with Robert Greenberg SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2014 SUNDAY, JANUARY 11, 2015 SUNDAY, MARCH 15, 2015
Program
ALEXANDER STRING QUARTET
RO BERT A N D M ARGRIT
MONDAVI CENTER
FO R TH E PERFO R M I N G ARTS PRESENTS
ALEXANDER STRING QUARTET Zakarias Grafilo and Frederick Lifsitz, Violins Paul Yarbrough, Viola Sandy Wilson, Cello
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2014 • 2PM & 7PM SUNDAY, JANUARY 11, 2015 • 2PM & 7PM SUNDAY, MARCH 15, 2015 • 2PM & 7PM
Vanderhoef Studio Theatre
Individual support for the Alexander String Quartet series provided by Thomas and Phyllis Farver.
2PM Performances: Musicologist, author and composer Robert Greenberg provides commentary throughout the concert. 7PM Performances: The quartet performs this program without intermission, then remains for a Q&A session with the audience.
The Alexander String Quartet is represented by BesenArts LLC BesenArts.com The Alexander String Quartet records for FogHornClassics asq4.com
The artists and fellow audience members appreciate silence during the performance. Please be sure that you have switched off cellular phones, watch alarms and pager signals. Videotaping, photographing and audio recording are strictly forbidden. Violators are subject to removal.
PROGRAM
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2014 • 2PM & 7PM
P. 6
GUEST ARTIST: Eli Eban, clarinet String Quartet No. 20 in D Major, K. 499 (1786) Allegretto Menuetto: Allegretto Adagio Allegro
W.A. Mozart (1756-1791)
Intermission (2PM only) Quintet in A major for Clarinet & Strings, K. 581 (1789) Allegro Larghetto Menuetto Allegretto con Variazioni
Mozart
SUNDAY, JANUARY 11, 2015 • 2PM & 7PM String Quartet No. 21 in D major, K. 575 (1789) Allegretto Andante Menuetto: Allegretto Allegretto
P. 7 Mozart
Intermission (2PM only) String Quartet No. 22 in B-flat Major, K. 589 (1790) Allegro Larghetto Menuetto: Moderato Allegro assai
Mozart
SUNDAY, MARCH 15, 2015 • 2PM & 7PM
P. 8
GUEST ARTIST: Charith Premawardhana, viola String Quartet No. 23 in F Major, K. 590 (1790) Allegro moderato Andante Menuetto: Allegretto Allegro
Mozart
Intermission (2PM only) String Quintet No. 6 in E-flat Major, K. 614 (1791) Allegro di molto Andante Menuetto: Allegretto Allegro
Mozart
Sunday, November 2 String Quartet No. 20 in D Major, K. 499 Allegretto Menuetto: Allegretto Adagio Allegro
Intermission (2PM only) Quintet in A Major for Clarinet & Strings, K. 581 Allegro Larghetto Menuetto Allegretto con Variazioni
PROGRAM NOTES WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART Born January 27, 1756, Salzburg Died December 5, 1791, Vienna String Quartet No. 20 in D Major, K. 499 The year 1786 marked the high point of Mozart’s success in Vienna. During the winter he composed two of his greatest piano concertos— No. 23 in A Major, K.488 and No. 24 in C Minor, K.491—then spent the spring completing The Marriage of Figaro. The opera’s premiere on May 1 was a triumph, and with these large-scale works behind him Mozart turned that summer to chamber music. This was a happy period for the composer (his third child was due that October), and music seemed to pour out of him: from these months came three piano trios, a piano quartet, and the present String Quartet in D major, completed on August 19, 1786. Mozart apparently wrote this quartet because he wanted to—there was no commission or promise of a first performance. While it is dangerous to read biographical significance into a piece of music (particularly with a composer like Mozart, who kept his life and art rigorously separate), it is difficult not to believe that this amiable and goodspirited music reflects Mozart’s relaxed state of mind in the summer of 1786. This quartet, sometimes nicknamed the “Hoffmeister” Quartet after its publisher, is further distinguished by its sound. Mozart pays unusual attention to instrumental color here: the viola has a prominent part, often in the high part of its register, and the harmonies of the slow movement give this music a rare tonal richness. The Allegretto (not the expected Allegro) opens simply with a unison falling figure that will recur throughout. Much of the writing in this sonata-form movement is very high, and not just for the viola: listen particularly to the first violin in the movement’s closing moments. The Menuetto swings along easily on its broad opening melody, though the second strain produces a number of canonic imitations as the other voices trail closely behind the first violin; the trio section features triplet rhythms and the smooth flow of the theme between the four voices. In many ways the Adagio is the most striking movement of this quartet. This is very elaborate music: its long themes are ornate, and Mozart will often set the two violins against the two lower voices. His
