MUSIC
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Audience Information
The Schwartz Center welcomes a volunteer usher corps of about 40 members each year. Visit schwartz.emory.edu/volunteer or call 404.727.6640 for ushering opportunities.
The Schwartz Center is committed to providing performances and facilities accessible to all. Please direct accommodation requests to the Schwartz Center Box Office at 404.727.5050, or by email at boxoffice@emory.edu.
The Schwartz Center wishes to gratefully acknowledge the generous ongoing support of Donna and Marvin Schwartz.
Cover Design: Lisa Baron | Cover Photo: Mark Teague | Photos Courtesy of the Artists
ECMSA
EMERSON SERIES
Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta
William Ransom, artistic director
The Bach Bowl Concerti of J. S. Bach
Sunday, February 9, 2025, 4:00 p.m.
Emerson Concert Hall
Schwartz Center for Performing Arts
Program
Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, BWV 1043 Johann Sebastian Bach
I. Vivace (1685–1750)
II. Largo ma non tanto
III. Allegro
Emily Daggett Smith and Jessica Shuang Wu, violins
Concerto for Oboe and Violin in C minor, BWV 1060
I. Allegro
II. Adagio
III. Allegro
Elizabeth Koch Tiscione, oboe; Emily Daggett Smith, violin
Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F Major, BWV 1047
I. Allegro
II. Andante
III. Allegro assai
Stuart Stephenson, trumpet; James Zellers, flute; Elizabeth Koch Tiscione, oboe; Emily Daggett Smith, violin
Bach
Bach
The Society Chamber Orchestra: Helen Kim, Michael Zhao, Christopher Pulgram, Lisa Yancich, Alice Hong, violins; Joseph Skerik, Yiyin Li, violas; Guang Wang, Roy Harran, cellos; Jonathan Colbert, bass; Julie Coucheron, harpsichord
The Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta is supported by the Cherry L. Emerson Endowment, the Rebecca Katz-Doft Chamber Music Endowment, the Crescendo Fund, the Ethel Orentlicher Gershon Fund, the Yinzi Kong Viola Chair Fund, an anonymous gift for the John Lawless Family Series, a generous gift from Dr. John and Linda Cooke, and by music lovers like you!
Visit ECMSA online at chambermusicsociety.emory.edu
Performer Biographies
The Vega Quartet
Emily Daggett Smith & Jessica Shuang Wu, violins; Joseph Skerik, viola; Guang Wang, cello
The Vega Quartet, Quartet-in-Residence at Emory University, is cultivating a new generation of chamber music lovers through dynamic performances and innovative community engagement. The New York Times raved that “[the Quartet’s] playing had a kind of clean intoxication to it, pulling the listener along … the musicians took real risks in their music making” and the L.A. Times praised their “triumphant L.A. debut.” They concertize both nationally and internationally, most recently in Berlin, San Miguel (Mexico), the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and the Brahmssaal in Vienna’s Musikverein. The Quartet’s major performing projects at Emory have included performing the complete cycle of Beethoven quartets, as well as pairing Bach’s complete works for solo violin, viola, and cello with the six Bartók quartets. Recent highlights include debuting at the 2023 Kneisel Hall Chamber Festival and opening the Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta’s 2023–2024 season alongside Mark and Maggie O’Connor. The Quartet’s 2024–2025 season features collaborations with pianist John Kimura Parker and violist Ettore Causa, and as regular commissioners of new music, will premiere a Viola Quintet by Paul Coletti and Joel Thompson’s newest string quartet.
A unique aspect of the Quartet’s residency at Emory is bringing performance into the classroom, collaborating with academic professors to create interdisciplinary parallels and conversations. They also enrich the cultural life of their community, having founded the Vega Youth Chamber Music Program, which gives intensive training in small ensemble playing to advanced pre-college students. The Quartet was also appointed to the roster of the Woodruff Arts Center’s Young Audience program, engaging thousands of students throughout the greater Atlanta school system. They have held residencies in Augusta, Jacksonville, and Juneau which combined traditional concerts with educational outreach, performances in non-traditional venues, and master classes for area students.
