MUSIC AT EMORY
2022–2023
This concert is presented by the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts.
404.727.5050 | schwartz.emory.edu | boxoffice@emory.edu
Audience Information
Please turn off phones and all electronic devices. Photography, recording, or digital capture of this concert is not permitted.
Health and Safety
The Schwartz Center follows the Emory University Visitor Policy with additional protocols outlined at schwartz.emory.edu/faq.
Ushers
The Schwartz Center welcomes a volunteer usher corps of approximately 60 members each year. Visit schwartz.emory.edu/volunteer or call 404.727.6640 for ushering opportunities.
Accessibility
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.
Design and Photography Credits
Cover Design: Lisa Baron | Cover Photo: Mark Teague
Acknowledgment
This season, the Schwartz Center is celebrating 20 years of world-class performances and wishes to gratefully acknowledge the generous ongoing support of Donna and Marvin Schwartz.
Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta
30th Anniversary Season
EMERSON SERIES
Friends and Mentors
Norman Fischer, cello
James Dunham, viola The Vega Quartet
William Ransom, piano
Saturday, February 18, 2023, 8:00 p.m.
Emerson Concert Hall
Schwartz Center for Performing Arts
2022–2023 ECMSA
Program
Sonata No. 4 in C Major, op. 102, No. 1 (1815) Ludwig Van Beethoven Andante—Allegro vivace (1770–1827)
Adagio—Tempo d’andante—Allegro vivace
Norman Fischer, cello; William Ransom, piano
Sonata No. 2 in E-flat Major, op. 120, No. 2 (1894) Johannes Brahms
Allegro amabile (1833–1897)
Allegro appassionato
Andante con moto
James Dunham, viola; William Ransom, piano
—Intermission—
String Sextet in A Major, op. 48 (1878)
Antonín Dvořák
Allegro moderato (1841–1904)
Dumka (Elegie): Poco allegretto
Furiant: Presto
Finale: Tema con variazioni
James Dunham, viola; Norman Fischer, cello; The Vega Quartet
Celebrating its milestone 30th anniversary season, the Southeast’s largest and most active chamber music organization brings together some of the city’s finest resident musicians with internationally known performers who are dedicated to performing the most delightful, exciting, and interesting music from the chamber repertoire in some of the most acoustically and visually beautiful spaces in Atlanta. Guests have included Yo-Yo Ma, Richard Stoltzman, Alan Gilbert, Dave Brubeck, William Preucil, Eliot Fisk, Mark O’Connor, Robert Spano, and many others. Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta’s mission is to create new generations of passionate and educated music lovers who will cherish and support this great art forever. To support this mission by giving to ECMSA, visit chambermusicsociety.emory.edu.
A full schedule of ECMSA events taking place on Emory’s campus and throughout the community can be found online by visiting chambermusicsociety.emory.edu or by scanning this QR code.
The Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta is supported by the Cherry L. Emerson Endowment, the Rebecca Katz-Doft Chamber Music Endowment, the Ethel Orentlicher Gershon Fund, a generous gift from Dr. John and Linda Cooke, and by music lovers like you.
4
Performer Biographies
Violist James Dunham’s rich background includes being a founding member of the Naumburg Award–winning Sequoia String Quartet and subsequently violist of the Grammy Award–winning Cleveland Quartet. An impassioned advocate of new music, he has premiered and recorded many works written for him, including Judith Shatin’s Glyph for solo viola and piano quintet, and American composer Libby Larsen’s two works written for Dunham and his colleagues—the Viola Sonata and the song cycle Sifting Through the Ruins for mezzo-soprano, viola, and piano. Both appear on the CD Circle of Friends. In addition, he was a co-commissioner of Larsen’s Ferlinghetti for clarinet, viola, and piano. In 2018 Dunham was one of only seven violists selected by composer John Harbison to be the first invited to perform his “80th Birthday” Sonata for Viola and Piano. A frequent guest with ensembles such as the American, Jupiter, Pacifica, and Takács quartets, Dunham is violist of the Axelrod String Quartet, in residence at the Smithsonian Institute where the group performs on their collection of Niccolò Amati and Stradivari instruments.
Dunham is professor of viola and chamber music at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music where he also co-directs its master of music in string quartet program. Formerly on the faculty of the California Institute of the Arts and the Eastman School of Music, he chaired the string department at the New England Conservatory of Music for six years where he received the Louis and Adrienne Krasner Teaching Excellence Award.
Summer activities include yearly participation in the Aspen, Sarasota, and Amelia Island music festivals as well as frequent appearances at the Texas Music Festival, le Domaine Forget (Quebec), Garth Newel Center, Heifetz International Music Institute, and La Jolla Music Society’s SummerFest. In Houston he is heard regularly in concert with the St. Cecilia Chamber Music Society, Chamber Music Houston, Da Camera of Houston, Ars Lyrica Houston, Mercury Chamber Orchestra, and the Houston Bach Society.