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choice of harmonies (the violins are in thirds and sixths throughout) further contributes to the movement’s elegant and unusual texture. The concluding Allegro bristles with energy. Its opening theme, full of flying triplets and unexpected pauses, sets the tone for this sonata-form movement, which seems in constant motion throughout. Quintet in A Major for Clarinet & Strings, K. 581 While Mozart reportedly did not care for the sound of the flute, he felt a special fondness for the clarinet. He first heard the newly‑invented instrument at the age of seven, while on a visit to Mannheim, and his fascination with the clarinet’s mellow sonority and wide range stayed with him throughout his life. Mozart was one of the first composers to use the clarinet in a symphony, and the instrument figures prominently in such important late works as his Symphony No. 39 (1788) and the operas Così fan tutte (1790) and La Clemenza di Tito (1791). Part of Mozart’s fascination with the clarinet late in life resulted from his friendship with the Austrian clarinet virtuoso Anton Stadler (1753‑1812), one of the composer’s fellow Freemasons in Vienna. It was for Stadler that Mozart wrote his three great works featuring the clarinet: the Trio, K.498 (with viola and piano); the Quintet, K.581; and the Concerto, K.622. Stadler played the basset clarinet, a clarinet‑like instrument of his own invention, which could play four pitches lower than the standard clarinet of Mozart’s day (and ours). This unfortunately resulted in a number of corrupt editions of Mozart’s works for Stadler, as editors re‑wrote them to suit the range of the standard clarinet. Some clarinetists today perform on a recreation of Stadler’s instrument that restores the availability of the four low pitches Mozart originally intended. Mozart wrote the Clarinet Quintet during the summer of 1789, just before he began work on Così fan tutte, finishing the score on September 29; the Quintet had its first performance in Vienna the following December 22, with Stadler as soloist and Mozart a member of the quartet. Simple verbal description cannot begin to suggest the glories of the Quinte —this is truly sovereign music, full of the complete technical mastery of Mozart’s final years and rich with the emotional depth that marks the music from that period. The strings have the first theme of the Allegro, and the clarinet soon enters to embellish this noble opening statement. The second subject, presented by the first violin, flows with a long‑breathed lyricism, and the movement develops in sonata form. The Larghetto belongs very much to the clarinet, which weaves a long cantilena above the accompanying strings; new material arrives in the first violin, and the development section is Mozart at his finest. Particularly impressive here is the careful attention to sonority, with the silky sound of muted strings set against the warm murmur of the clarinet. The Menuetto is unusual in that it has two trio sections: the minor‑key first is entirely for strings, while in the second the clarinet evokes the atmosphere of the Austrian countryside with a ländler‑like dance. In place of the expected rondo‑finale Mozart offers a variation movement based on the violins’ opening duet. The five variations are sharply differentiated: several feature athletic parts for the clarinet, the fourth is a soaring episode for viola over rich accompaniment from the other voices, and the fifth is an expressive Adagio. The Clarinet Quintet concludes with a jaunty coda derived from the first half of the original theme. —Eric Bromberger
Sunday, January 11, 2015
of this sonata-form movement sing gracefully, and the sotto voce marking at the opening might apply to the entire movement. There is more unison writing in the Menuetto, though the second strain breaks the melodic line nicely between the three upper voices in turn. By contrast, Mozart turns the trio section over to the cello, which sings its graceful song as the upper strings accompany.