The Vega Quartet has won numerous international awards, including at the Bordeaux String Quartet Competition, as well as top prizes from the Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition, the Carmel Chamber Music
Competition, and the National Society of Arts and Letters String Quartet Competition. They have toured throughout Asia, Europe, and North America and have appeared at Weill Hall and Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, Bargemusic, and Duke Hall at the Royal Academy of Music in London. The members of the Vega Quartet collaborate with some of the world’s finest musicians including Yo-Yo Ma, David Shifrin, Mark and Maggie O’Connor, Andres Cardenes, Eliot Fisk, William Preucil, Richard Stoltzman, Robert Spano, Charles Wadsworth, Soovin Kim, and the Eroica Trio. They also commission, premiere, and record works by leading composers. The Quartet is a frequent guest at numerous music festivals, including Amelia Island, Aspen, Brevard, Highlands-Cashiers, Juneau Jazz & Classics, Kingston, Kneisel Hall, Mostly Mozart, Rockport, San Miguel de Allende, and SummerFest La Jolla.
Elizabeth Koch Tiscione joined the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra at the beginning of the 2007–2008 season as principal oboe. In addition to her responsibilities with the ASO, Tiscione plays principal oboe at the Grand Teton Music Festival, Strings Festival, Festival Mozaic, and is a member of the Atlanta Chamber Players. She has performed as guest principal oboe with the orchestras of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, St. Louis, Detroit, KBS, Baltimore, Rochester, Buffalo, Jacksonville, and the Orpheus and St. Paul chamber orchestras. She has been featured on NPR’s “From the Top,” and has also performed at many chamber music festivals throughout the country and as a soloist with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Her teachers include Marc Dubois, Daniel Stolper, Richard Woodhams, and Robert Walters.
Tiscione is from Hamburg New York and started playing the oboe in the public school system. She went on to study at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Interlochen, Michigan, and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. She has taught at some of the most prestigious institutions in the country including the Curtis Institute, Colorado College Summer Music Festival, and the Aspen Music Festival. She is on faculty at Kennesaw State University and maintains a private oboe studio out of her home. Tiscione is married to another member of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, trumpeter Michael Tiscione, and they have a son, Elio. In her free time she loves to cook, travel, and practice yoga.
Stuart Stephenson joined the Detroit Symphony Orchestra as principal trumpet in the 2022–2023 season. Stephenson was the principal trumpet of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and has also been a guest musician
with the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, and the Kansas City Symphony. Stephenson is on faculty at the Aspen Music Festival and School and has performed at the Sun Valley Summer Symphony, Grand Teton Music Festival, and Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego. He is also on faculty at Southern Methodist University in addition to maintaining a private teaching studio.
Stephenson holds a bachelor’s degree from The Juilliard School and a master’s degree from Northwestern University.
James Zellers holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Indiana University and a DMA from The Juilliard School. His teachers have been Judith Thomas, Mark Thomas, and Carol Wincenc. His performances have taken him to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Victoria Hall in Geneva, Switzerland, the International Festival d’Evian in France, the Spoleto Festival in both Charleston, South Carolina, and Italy, the 1988 Seoul, Korea Olympics, and 1996 Atlanta Olympics Festival of Arts and Culture.
Former touring artist for the North Carolina Council for the Arts, soloist with the Bach Area Festival, the Chautauqua Institution, and the Sea Cliff Chamber Players, Zellers is currently principal flute with the Atlanta Opera Orchestra, and the Columbus Georgia Symphony, and piccolo with the Florida West Coast Symphony in Sarasota. He has also performed with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra and the Santa Fe Opera, and has performed and recorded with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.
He was acting principal flute with the Florida Orchestra in Tampa for the 1999–2000 season, and has held positions with the orchestras of Augusta, Georgia, and Greenville, South Carolina, as well as faculty positions at the University of Georgia, Augusta State, and Georgia State universities. He is currently an Artist Affiliate for Emory University School of Music, a position he has held since February 2006.
