String Quartet Performance Sponsors

mendelssohn Quartet no. 1 / Kathleen Block

Brahms Quartet no. 3 / Martha Pleiss

Dvor˘ák Piano Quintet / Beverly Baker & Edward Treisman

Major support of the Emerson String Quartet by David Nathanson

continued on page 26

continued from page 25

PROGRAM NOTES

Felix Mendelssohn: String Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 12 (1829)

Few composers in the 1820s were more familiar with Beethoven’s recent works than the young Felix Mendelssohn. At a time when Hummel, Clementi, and Spohr were at the height of their fame, not everyone recognized that Beethoven was a greater genius than they; but Mendelssohn had no doubts about that. The opening of his Quartet in E-flat, Op. 12, makes that point absolutely clear with its unmistakable allusion to Beethoven's quartet in the same key (Op. 74, “Harp”), written in 1809, the year of Mendelssohn’s birth. The allusion occurs in the pensive slow introduction to the first movement, which lends extra weight to the Allegro that follows. The latter is a marvel of motivic development: everything flows organically from a simple melodic idea, yet there are always unexpected melodic and harmonic turns to ensure variety.

The second movement is a Canzonetta, that is, neither a minuet nor a scherzo but a “little song”—a “song without words,” as it were. This movement certainly has nothing Beethovenian about it; it is the voice of a young generation, delicate, innovative, and witty. The “trio” (middle section) of the canzonetta is a whirlwind passage that has reminded commentators of the Midsummer Night’s Dream overture, composed three years earlier.

The third movement (Andante espressivo) is a lyrical song that, on two occasions, becomes more agitated (the second time even more so than the first), only to return to its initial tranquil state soon afterwards. It is followed without pause by the finale (Molto allegro e vivace), which—unexpectedly—begins, and for a long time stays, in C minor, adding a touch of Sturm und Drang (“storm and stress,” the name of a dramatic way of writing that was a precursor of Romanticism in some works of Haydn and Mozart). The home key of E-flat isn't reached until shortly before the end; at that point, the melodic material of the first movement returns to provide a feeling of symmetry that is itself a novel feature in the music of the 1820s. The movement, much of which was intense and passionate, ends surprisingly in a hushed pianissimo.

The E-flat major quartet is sometimes referred to as No. 1. In reality, it was written two years after the official “Quartet No. 2,” the A minor work that was published after the E-flat major, as Op. 13. There is also an early E-flat major quartet with no opus number at all, written in 1823 when Mendelssohn was only fourteen and published after the composer's death, so the present work is actually the third string quartet Mendelssohn completed. It was a product of his 1829 journey to the British Isles, which also inspired the “Scottish” Symphony and the Hebrides Overture. The manuscript is dated “14th September, 1829, London.” © 2023 Peter Laki

Johannes Brahms: String Quartet No. 3 in B-flat major, Op. 67 (1875)

Much ink has been spilled over whether Brahms was a “conservative” or a “progressive” composer—that is, whether he must be faulted for not going along with the radical ideas of his older contemporaries Liszt and Wagner, or whether he should be given more credit for his novel structural and harmonic solutions. One way out of this academic quandary would be to realize that the two adjectives in quotation marks are really two sides of the same coin: Brahms’s genius lay in the way he was able to innovate within an existing framework, and to reconcile his originality with the tradition that was sacred to him.

Few works show this duality better than his third and last string quartet, so daring in a lot of ways and still so comfortable in observing the classical rules of the genre. After two turbulent and dramatic minor key quartets (Op. 51), Brahms composed one that is mostly light and happy, though by no means simple, in tone—and Brahms once said that it was his favorite quartet of the three. The composer dedicated the work to his friend Theodor Engelmann, whose wife, Emma, was an accomplished pianist.

The opening theme of the first movement is a direct descendant of Mozart’s “Hunt” Quartet (they have similar motivic materials, and share the same meter and the same key). Yet within a few measures, rhythmic complications arise that are never found in Mozart. Most unusually, the meter changes in the folksy second theme and for a short while, two different meters are heard simultaneously. The development section covers an enormous range of keys and characters. And yet, the end of the movement manages to settle happily back into the classical world as if nothing had happened.

The second-movement Andante contains one of Brahms’s most glorious melodies: it has an unusually wide range and draws an extremely long musical arc. It is followed by a typical Brahmsian moment with powerful angular rhythms, played together by all four instruments. A beguilingly beautiful and rather adventurous development section leads back to a restatement of the opening melody, followed by an idyllic coda.

In the third movement, the viola plays “first fiddle”; the other three instruments accompany with their mutes on. An expressive melody in the style of Brahms’s Liebeslieder-Walzer (“love-song waltzes”) opens the movement which is in ABA form. The central “B” presents little contrast: it is another sensuous waltz melody led, once again, by the viola.

The last movement is a classical theme and variations with many subtle surprises. First of all, the melodious theme has a slight but very noticeable irregularity in that its second half is two measures shorter than the first. This asymmetry is maintained in all the variations, which at first follow the classical pattern of introducing faster figurations and giving each instrument a turn in playing the melody. The later variations go farther and farther afield until we reach a point, in a fairly distant key, where the melody seems entirely to dissolve in a series of chords accompanied by a pizzicato—plucked—bass line, itself alternating between the cello and the viola. It is a variation where timbre, or sound color, seems to take over as the most prominent musical parameter, more important than melody and rhythm!

After this magical moment, the opening melody of the first movement unexpectedly returns, and we realize that its melodic outline is related to that of the variation theme. The two themes are brilliantly combined in the final section but once again, after so many complicated compositional maneuvers, the work ends in a simple and straightforward manner. © 2023 Peter Laki

Antonín Dvor˘ák: Piano Quintet in A major, Op. 81 (1887)

The German music publisher Fritz Simrock felt that the Czech form of his star composer’s first name, Antonín, did not look good on the title page of a respectable German score. He tried hard to persuade Dvor˘ák to use the German form, Anton, instead, but the patriotic composer insisted on the two extra letters. They finally struck a compromise by abbreviating the name to a neutral and non-committal Ant.

In a way, Dvor˘ák’s entire life and career revolved around the issue of Anton vs. Antonín. As a proud Bohemian whose country was part of the Austrian Empire, he always resisted the German culture of the rulers. And yet, the road to recognition led through Simrock and the German-speaking world—at least until Dvor˘ák was able to bypass that world by going first to England and then to the United States. Still, Dvor˘ák was much more than a Czech nationalist. His unique contribution lies precisely in the fact that he was able to express his Czech identity within what was essentially a Germanic tradition – forms of symphonic and chamber music he had inherited from Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann.

In his greatest works, Dvor˘ák found the perfect balance between the nationalist Antonín and the universalist Anton. The A major Quintet, for instance, overflows with beautiful melodies in a Czech folk style, and contains both a dumka and a furiant (see below). At the same time, it is without a doubt the only successor to the great piano quintets of Schumann and Brahms that is worthy of the great models in every respect.

The first movement opens with an unforgettable cello melody. The second theme, equally lyrical, is introduced by the viola. Both themes are eventually developed by all five players and acquire considerable rhythmic energy in the process, although the character of the entire movement still remains predominantly lyrical. Only the coda strikes, all of a sudden, a more heroic tone.

The second movement is a dumka—a type of melancholy folk song, originally from Ukraine, that inspired Dvor˘ák in many of his works, most famously in the “Dumky” Piano Trio of 1891. The trio contains six dumka movements, greatly varied in tempo and mood. The dumka of the A major Quintet manages to fit some of the contrasting characters into a single movement: the brooding Andante con moto of the opening is followed by a second idea in a more fluid tempo. The opening melody is heard again, first in the original tempo and then in the form of a Vivace variation. The first two segments (the brooding opening and the more fluid second idea) return, and the movement ends molto tranquillo (“very calmly”).

The third movement is titled Scherzo-Furiant—a double label reflecting, once again, the Anton-Antonín duality. To German ears, this movement fits neatly in the category of the scherzo, familiar since the days of Beethoven. Yet Dvor˘ák’s immediate inspiration was the Czech folk dance, the furiant, whose pedigree was established by Bedr˘ich Smetana, whose landmark opera The Bartered Bride contains a classic example. The most important characteristic of the furiant is its metric ambiguity resulting from the frequent duple articulations within an essentially triple meter. Dvor˘ák’s furiant in the quintet is based on two dance melodies, one energetic and one more tender. The trio (middle section) is in a slower tempo but its theme is derived from the energetic motif heard earlier. The recapitulation of the Scherzo is much abbreviated.

The last movement has the inflection of another folk dance, the polka, embedded in a rondo scheme with lyrical episodes and a lively fugato (section with contrapuntal imitation). The movement has a coda where the motion momentarily slows down, only to pick up again and end on an exuberant note. ©

2023 Peter Laki

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Friday, June 23 | 11 am

Musical chairs with PhiliP setzer

temple Beth ei

Sponsored by Isabel & Lawrence Smith

PhiliP Setzer, Shouse Institute Director/violin

Abeo QuArtet, Sphinx Apprentice Ensemble

AYA PiAno trio, Shouse ensemble

heSPer QuArtet, Shouse ensemble

PeliA String QuArtet, Shouse ensemble

All Shouse institute musicians mix and match as they take turns performing in a rotating ensemble under the direction of Shouse institute Director Philip Setzer.

Friday, June 23 | 7 Pm

audio/Visual with alVin waddles

Marygrove conservancy

Sponsored by Bridget & Michael Morin

imagination amplifies across artistic boundaries. Detroit legend Alvin Waddles shines his incredible light onto interesting turning points in the works of composers ranging from Scriabin and Stravinsky to Fats Waller.

COmPOSer’S nOTeS

Alvin WAddles

An artist's journey is rarely a straight path. Sometimes a change in direction is wrought by maturation, inspiration or even adversity. Join me for an exploration of several composers who reached stylistic and personal turning points in their effort to find a road less traveled.

Friday, June 23 | 7:30 Pm

SoundS of Spring

Kerrytown Concert House

Ying Li, piano*

Shai WoSner, piano robYn boLLinger, violin njioma greviouS, violin**

jameS Kang, viola**

brian gLadLoW, cello**

Program

*Member of AYA Piano Trio

**Member of Abeo Quartet

Franz Schubert Rondo in A major, Op. 107, D. 951 (1797-1828) allegretto quasi andantino

Li, Wosner

Ludwig van Beethoven Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 5 in F major, Op. 24 (1770-1827) “Spring”

allegro

adagio molto espressivo

Scherzo: allegro molto

rondo: allegro ma non troppo

Wosner, Bollinger

inTErMiSSion

W. A. Mozart Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, K. 478 (1756-91) allegro

andante

rondo: allegro

Wosner, Grievous, Kang, Gladlow

Alvin Waddles

PROGRAM NOTES

Franz Schubert: Rondo in A major, Op. 107, D. 951 (1828)

The piano duet is one of the most intimate forms of chamber music. Two players sharing the same instrument have to sit pretty close to one another on the bench to reach all the necessary notes. In the early 19th century, piano duets were particularly popular in Vienna, since there were many accomplished amateurs who enjoyed playing such works at home. It was an area where Schubert was greatly successful during his lifetime, and he wrote more piano duets than almost any other great composer. Yet his four-hand works are significant not only because of their quantity but also because of the great care he lavished on them.

The present rondo dates from the last year of Schubert’s life and was published the year after his untimely death. Its gorgeous main melody undergoes a number of subtle transformations and alternates with some slightly more animated episodes that, however, never seriously alter the serene mood of the composition.

© 2023 Peter Laki

Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata No. 5 in F major, Op. 24, “Spring” (1801)

What can we say about Beethoven’s “Spring” Sonata, except that it is a happy day when we get to hear it? The nickname is not by the composer, but it is entirely appropriate, because the warmth and serenity the work projects in all four of its movements. Beethoven the lyricist sings in a voice that, in its gentleness, is no less powerful than the thundering outbursts of his heroic period; his unmistakable personality is present just as strongly in this gentle sonata as it is in the great dramatic works.

The sonata opens with one of Beethoven’s most endearing and most unforgettable melodies. Subsequent themes in the movement show a little more musical “muscle,” but it is more like a soft breeze rustling the leaves than a strong wind, let alone a storm.

The second-movement Adagio is based on a single melody of rare delicacy, played in turn by both instruments. The third-movement Scherzo is definitely Beethoven’s shortest sonata movement: it fits on a single page in the score. It grows from a simple rhythmic idea, repeated constantly by the piano, with a characteristic offbeat response from the violin. The movement’s Trio (middle section), which takes only about twenty seconds to play, is a continuous rush up and down the scale, in the form of two highly condensed musical phrases.

The melodious rondo theme of the finale is followed by an equally lyrical first episode. It is the central second episode that provides the main contrast, as it is the only extended minor-key section in the entire sonata. It features some dramatic syncopations, excited triplet figures, and some expressive chromatic inflections in the melody (with half-steps not normally part of the scale). However, these tensions prove to be only temporary, and the peaceful earlier themes return. The short coda only confirms the joyful and sunny atmosphere that has prevailed throughout the entire composition. ©

Peter Laki

Wolfgang Amadeus mozart: Piano Quartet in g minor, K. 478 (1785)

Mozart used the combination of piano and three string instruments only twice, but in those two masterworks (K. 478 and K. 493) he invented a new genre that found many followers in the 19th century. During his years in Vienna, he liked to play chamber music on the viola; that may be the reason why he chose to expand the familiar piano-trio format to include his favorite instrument.