String Quartet No. 21 in D Major, K. 575 (1789) Allegretto Andante Menuetto: Allegretto Allegretto Intermission (2PM only) String Quartet No. 22 in B-flat Major, K. 589 (1790) Allegro Larghetto Menuetto: Moderato Allegro assai
PROGRAM NOTES WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART Born January 27, 1756, Salzburg Died December 5, 1791, Vienna String Quartet in D Major, K. 575 In the spring of 1789, Mozart made an extended visit to Berlin. His fortunes in Vienna had waned, and he hoped that in the music-loving King Friedrich Wilhelm II he might find a royal patron who would understand his worth and commission new music. Mozart returned to Vienna early in June with the news that the trip had been in all ways a success: he had performed before the king and queen, who were so enthralled by his playing that on the spot the king commissioned a set of six quartets and six easy keyboard sonatas for his daughter. Mozart even had the money in hand to confirm his story. Yet this inspiring tale, which has been part of the Mozart legend for two centuries, remains a troubling episode because the evidence suggests that it never happened. There is no record of a royal reception at Potsdam (the king in fact refused to meet Mozart and sent him instead to the court Kapellmeister), and scholars have come to the uncomfortable conclusion that Mozart—humiliated and unable to face returning to Vienna in shame—made up the whole story of the commission and borrowed money so that he could pass it off as the king’s payment. He made a great show of starting to compose the cycle of quartets, but soon lost interest and wrote only three of the projected six. These were eventually published with no mention of a royal dedication. These three quartets, inevitably (if ironically) known as the “King of Prussia” Quartets, feature unusually prominent parts for the cello. The king was an amateur cellist, and—the story went—Mozart gave that instrument a leading role as a bow to his royal patron. Mozart actually began work on the Quartet in D major, K. 575 on the way back to Vienna from Berlin and had it done about the time he arrived home. The quartet is full of refined and agreeable music, but the surprise is how restrained this music is. Three of its movements are marked Allegretto, a marking that implies not just a tempo slower than Allegro but also a more relaxed and playful character; further, both the first and second movements are marked sotto voce, suggesting a subdued presentation. The first violin immediately introduces the main theme of the opening Allegretto, and its rising-and-falling shape will recur in a number of forms. The second subject is announced by the cello (characteristically, it is marked dolce), and the music proceeds in sonata form, with a fairly literal recapitulation and a short coda. The Andante is music of inspired simplicity. Mozart sometimes sets the three upper voices against the cello here, and these unison sonorities contribute to the movement’s atmosphere of clarity and simplicity. Both themes
The concluding Allegretto is the most contrapuntal—and the most impressive—of the four movements. It begins with something quite unusual in Mozart’s music—a main theme that is clearly derived from the main theme of the first movement. He then offers extended polyphonic treatment of this singing idea, sometimes setting it in close canon between the various voices, at other times varying this simple melody in surprising ways—his music flows and sparkles and seems constantly to be in the process of becoming something new. In its good spirits, intelligence, and utter ease, it is music fit for a king (even if it wasn’t actually written for one). String Quartet in B-flat Major, K. 589 In the spring of 1789, Prince Karl Lichnowsky, a generous patron of music, invited Mozart to visit Berlin with him. Legend has it that the cello-playing King Friedrich Wilhelm II was desperate to receive Mozart, who played before the king and queen and was rewarded with a golden snuffbox full of a hundred louis d’or and a commission to compose six string quartets for the king and six easy keyboard sonatas for his daughter. Mozart returned to Vienna but was able to complete only three of these quartets, thereafter nicknamed the “King of Prussia Quartets,” and then had to sell them for quick cash during the poverty of his final years. But the problem is that this tale appears to have been a complete fabrication on Mozart’s part. While Mozart did visit Berlin in May 1789, all the evidence suggests that the king did not receive him, gave him no gift, and commissioned nothing. Faced with having to return to Vienna in utter defeat, Mozart borrowed money to pass off as from the king and created the story of the commission. Certainly he did not seem to take the commission—if it ever existed—very seriously: he wrote one quartet immediately, two a year later, and then forgot about the whole thing, and when these quartets were published there was no hint of a royal dedication (in his biography of Mozart, Maynard Solomon discusses in some