Dunham’s recordings can be found on labels including Telarc, Innova, Nonesuch, Delos, Naxos, and Crystal.
Grammy Award–winning cellist Norman Fischer has concertized on five continents and in 49 of the 50 United States. His New York solo debut of the Bach Six Suites in one evening was hailed by the New York Times as “inspiring.” Fischer’s recording of William Bolcom’s unaccompanied
5
cello score was featured on Broadway as incidental music for Arthur Miller’s play, Broken Glass. Fischer was honored by being invited to open the 1995 Tanglewood Music Center season with a performance of Henri Dutilleux’s Trois Strophes sur le nom Sacher, and during the 1996 Tanglewood season was similarly honored in presenting the world premiere of Bolcom’s Suite in C Minor. He has also championed new works for the genre, such as Robert Sirota’s Cello Concerto, Augusta Read Thomas’s Vigil, Steven Stucky’s Voyages, and Ross Lee Finney’s Narrative. Fischer was cellist with the Concord String Quartet throughout its 16-year career and winner of the Naumburg Chamber Music Award, two Grammy nominations, and an Emmy. In more than 1,000 concerts the quartet performed 18 Bartók cycles and 36 Beethoven cycles, and premiered 50 works. They also recorded 40 works for RCA Red Seal, Vox, Nonesuch, and CRI. Fischer’s chamber music expertise has led to performances with the American, Audubon, Axelrod, Blair, Cavani, Chester, Chiara, Ciompi, Cleveland, Dover, Ensō, Emerson, Jasper, Juilliard, Mendelssohn, Schoenberg, and Telegraph string quartets; Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Banff, Chamber Music International, Context (including a complete Beethoven piano trio cycle on period instruments), and Houston’s Da Camera Society. He has also served on many competition juries including the Premio Paolo Borciani, Naumburg, M-Prize, Fischoff, and Banff International String Quartet competitions.
Fischer is the cellist with the Fischer Duo (founded in 1971) with pianist Jeanne Kierman. The duo specializes in both the classical masterworks as well as music of current times. They have more than a dozen recordings, including a recently released CD of new music celebrating their 50 years together. Fischer is Herbert S. Autrey Professor of Cello and director of chamber music at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. Before accepting this position in 1992 he held positions at Dartmouth and the Oberlin Conservatory. Fischer also holds the Charles E. Culpepper Foundation Master Teacher Chair and is head of chamber music at the Tanglewood Music Center, where he has been on the summer faculty since 1985. Fischer performs on a cello made for him by Sergio Peresson in 1972, and bows made for him by David Hawthorne. He is also a Larsen Performing Artist and uses “Il Cannone” strings.
William Ransom appears around the world as soloist with orchestras, recitalist, and chamber musician. He regularly collaborates with musicians including Yo-Yo Ma, Richard Stoltzman, William Preucil, Stephen Isserlis, Robert McDuffie, and members of the Emerson, Tokyo,
6
Cleveland, Juilliard, American, St. Petersburg, Borromeo, Parker, Ariel, and Lark string quartets; the Empire Brass Quintet, Eroica Trio, and the percussion group Nexus, among others. He also performs and gives master classes at numerous schools of music and universities. He has recorded for ACA Digital and Rising Star Records. Ransom is the Mary Emerson Professor of Piano at Emory where he is founder and artistic director of the Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta. A graduate of the Juilliard School and the University of Michigan, in the summers, Ransom is artistic director of the Highlands-Cashiers Chamber Music Festival in North Carolina and for a decade was an artist-faculty member at the Kamisaibara Pianists Camp in Japan. In 2016 he was named artistic director of the Juneau Jazz and Classics Festival and also one of Musical America Worldwide’s “30 Musical Innovators.” Recently, he was appointed artistic director of the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival.
The Vega Quartet: Emily Daggett Smith and Jessica Shuang Wu, violins; Yinzi Kong, viola; Guang Wang, cello
The international award-winning Vega Quartet is on the cutting edge of the new generation of chamber music ensembles. The New York Times raved about its “playing that had a kind of clean intoxication to it, pulling the listener along . . . the musicians took real risks in their music making . . . ” and the Los Angeles Times praised its “triumphant L.A. debut.” Based in Atlanta where the musicians form the quartet in residence at Emory University, the group also tours throughout Europe, Asia, and North America, performing in major cities including Berlin, Brussels, Cologne, London, Mexico City, Milan, New York, Paris, Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai, Vancouver, and Vienna. The quartet is a frequent guest at numerous music festivals including Aspen, Brevard, Mostly Mozart, Rockport, San Miguel de Allende, Highlands-Cashiers, Musicorda, Kingston, and SummerFest La Jolla, among others. It has been quartet in residence at the Van Cliburn Institute and on the artist roster of Carnegie Hall’s New York City Neighborhood Concert series and Community Concerts Association roster. The quartet is also a member of Young Audiences of Atlanta presenting educational programs throughout the public school system.
7