The G minor quartet, written in 1785, has received particular attention on account of its opening key, which Mozart always reserved for works in a dark, passionate, proto-Romantic tone. The opening movement of the quartet is no exception; it is one of Mozart’s most turbulent and emotionally charged Allegros. The lyrical second movement and the final Rondo continue in a different vein: they are both graceful, melodious, and firmly anchored in the major mode.

This work was one of three piano quartets the Viennese music publisher Hoffmeister commissioned from Mozart. But since it didn’t sell well, Hoffmeister canceled the commission. The second quartet was eventually published by a different publisher; the projected third quartet, alas, was never written. © 2023 Peter Laki

Saturday, June 24 | 6:30 Pm

EmErson string QuartEt: Final FarEwEll seligman Performing arts Center

Sponsored by Linda & Maurice Binkow

EmErson string QuartEt Program

Maurice Ravel String Quartet in F major (1875-1937) allegro moderato – très doux

assez vif – très rythmé

très lent

Vif et agité

Philip Setzer, first violin

Anton Webern Six Bagatelles for String Quartet, Op. 9 (1883-1945) mäßig (moderato)

Leicht bewegt (Easily moved)

Ziemlich fließend (Pretty Fluent)

sehr langsam (Very slowly)

Äußerst langsam (Extremely slow)

Fließend (Fluently)

Eugene Drucker, first violin

Béla Bartók String Quartet No. 2, BB 75, Op. 17, Sz. 67 (1881-1945) moderato

allegro molto, capriccioso

Lento

Philip Setzer, first violin

intErmission

Sarah Kirkland Snider Drink the Wild Ayre (2023) (b. 1973) Eugene Drucker, first violin

Dmitri Shostakovich String Quartet No. 12 in D-flat major, Op. 133 (1906-75) moderato-allegretto

allegretto-adagio-moderato

Eugene Drucker, first violin

Emerson String Quartet Performance Sponsors

ravel Quartet / Franziska Schoenfeld

Webern six Bagatelles / Christine Goerke

Bartók Quartet no.2 / Marguerite Munson Lentz & David Lentz

Kirkland snider “Drink the Wild ayre” / Virginia & Michael Geheb

shostakovich Quartet no. 12 / Kathleen O’Toole Schein & Randolph Schein

Major support of the Emerson String Quartet by David Nathanson

cLosing night: fAreWeLL recePtion At AnDiAmo

Sponsored by James Tocco

As the Emerson String Quartet marks another Turning Point, the GLCMF invites you to meet the artists at a special farewell reception at Andiamo Restaurant, starting at 9:15 p.m. Call 248-559-2097 for more information.

Tickets are $125 each.

PROGRAM NOTES

Maurice Ravel: String Quartet in F major (1902-03)

Ravel was twenty-seven years old when he wrote his first and only string quartet. He was still, at least nominally, a student, as he was auditing Gabriel Fauré’s composition class at the Paris Conservatoire. But he had been active as a composer for years, with numerous public performances under his belt. He had failed, however, to win a prize from the Conservatoire, which was a condition for graduation. In particular, the prestigious Prix de Rome continued to elude Ravel, who was eliminated from the contest no fewer than five times. This situation became more and more ludicrous and it finally led to a much-publicized scandal in 1905. The director of the Conservatoire had to resign, and Ravel confirmed his status as one of the leading French composers of his generation.

Ravel’s string quartet—dedicated “to my dear master Gabriel Fauré”—is clearly modeled on Debussy’s celebrated Quatuor from 1893, yet Ravel displays a sense of color and melody that is all his own. To both composers, the string quartet as a medium suggested—in fact, demanded—adherence to classical tradition. Yet nothing was farther from them than academicism of any kind. The defining characteristic of both works is precisely the tension between the classical forms and a positively non-classical sensitivity that is manifest at every turn.

Melody, harmony and rhythm are usually thought of as the most important ingredients of music. In Ravel’s string quartet, written at the beginning of the 20th century, a fourth element, sound, appears as a factor of equal importance. The alternation of playing techniques (pizzicato, con sordino, arpeggio, bow on the fingerboard) is as crucial to the unfolding of the piece as the alternation of themes. Their succession, especially in the second and third movements, creates a musical form of its own, entirely non-traditional this time.

In the first movement, classical sonata form is realized with great clarity and ingenuity. Note the characteristic pianissimo rallentando (extremely soft and slow playing) at the end of the movement, similar to the analogous moment in Ravel’s Piano Trio of 1914. (On the other hand, the opening movement of Debussy’s string quartet ends with a loud and fast coda.)

The second movement of Ravel’s quartet is based on the contrast between two

themes of opposite character: one pizzicato (plucked), and one bien chanté (“sing out!”), with bow. Again, it seems that the movement looks into the future (ahead to the Piano Trio of 1914) rather than into the past (back to the Debussy quartet). The middle section, in which all four instruments use mutes, is an expressive slow movement in miniature, with subtle variations on both scherzo themes.

The unique beauty of the third movement emerges by fits and starts, as it were, through the juxtaposition of segments in different tempos, keys, and meters. An expressive melody, whose primary exponent is the viola, is interrupted by memories of the first movement’s opening theme. After a more animated middle section, culminating in a passionate outburst, the initial slow tempo returns with its exquisite harmonies.

The last movement is based on an ostinato (“stubbornly” returning pattern) in an asymmetrical 5/8 meter. After a while, this ostinato yields to a more regular 3/4 which, once more, contains echoes of the first movement. A different musical character— the first aggressive, the second more lyrical—corresponds to each of these two meters. Their contrast carries the movement forward, right up to the singularly forceful conclusion. © 2023 Peter Laki

Anton Webern: Six Bagatelles for String Quartet, Op. 9 (1913)

The three masters of the second Viennese school—Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Anton Webern—had a lifelong devotion to the string quartet medium, which inspired them to formulate their musical thoughts with the utmost clarity. Their quartets span all three phases of their parallel developments, from the early tonal works to free atonality and then to the compositions using the twelve-tone system. The Six Bagatelles represent the summit of the aphoristic style Webern developed in the early 1910s. They are the shortest works of a composer who always favored extreme brevity. Webern wrote about the way he composed the piece:

I had the feeling that when the twelve tones have been played the piece is over...In my sketchbook I wrote out the chromatic scale and crossed off individual notes. Why? Because I had convinced myself that the note was already there. It sounds grotesque, incomprehensible, and it was incredibly difficult. The inner ear decided absolutely rightly that the person who had written out the chromatic scale and crossed off individual notes was no fool. In short, a law came into being. Until all twelve notes have appeared none of them must appear again... We were not then conscious of the principle but had been sensing it for a long time.

We can’t stress too strongly that Webern, as always, made the inner ear the supreme judge. The quote shows that the twelve-tone system, as codified some years later by Schoenberg, was not created by a purely cerebral process: it was the ear that demanded that all twelve notes be used before one of them was repeated. (In spite of this systematic use of the twelve pitches, the work is not a “twelve-tone” piece strictly speaking, since the pitches do not form a row and are not subject to inversion, retrogradation and transposition as full-blown serial theory would entail.)

The idea that the lifespan of the piece is related to the gradual unfolding of a twelve-tone sequence is highly significant even if the piece isn’t exactly over after only twelve notes. In the first bagatelle for instance, we have heard all twelve tones by measure 3, but the movement consists of a total of 10 measures. In the remaining

seven measures, Webern draws musical “consequences” from his first presentation of the twelve notes, varying and developing the motivic relationships he set up there. As Schoenberg put it so beautifully in his often-quoted preface to the Bagatelles: Every glance can be expanded into a poem, every sigh into a novel. But to express a novel in a single gesture, joy in a single breath—such concentration can only be found where self-pity is lacking in equal measure.

What’s more, each bagatelle is a different “novel.” By varying the tempo, the playing technique and the character of the gestures, Webern created considerable variety within the cycle. Almost every note carries a special performance instruction, whether a new dynamic marking, an accent, or a particular way of playing (plucked, harmonics, near the bridge, with mute); this extraordinary detail work gives the piece a unique atmosphere.

Shostakovich’s biography resembles nothing more than a wild roller-coaster ride with the dramatic ups and downs of highest praise and harshest condemnation. After the age of sixty, his official troubles with the Soviet regime seemed to be over and he could have finally begun to enjoy his celebrity status if his health hadn’t seriously deteriorated in the meantime. Living in the shadow of death, Shostakovich turned increasingly inward and the tone of his music became more intensely personal than ever before. At the same time, he no longer felt the need for any concessions to politicians or anyone else. © 2023 Peter Laki

Béla Bartók: String Quartet No. 2 (1917)

Bartók’s Second Quartet was written during a time of personal and artistic crisis in the composer’s life, due in part to the hardships of World War I, and in part to the vehement opposition to his music on the part of the Hungarian critics. In fact, the composer’s environment became so hostile that in 1912 he decided to withdraw from the musical life of Budapest and to move to a relatively distant suburb. A mood of pessimism took hold of Bartók during these years – witness the tragic endings of the Four Pieces for Orchestra and the Suite for Piano, Op. 14, and the two dark song cycles Opp. 15 and 16, all from the years immediately preceding the Second Quartet. The Second Quartet, too, ends with a desolate slow movement, preceded by a Moderato filled with nostalgic longing and an extended, ferocious dance.

In addition to these extreme contrasts between the movements, the first movement contains its own inner polarity, between the opening theme (a languid melody with ever-widening intervals) and a second, “bittersweet” idea that appears only twice, harmonized in a much more consonant way. The contrast of these two themes could correspond to an imagined contrast between a melancholy state of mind and the world of ideal dreams. Powerful surges and desperate climaxes punctuate this movement which roughly follows the outlines of sonata form. One of the most memorable moments occurs shortly before the end: a five-note motif, played by all four instruments in a menacing, fortissimo unison, turns out to be identical to the beginning of the “bittersweet” theme, which immediately follows, ushering in a coda in which both themes are unites in a farewell gesture of great tenderness.

For most of its duration, the second movement has a single interval—the minor third—for its theme. It is hammered home in a relentless ostinato in which Hungarian musicologist János Kárpáti saw a reflection of the Arabic drumming Bartók had heard continued on page 32

continued from page 31

during his visit to Biskra, Algeria in 1913. This ostinato is developed in spectacular ways, in turn serious and comic. Toward the middle of the movement, the tempo slows down for a while and a lyrical melody appears, only to be brushed aside by the returning ostinatos that become wilder and wilder to the end. The concluding fortissimo unison recalls the similar passage from the first movement mentioned above. Only this time there is no relief in a dreamlike conclusion; the third movement that follows is one of the darkest pieces of music Bartók ever wrote.

Isolated melodic fragments, played with mutes, set a desolate stage, preparing the appearance of the melody modeled after a certain type of Hungarian folksong of a mournful character. The contours of the melody, and the fact that the phrase is repeated a fifth higher, are reminiscent of folk music, but the chromatic inflections of the theme speak an intensely personal language of Bartók’s own. In fact, the pitches derive from the languid opening theme of the first movement. The two kinds of sadness—the personal grief of the composer and the communal lament of folksong—reinforce one another as the music moves through successive stages of anxiety and despair. The final sonority of the work is the same minor third that figured so prominently in the second movement—now played twice, pizzicato (plucked) by the viola and cello, muffled and austere. © 2023 Peter Laki

Dmitri Shostakovich: Quartet No. 12 in D-flat major, Op. 133 (1968)

The present work is the second in a cycle of four (Nos. 11-14) dedicated to each of the members of the Beethoven String Quartet, who were old friends of Shostakovich’s who had premiered all of his quartets except for No. 1. The Twelfth Quartet was the composer’s personal gift to first violinist Dmitri Tsyganov (1903-1992). It is in two extended movements, each of which further subdivides into several smaller sections. The composer himself called this quartet “symphonic” in its conception.

In commentaries of this work, one particular feature is mentioned more frequently than any other, namely the use of twelve-tone themes throughout the work. The very opening features a theme containing all twelve tones, but Shostakovich doesn’t manipulate his theme the way the members of the Second Viennese School manipulated their tone rows. Shostakovich’s theme remains a melody, contrasting with other melodies of a more traditional diatonic type. In a way, the entire work can be seen as a kind of struggle between these two melodic worlds.

The gloomy Moderato introduction soon gives way to a more dance-like Allegretto section in 3/4 time; the two characters consistently alternate throughout the movement. The second movement begins as a scherzo (of the sarcastic Shostakovichian variety), incorporates an extended, and extremely stark, Adagio section and concludes with a finale that integrates all the elements previously heard. The quartet ends with one of those ambivalent “resolutions” where all the tonal tensions are smoothed out yet something deeply disturbing remains. © 2023 Peter Laki

COMPOSER'S NOTES

Sarah Kirkland Snider, Drink the Wild Ayre (2023)

Drink the Wild Ayre is my second string quartet. I wrote my first over twenty years ago, while poring over recordings by the Emerson String Quartet. At that time, I was new to composition and bought every CD of theirs I could find, obsessively studying

counterpoint and voice-leading via their recordings. Their performances became my benchmark for the masterpieces they recorded; their sounds became synonymous, in my mind, with the composer’s intent. For me, theirs was the definitive interpretation of all the great string quartets in history.

So, when the invitation to write this piece came in — the Emerson's final commission, to be performed during this, their final season — I nearly fell off my chair. I am still awestruck and humbled to have written this piece for some of my earliest heroes. The title is a playful nod to one of the most famous quotes by their transcendentalist namesake essayist/philosopher/poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, Drink the wild air's salubrity.” An ayre is a song-like, lyrical piece. The title seemed an apt reference not only to the lilting, asymmetrical rhythms of the music’s melodic narrative, but also to the questing spirit, sense of adventure, and fullhearted passion with which the Emerson has thrown itself into everything it has done for the past 47 years. Here’s to the singular magic of these artistic giants, and the new adventures that await them.