detail the implications of this distressing episode). This should not cause us to undervalue these quartets, but it does present them in a different light than the legend would have it. The three quartets he completed, however, have inevitably been nicknamed the “King of Prussia” quartets. Taking an obvious cue, Mozart made sure that all three feature an important role for the cellist, but such prominence created special problems for Mozart, who was essentially a “top-line” composer: he preferred to have the melody in the highest register, the accompaniment beneath it. As soon as the bottom voice is given prominence, the other three voices must have their roles re-defined. As a result, all four instruments have very active roles, giving these quartets an unusually rich sonority. The Quartet in B-flat Major, completed in May 1790, is relaxed and agreeable music. There is a sense of smoothness throughout the first movement. Its opening theme flows easily in the first violin, and the second subject—specifically given to the cello—proceeds along a steady pulse of eighth-notes; the surprisingly short development section makes frequent use of triplet rhythms. The cello has the main theme of the Larghetto; textures grow complex here, with ornate rhythms and unusual pairings of instruments: the first violin and cello, though some distance apart in range, share the material at times. MondaviArts.org | 7
The cello fades from prominence over the final two movements. The Menuetto is in many ways the most impressive movement of this quartet. Much of the writing in the opening section sends the first violin quite high in its register, perhaps as an effort to balance the deep sonority of the cello. The trio section is huge: over a busy, chirping accompaniment, the first violin begins to develop material from the minuet, and Mozart stays with this until the third movement becomes, surprisingly, almost the longest in the quartet. The finale, much more conventional, flows smoothly on its 6/8 meter, and many have felt that its main theme bears a close relationship to the finale of Haydn’s “Joke” Quartet. The movement drives to an almost operatic climax with the first violin soaring high above the other instruments before the music subsides to its nicely understated close. —Eric Bromberger
Sunday, March 15, 2015 String Quartet No. 23 in F Major, K. 590 (1790) Allegro moderato Andante Menuetto: Allegretto Allegro Intermission (2PM only) String Quintet No. 6 in E-flat Major, K. 614 (1791) Allegro di molto Andante Menuetto: Allegretto Allegro
PROGRAM NOTES WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART Born January 27, 1756, Salzburg Died December 5, 1791, Vienna String Quartet No. 23 in F Major, K. 590 The story of Mozart’s visit to Berlin in the spring of 1789 has become part of the legend. It tells of how the music-loving King Friedrich Wilhelm II was desperate to receive Mozart, how the composer played before the king and queen, and how he was rewarded with a golden snuffbox full of a hundred louis d’or and a commission to compose six string quartets for the king and six easy keyboard sonatas for his daughter. Mozart returned to Vienna but was able to complete only three of these quartets, thereafter nicknamed the “King of Prussia Quartets,” and then had to sell them for quick cash during the poverty of his final years. But the problem is that this tale appears to have been a complete fabrication on Mozart’s part: while Mozart did visit Berlin in May 1789, all the evidence suggests that the king did not receive him, gave him no gift, and commissioned nothing. Faced with having to return to Vienna in utter defeat, Mozart borrowed money to pass off as the gift from the king and created the story of the commission. Certainly he did not seem to take the commission—if it ever existed—very seriously: he wrote one quartet immediately, two a year later, and then forgot about the whole thing, and when these quartets were published there was no hint of a royal dedication (in his biography of Mozart, Maynard Solomon discusses in some detail the implications of this distressing 8 | MondaviArts.org
episode). It should not cause us to undervalue these quartets, but it does present them in a different light than the legend would have it. Of the three completed quartets, the Quartet in F Major heard on this concert was the last—it was composed in June 1790, over a year after Mozart’s return from Berlin. Tradition has it that the cello-playing king had instructed Mozart to give a prominent part to the cello in these quartets, and this Mozart apparently tried to do (even if only as a way of preserving the fiction). But Mozart was not particularly interested in the cello as a melodic instrument. He was a “top-line” composer, and giving the bass-line instrument an important thematic role violated his sense of what quartets should be. As a result, he was forced to reduce the stature of the second violin and viola and to sacrifice the interplay of four voices for a more brilliant, concertante style. And perhaps even Mozart was unable