Helen Hwaya Kim earned her bachelor’s and master’s degree from The Juilliard School, where her teachers included Cho-Liang Lin and Dorothy DeLay. She is the recipient of more than one hundred national and international awards. A native of Canada, Kim has been engaged by many of Canada’s leading orchestras. She has also appeared with the DeKalb, New Orleans, Aspen, and Banff Festival orchestras, and with orchestras in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Poland. Kim served as Assistant and Associate Concertmaster for the Atlanta Symphony for three seasons. She is currently the Assistant Concertmaster of the Atlanta Opera Orchestra and recently joined the roster of the Atlanta Chamber Players.
Violinist Yi-Huan (Michael) Zhao has been the Concertmaster of St. Matthew’s Chamber Orchestra since the 1999–2000 season. He is currently also the Concertmaster of the Santa Cecilia Orchestra. As an enthusiastic chamber musician, Zhao has been a member of the Rococo String Quartet. He has appeared in the Salastina Music Society chamber music series and other chamber music concerts in California.
Founder and director of the Peachtree String Quartet, Christopher Pulgram has been a first violinist with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra since 1992 and has recorded extensively with the orchestra. Since 2007, he has also been the Concertmaster of the Wintergreen Festival Orchestra. He has performed in Europe and the United States as principal violinist with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra and as a soloist with orchestras in the United States, Switzerland, and Italy.
Lisa Wiedman Yancich has been a member of the first violin section of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra since 1984. Yancich has been a guest violinist with the Baltimore, Minnesota, and Cleveland orchestras. She has been an Affiliate Artist at Emory University since 1988 and continues to pursue her passion as a teacher and chamber musician.
Dr. Alice Hong began her violin studies at the age of ten and began composing at the age of nine. She has appeared as a soloist with orchestras across the Southeast and has held Concertmaster and principal positions for orchestras at Spoleto Festival USA, Colorado College Summer Music Festival, and orchestral ensembles at the Banff Centre. She is a member of the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, and she performs as a substitute violinist in the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, among others.
Yiyin Li joined the viola section of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in 2010. Prior to joining the ASO, Li was the associate principal viola of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. He has also performed with the Boston Philharmonic, New England Conservatory Philharmonia and Chamber Orchestras, EOS Symphony Orchestra, Outstanding Chinese Youth Artists Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa Ongaku-Juku Orchestra, and Pacific Music Festival Orchestra.
Born in Israel, Roy Harran began playing cello at the age of seven. After several years as principal cellist in the New World Symphony, Harran became a member of the Savannah Symphony before joining the faculty of Radford University and the Renaissance Music Academy in Virginia. Currently, Harran is freelancing in Atlanta and playing regularly with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Opera, Atlanta Ballet, Fringe Atlanta, and the Highlands-Cashiers Chamber Music Festival.
Born in Atlanta, Jonathan Colbert has had a successful international career in the United States and Europe. Colbert is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music, received a diploma from The Juilliard School, and attended Interlochen Arts Camp as the Emerson Scholar for the state of Georgia. He has performed/held positions with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, Hartford Symphony, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony, and Chineke! Orchestra, and was co-principal bass with the Royal Danish Opera Orchestra. Colbert is also the principal bass of the Sphinx Virtuosi.
Born in Oslo, Norway, Julie Coucheron began playing the piano at age four. Coucheron has worked with musicians such as Emanuel Ax, CheeYun Kim, Christopher O’Riley, Yo-Yo Ma, and Elton John, and has toured Europe, America, South America, and Asia, performing in halls like Verizon Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Kennedy Center, and Carnegie Hall. Coucheron has performed with the Norwegian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Jena Symphony Orchestra, and the Ukrainian Symphony Orchestra in Kiev. She is Artistic Director of the Fjord Cadenza Festival in Norway and the Kon Tiki Chamber Music Festival in Oslo, Norway.
Upcoming Emory Music Concerts
Visit schwartz.emory.edu to view complete event information. If a ticket is required for attendance, prices are indicated in the listings below in the following order: Full price/Emory student price (unless otherwise noted).