© Sarah Kirkland Snider

Emerson

String Quartet

The appearance of the Emerson String Quartet is made possible by the generous support of David Nathanson.

The Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival remains dedicated to promoting the arts to its surrounding community through performances, workshops and collaboration.

junE 16 | lunCHEOn in COnvErsAtiOn WitH sEnGHOr rEiD

Sponsored by Beverly Baker & Dr. Edward Treisman

The Morning Glories concert will be followed by a reception with Festival Visual Artist, Senghor Reid at 1 p.m. Reid draws inspiration for his paintings from current events and from his hometown of Detroit.

junE 17 | ClAssiCAl FAMily: littlE rED riDinG HOOD

Sponsored by Gwen & S. Evan Weiner

The Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival’s "Classical Family: Little Red Riding Hood" is an enchanting performance that tells the story of this classic fairy tale through music. The whole family will be captivated by the whimsical and evocative sounds of the instruments as they journey through the beloved story. Admission is free, all ages are welcome, register at greatlakeschambermusic.org.

junE 17 | in COnvErsAtiOn WitH CArlOs siMOn

Join Stone Composer-in-Residence Carlos Simon and Artistic Director Paul Watkins for a pre-concert talk prior to the In Search of the Sublime concert. This discussion will begin at 6:15 p.m.

junE 20 | syMPOsiuM At Wsu

MEDiCAl sCHOOl | ClOsED EvEnt

Sponsored by the Charles H. Gershenson Trust

Members of the Shouse Institute will present a workshop to students in the Wayne State University School of Medicine. In partnership with WSU faculty, the musicians will perform and demonstrate how they communicate nonverbally. The goal is to create an opportunity for medical students to observe and learn lessons in nonverbal communication, an “art-form” in which chamber musicians must excel to survive.

ACCEnt POntiAC PErFOrMAnCE AnD WOrKsHOP | ClOsED EvEnt

Sponsored by Mr. & Mrs. B.N. Bahadur

A Shouse ensemble will host a workshop for Accent Pontiac students, helping them realize their own compositions and interpret each other’s works. Accent Pontiac focuses on strengthening Pontiac’s youth and community through equitable access to intensive and consistent music-making.

sEniOr CEntErs OF OAKlAnD COunty | ClOsED EvEnts

Sponsored by the Mary Thompson Foundation and the Phillip and Elizabeth Filmer Memorial Charitable Trust

In line with our efforts to expand our Great Lakes family, the Festival is resuming in-person satellite performances at Senior Centers across Southeastern Michigan. Out of an abundance of caution, these events had to be paused during the height of the pandemic, but are now returning thanks to our generous supporters. During these special events Shouse ensembles will perform and engage with the seniors in our community.

ArTiSTiC ENCOuNTErS

Sponsored by Barbara & Paul Goodman

Bloomfield Township Public Library

1099 Lone Pine Road, Bloomfield Township, MI 48302

FREE|Register at greatlakeschambermusic.org/artistic-encounters

The Catherine Filene Shouse Chamber Music Institute, led by violinist Philip Setzer of the Emerson String Quartet, provides a platform for emerging professional ensembles. Artistic Encounters are public coachings for Shouse Institute fellows in a setting similar to a masterclass. You are invited to attend these Artistic Encounters to get a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to be a professional musician.

PHiliP sEtzEr | junE 12 At 11 AM

GillEs vOnsAttEl | junE 14 At 11 AM

sHAi WOsnEr | junE 19 At 11 AM

EMErsOn strinG QuArtEt | junE 21 At 11 AM

Festival stories

Enjoy our innovative collection of virtual programming online by visiting us at: https://greatlakeschambermusic.org/watch-and-listen/

Content and community beyond the Festival’s live events

This fall, we will showcase programming from the 2023 Festival! Interwoven with behind-the-scenes footage and interviews, we are taking viewers beyond what is typically accessible at live events. Enjoy the passion and artistry that moves us to collectively experience the fullest range and depth of emotion with every crescendo, turn of the page, and stroke of the bow.

The Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival family would like to express our congratulations and well wishes to the Emerson String Quartet as they wrap up their farewell tour. The quartet is performing three concerts this season, showcasing their most essential repertoire.

This year's Festival theme, Turning Points, pays tribute to the quartet's monumental career and highlights crucial moments in chamber music history. As they prepare for their final performance at the Festival, our family takes a moment to reflect on the numerous Turning Points the quartet has inspired over the years.

The Emersons first performed at the Festival in 2003,

celebrating our 10th Anniversary. The group premiered "Shostakovich and the Black Monk: A Russian Fantasy" in 2017 and returned for the widely attended Beethoven String Quartet Cycle in 2019.

Two of the quartet's members, Paul Watkins and Philip Setzer, have played critical roles in the Festival's growth. Watkins serves as the Festival's Artistic Director, and Setzer directs our Shouse Institute, a program that supports emerging ensembles, offering connections, mentorship, and public coaching sessions.

We extend our warmest congratulations and well wishes to the quartet members, past and present, as they embark on new adventures and individually continue to inspire audiences around the world. We are honored to have had the privilege of hosting them at our Festival, and we thank them from the bottom of our hearts for their unwavering dedication to advancing the art of chamber music.

Michigan Final Farewell Sponsors

PURCELL/BRITTEN Chacony in G minor, Z. 730

Sponsored by Isabel & Lawrence Smith

HAYDN String Quartet Op. 33, No. 5

Sponsored by Aviva & Dean Friedman

MOZART String Quartet No. 15 in D minor, K. 421

Sponsored by Adrienne & Herschel Fink

BEETHOVEN String Quartet No. 8, Op. 59, No. 2 “Razumovsky”

Sponsored by Gail & Ira Mondry

MENDELSSOHN String Quartet No. 1 in E-flat major, Op. 12

Sponsored by Kathleen Block

BRAHMS String Quartet No. 3 in B-flat major, Op. 67

Sponsored by Martha Pleiss

DVOR˘ÁK Piano Quintet No. 2 in A major, Op. 81, B. 155

Sponsored by Beverly Baker & Dr. Edward Treisman

RAVEL String Quartet in F major

Sponsored by Franziska Schoenfeld

BARTÓK String Quartet No. 2, Op. 17

Sponsored by Marguerite Munson Lentz & David Lentz

KIRKLAND SNIDER Drink the Wild Ayre

Sponsored by Virginia & Michael Geheb

WEBERN Six Bagatelles for String Quartet, Op. 9

Sponsored by Christine Goerke

SHOSTAKOVICH String Quartet No. 12 in D-flat major, Op. 133

Sponsored by Kathleen O’Toole Schein & Randolph Schein

The appearance of the Emerson String Quartet is made possible by the generous support of David Nathanson.

REDISCOVER INSPIRATION

SUPPORT A NATIONAL TREASURE AS A MEMBER OF THE HENRY FORD.

•FREE ADMISSION to Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, Greenfield Village and traditional films at the Giant Screen Experience

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SCAN QR CODE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT MEMBERSHIP OR CALL 313.982.6001.

PAul WAtKins

Artistic Director, cello

Sponsored by Gail & Ira Mondry

Acclaimed for his inspirational performances and eloquent musicianship, Paul Watkins enjoys a remarkably varied and distinguished career as soloist, chamber musician and conductor. He is the Artistic Director of the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival and in 2019, he was appointed Professor of Cello at the Yale School of Music.

He has performed as concerto soloist with prestigious orchestras throughout the world under eminent conductors including Bernard Haitink, Paavo Berglund, Leonard Slatkin, Sakari Oramo, Gianandrea Noseda, Sir Mark Elder, Sir Andrew Davis, Sir Charles Mackerras, Andris Nelsons, Edo de Waart, Hannu Lintu and Vasily Petrenko.

A dedicated chamber musician, Watkins was a member of the Nash Ensemble from 1997 until 2013, when he joined the Emerson String Quartet. With the Quartet he has traveled extensively, performing at major international festivals including Tanglewood, Aspen, Ravinia, Edinburgh, Berlin and Evian, and has collaborated with artists such as Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, Evgeny Kissin, Renée Fleming and Barbara Hannigan. He is a regular guest artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

He took first prize in the 2002 Leeds Conducting Competition, and has held the positions of Music Director of the English Chamber Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of the Ulster Orchestra. In recent seasons he made his conducting debuts with the Minnesota Orchestra, Detroit Symphony and Omaha Symphony. His extensive discography as a cellist includes over 70 recordings, including 18 solo albums for Chandos. His first recording as a conductor, of the Britten and Berg violin concertos with Daniel Hope, received a Grammy nomination. He plays on a cello made by Domenico Montagnana and Matteo Goffriller in Venice, c.1730.

PhiliP Setzer

shouse institute Director, violin

Sponsored by Isabel & Lawrence Smith

Violinist Philip Setzer, a founding member of the Emerson String Quartet, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and began studying violin at the age of five with his parents, both former violinists in the Cleveland Orchestra. He continued his studies with Josef Gingold and Rafael Druian, and later at the Juilliard School with Oscar Shumsky. In 1967, Setzer won second prize at the Marjorie Merriweather Post Competition in Washington, DC, and in 1976 received a Bronze Medal at the Queen Elisabeth International Competition in Brussels. He has since appeared with the National, Memphis, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Omaha and Anchorage Symphonies, Aspen Chamber Symphony and on several occasions with the

Cleveland Orchestra. He has also participated in the Marlboro Music Festival. Setzer has been a regular faculty member of the Isaac Stern Chamber Music Workshops at Carnegie Hall and the Jerusalem Music Center. His article about those workshops appeared in The New York Times on the occasion of Isaac Stern's 80th birthday celebration. He also teaches as Distinguished Professor of Violin and Chamber Music at SUNY Stony Brook, and has given master classes at schools around the world, including the Curtis Institute, London's Royal Academy of Music, the San Francisco Conservatory, UCLA, the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Mannes School. His in-depth appreciation of Shostakovich’s string quartets led to the Emerson Quartet’s fruitful theatrical collaborations with Simon McBurney for “The Noise of Time” and with James Glossman for “Shostakovich and the Black Monk: A Russian Fantasy.”

He plays on a violin by Samuel Zygmuntowicz, New York, 2011.

AleSSio BAx piano

Sponsored by Jill & Steven Stone

Combining exceptional lyricism and insight with consummate technique, Alessio Bax is without a doubt “among the most remarkable young pianists now before the public” (Gramophone). He catapulted to prominence with First Prize wins at both the Leeds and Hamamatsu International Piano Competitions, and is now a familiar face on five continents, not only as a recitalist and chamber musician, but also as a concerto soloist who has appeared with more than 150 orchestras, including the London, Royal, and St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestras, the Boston, Dallas, Cincinnati, Sydney, and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestras, and the NHK Symphony in Japan, collaborating with such eminent conductors as Marin Alsop, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sir Andrew Davis, Sir Simon Rattle, Yuri Temirkanov, and Jaap van Zweden.

Bax constantly explores many facets of his career. He released his eleventh Signum Classics album, Italian Inspirations, whose program was also the vehicle for his solo recital debut at New York’s 92nd Street Y. Bax and his regular piano duo partner, Lucille Chung, gave recitals at New York’s Lincoln Center and were featured with the St. Louis Symphony and Stéphane Denève. He has also presented the complete works of Beethoven for cello and piano with cellist Paul Watkins in New York City. This past summer was highlighted by his fifth season as Artistic Director of Tuscany’s Incontri in Terra di Siena festival as well as return appearances at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival and at the Bravo! Vail Music Festival with the Dallas Symphony and Fabio Luisi conducting.

At age 14, Bax graduated with top honors from the conservatory of Bari, his hometown in Italy, and after further studies in Europe, he moved to the United States in 1994. A Steinway artist, he lives in New York City with pianist Lucille Chung and their daughter, Mila. He was invited to join the piano faculty of Boston’s New England Conservatory in the fall of 2019.

JoSePh Becker percussion

A native of Rhode Island, Joseph Becker was appointed Principal Percussion of the Detroit Symphony in 2012. Prior to his time in Michigan, he was a member of the Jacksonville Symphony. He has played with many orchestras—including the Boston Symphony, National Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Oregon Symphony, and Kansas City Symphony.

Becker completed his bachelor’s degree from the New England Conservatory of Music, studying with Frank Epstein and Will Hudgins; as well as his master’s degree from Boston University, studying with Tim Genis. A Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center from 2008 to 2009, he is an avid chamber music performer and a member of New Music Detroit.

roByn Bollinger violin

Sponsored by Kathleen Block

Daring, versatile, and charismatic, American violinist Robyn Bollinger was appointed Concertmaster of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra by Music Director Jader Bignamini at the end of the 2021-22 season. Currently the youngest female Concertmaster in the country, she is a frequent Guest Concertmaster with the Pittsburgh Symphony and has made Guest Concertmaster appearances with the Indianapolis Symphony and St. Bart’s Music Festival Orchestra. She is a former member of the Boston-based, democratically run chamber orchestra, A Far Cry, and she has appeared on commercial recordings with both the Pittsburgh Symphony and A Far Cry, all of which were nominated for Grammy® awards.

Having made her Philadelphia Orchestra debut at age twelve, Bollinger regularly performs as soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician across the United States. Recent highlights include solo engagements with the Boston Pops and the symphony orchestras of California, Charleston, Knoxville, and Symphony in C. She is a returning participant at the storied Marlboro Music Festival in Marlboro, VT and has been featured in numerous national tours with the acclaimed Musicians from Marlboro.