to prolong the myth of the royal commission: by the time he wrote this quartet, the prominence of the cello had faded and— after the first movement—vanishes altogether. All of this background does not (and should not) prevent our enjoying the Quartet in F Major as the remarkable music that it is. Mozart worked very hard on this quartet: a number of sketches and worksheets survive, something unusual from a composer who usually wrote music in his head and committed it to paper only at the last minute. Many have remarked that this quartet is built on asymmetric phrases that give it unexpected expressive power, and it is also remarkable for its thematic concentration: the second movement, for example, is built on only one theme. A further measure of its concentration is that—just as in the Symphony No. 40 in G Minor—three of the four movements are in sonata form. The concertante style of the first movement is most evident in the dialogue between first violin and cello and the fact that cello has the second subject. The development is short but concentrated, and after a lengthy recapitulation the movement seems to vanish with an almost offhand gesture. The Andante is not just monothematic—it is almost athematic: Mozart presents just a rhythm in the first two measures and then builds most of the movement from that rhythm. The asymmetry of themes is most evident in the third movement, where the opening phrase of the minuet is in seven bars and the opening of the trio in five (rather than the customary eight). The Allegro, full of contrapuntal brilliance, offers the first violin a concerto-like part. After so much dazzling music, the very ending is a masterpiece of understatement. String Quintet in E-flat Major, K. 614 In the manuscript of the Quintet in E-flat Major Mozart noted the location and date of its completion—Vienna, April 12, 1791 – placing this quintet at the beginning of the final creative burst of his brief life. Over the next eight months he would write two operas—Die Zauberflöte and La clemenza di Tito—and the Clarinet Concerto, and he would begin the Requiem, left unfinished at his death on December 5. Though he did not know it as he set aside the manuscript on that spring day, this quintet would be his final chamber work. This is an unusual composition, in many ways representative of the increasingly rarefied musical language of Mozart’s final years. Unlike his earlier viola quintets, the Quintet in E-flat Major does not play groups of different instruments off against each other, nor does it exploit the characteristic “middle” sonority of the viola quintet. Rather, this music is remarkable for the brilliance of the first violin part in its outer movements, where that instrument sails above the other four with a concerto-like virtuosity. And, as we shall see, it incorporates some unusual formal features.
The Allegro di molto opens with a passage for the two violas that sounds exactly like a pair of hunting horns. That effect was clearly intentional, and that fanfare returns throughout the movement, giving the music a somewhat festive air and thrusting it forward on the energy of its trills. These “horn-calls” dominate the opening measures, but quickly the first violin breaks free with a series of runs, difficult string-crossings, and writing high in the instrument’s register (at one point Mozart sends the first violin up to a high D, almost at the upper extreme of its fingerboard). At the end, the horn fanfare and its trills drive this movement to its energetic close. The real glory of this quintet is the Andante. Its form is simple enough on the surface—a theme with variations—but what is unusual here is what Mozart does in the course of varying his opening melody. That melody, sung initially by the first violin, sounds like an aria, and in fact it has been compared to Belmonte’s aria “Wenn der Freude Thränen fliessen” from The Abduction from the Seraglio. Mozart does some astonishing things with this gentle little theme. The development is a series of repetitions, each becoming more complex and more chromatic until strange dissonances come stinging out of this music. The effect, over two centuries later, is still surprising, and it is a movement like this that helps us understand what a Viennese critic meant when he complained that Mozart’s music was “too highly spiced.” Spiced it may be, but it is also extraordinarily beautiful and expressive. The minuet is more conventional, though the outer sections proceed on canonic phrases, while the trio is a ländler that dances comfortably along its easy swing. The final movement, a rondo marked Allegro, is built entirely on one theme, announced immediately by the first violin. Building an entire movement on one theme was nothing new—Haydn had written many such movements—but what makes this movement remarkable is the concentrated polyphonic writing. Mozart treats his amiable opening theme to some complex fugal development, and— pushed along by more brilliant writing for the first violin—his final piece of chamber music flies to its energetic close.