Friday, February 14, 8:00 p.m., Emory Jazz Fest 2025, Schwartz Artist in Residence David Sánchez, saxophone, Schwartz Center, Emerson Concert Hall, $30/$10
Saturday, February 15, 8:00 p.m., Emory Jazz Fest 2025, Emory Big Band, Schwartz Center, Emerson Concert Hall, free, tickets required
Friday, February 21, 7:00 p.m., Pajama Concert | Musical Stories, ECMSA: Family Series, Carlos Museum, Ackerman Hall
Sunday, February 23, 7:00 p.m., Luther Enloe, guitar, Artist Affiliate Recital, Schwartz Center, Emerson Concert Hall
Wednesday, February 26, 8:00 p.m., Emory Youth Symphony Orchestra and University Chorus, Schwartz Center, Emerson Concert Hall
Friday, February 28, noon, Jessica Tong, violin, ECMSA: Cooke Noontime Series, Carlos Museum, Ackerman Hall, free, registration required
Friday, February 28, 8:00 p.m., Daniel Hope with Polish Chamber Orchestra, Candler Concert Series, Schwartz Center, Emerson Concert Hall, $65/$10
Saturday, March 1, 4:00 p.m., Penelope Williams, jazz, Artist Affliliate Recital, Performing Arts Studio
Sunday, March 2, 7:00 p.m., Emory Wind Ensemble, Schwartz Center, Emerson Concert Hall
Thursday, March 6, 8:00 p.m., Emory University Symphony Orchestra, Schwartz Center, Emerson Concert Hall
Friday, March 14 and Saturday, March 15, 8:00 p.m., Pathways, Atlanta Master Chorale, Schwartz Center, Emerson Concert Hall, $42/$10 (all students)
Wednesday, March 19, 6:00 p.m. and Thursday, March 20, 2:30 p.m., Vocal Symposium, Performing Arts Studio
Thursday, March 20, 8:00 p.m., Emory Department of Music: An Evening with Music of Philip Glass, Performing Arts Studio
Friday, March 21, 8:00 p.m., New York Voices, Candler Concert Series, Schwartz Center, Emerson Concert Hall, $40/$10
Saturday, March 22, 8:00 p.m., The Old and the New, ECMSA: Emerson Series Waits Chamber Music Concert, Cannon Chapel
Sunday, March 23, 4:00 p.m., Just Jazzin’ Around with the Gary Motley Trio, ECMSA: Family Series, Carlos Museum, Ackerman Hall
Tuesday, March 25, 8:00 p.m., Emory Jazz Combos, Schwartz Center, Emerson Concert Hall
Friday, March 28, noon, The Rites of Spring, ECMSA: Cooke Noontime Series, Schwartz Center, Emerson Concert Hall
Friday, March 28, 8:00 p.m., Caroline Owen, piano, Artist Affiliate Recital, Schwartz Center, Emerson Concert Hall
Sunday, March 30, 4:00 p.m., Emory Concerto and Aria Competition, Schwartz Center, Emerson Concert Hall
Thursday, April 3, 6:30 p.m., Jazz on the Green, Patterson Green
Sunday, April 6, 7:00 p.m., Emory Collaborative Piano, Performing Arts Studio
Friday, April 11, 8:00 p.m., Imani Winds and Boston Brass, Candler Concert Series, Schwartz Center, Emerson Concert Hall, $40/$10, tickets required
Sunday, April 13, 2:00 p.m., Emory Chamber Ensembles, Schwartz Center, Emerson Concert Hall
Sunday, April 13, 4:00 p.m., Atlanta’s Young Artists, ECMSA: Family Series, Carlos Museum, Ackerman Hall
Sunday, April 13, 7:00 p.m., Emory Concert Choir, Schwartz Center, Emerson Concert Hall
Music at Emory brings together students, faculty, and world-class artists to create an exciting and innovative season of performances, lectures, workshops, and master classes. With more than 150 events each year across multiple Emory venues, audiences experience a wide variety of musical offerings.
We hope you enjoy sampling an assortment of work from our student ensembles, community youth ensembles, artists in residence, professional faculty, up-and-coming prodigies, and virtuosos from around the world.
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