Bollinger is a devoted educator, having presented masterclasses at Cincinnati Conservatory, the Longy School of music, University of California Bakersfield, and the University of Tennessee Chattanooga. She is a former faculty member at New England Conservatory Preparatory School in Boston. She plays a 1697 G. B. Rogeri on generous loan from a private collector.

eugene Drucker violin

Sponsored by Cecilia Benner

Eugene Drucker is a founding member of the Emerson String Quartet and Music Director of the Bach at New Year’s concerts for The Berkshire Bach Society. He has appeared as a solo violinist with the orchestras of Montreal, Brussels, Antwerp, Liege, Hartford, Richmond, Omaha, Jerusalem, and the Rhineland-Palatinate, as well as with the American Symphony Orchestra, the Aspen Chamber Symphony, and the Las Vegas Philharmonic. A graduate of Columbia University and the Juilliard School, he served for two years as concertmaster of the Juilliard Orchestra, which featured him several times as a soloist. He made his New York debut as a Concert Artists Guild winner in the fall of 1976, after having won prizes at the Montreal Competition and the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels. He has recorded the complete unaccompanied works of Bach (Parnassus Records), the complete sonatas and duos of Bartók (Biddulph Recordings), and (with the Emerson Quartet) works ranging from Bach and Haydn to contemporary repertoire, mostly for Deutsche Grammophon. A nine-time Grammy and three-time Gramophone Magazine Award winner, he is visiting professor of chamber music at Stony Brook University.

lAwrence Dutton viola

Sponsored by Adrienne & Herschel Fink

Lawrence Dutton, violist of the nine-time Grammy winning Emerson String Quartet, has collaborated with many of the world’s great performing artists, including Isaac Stern, Mstislav Rostropovich, Oscar Shumsky, Leon Fleisher, Sir Paul McCartney, Renee Fleming, Sir James Galway, Andre Previn, Menahem Pressler, Walter Trampler, Rudolf Firkusny, Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, Lynn Harrell, Joseph Kalichstein, Misha Dichter, Jan DeGaetani, Edgar Meyer, Joshua Bell, and Elmar Oliveira, among others. He has also performed as guest artist with numerous chamber music ensembles such as the Juilliard and Guarneri Quartets, the Beaux Arts Trio and the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio. Since 2001, Mr. Dutton has been the Artistic Advisor of the Hoch Chamber Music Series, presenting three concerts at Concordia College in Bronxville, NY. He has been featured on three albums with the Grammy winning jazz bassist John Patitucci on the Concord Jazz label and with the Beaux Arts Trio recorded the Shostakovich Piano Quintet, Op. 57, and the Fauré G minor Piano Quartet, Op. 45, on the Philips label. His Aspen Music Festival recording with Jan DeGaetani for Bridge records was nominated for a Grammy award.

Currently Professor of Viola and Chamber Music at Stony Brook University and at the Robert McDuffie School for Strings at Mercer University in Georgia, Dutton began violin studies with Margaret Pardee and on viola with Francis Tursi at the Eastman School. He earned his Bachelors and Masters degrees at the

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Juilliard School, where he studied with Lillian Fuchs and has received Honorary Doctorates from Middlebury College in Vermont, The College of Wooster in Ohio, Bard College in New York and The Hartt School of Music in Connecticut. Dutton exclusively uses Thomastik Spirocore strings. Viola: Samuel Zygmuntowicz (Brooklyn, NY 2003).

AlAn hAnkerS composer Stone Composer Fellow

Described as "atmospheric and striking" by Outburn Magazine, the music of composer and pianist Alan Hankers can be heard in concert halls, on television, and on albums alongside worldrenowned musical artists.

As a composer of symphonic and chamber works, Alan’s music has been performed throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia at venues such as Lincoln Center, New World Center, Koger Center for the Performing Arts, and Musikhusset Aarhus. He has worked with numerous ensembles including the Pacific Chamber Orchestra (Dream American Fellowship, 2021), Ensemble Edge (Composer-in-Residence, 2017-2019), South Carolina Philharmonic’s Repertory Orchestra, Calidore String Quartet, and others.

With an ever-growing passion for film and collaboration, Alan has garnered dozens of film and TV credits as a composer and sound designer. Recent clients include Lincoln Automotive, Amazon, Nintendo, and others. His score for the short film 'Color Blind' was awarded the Roger Taylor Best Score Award at the Idyllwild International Film Festival.

As a pianist/keyboardist, Alan has been praised by Metal Hammer (UK) and Prog Magazine. He currently plays with the American progressive metal band, JIA, and has embarked on tours opening up for artists such as Intervals, Plini, Scar Symmetry, Monuments, and others. He is also a founding member of the contemporary classical trio, Pathos Trio, where he has appeared in performances at Lincoln Center, New World Center, and other prestigious venues. Pathos Trio is set to release their debut album through New Focus Records in March of 2022.

Alan completed his Ph.D. in Music Composition at Stony Brook University, where he was awarded the Ackerman Prize for Excellence in Graduate Studies. He has taught at Montclair State University and Stony Brook University.

Osmo Vanska, xian Zhang, and Max Valdes in Beijing, Taipei, and Bogota. She is also the first solo violist to be presented in the National Performance Center of the Arts in Beijing and was featured as a faculty member with Yo-Yo Ma and his new initiative in Guangzhou. She has commissioned compositions from Steven Mackey, Shih-Hui Chen, and Poul Ruders. Her 2012 recording for Bridge Records, titled Viola Viola, won accolades from Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine. Her next recording will be the complete unaccompanied sonatas and partitas of J. S. Bach, in partnership with her husband, violist Misha Amory.

Huang regularly appears at festivals, including Marlboro, Spoleto, Ravinia, Santa Fe, and Music@Menlo, among many others. She first came to international attention as the gold medalist in the 1988 Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition. In 1993, she was the top-prize winner in the ARD International Competition in Munich and was awarded the highly prestigious Bunkamura Orchard Hall Award. A native of Taiwan, she received degrees from the Yehudi Menuhin School, the Curtis Institute of Music, and The Juilliard School. She now serves on the faculties of Juilliard and Curtis and lives in New York City.

kimBerly kAloyAniDeS kenneDy violin

Sponsored by Rayna Kogan in memory of Natalio Kogan

Kimberly Ann Kaloyanides Kennedy won her coveted position as a violinist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra at the age of 22. In 2003, Kennedy further realized her dream when she became Associate Concertmaster.

Kimberly began her study of the violin at the age of 5 in Dayton, OH. Being the daughter of a Minister of Music and church organist allowed her many chances to share from her heart in front of congregations. Her love of music became what undoubtedly would be her career as she pursued her studies at Brevard Music Center and Interlochen Arts Camp as the Governor’s Scholar for the state of Ohio. She continued her studies at the Sarasota Music Festival; spent four summers at the Aspen Music Festival on Fellowship, as Associate Concertmaster of the Chamber Orchestra; spent three years at the Harid Conservatory in Boca Raton, Florida with Sergiu Schwartz; and finally landed at the University of Michigan with Paul Kantor. It was half way through her senior year at Michigan in 1998 that her hard work paid off, when she joined the first violin section of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Paul Katz Endowed Chair in memory of Morris D. Baker

Violist Hsin-Yun Huang has forged a career by performing on international concert stages, commissioning and recording new works, and nurturing young musicians. Highlights of her 2017–2018 season included performances as soloist under the batons of David Robertson,

Throughout her training, she won several prizes in competitions around the country, including the Grand Prize in the National MTNA competition and 1st prize in the Greek Women’s National Competition in Chicago; the Skokie Valley Concerto Competition, where she performed Barber Violin Concerto; the University of Michigan Concerto Competition, where she performed Ravel’s Tzigane; and the Harid Conservatory Concerto Competition, where she performed the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. Kimberly was one of the few Americans invited to the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis in 1998. She solos regularly with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

yvonne lAm violin

Henry Meyer Endowed Violin Chair

Grammy-winning violinist Yvonne Lam enjoys challenging, delighting, and disarming audiences worldwide with her thoughtful musicianship, technical prowess, and fearless performance aesthetic.

She served as a co-artistic director and violinist/violist of eighth blackbird for eight years, performing 50 concerts a year internationally with the groundbreaking chamber ensemble. She has also performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Melbourne Symphony, the Kansas City Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Lexington Philharmonic, the New World Symphony, and the Tasmanian Symphony. In 2017, she co-founded the Blackbird Creative Lab, an intensive tuition-free training program for performers and composers in Ojai, California, as a way to inspire future generations of artists to champion new work and engage audiences with innovative and dynamic performances. In addition to teaching and mentoring at the lab, Yvonne has given lessons, masterclasses and lectures at universities throughout the US in addition to long-term residency activities at the Curtis Institute of Music, the University of Chicago, and the University of Richmond.

Yvonne is deeply committed to and inspired by artistic collaboration. An avid chamber musician, she toured the east coast with Musicians from Marlboro and has performed at Marlboro Music Festival, Music from Angel Fire, Ravinia Music Festival, Twickenham Fest, Taos Music Festival, and Yellow Barn Music Festival.

Yvonne studied violin and piano at the Colburn School of Performing Arts. She continued her studies for two years at the Peabody Institute, where she studied violin with Victor Danchenko and piano with Boris Slutsky and Brian Ganz. She earned her Bachelor of Music from the Curtis Institute of Music, and her Master of Music from The Juilliard School, where she studied with Robert Mann. She is currently the Assistant Professor of Violin at Michigan State University.

teSSA lArk violin

Sponsored by Martha Pleiss

Violinist Tessa Lark is one of the most captivating artistic voices of our time, consistently praised by critics and audiences for her astounding range of sounds, technical agility, and musical elegance. In 2020 she was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Classical Instrumental Solo category and received one of Lincoln Center’s prestigious Emerging Artist Awards: the special Hunt Family Award. Other recent honors include a 2018 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship and a 2016 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Silver Medalist in the 9th Quadrennial International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, and winner of the 2012 Naumburg International Violin Competition.

She solos regularly with many of the major orchestras around the world, from the Royal Scottish National Orchestra to the Seattle Symphony, and has appeared in recital in such prestigious venues and series as Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and Carnegie Hall’s Distinctive Debuts series in Weill Hall (2017).

She is also a highly acclaimed fiddler in the tradition of her native Kentucky, delighting audiences with programming that includes Appalachian and bluegrass music and inspiring composers to write for her - most notably SKY, a bluegrassinspired violin concerto written for Tessa by Michael Torke, which earned both a Grammy nomination for Tessa and a Pulitzer finalist distinction for Torke.

Lark is a graduate of New England Conservatory and completed her Artist Diploma at The Juilliard School. She plays a c.1600 G.P. Maggini violin, on loan from an anonymous donor through the Stradivari Society of Chicago.

FrAnceSco milioto conductor

Praised for his energy and integrity on the podium, Francesco Milioto is forging a unique career as a versatile interpreter of both the operatic and symphonic repertoire. He is currently Music Director of both OPERA San Antonio and Holy City Arts and Lyric Opera, as well as Artistic Advisor to the Florentine Opera in Milwaukee. Milioto enjoys guest conducting relationships with a wide variety of organizations, and cover conductor positions with the Lyric Opera of Chicago and The Santa Fe Opera.

As a music director and guest conductor Milioto has thrived in Chicago and beyond. Over his many years in Chicago he claimed the title of Music Director to the New Millennium Orchestra, the Skokie Valley Symphony, the Highland Park Strings, Access Contemporary Music, and the Chicago Cultural Center Summer Opera. As a guest conductor he has amassed several critically acclaimed productions with Chicago Opera Theater and has collaborated with many professional local orchestras. His work with the New Millennium Orchestra and Chicago Opera Theater were each named to the Chicago Sun-Times list of the “10 best performances of the year.” Milioto is particularly proud of his work with the New Millennium Orchestra of Chicago, which he co-found in 2005. His highly acclaimed work over ten seasons with both the Highland Park Strings and Skokie Valley Symphony Orchestra ranged from early music to the most contemporary works, and often featured world-renowned soloists. As Artistic Director/ Conductor of Access Contemporary Music, Milioto led the brilliantly vibrant ensemble Palomar, which has been featured on the radio and in performances throughout the city and abroad. He has also conducted successful productions with Opera Santa Barbara, Opera Southwest, Elgin Opera, and Opera on the James.

eric nowlin viola

Eric Nowlin began his time with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra as Principal Violist with the 2016-17 season. He has performed extensively throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. Eric has been described by the Springfield (MO) News-Leader as “having a full, warm tone, expressive phrasing, and effortless technical command” and by the Santa Cruz Sentinel as “displaying the remarkable capabilities of the viola, with a rich tone and sensitive interpretive skills.”

Eric previously served as Associate Principal Viola in the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and is a member of the New Orford String Quartet. Hailed by CBC as “Canada’s top string quartet,” the New Orford String Quartet has won several Opus awards, and was nominated for a Juno award in 2012. The quartet has recorded for Bridge records, Naxos Canada, and can be seen in a series of videos produced by CBC playing quartets by Beethoven, Brahms, and Haydn. The New Orford Quartet has recently had successful debuts in Los Angeles, Washington DC, Chicago, and Dallas, and performs throughout Canada and the United States on a yearly basis.

Eric plays on a Neapolitan viola from 1910 made by Giovanni Pistucci.

kiAn rAvAei composer

Whether composing piano preludes inspired by mythical creatures, flute melodies that mimic the songs of endangered birds, or a string quartet that draws from the Iranian music of his ancestral heritage, composer Kian Ravaei takes listeners on a spellbinding tour of humanity's most deeply felt emotions.