Library of Congress and Dumbarton Oaks in Washington; and chamber music societies and universities across the North American continent. Recent overseas tours have brought them to the U.K., the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, France, Greece, the Republic of Georgia, Argentina, Panamá, and the Philippines. They will return to Poland for their debut performances at the Beethoven Easter Festival in 2015. Among the fine musicians with whom the Alexander String Quartet has collaborated are pianists Joyce Yang, Roger Woodward, Anne-Marie McDermott, Menachem Pressler, and Jeremy Menuhin; clarinetists Joan Enric Lluna, David Shifrin, Richard Stoltzman, and Eli Eban; soprano Elly Ameling; mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato; cellists Lynn Harrell, Sadao Harada, and David Requiro; and jazz greats Branford Marsalis, David Sanchez, and Andrew Speight. The quartet has worked with many composers including Aaron Copland, George Crumb, and Elliott Carter, and has long enjoyed a close relationship with composer-lecturer Robert Greenberg, performing numerous lecture-concerts with him annually. The Alexander String Quartet added considerably to its distinguished and wide-ranging discography over the past decade, now recording exclusively for the FoghornClassics label. There were three major releases in the 2013-2014 season: The combined string quartet cycles of Bartók and Kodály, recorded on the renowned Ellen M. Egger matched quartet of instruments built by San Francisco luthier, Francis Kuttner (If ever an album had “Grammy nominee” written on its front cover, this is it.” –Audiophile Audition); the string quintets and sextets of Brahms with Toby Appel and David Requiro (“a uniquely detailed, transparent warmth” –Strings Magazine); and the Schumann and Brahms piano quintets with Joyce Yang (“passionate, soulful readings of two pinnacles of the chamber repertory” –The New York Times). Their recording of music of Gershwin and Kern was released in the summer of 2012, following the spring 2012 recording of the clarinet quintet of Brahms and a new quintet from César Cano, in collaboration with Joan Enric Lluna, as well as a disc in collaboration with the San Francisco Choral Artists. Next to be released will be an album of works by Cindy Cox.
—Eric Bromberger
ALEXANDER STRING QUARTET Having celebrated its 30th Anniversary in 2011, the Alexander String Quartet has performed in the major music capitals of five continents, securing its standing among the world’s premier ensembles. Widely admired for its interpretations of Beethoven, Mozart, and Shostakovich, the quartet’s recordings of the Beethoven cycle (twice), Bartók, and Shostakovich cycle have won international critical acclaim. The quartet has also established itself as an important advocate of new music through over 25 commissions from such composers as Jake Heggie, Cindy Cox, Augusta Read Thomas, Robert Greenberg, Martin Bresnick, Cesar Cano, and Pulitzer Prize-winner Wayne Peterson. A new work by Tarik O’Regan, commissioned for the Alexander by the Boise Chamber Music Series, will have its premiere in 2016. The Alexander String Quartet is a major artistic presence in its home base of San Francisco, serving since 1989 as Ensemble in Residence of San Francisco Performances and Directors of the Morrison Chamber Music Center in the College of Liberal and Creative Arts at San Francisco State University.
The Alexander’s 2009 release of the complete Beethoven cycle was described by Music Web International as performances “uncompromising in power, intensity and spiritual depth,” while Strings Magazine described the set as “a landmark journey through the greatest of all quartet cycles.” The FoghornClassics label released a three-CD set (Homage) of the Mozart quartets dedicated to Haydn in 2004. Foghorn released the a six-CD album (Fragments) of the complete Shostakovich quartets in 2006 and 2007, and a recording of the complete quartets of Pulitzer prize-winning San Francisco composer, Wayne Peterson, was released in the spring of 2008. BMG Classics released the quartet’s first recording of Beethoven cycle on its Arte Nova label to tremendous critical acclaim in 1999. The Alexander String Quartet was formed in New York City in 1981 and captured international attention as the first American quartet to win the London International String Quartet Competition in 1985. The quartet has received honorary degrees from Allegheny College and Saint Lawrence University, and Presidential medals from Baruch College (CUNY).