Ravaei has collaborated with performers and ensembles such as Eliot Fisk, Bella Hristova, Salastina, and Juventas New Music Ensemble, and has served as a Copland House CULTIVATE Fellow and a Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra Composer Teaching Artist Fellow. In recent months, Ravaei was featured on an episode of Performance Today, America's most popular classical music radio program. His string quartet Family Photos has garnered numerous awards, including First Prize in the Spectrum Chamber Music Composition Competition, Second Prize in the instrumental chamber music division of the American Prize, and Honorable Mention in the Tribeca New Music Young Composer Competition. DJs know Ravaei as the go-to person for creating orchestral versions of dance songs, including Wooli & Codeko's "Crazy feat. Casey Cook (Orchestral)."

Ravaei counts celebrated composers Richard Danielpour, Derek Bermel, and Tarik O'Regan among his teachers. He is an alumnus of UCLA and the Curtis Institute of Music Young Artist Summer Program.

Senghor reiD visual artist

Sponsored by the Edw. C. Levy Co.

Senghor Reid explores the interactions between the human body and the environment, creating visual representations of dreams, memories and traces of human contact with nature. Reid earned a BFA from the University of Michigan; a Masters of Teaching in Art Education from Wayne State University and attended the internationally recognized Marathon Program at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture. He is currently an Artist-in-Residence at the Cranbrook Schools and is a National Board Certified Visual Arts Educator. He has received many awards including the Kresge Foundation’s Kresge Arts in Detroit Visual Artist Fellowship prize and the prestigious Governor’s Award for Emerging Artist (Michigan). Reid’s work has been exhibited in the U.S. and abroad in galleries and museums including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit. His work is in private, public and corporate art collections.

linDA Setzer narrator

Sponsored by Linda & Maurice Binkow

Linda Setzer is delighted to return to the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival as the narrator of Ridout’s Ferdinand the Bull. She has previously appeared at the Festival in Shostakovich and The Black Monk in 2018. Other work includes Old Flame (Theatre for a New City), Futebol (NYC Fringe Festival), Bluff (Boar’s Head Theatre, Lansing), Transit of Venus and A Perfect Ganesh, Copenhagen, The Collection, Endgame and Travesties (Luna Stage, NJ).

cArloS Simon composer Stone Composer-in-Residence

Having grown up in Atlanta, with a long lineage of preachers and connections to gospel music, Simon proves that a wellcomposed song can indeed be a sermon. His compositions span genres and can be found everywhere from film scores to concert music. Simon is the current Composer-in-Residence for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and frequently writes for the National Symphony Orchestra and Washington National Opera, with the 2022/23 season seeing premieres with Boston Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Brooklyn Art Song Society and Minnesota Orchestra – a tribute to George Floyd and the ongoing movement for racial justice.

These follow recent other commissions from the likes of New York Philharmonic and Los Angeles Philharmonic, and performances from Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, and American Ballet Theatre.

NathaN Stark bass-baritone

Sponsored by Virginia & Michael Geheb

Praised by the Washington Post as having a voice of “unearthly power,” The Houston Press as being a “blow away singer,” and the San Jose Mercury News as a “natural comic actor,” award winning bass-baritone, Nathan Stark, has performed on opera, concert and recital stages throughout United States, Europe and China.

Hailing from Hughson, California, Stark has performed over 50 professional roles with opera houses throughout North America, including The Metropolitan Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Arizona Opera, Atlanta Opera, Virginia Opera and Opera San Jose, among others. Equally comfortable on the concert stage, he has performed as a soloist with leading ensembles including Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Philharmonic, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, Long Beach Symphony, San Diego Symphony Orchestra, and the Holland Symphony Orchestra.

He holds degrees in vocal & opera performance from Modesto Junior College (A.A. and Theater Arts Certificate), California State University, Long Beach (B.M. & M.M.) and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (A.D.) His voice teachers have included Dr. Lewis Woodward, Dr. Cherrie Llewellyn, Ms. Shigemi Matsumoto, Ms. Marilyn Horne and Mr. Kenneth Shaw.

CaeN thomaSoN-reduS

flute

Caen Thomason-Redus is a performer, teacher, recording artist and arts leader who is committed to bringing music to more people. You can hear him on his two most recent releases, Fierce Lyricism with Elena Abend and Subtropical with René Izquierdo, both of which were made possible by an MPower Artist Grant from the Sphinx Organization. His eclectic musical interests include works by living composers, early music, and improvisation. He performed in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra for two years as their African-American Orchestral Fellow, has held playing positions with the Evansville Philharmonic, Central City Opera, Owensboro Symphony, and Missouri Symphony Orchestras, and teaching positions with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, University of Evansville, Wayne State University, and others. He recorded several anthologies of flute repertoire, including The Flute Collection, and appears regularly for masterclasses and lectures. Caen earned performance degrees from Rice University and the University of Redlands, and did additional studies at the University of Michigan and the Mozarteum Universität Salzburg. Caen is married to hornist Kristi Crago and they enjoy spending lots of time with their three children.

Kenneth thompKins trombone

Kenneth Thompkins was appointed Principal Trombone of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra by Neeme Järvi. Prior to this appointment, he held positions in the Buffalo Philharmonic and the Florida Orchestra and performed with the New World Symphony under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas. A former participant in the Detroit Symphony’s African American Fellowship Program, he has been a mentor to several Orchestra Fellows over the years.

Thompkins has been invited to perform and conduct master classes at many music schools, including the Curtis Institute of Music, Mannes College, the University of Michigan, and Interlochen Arts Academy. An active chamber musician, Thompkins performs frequently in recital and is a member of Detroit Chamber Winds & Strings. Thompkins has performed concertos with both the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and New World Symphony.

Thompkins has toured Europe with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and has also performed with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He can be heard on recordings by Detroit Chamber Winds, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. He has also contributed a chapter to The Brass Player’s Cookbook: Creative Recipes for a Successful Performance.

A native of Severna Park, Maryland Thompkins received his bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University and Master of Music degree from Temple University. His principal teachers include Frank Crisafulli and Eric Carlson. Kenneth Thompkins is an S.E. Shires Trombone artist.

Gilles Vonsattel piano

Eugene Istomin Endowed Piano Chair

Swiss-born American pianist Gilles Vonsattel is the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award, and winner of the Naumburg and Geneva competitions. He has appeared with the Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Boston Symphony, and San Francisco Symphony. Recent performances include appearances with the Chicago Symphony, Gothenburg Symphony, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Vancouver Symphony, Florida Orchestra, as well as multiple appearances in New York and on tour with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. A deeply committed chamber musician, he appears regularly at festivals such as Santa Fe Chamber, Music@ Menlo, Chamber Music Northwest, Spoleto USA, and has performed with the Emerson, Escher, Miró, Danish, Ebène, Calidore, Pacifica, St. Lawrence, Doric, and Borromeo Quartets. Vonsattel received his bachelor’s degree in political science and economics from Columbia University and his master’s degree from The Juilliard School. He serves on the faculties of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Bard College Conservatory.

Alvin WAddles piano

Ruth Laredo Endowed Piano Chair

Pianist, singer, composer, director, Alvin Waddles began studying the piano at the age of eight in his hometown of Detroit. He continued his studies at the Interlochen Arts Academy and the University Of Michigan School Of Music. After returning home to Detroit he immediately immersed himself in the rich musical culture of the city, benefiting from the diverse influences that would eventually shape his own unique style.

Waddles has worked in the Detroit and Ann Arbor Public Schools and currently serves as Musical Consultant/Musical Director for the Mount Vernon Public Schools, Performing Arts Dept. in New York. He has also served as Music Ministries of several churches; among them, the historic New Bethel Baptist Church, Hartford Memorial Baptist and Hope United Methodist in Southfield, Michigan where he has served as the Director of Music since 1995.

Waddles has delighted Detroit music lovers with performances in a variety of musical events including the international Detroit Jazz Fest and the Detroit Festival of the Arts. He is the featured piano soloist in the often-sold-out annual productions of "Too Hot to Handel" in both Detroit and Chicago and can be found performing wherever music is celebrated from festivals to jazz clubs, and performing arts venues. Waddles received the 2010 Excellence Award from Detroit Musicians Association and the Detroit City Council's 2015 Spirit of Detroit Award.

Waddles' engagements as a soloist and featured artist have taken him to a variety of destinations including Barbados, Beijing, Paris, Barcelona and Ghana, West Africa. He has been blessed to work with some of the world's finest musicians including Robert Shaw, Margaret Hillis, Brazeal Dennard, Minister Thomas Whitfield, Aretha Franklin, Anita Baker, Placido Domingo, George Shirley, Marcus Belgrave, Jack Jones, Haley Westenra, Stephanie Mills and Tramaine Hawkins.

Peter Wiley

cello

Sponsored by Cindy & Harold Daitch

Peter Wiley, a 1974 graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, has played at leading festivals including the Marlboro Music Festival, for which he also tours and records. As a recitalist he has appeared at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. A member of the Beaux Arts Trio from 1987 to 1998, Mr. Wiley also succeeded his teacher, David Soyer, as cellist of the Guarneri String Quartet from 2001 to 2009. He is a member of the piano quartet Opus One, with Curtis faculty members Ida Kavafian and Steven Tenenbom and pianist Anne-Marie McDermott.

Wiley entered Curtis at age thirteen. At twenty he was named principal cello of the Cincinnati Symphony, after one year with the Pittsburgh Symphony. He made his concerto debut at Carnegie Hall in 1986 with the New York String Orchestra conducted by Alexander Schneider.

A past recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, Wiley joined the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in 1996. He also teaches at Bard College Conservatory of Music.

Shai WoSner piano

Sponsored by Franziska Schoenfeld

Pianist Shai Wosner has attracted international recognition for his exceptional artistry, musical integrity, and creative insight. His performances of a broad range of repertoire—from Beethoven and Schubert to Ligeti and the music of today—reflect a degree of virtuosity and intellectual curiosity that has made him a favorite among audiences and critics, who note his “keen musical mind and deep musical soul” (NPR’s All Things Considered).

Wosner has worked with such conductors as Daniel Barenboim, Jir˘í Be˘lohlávek, James Conlon, Alan Gilbert, Gunther Herbig, James Judd, Zubin Mehta, Peter Oundjian, Donald Runnicles, Leonard Slatkin, Jeffrey Tate, and Yan Pascal Tortelier, and has performed at summer festivals including the Bowdoin International Music Festival, Chautauqua Music Festival, Bravo! Vail festival, Grand Teton Music Festival, Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego, Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center, and Ravinia Festival. For several consecutive summers, he was involved in the West-Eastern Divan Workshop led by Mr. Barenboim and toured as soloist with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra.

Widely sought after by colleagues for his versatility and spirit of partnership, Wosner has collaborated as a chamber musician with numerous artists, including Martha Argerich, Martin Fröst, Lynn Harrell, Dietrich Henschel, Ralph Kirshbaum, Jennifer Koh, Cho-Liang Lin, Christian Tetzlaff, Orion Weiss, and Pinchas Zukerman. He has also collaborated with leading chamber ensembles, including the Grammy Award-winning Parker Quartet in The Schubert Effect recital series.

Born in Israel, Wosner enjoyed a broad musical education from a very early age, studying piano with Opher Brayer and Emanuel Krasovsky, as well as composition, theory, and improvisation with André Hajdu. He later studied at The Juilliard School with Emanuel Ax. He resides in New York with his wife and two children.

Jocelyn (Zelasko) conselva narrator

Recognized for her "vocal brilliance" (City Pleasures) and "absolutely thrilling" voice (Around the Town Chicago), MetroDetroit based soprano, Jocelyn (Zelasko) Conselva, is a versatile musician who is celebrated as an insightful performer with a captivating stage presence. She has “shaken the halls with sublime ecstatic vocals” (I Care if You Listen) performing chamber music, opera, and art song in festivals and concerts throughout Europe, the Caribbean, and North America. Her career began in the classical realm, but a passion for making complex vocal music accessible to audiences led her to pursue new music.

Zelasko is the vocalist for Detroit's premiere contemporary chamber music ensemble, New Music Detroit (NMD), and a founding member of contemporary performance collective Juxtatonal (JUX). As an advocate for the creation of new works, she has commissioned 20+ composers including Angélica Negrón, Marcus Elliot, Vid Smooke, Michelle McQuade Dewhirst, and Jorge Sosa. She also frequently collaborates with Picosa, Grammy award-winning ensemble Eighth Blackbird, and EcoSono.

She received bachelor’s degrees in vocal performance and economics from Oakland University where Zelasko was also a scholarship athlete. Furthering her education, she received a master’s degree in music from the University of Iowa. She studied with acclaimed voice professor Dr. Edith Diggory and voice scientist Dr. Ingo Titze. When not on stage, you can find her creating in the ArtOps office, competing on the golf course, or squishing her kittens at home.

Detroit chamber WinDs & strings

Since its founding in 1982, Detroit Chamber Winds & Strings (DCWS) has set the standard for chamber music in Detroit. By bringing together the top musicians from the metro area, most of whom are members of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Michigan Opera Theatre, DCWS immerses audiences in a chamber music experience that is innovative, entertaining and unsurpassed anywhere in the region. With chamber music as its foundation, the organization’s mission has evolved to address the ever-changing, everchallenging Detroit arts landscape with grand achievements. Now in its 41st year, Detroit Chamber Winds & Strings presents three distinct concert series: the Nightnotes, Structurally Sound and Signature series. Each concert welcomes a young performer, many who were students of our musicians, to perform. In addition, DCWS welcomed a new project in collaboration with the Carr Center called Resonate, uniting resources from seven of the midwest’s prominent music institutions to commission pieces inspired by the African Diaspora. The season also saw the second installment of The Musical Elements project, which utilizes hip-hop to introduce K-5 students to the ingredients that come together to make music. More information at detroitchamberwinds.org.

EmErson string QuartEt

Sponsored by David Nathanson

Eugene Drucker, violin; Philip Setzer, violin; Lawrence Dutton, viola; Paul Watkins, cello

For more than four decades, the Emerson String Quartet has maintained its status as one of the world’s premier chamber music ensembles. “With musicians like this,” wrote a reviewer for The Times (London), “there must be some hope for humanity.” The Quartet has made more than 30 acclaimed recordings, and has been honored with nine Grammys® (including two for Best Classical Album), three Gramophone Awards, the Avery Fisher Prize, and Musical America’s “Ensemble of the Year” award. The Quartet collaborates with some of today’s most esteemed composers to premiere new works, keeping the string quartet form alive and relevant. The group has partnered in performance with such stellar soloists as Renée Fleming, Barbara Hannigan, Evgeny Kissin, Emanuel Ax, and Yefim Bronfman, to name a few.

Formed in 1976 and based in New York City, the Emerson String Quartet was one of the first quartets to have its violinists alternate in the first chair position. The Quartet, which takes its name from the American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, balances busy performing careers with a commitment to teaching, and serves as Quartet-in-Residence at Stony Brook University. In 2013, cellist Paul Watkins—a distinguished soloist, award-winning conductor, and devoted chamber musician—joined the original members of the Quartet to form today’s group.

In the spring of 2016, the State University of New York awarded full-time Stony Brook faculty members Philip Setzer and Lawrence Dutton the status of Distinguished Professor, and conferred the title of Honorary Distinguished Professor on part-time faculty members Eugene Drucker and Paul Watkins. The Quartet’s members also hold honorary doctorates from Middlebury College, the College of Wooster, Bard College, and the University of Hartford. In January of 2015, the Quartet received the Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award, Chamber Music America’s highest honor, in recognition of its significant and lasting contribution to the chamber music field.

The Emerson String Quartet enthusiastically endorses Thomastik strings.

ABout Detroit oPerA’S reSiDent ArtiStS

Sponsored by Linda & Maurice Binkow

Sopranos Melanie Spector and Elizabeth Polese; mezzosoprano Gabrielle Barkidjija; tenor Leo Williams, and baritone Ben Reisinger are the inaugural singers in the Detroit Opera Resident Artist Program. Led by Nathalie Doucet, Head of Music and Director of the Resident Artist Program, and Christine Goerke, Detroit Opera’s Associate Artistic Director, the program offers individualized training to cater to the unique needs of each artist. From September to June, the Resident Artists undergo intensive training, including assignments in Detroit Opera mainstage productions, guest artist residencies, diction coaching, and role preparation. They also have the opportunity to perform in recitals and concerts with various organizations in and around Detroit. The program builds on the foundations of the Studio Artist program founded in 2015 by Dr. David DiChiera. Detroit Opera serves as a nurturing home for these rising stars, supporting and helping them achieve their full potential in the highly competitive industry. Resident Artists are also actively engaged with the community, forging direct ties to Detroit through recitals, concerts, and collaborations with local nonprofit organizations, businesses, and institutions. For more information about this year’s Resident Artists, visit detroitopera.org/detroit-opera-resident-artists/.

gABrielle BArkiDJiJA

mezzo-soprano

Mezzo-soprano Gabrielle Barkidjija, hailed by The Boston Musical Intelligencer as "riveting on stage and sang with damnable commitment and satisfying vocal chops," will return to Detroit Opera next season as Dodo in Missy Mazzoli's Breaking the Waves. Her career highlights include performances as Zosia/ Wala in Two Remain, Brittomara in If I were you, Ada Lovelace in The Infinite Energy of Ada Lovelace, Fanny Price in Mansfield Park, Captain in Dog Days, Béatrice in Béatrice et Bénédict, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Mère Marie in Dialogues of the Carmelites, and Estelle in Later the Same Evening. Gabrielle has been a young artist with esteemed programs such as the Merola Opera Program, Aspen Opera Theater, and Central City Opera. This summer, she will be a Tanglewood Music Center Vocal Fellow. She has received awards from the Rochester Oratorio Society, Gerda Lissner Foundation, the Metropolitan Opera National Competition, and the Young Patronesses of the Opera Competition. She holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s of Music from Northwestern University, and she previously was a young artist with the Boston University Opera Institute.

NATHALIE DOUCET

Head of Music and Director of the Resident Opera Program at Detroit Opera

Nathalie Doucet, Head of Music and Director of the Resident Opera Program at Detroit Opera, boasts a remarkable international career as a sought-after collaborative pianist and vocal coach. She has collaborated with renowned operaproducing organizations, singers, and conductors worldwide, including The Patrick G and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center, The Dutch National Opera, NTRZaterdagmatinee, The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Canadian Opera Company, l'Opéra de Montréal, Vancouver Opera, and the Dutch Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. Notable figures she has worked with include Christine Goerke, Lisette Oropesa, Lianna Haroutounian, Cheryl Studer, Bernard Haitink, Charles Dutoit, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Markus Stenz, James Gaffigan, Sir Andrew Davis, and Stéphane Denève. In 2018, she played vital roles as repetiteur, assistant conductor to Denève, and sound director in the successful recording of Honegger’s Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.

Ms. Doucet held esteemed positions in Europe as head coach of the Opera Studio Nederland and principal coach at the Dutch National Opera Academy. She contributed her talents to organizations such as De Nederlandse Reisopera, the NTR Saturday Matinee (Concertgebouw), the Neue Stimmen, the International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition, and the International Vocal Competition in s'Hertogenbosch. Additionally, she spent eleven years as a faculty member at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. Nathalie Doucet brings invaluable insights and guidance to the Resident Opera Program at Detroit Opera, thanks to her extensive experience and exceptional expertise.

ELIZABETH POLESE

soprano

Canadian soprano, Elizabeth Polese, has been a young artist with Atelier Lyrique (Opéra de Montréal), Tanglewood Music Center, and Highlands Opera Studio. She has been honored with prestigious awards including the Sullivan Foundation Gail Robinson Award for Soprano and the Hynatyshyn Developing Artist Award for Classical Voice. At Detroit Opera, Elizabeth has excelled as an understudy for the roles of Marguerite in Faust and Nuria in Ainadamar. She has also been a guest artist with acclaimed ensembles including l'Orchestre Classique de Montréal, Gewandhaus Orchester Leipzig, and Opéra de Montréal in the role of Nuria in Ainadamar. Her performance as Isabel in the American premiere of George Benjamin's Lessons in Love and Violence at Tanglewood received critical acclaim from the New York Times and Boston Globe. Looking ahead at the 23-24 season Polese will showcase her talents in concerts at Domaine Forget and debut with Vancouver Opera in the role of Norina in Don Pasquale. Additionally, she will collaborate with The Happenstancers chamber collective in Toronto for the production We're Late!

Ben reiSinger baritone

Reisinger is a baritone from Rochester, New York, living in Lansing, Michigan. Reisinger attended Michigan State University studying with Professor Mark Rucker. He also works with Laurie Feldman, stage director, teacher, and coach. Reisinger is a two-time District of Michigan winner in the Metropolitan National Council Auditions and a two-time Encouragement Award winner and recipient of the Dr. David DiChiera award both in 2020 and 2021 in the Eastern Regional event. In 2017 he was the American Prize Award winner in Vocal Performance in the Collegiate Opera/Operetta division. He has performed many roles while studying at Michigan State University; notably, Ricky Ian Gordon’s Grapes of Wrath, coached by Ricky Ian Gordon. He was part of the Martina Arroyo Foundation’s “Prelude to Performance Program” in 2017. He has been a frequent performer in masterclasses with many great artists, including Renee Fleming, Jan Opalach, and Julia Bullock. Along with being passionate about opera, Ben was one of the Northeast Vocal Finalists for the Michael Feinstein’ Great American Songbook’ Competition in NYC.

melAnie SPector

soprano

Praised for her "beaming soprano" by Operawire, soprano, Melanie Spector, was born and raised in New York City. Currently a Resident Artist at Detroit Opera, she recently made her debut as the High Priestess in Verdi's Aida singing next to operatic stars, sopranos Angel Blue and Christine Goerke. For this performance Spector received critical acclaim for her “exceptional pitch, pristine sound, and unwavering commitment to operatic excellence”. Other recent performances include Brahms' Liebeslieder Walzer, Op. 52, Mozart's "Vorrei spiegarvi, o dio" K. 418 and Requiem with the Midland Symphony Orchestra and Orff's Carmina Burana with the Wayne State Wind Symphony at Detroit Symphony's Orchestra Hall. In her first season at Detroit Opera, she has covered the roles of Atalanta in Handel's Xerxes and Margarita xirgu in Golijov's Ainadamar prestigious organizations like the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition and the Gerda Lissner Foundation. Melanie's upcoming highlights include her role debut as Donna Anna in Mozart's Don Giovanni at Savannah Opera as part of the 2023 Savannah VOICE Festival.

leo williAmS tenor

Williams is a proud alumnus of Indiana University and recipient of The Georgina Joshi International Grant, The Jacobs Premier, & The Schmidt Foundation Scholarships. Stage credits at Indiana University include La fille du Régiment, Peter Grimes, The Crucible, The Consul, Les Pêcheurs de Perles, Samson et Dalilah, It’s a Wonderful Life, and Lucia di Lammermoor. He has also had an active performing career overseas and appeared in La bohème, L’elisir d’amore, Lucia di Lammermoor, and Don Giovanni. Leo was a 2020 Opera Maya Studio Artist, Berlin Opera Academy Principal Artist, and an Opernfest Prague Fellow. Recent debuts include: Cavaradossi/ Spoletta (Naples, Fl), Macduff (Australia), Don Ottavio, and Tamino (Germany). He is a past participant in The UNISA International Voice Competition (South Africa). After winning a coveted spot in the Nationwide Detroit Opera Resident Artist Program final auditions, he goes on to join the program for the 2022-2023 season. An avid lover of world travel and speaker of 5 languages with years of classical dance training, Leo served as Assistant Professor of the Indiana University Soul Revue.

Abeo QuArtet

Sphinx Apprentice Ensemble

Sponsored by Taft Stettinius & Hollister, LLP

Njioma Grevious, violin; Rebecca Benjamin, violin; James Kang, viola; Brian Gladlow, cello

The Abeo Quartet, formed at Juilliard in 2018, is the inaugural Graduate String Quartet in Residence at the University of Delaware under the mentorship of the Calidore String Quartet. Abeo's recent accomplishments include winning Third Prize at the 2023 Bad Tölz International String Quartet Competition and being among ten quartets invited to participate in the 14th Banff International String Quartet Competition in 2022. The quartet was also a First Prize and Audience Favorite Prize winner in the Yellow Springs Chamber Music Competition for Emerging Professional Ensembles and Silver Medal winner of the Chesapeake International Chamber Music Competition, both in 2022. Abeo was also a finalist in the 2021 Young Concert Artists International Competition and the silver medal winner of the 2019 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. The quartet is looking forward to competing in the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition this coming July.

One of the quartet’s earliest performances was at The Kennedy Center’s Reach Festival with distinguished pianist Joseph Kalichstein in 2019. Highlights of Abeo’s 2022-2023 season include performances at Music@Menlo, Schneider Concert Series, the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival and collaborations with members of the Calidore, Dover and Emerson string quartets.

Abeo has also appeared at Alice Tully Hall, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s masterclass series with the Danish String Quartet, and on WQXR’s Midday Masterpieces. Abeo was invited to perform in Norway’s 2019 Vertavo Festival, performing seven Haydn string quartets and was in residence at the Glenstone Museum, debuting "Moonshot" by Alistair Coleman. The quartet has studied and performed at Music@Menlo and at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival with the Brentano String Quartet. At the Montreal International String Quartet Academy, Abeo has been coached by members of Quatuor Ebene, Alban Berg, Takács, Artemis, Cecilia and Meta4 String Quartets. During their time at Juilliard, Abeo studied regularly in the Honors Chamber Music Program under the tutelage of The Juilliard String Quartet with Joseph Lin, Astrid Schween and Roger Tapping. The quartet chose the name Abeo / ah - bey - oh / — an expression of joy in a Nigerian dialect — to reflect their love for playing chamber music and sharing it with others.

AYA PiAno trio

Beverly Franzblau Baker Young Artist Chair

Ying Li, piano; Angela Sin Ying Chan, violin; Andres Sanchez, cello

The AYA Piano Trio tours extensively across the U.S., recently making debuts in the esteemed Merkin Concert Hall in NYC and The Brevard Music Series to rave

reviews. They have performed at distinguished series and festivals including Concerts International of Memphis, TN and the Schneider Series at the Mannes School. Winners of the WDAV Young Chamber Musicians Competition in North Carolina, the trio was re-invited for a residency of recordings and concerts in 2019. In addition, the trio has been invited to perform in chamber music festivals and series including the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Utica Chamber Music Series, Washington Performing Arts and others.

Hesper Quartet

Sponsored by Honigman LLP

Sojeong Kim, violin; Yejin Yoon, violin; Sohui Yun, viola; Jonathan Kim, cello

The Hesper String Quartet is a Korean-American chamber ensemble that was formed as a student group at Stony Brook University in 2022. Since its formation, the quartet has been accepted to the prestigious Emerson String Quartet Institute, where they have been mentored by Philip Setzer, Eugene Drucker, Lawrence Dutton, Paul Watkins, David Finckel, Jennifer Frautschi, and Colin Carr.