The Alexander String Quartet’s annual calendar of concerts includes engagements at major halls throughout North America and Europe. The quartet has appeared at Lincoln Center, the 92nd Street Y, and the Metropolitan Museum in New York City; Jordan Hall in Boston; the
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ROBERT GREENBERG Robert Greenberg was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1954, and has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1978. Greenberg received a B.A. in music, magna cum laude, from Princeton University in 1976. His principal teachers at Princeton were Edward Cone, Daniel Werts, and Carlton Gamer in composition, Claudio Spies, and Paul Lansky in analysis, and Jerry Kuderna in piano. In 1984, Greenberg received a Ph.D. in music composition, with Distinction, from the University of California, Berkeley, where his principal teachers were Andrew Imbrie and Olly Wilson in composition and Richard Felciano in analysis. Greenberg has composed over fifty works for a wide variety of instrumental and vocal ensembles. Recent performances of his works have taken place in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, England, Ireland, Greece, Italy, and The Netherlands, where his Child’s Play for String Quartet was performed at the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam. Greenberg has received numerous honors, including being designated an official “Steinway Artist,” three Nicola de Lorenzo Composition Prizes, and three Meet-The-Composer Grants. Notable commissions have been received from the Koussevitzky Foundation in the Library of Congress, the Alexander String Quartet, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, San Francisco Performances, and the XTET ensemble. Greenberg is a board member and an artistic director of COMPOSERS, INC., a composers’ collective/production organization based in San Francisco. His music has been published by Fallen Leaf Press and CPP/Belwin, and recorded on the Innova label. Greenberg has performed, taught and lectured extensively across North America and Europe. He is currently music historian-inresidence with San Francisco Performances, where he has lectured and performed since 1994. He has served on the faculties of the University of California at Berkeley, California State University East Bay, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he chaired the Department of Music History and Literature from 1989-2001 and served as the Director of the Adult Extension Division from 1991-1996. Greenberg has lectured for some of the most prestigious musical and arts organizations in the United States, including the San Francisco Symphony (where for ten years he was host and lecturer for the Symphony’s nationally acclaimed “Discovery Series”), the Chautauqua Institute (where he was the Everett Scholar-in-Residence during the 2006 season), the Ravinia Festival, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Van Cliburn Foundation, the Nasher Sculpture Center, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, Villa Montalvo, Music@Menlo, and the University of British Columbia (where he was the Dal Grauer Lecturer in September of 2006). In addition, Greenberg is a sought after lecturer for businesses and business schools. For many years a member of the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania/Wharton School’s Advanced Management Program, he has spoken for such diverse organizations as S.C. Johnson, Canadian Pacific, Deutsches Bank, the University of California/Haas School of Business Executive Seminar, the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, Harvard Business School Publishing, Kaiser-Permanente, the Strategos Institute, Quintiles Transnational, the Young Presidents’ Organization, the World Presidents’ Organization, and the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco. Greenberg has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal, INC. Magazine, the Times of London, the Los Angeles Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, the University of California Alumni Magazine, Princeton Alumni Weekly, and Diablo Magazine. For fifteen years Greenberg was the resident composer and music historian to National Public Radio’s “Weekend All Things Considered” and “Weekend Edition, Sunday” with Liane Hansen.
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In February 2003, The Bangor Daily News (Maine) referred to Greenberg as the “Elvis of music history and appreciation,” an appraisal that has given more pleasure than any other. In May 1993, Greenberg recorded a forty-eight lecture course entitled “How to Listen to and Understand Great Music” for the Teaching Company/Great Courses Program of Chantilly, Virginia. (This course was named in the January, 1996 edition of Inc. Magazine as one of “The Nine Leadership Classics You’ve Never Read.”) The Great Courses is the preeminent producer of college level courses-on-media in the United States. Twenty-five further courses, including “Concert Masterworks,” “Bach and the High Baroque,” “The Symphonies of Beethoven,” “How to Listen to and Understand Opera,” “Great Masters,” “The Operas of Mozart,” “The Life and Operas of Verdi,” “The Symphony,” “The Chamber Music of Mozart,” “The Piano Sonatas of Beethoven,” “The Concerto,” “The Fundamentals of Music”, “The String Quartets of Beethoven”, “The Music of Richard Wagner”, and “The Thirty Greatest Orchestral Works” have been recorded since, totaling over 550 lectures. The courses are available on both CD and DVD formats and in book form. Dr. Greenberg’s book, How to Listen to Great Music, was published by Plume, a division of Penguin Books, in April, 2011. Greenberg lives with his children Lillian and Daniel, wife Nanci, and a very cool Maine coon (cat) named Teddy in the hills of Oakland, California. Robert Greenberg is an official Steinway Artist.