The Hesper Quartet has begun its journey maintaining an energetic balance of performing works by Beethoven, Schumann, and Haydn, while performing works by living composers such as Joan Tower. They have performed at the Staller Center for the Arts and have been praised for their group sound, artistry, and ensemble.

The members of the Hesper Quartet hold degrees from the Curtis Institute of Music, Yale University, Seoul National University, Korea National University of Arts, Stony Brook University, and New England Conservatory. All members of the quartet are doctoral candidates at Stony Brook University.

pelia string Quartet

Sponsored by Kathleen O’Toole Schein & Randolph Schein

Heejeon Ahn, violin; Delphine Skene, violin; Sung Jin Lee, viola; Zhihao Wu, cello

The Pelia String Quartet was formed at the Emerson String Quartet Institute of Stony Brook University in 2019.

The quartet received a special prize at the 2022 Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition, a bronze medal at the 2022 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, and were winners of the 2022 Ackerman Chamber Music Competition. Festival appearances include the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, La Jolla SummerFest, and Jeunesses Musicales Deutschland. The Pelia Quartet served as the resident string quartet for the SUNY Artist Residency in 2020-2021. They have collaborated with artists David Shifrin, John Bruce Yeh, Tim McAllister, Nicholas Phan and Colin Carr, among others.

The Pelia Quartet has received instruction from members of the Mirò and Vogler Quartets, Heime Muller, Valentin Erben among others, and continued guidance from the Emerson String Quartet.

The Catherine Filene Shouse Institute began in 1997 and has since become the Festival’s major educational program, helping young chamber ensembles bridge the gap between graduate school and their careers. Participating ensembles benefit from professional development activities like coachings, main stage concert appearances, performances with senior Festival artists and special audience engagement events. Led by Director Philip Setzer, the Shouse Institute’s guiding principle is anchored in offering unique and invaluable earning opportunities for young artists at an important transition in their lives.

The program’s alumni ensembles include the Pacifica, Parker, Jasper, Jupiter, Escher, Calidore, Harlem, and Catalyst string quartets, the Claremont Trio, Eighth Blackbird, and a host of other fine ensembles. Many have gone on to international careers, winning prizes like Grammy, Naumberg, Fischoff, and the $100,000 M Prize. In 2014, the Festival began a partnership with the Sphinx Organization to host an alumni ensemble as part of Shouse and has since hosted five winds or strings groups and individual musicians.

The Shouse Institute is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Kirk is a congregation of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Inside you’ll find a warm and inviting Christ-centered community that is making a difference in the world.

Jasmine Barnes

Jasmine Arielle Barnes is a promising young composer and vocalist whose work has been performed all over the world. She is a multifaceted composer who embraces a variety of genres, formats, and instrumentations with a specialty of writing for the voice. A full-time composer, Barnes is currently a composer-in-residence for American Lyric Theater. Barnes previously held residencies as a composer fellow at Chautauqua Opera, and composer-in-residence with All Classical Portland. Her work is in high demand, with recent commissions from respected institutions throughout the country including: The Washington National Opera (in celebration of the Kennedy Center's 50th year anniversary), Bare Opera, Resonance Ensemble, Tapestry Choir, City Works Cleveland, LyricFest Philadelphia, Baltimore Choral Arts, Burleigh Music Festival, Symphony Number One, Baltimore Musicales, The Voic(ed) Project, amongst others.

Jordyn davis

Jordyn Davis (b. 1995) is an award-winning bassist, composer, songwriter, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist from Detroit, MI. In May 2019, Davis became the first African-American woman to receive a Bachelor's Degree in Music Composition from Michigan State University as well as the first Michigan State student to receive a Bachelor's Degree in Music Composition and Jazz Studies concurrently. Additionally, she is the proud leader of her own band “Composetheway”. Since completing a Masters’s Degree in Jazz Studies at Michigan State University, she has moved to Brooklyn, NY and is one of two inaugural Jazz Leader Fellowship recipients from the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music.

sarah KirKland snider

Composer Sarah Kirkland Snider writes music of direct expression and vivid narrative that has been hailed as “rapturous” (The New York Times), “groundbreaking” (The Boston Globe), and “poignant, deeply personal” (The New Yorker). Snider’s works have been commissioned and/or performed by the New York Philharmonic; San Francisco Symphony; National Symphony Orchestra; Detroit Symphony Orchestra; Philharmonia Orchestra; the Birmingham Royal Ballet, among many others. A founding Co-Artistic Director of Brooklyn-based non-profit New Amsterdam Records, Snider has an M.M. and Artist’s Diploma from the Yale School of Music, and a B.A. from Wesleyan University. Her music is published by G. Schirmer.

Shawn OkpebhOlO

Shawn E. Okpebholo is a GRAMMY®-nominated, criticallyacclaimed and award-winning composer. Some honors include The Academy of Arts and Letters Walter Hinrichsen Award, 2022 Winner of Barlow Endowment for Music Composition, and First Place Winner of the 2020 American Prize in Composition (professional/wind band division). He earned his master's and doctoral degrees in composition from the College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) at the University of Cincinnati, where he also studied music theory. He completed a bachelor's degree in composition and music history from Asbury College. Currently, he is Jonathan Blanchard Professor of Music Composition and Theory at Wheaton College-Conservatory of Music (IL).

Jeff ScOtt

Jeff Scott is a French hornist, composer and educator. As a composer, he creates works that he calls "Urban Classical Music." It's rooted in European traditions and informed by his African American culture. It is also unapologetically influenced by the cultural experiences of his diverse, urban environment upbringing. His mission is to broaden the scope of American music theory and composition, with the intention of introducing performers, teachers, students and audiences to the richness and value of their very own American music.

As we look towards the future of the Festival, it is our strong base of supporters that allows us to take on bigger and more ambitious projects. Your support of the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival touches all aspects of the Festival— from the quality of our artists and the inventiveness of our programming to the success of our Shouse Institute.

There are many ways that you can support the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival:

sPonsor A concert

Whether you want to sponsor as an individual or as a business, you will receive a host of benefits including tickets, concert signage, online recognition and private receptions with the artists. You can sponsor on your own or co-sponsor with another individual or entity. This is a wonderful way to invest more fully in our concert programming.

sPonsor An Artist

Show your support by sponsoring a Festival artist or Shouse ensemble. Our Artist Sponsors not only help support our organization’s longevity, but get to know their artist(s) at concerts and afterglows.

Become A BenefActor

Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival Benefactors make a gift of $1,650 per year in support of the Festival. Benefactors receive 14 tickets to be used on Festival subscription concerts, private receptions with the artists, and tickets to the Festival’s annual dinner on Opening Night.

suPPort the cADenZA circLe

The Cadenza Circle recognizes the vision and confidence of donors that make a gift to the Festival in their estate plans. These gifts include bequests, charitable gift annuities, life insurance beneficiary designations, charitable remainder trusts, and retirement plan beneficiary designations. If you would like to leave the Festival a gift in your estate plan, please contact Jocelyn (Zelasko) Conselva at jocelyn@art-ops.org.

invest

in the tocco society

This is a lifetime giving program for the Festival’s most loyal and generous donors. The Tocco Society recognizes our founding Artistic Director, James Tocco, through his vision and leadership. Members of the Tocco Society join our current Artistic Director, Paul Watkins, in discussions about artistic programming in future seasons.

mAKe A DonAtion

Our supporters are members of our larger Festival family, and your investment in us ensures outstanding chamber music as a staple in our community. Every amount counts!

Contact Jocelyn (Zelasko) Conselva at jocelyn@art-ops.org to create your unique giving package.

Values in action.

We’re proud to support the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival.

Plante Moran values their mission and vision to enhance music education and diversity within our communities.

Jeannette Contreraz | jeannette.contreraz@plantemoran.com

Tim St. Andrew | timothy.standrew@plantemoran.com

plantemoran.com

tO OrDEr

Call 248-559-2097

Monday - Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. OR visit greatlakeschambermusic.org

SEASON CALENdAr

sunday Monday Tuesday wednesday T hursday friday s aT urday

FAQ

How to order

Order by phone at 248-559-2097 or visit greatlakeschambermusic.org.

wHen to Arrive

The Festival Box Office will open on-site 30 minutes prior to the start of the performance. For general admission tickets, we recommend you arrive early to select your seat.

directions And PArking

Directions can be found for each performance at greatlakeschambermusic.org/ performances. Most of our venues have free on-site parking.

wHAt to weAr

There is no dress code for concerts. Formal attire is not required. We recommend bringing a light jacket or sweater if you get chilly. We do not provide coat check at our venues.

ticket informAtion

opening nigHt: mAsterful

mozArt: cosi fAn tutte

Adventures in HArmony

This year, all tickets are digital and emailed to you. All tickets are $5 more when purchased at the door. There is a $1.25 processing charge on all tickets.

Artistic encounter: pHilip setzer

juneteentH

cHAmber recitAl: cArlos simon & friends

13 20

every move, every decision

Artistic encounter: gilles vonsAttel

tHe festivAl in residence: windsor

Artistic encounter: sHAi wosner

emerson string QuArtet: turning points

14 21

tAsting notes: divertimento witH A side of pimento

Artistic encounter: emerson string QuArtet

15 22

sounds of spring 11 18

youtHful inventions morning glories clAssicAl fAmily: little red riding Hood

tHe festivAl in residence: Ann Arbor

beyond tHe notes: music meets mindfulness

16 23

seligman Performing Arts center only: All seats at Seligman are assigned this year. To assist with seating, printed tickets will be mailed to patrons who purchase tickets more than two weeks before the concert. Electronic tickets will also be accepted at check in.

ticket donAtions/UnUsed tickets

opening nigHt dinner in seArcH of tHe sublime

sHouse: scHumAnn & sHostAkovicH

17 24

10 12 19

Audio/visuAl: witH Alvin wAddles tAsting notes: ciAconnA n cHeese fArewell reception At AndiAmo emerson string QuArtet: romAntic visions

All ticket exchanges and ticket donations need to be arranged at least 24 hours prior to each concert. Subscribers may request unused tickets to be used as a donation to the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival. Single tickets may not be returned for a donation.

Tickets cannot be exchanged for performances at the Capitol Theatre, Kerrytown Concert House or St. Matthew’s & St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church. Please visit greatlakeschambermusic.org/performances to view eligible performances.

stArt time & LAte comers

The Festival makes every effort to start performances at the published start time. Late comers will be asked to wait in the lobby and will be seated by ushers at a predetermined time in the program. The late seating break is determined by artists and will generally occur during a suitable break in the program.

AccessibiLity

All of our venues are able to accommodate patrons with limited mobility and wheelchairs. If you require special seating due to accessibility, please call the Festival office at 248-559-2097 so that staff and ushers can properly assist.

APPLAUse

Traditionally, applause is held until the end of the piece of music. Composers create a work as a whole, which is often made up of several movements. It is best to not disrupt the music by applauding between movements.

HeALtH & sAfety

We closely follow the guidance and recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Michigan Department of Health & Human Services (MDHHS). Our COVID-19 policy can be found at: greatlakeschambermusic.org/ covid-19-protocols/.

53

© 2023 Chase, J.P. Morgan, JPMorgan Chase, and Story by J.P.Morgan are marketing names for certain businesses of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and its affiliates and subsidiaries worldwide (collectively, “JPMC”, “We”, “Our” or “Us”, as the context may require).

30 years of preserving and advancing chamber music in our community.

FeStivAl enDowment FunDS—A hiStory AnD A Future

The Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival is proud to be considered as one of the Top 20 chamber music festivals in the country. By supporting the Festival’s endowment fund, you support the future of the Festival and help to ensure that we continue to bring a world-class artistic experience to our patrons for many years to come.

Now in our 30th year, the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival is embarking on a journey to grow our endowment fund exponentially. This will allow our Artistic Director to bring bigger musical experiences to you, our patrons. For more information about supporting the Festival’s endowment, contact Jocelyn (Zelasko) conselva, Development Officer, at 248-559-2097 or at jocelyn@art-ops.org.

the James tocco endowed fund for Artistry & innovation

The fund was established in 2014 to commemorate the retirement of Founding Artistic Director James Tocco. This endowment allows future Festival artistic directors to pursue excellence and innovation as James did for more than two decades. The creative liberty will allow artistic directors to pursue the artists and programming necessary to advance the Festival’s prominence for years to come.

the great Lakes chamber music festival fund

This fund was established in honor of James Tocco with a bequest from Carol Harford, a close friend and colleague of Catherine Filene Shouse (for whom the Shouse Institute is named).

the stone composer endowment

The endowment fund was established in memory of Eunice and Joshua (Jim) Stone by their three daughters, Gwen Weiner, Marcy Klein, and Carol DePaul. Its purpose is to support the Festival’s Composer-in-Residence program, and to foster young composers by presenting premieres of their original works. This year, the honorees are Stone Composer-in-Residence carlos simon and Stone Composer Fellow Alan hankers.