ELI EBAN
CHARITH PREMAWARDHANA
Eli Eban (clarinet) was appointed principal clarinetist of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra under Lukas Foss immediately after graduating from the Curtis Institute of Music and shortly thereafter he joined the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra at the invitation of Zubin Mehta. During thirteen seasons with the Israel Philharmonic, he performed and recorded all the major orchestral repertoire with the world’s finest conductors, including Claudio Abbado, Leonard Bernstein, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, James Levine, Kurt Masur, Simon Rattle, Leonard Slatkin, Georg Solti, and Klaus Tennstedt.
Charith Premawardhana (viola) was born in Sri Lanka, raised in Chicago, and has been a resident of San Francisco since 2004. Charith is the founder of Classical Revolution, an organization which promotes live music performances in neighborhood and community venues. What started in 2006 years ago as a weekly chamber music reading session at Revolution Cafe in San Francisco’s Mission District has grown into a worldwide phenomenon, with over 30 active chapters in cities around the US, Canada, and Europe. Classical Revolution is very active in the SF Bay Area, having presented over 1200 live performance events since its founding.
Mr. Eban was featured as soloist with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra on many occasions and he has also performed concertos with the English Chamber Orchestra, the City of London Sinfonia, the Salzburg Camerata Academica, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, the Israel Camerata Jerusalem and the Louisville Orchestra, among others. He tours extensively as a chamber musician, collaborating with renowned artists and ensembles. He has been guest artist with the Alexander, Audubon, Orion, St. Petersburg, Tel Aviv, and Ying quartets and was a frequent participant of the famed Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont. While at Marlboro, he was invited by legendary violinist Sandor Vegh to perform at the inaugural season of the Prussia Cove festival in England, where he drew critical acclaim from the London Guardian for his “high-powered, electrifying performances.” His subsequent recordings for Meridian Records, London, were cited by the Penguin Guide to CDs as being “full of life and highly sensitive.” He has also recorded for the Saphir, Crystal, and Naxos labels. He was a member of “Myriad” (a chamber ensemble formed by members of the Cleveland Orchestra) and has often traveled to Eastern Europe to perform and teach at the invitation of the European Mozart Foundation.
Charith is a proponent of new music of different styles, and has premiered more than 300 new works since moving to San Francisco in 2004. In addition, Charith has recorded and performed with the Musical Art Quintet (world chamber ensemble), Third Eye Blind, jazz singer Madeleine Peyroux, rock band The Mars Volta, Indian/jazz percussionist Sameer Gupta, hip hop orchestra Deltron 3030, gypsy folk band Rupa & the April Fishes, and numerous other ensembles from various musical styles. With all of these diverse projects, Charith’s main interest is in chamber music, and he brings the experience gained in performing in a string quartet to each of these non-classical chamber groups.
In high demand as teacher, Eli Eban was a visiting professor at the Eastman School of Music for two years before joining the faculty of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. Many of Professor Eban’s former students are pursuing active solo careers and have won orchestral positions in Israel, Denmark, Korea, Poland, Singapore, and South Africa. In the USA they can be heard in the orchestras of Indianapolis, New Mexico, Toledo, the New World Symphony and in the premier service bands in Washington, D.C. He divides his time between teaching at the Jacobs School of Music, touring as a soloist and chamber musician, and performing as the principal clarinetist of the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra. His summers are spent performing and teaching at the Sarasota Music Festival and playing principal clarinet in the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra.
Charith has held positions in numerous orchestras around the US including the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Columbus (OH) Symphony, Houston Ballet, Berkeley Symphony (principal viola), Monterey Symphony, Sacramento Philharmonic, and has performed at the Cabrillo Contemporary Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, the Newport, Montreal, Monterey, San Jose, Playboy, Vancouver, and Victoria Jazz Festivals and holds performance degrees from The Ohio State University, Rice University, and San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
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