Paul Katz endowed chair in memory of morris D. Baker

This fund was established in 2003 by Beverly Franzblau Baker in memory of Morris D. Baker. This year, the fund supports hsin-yun huang, violist.

eugene istomin endowed Piano chair

A chair established by James Tocco, this fund created an endowed position in the name of Eugene Istomin, one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century. This year, the fund supports gilles vonsattel, pianist

$75,000+

Beverly Baker*

Carol Harford†

Nancy† & Donald Pais*

Kathleen O’Toole Schein & Randolph Schein*

Wilda C. Tiffany Charitable Trust/Rev. Msgr. Anthony Tocco*

Gwen & S. Evan Weiner*

$25,000 - $74,999

Cecilia Benner*

Kathleen Block*

Aviva & Dean Friedman

Franziska & Robert† Schoenfeld*

James Tocco

$10,000 - $24,999

Rayna & Natalio† Kogan

Marguerite Munson Lentz & David Lentz*

Nate S. & Ruth B. Shapero Foundation

$5,000 - $9,999

Newcomb-Hargraves

Foundation

Emilio Rusciano

Dolores Silverstein

$1,000 - $4,999

Alzheimer’s Association

Rachel & Billy Ben Baumann

Nancy & William† Duffy*

Patricia & Robert† Galacz

Jane Galantowicz

Ann & Norman† Katz*

Tina Topalian & Maury Okun

Joshua J. and Eunice Stone

Philanthropic Fund

gifts uP to $999

Mr. & Mrs.† E. Bryce Alpern

Marian & Gerald Altman

Elizabeth & Brian Bachynski

Chuck Berman

Henri S. Bernard

Betty† & Art† Blair

Joyce & George Blum*

Judith B. Blustein

Dr. & Mrs. Sidney Bolkosky

Denah S. Bookstein

Jerome Bookstein

Dr. & Mrs. Martin Broder

Marilyn & Leonard Brose

Florence Brownfain†

Dr. & Mrs. Morton Cash

Mr. & Mrs. Anthony P. Checchia

Mr. & Mrs. Robert M. Citrin

Louise Goldstein Cohen & Morris Cohen

Dolores Curiel†

Mary DeMassa

Sylvia Rosenberg Diamond

Karen V. DiChiera*

Carole Edelsky

Haleh Esfandiari*

Mr. & Mrs. Joel I. Feldman

Barry Finestone

Joan Lessen-Firestone & Ira† Firestone*

Carolyn & Dennis Flynn*

Mr. & Mrs. Yehuda Fogel

Susan Frankel

Michael Franzblau

Valerie & John Frederick

Rachel Galazan

Louise Gauthier

Marcia Gershenson & Ken Robinson*

Mr. & Mrs. Robert Goldman

Merwin Goldsmith

Mr. & Mrs. Harvey A. Gordon

Stephanie & David Greer

Claire Grosberg

Renee Gruskin

Catherine† & John† Guinn

Alice Berberian Haidostian

Mr. & Mrs. Mitchell

Henderson

Mr. & Mrs. Richard J. Hendin

Doreen Hermelin

William Hulsker*

Rochelle Jackier

Gail Katz

Marilyn Katz*

Naomi Katz

Abigail Kellogg

Frances & Jack† King

Sharon & Jerry Knoppow

Susan Knoppow & David Saperstein

Leslie Lazzerin*

Lorraine & Leonard† Lerner

Dr. & Mrs. Dan Levitsky

Jean Levy

Richard Lewis

Laura Lewison

William Liberson

Seymour Lipkin†

Patricia Loeffler

Phyllis Loewenstein

Rochelle & Aaron Lupovitch

Mr. & Mrs. David Malakoff

Janelle McCammon & Raymond Rosenfeld

Rhoda Milgrim*

Mr. & Mrs. Harold Milinsky

Mr. & Mrs. Marvin Mintz

Avodah & Sidney Offit

Mr. & Mrs. Abe Pasternak

Mr. & Mrs. Stephen Rayburn

John Redfield*

Mr. & Mrs. Kenneth E.

Rochlen

Harriet† & Norman† Rotter

Helen Rowin†

Joan Rubin

Daphna & Sydney Ruby

Godofredo Santiago

Diane & Joseph Savin

Mr. & Mrs. Michael I. Schuman

Merle Schwartz

Phyllis & Sheldon Schwartz

Marilyn Shapiro

Arthur Shufro†

Marilyn Sivak

Melodie & Alan Solway

Etta Solway†

Nadele Spiro

Kathleen Straus & Walter Shapero*

Deborah & Kenneth Tucker*

Mr. & Mrs. Martin Urban

B.C. Vermeersch

Ruth Widrich

Mr. & Mrs. Taylor Williams

Melba Winer

Mr. & Mrs. Barry Yaker

Mr. & Mrs. Gerald Zahler

Ruth & Avigdor Zaromp*

Ara Zerounian

Mr.† & Mrs. Raymond Zimmerman

SpONSOrS & dONOrS

ruth Laredo endowed Piano chair

The chair was established in 2005 to honor the late pianist and Detroit native, Ruth Laredo. Returns on the investment are used to underwrite a pianist each year. This year, the fund supports Alvin Waddles, pianist.

henry meyer endowed violin chair

This chair has been established in memory of Henry Meyer, longtime violinist of the LaSalle Quartet and the beloved founding director of the Festival’s Shouse Institute. Once it has reached its goal, this fund will support a violinist at the Festival each year. This year, the fund supports yvonne Lam, violinist.

Beverly franzblau Baker young Artist chair

This chair was established by a gift from Beverly Franzblau Baker in 2007. Each year, the proceeds from this fund are used to sponsor the appearance of a young professional artist at the Festival. This year, the fund supports AyA Piano trio, shouse ensemble.

rev. msgr. Anthony m. tocco endowed composition chair

The chair was established in 2005 in honor of Rev. Msgr. Anthony Tocco through the estate of the late Festival supporter, Wilda C. Tiffany. This fund’s proceeds will bring new compositions to life.

Artist sPonsors

Cecilia Benner

Linda & Maurice Binkow

Kathleen Block

Corewell Health

Cindy & Harold Daitch

Adrienne Ruby-Fink & Herschel Fink

Maxine & Stuart Frankel

Virginia & Michael Geheb

Honigman LLP

Rayna Kogan

Edw. C. Levy Co.

Gail & Ira Mondry

David Nathanson

Martha Pleiss

Kathleen O'Toole Schein & Randolph Schein

Franziska Schoenfeld

Isabel & Lawrence Smith

Jill & Steven Stone

Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP

concert sPonsors

Beverly Baker & Dr. Edward Treisman

The Morris & Beverly Baker

Foundation

Linda & Maurice Binkow

Nancy Duffy

Aviva & Dean Friedman

Virginia & Michael Geheb

Linda Goodman

JPMorgan Chase

Marguerite Munson Lentz & David Lentz

Bridget & Michael Morin

Joy & Allan Nachman

Pearl Planning

Plante Moran

Sandra & Claude Reitelman

Josette Silver

Isabel & Lawrence Smith

Lauren & Dwight Smith

Gwen & S. Evan Weiner

emerson string

QuArtet PerformAnce sPonsors

Beverly Baker & Dr. Edward Treisman

Kathleen Block

Adrienne Ruby-Fink & Herschel Fink

Aviva & Dean Friedman

Virginia & Michael Geheb

CADENZA CIRCLE

The Cadenza Circle recognizes those donors who have included the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival in their Estate Plans.

Nancy & William* Duffy

Fay B. Herman

Tina Topalian & Maury Okun

Kathleen O'Toole Schein & Randolph Schein

tocco society (cumuLAtive $100,000+)

The Tocco Society recognizes those donors who have made lifetime gifts of $100,000 or more.

Thea Glicksman

Christine Goerke

Barbara & Paul Goodman

Henry Grix & Howard Israel

Barbara Heller

Fay B. Herman

Karen & Robert Heuer

William Hulsker & Aris Urbanes, MD

Deborah & Addison Igleheart

Dr. Ann Katz

Frances King

Rayna Kogan

Jill & Michael Leib

Marguerite Munson Lentz & David Lentz

Linda Dresner & Edward C. Levy, Jr.

grAnD PAtrons ($850-$1,649)

Jerome Bookstein

Jeanette Isenhour

Valmy & Richard Kulbersh

Patrick McKeever

Lynne Metty

Alan E. Schwartz

PAtrons ($500-$849)

Dana Gill

Anita DeMarco Goor

Kickham Hanley PLLC

Sharon Robinson Laredo

Lorraine Lerner

Kate & Randy Safford

Jeanne Salathiel

Margaret E. Winters & Geoffrey S. Nathan

Christine Goerke

Marguerite Munson Lentz & David Lentz

Gail & Ira Mondry

David Nathanson

Martha Pleiss

Kathleen O'Toole Schein & Randolph Schein

Franziska Schoenfeld

Isabel & Lawrence Smith

vignette hosts

Gail & Ira Mondry

Diane & Randall Orley

Franziska Schoenfeld

Jill & Steven Stone

other sPonsors

Mr. & Mrs. B.N Bahadur, Accent Pontiac Workshops

Linda & Maurice Binkow, WSU Medical School Workshop

Barbara & Paul Goodman, Artistic Encounters

Andrea & Woody Leung, Piano Sponsorship

Beverly Baker

Cecilia Benner

Aviva & Dean Friedman

Carol Harford*

Nancy* & Donald Pais

Kathleen O'Toole Schein & Randolph Schein

Wilda C. Tiffany*

Rev. Msgr. Anthony Tocco

James Tocco

Gwen & S. Evan Weiner

inDiviDuAL Donors

BenefActors ($1,650

AnD ABove)

Beverly Baker & Dr. Edward Treisman

Rachel & Billy Ben Baumann

Kathleen Block

Joanne & John Carter

Cathleen Corken

Cindy & Harold Daitch

Lillian & Walter Dean

Max Lepler & Rex Dotson

Nancy Duffy

Marjory Winkelman Epstein

Aviva & Dean Friedman

Virginia & Michael Geheb

Drs. Melissa McBrien & Raymond Landes

Judith Greenstone Miller

Gail & Ira Mondry

Bridget & Michael Morin

Frederick Morsches & Kareem George

David Nathanson

Tina Topalian & Maury Okun

Donald Pais

Sandra & Claude Reitelman

Janelle McCammon & Raymond Rosenfeld

Kathleen O'Toole Schein & Randolph Schein

Franziska Schoenfeld

Mark Schumacher

Josette Silver

Dolores Silverstein

Ted Simon

Isabel & Lawrence Smith

Lauren & Dwight Smith

Jill & Steven Stone

Michael Turala

James Tocco

Gwen & S. Evan Weiner

frienDs ($250-$499)

Karen Hahn & Claudio Roveroni

Margo & Bob Lesser

Mary Mazure

Susan & Michael Madison

Danielle Susser contriButors ($100$249)

Anonymous (2)

Judith & Joel Adelman

Jill Bader

Judy Balint

Nancy Bechek Bluth & Larry Bluth

Joanne Bonds

Denah Bookstein

Lucinda & Robert Clement

Sharon Cundiff

Marjorie DeCapite

Joan Emerick & Peter Saldana

Mary Graham Engelhardt

Anne Ginn

Jolyn Hillebrand

continued on page 58

SpONSOrS & dONOrS

continued from page 57

Tom Hitchman & Keith Hewitt

Nadia & Mark Juzych

Renate Klass & Matthew Mason

Joan Lessen-Firestone

Laura & Channing Lipson

Cyril Moscow

Laurie & Darryl Newman

Ruthanne Okun

Diane Okun

Diane & Randy Orley

Mary Paquette-Abt

Joan & John Reddy

Kathleen Straus & Walter Shapero

Marilyn Shapiro

Edward Sharples

Marci & Marvin Shulman

Jürgen Skoppek

Elaine Tell

Robert Tera

Sam & Peggy Tundo

Gerald Weintraub

Richard Zirkin

other Donors ($25-$99)

Anonymous

William Albert

Leslie Brudne

Mary Lynn & Edward Callaghan

Jean Casey

Velda Kelly

Pauline McIlrath

Bonnie & Marc Nowakowski

Barbara Prinzi

Yvonne Schilla

Michael Shaw

Roberta E Sonnino, MD

Peter Sparling

Toni & Scott Temple

Carol Sipsock & Greg

Wahowiak

L. Pahl Zinn

honorAry gifts gifts were made in memory of:

William Brashear

Dolores Curiel

Donald Robert Epstein

Natalio Kogan

George Hnatiuk

Nancy Pais

Charlotte J Rosenbaum

Helen Rowin

Marion W. Pahl & Mary Anne Pahl Zinn

gifts were made in honor of:

Joel Adelman

Kathleen Block

Christine Goerke

Lauren Smith

recePtion hosts

Kathleen Block

Virginia & Michael Geheb

Barbara Heller

Gail & Ira Mondry

Diane & Randy Orley

Sandra & Claude Reitelman

Kathleen O’Toole Schein & Randolph Schein

Jill & Steve Stone

James Tocco

voLunteers

Claire Abrams

Milena Cankovic

Jennifer Ginther

Fay Herman

Jolyn Hillebrand

Andy Howell

Bob Koenig

Sandie Landau

Fran Lewis

Ruthanne Okun

Diane Okun

Suzie Share

Arnold Weiner

founDAtion AnD government suPPort

There are many ways to support the Festival, all of which are critical to our success. Our supporters become involved in our programming through corporate sponsorships, business advertising, individual donations or volunteering. Your financial investment and/or gift of time allows us to continue bringing great music to our community. for more information, call 248-559-2097.

Mary Thompson Foundation

Maxine & Stuart Frankel Foundation

All donor lists updated as of may 15, 2023. GLCMF regrets any errors or omissions made in this list of contributors. For corrections or if you would like to make a gift please call 248-559-2097.

† Deceased

Phillip & Elizabeth Filmer Memorial Charitable Trust

Wilda C. Tiffany Trust

Burton A. Zipser & Sandra D. Zipser Foundation

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