Sunday, March 11, 2012 at 4 p.m.

Program

Elgar: Serenade for Strings
Schoenberg: Transfigured Night
Brahms: Sextet in G Major, op. 36

After more than a decade before the public the Concertante String Ensemble has established itself as a chamber group combining in equal measure world class virtuosity and adventurousness. The six virtuoso members of the ensemble perform in varied combinations in a wide array of repertoire ranging from works by established masters to less often performed composers. As solo performers who have won important national and international music competitions, they have appeared in such major venues as New York’s Carnegie Hall, London’s Royal Festival Hall, and Shanghai’s Grand Theatre. Concertante has always had a strong commitment to new music, undertaking commissioning projects involving several contemporary composers.

Since its founding, Concertante has performed works of such noted composers as Josef Bardanashvili, Justine Chen, Tina Davison, Steven R. Gerber, David Ludwig, Jan Radzynski, Sheila Silver, and Oded Zehavi. It has also offered infrequently performed chamber works by such celebrated composers as Enesco, John Adams, Schoenberg, Martinu, Korngold, and Frank Bridge among others. Throughout its career Concertante has been active in the recording studio and has received high critical praise for its CDs on the internationally distributed Helicon label. Its most recent recording for this label features Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s String Sextet in D Major, op. 10, and Frank Bridge’s String Sextet in E-Flat Major (1912). For the 2010-11 season Concertante returns to perform its regular series at New York’s Merkin Hall and in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, at the Rose Lehrman Arts Center.

Sunday, February 12th, 2012 at 4 p.m.

Program:

Manuel de Falla:  Suite Populaire Espagnole for Violin and Piano
Dmitri Shostakovich:  Sonata, Op. 134
(Intermission)
Olivier Messiaen: Theme and Variations
John Adams:  Road Movies
Robert Schumann: Sonata No. 1 in A minor

Violinist Leila Josefowicz has won the hearts of audiences around the world with her honest, fresh approach to the repertoire as well as her dynamic virtuosity. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with Jaime Laredo and Jascha Brodsky, Ms. Josefowicz came to national attention in 1994 when she made her Carnegie Hall debut with Sir Neville Mariner and the orchestra of The Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. She has since appeared with the world’s most eminent orchestras and conductors. A close collaborator of such leading contemporary composers as John Adams and Oliver Knussen, she is a strong advocate of new music, a characteristic which is reflected in her diverse programs and her enthusiasm for premiering new works. Ms. Josefowicz has recently premiered concertos written for her by Esa-Pekka Salonen, Steve Mackey and Colin Matthews. She has also played first performances of Thomas Ades’s Violin Concerto, Concentric Paths, most notably with the Philadelphia and Cleveland Orchestras and at the Aspen Music Festival. In recognition of her passionate advocacy and genuine commitment to the music of today, Ms. Josefowicz was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.

Recent appearances in North America include performances with the Philadelphia, Cleveland and Minnesota Orchestras and the Chicago, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Baltimore, Dallas, Houston and Cincinnati Symphonies. Ms. Josefowicz has made Carnegie Hall appearances with the St. Louis Symphony and American Composers Orchestra and has played recitals in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, St. Paul, and at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall.

During the 2011/12 season Ms. Josefowicz appears with the Boston and San Francisco Symphonies playing the Salonen Concerto under the baton of the composer. She returns to the Toronto, National, Atlanta and Indianapolis Symphonies as well as to the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa and joins the Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Moest for a performance of the Adams Violin Concerto at the Lincoln Center Festival. She is also the Philadelphia Orchestra’s 2011/12 Artist in Residence.

Recent and upcoming engagements in Europe include appearances with the Royal Concertgebouw and Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestras, the London, Munich and Czech Philharmonics, the London Symphony, and the Finnish Radio Orchestra. Ms. Josefowicz will also perform the Salonen Concerto in London, Paris, Stockholm, Lisbon, Cologne, Berlin and Budapest.

Ms. Josefowicz’s debut recording with Sir Neville Marriner and the orchestra of The Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in 1994 for Philips Classics was awarded a Diapason d’or. Subsequent releases on that label include Solo, a disc of unaccompanied works, which also won a Diapason d’or, and Bohemian Rhapsodies, a collection of virtuosic works with orchestra. She has also recorded For the End of Time and Americana with pianist John Novacek and the Mendelssohn, Glazunov and Prokofiev concertos with the Montreal Symphony. In addition, Ms. Josefowicz’s Nonesuch CD of John Adams’ Road Movies received a 2004 Grammy nomination, and a recital disc featuring the Shostakovich Violin Sonata received a 2007 ECHO Award. She has recorded the Knussen Concerto, live and conducted by the composer, at the London Proms for Deutsche Gramophone. Her most recent recording, The Dharma at Big Sur with John Adams conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic, has been released on iTunes.

A recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1994 and a 2007 United States Artists Cummings Fellowship, Ms. Josefowicz currently performs on a Del Ges� made in 1724.

Pianist and composer John Novacek regularly tours the Americas, Europe and Asia as solo recitalist, chamber musician and concerto soloist. In the latter capacity he has presented over thirty concerti with dozens of orchestras. Mr. Novacek studied piano with Peter Serkin, Bruce Sutherland, and Jakob Gimpel. His chamber music teachers were Jamie Laredo and Felix Galimir. A dynamic soloist as well as collaborator, he took top prizes at both the Leschetizky and Joanna Hodges international piano competitions.

Mr. Novacek’s major American performances have been heard in Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall as well as the 92nd Street Y, Columbia University’s Miller Theater, Merkin Concert Hall, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Symphony Space. He has also performed at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, at Boston’s Symphony Hall, Chicago’s Symphony Center and at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles as well as in such international venues as the Th��tre des Champs-�lys�es in Paris, at London’s Wigmore Hall, and most of the major concert halls of Japan. He is also a frequent guest artist at festivals here and abroad, including New York City’s Mostly Mozart Festival, the Aspen, Caramoor, Chautauqua, and Colorado College festivals, and at Ravinia, Wolf Trap, Verbier, and the BBC Proms in England.

Often heard on radio broadcasts worldwide, John Novacek has appeared on NPR’s Performance Today, on St. Paul Sunday, and on A Prairie Home Companion. He has also been frequently seen and heard on television including on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, on Entertainment Tonight, and on CNN International. Mr. Novacek is a much- sought-after collaborative artist. In addition to appearing with Leila Josefowicz, he has performed with Joshua Bell, Cho-Liang Lin, Yo-Yo Ma, Elmar Oliveira and Emmanuel Pahud as well as with the Colorado, Harrington, Jupiter, New Hollywood, St. Lawrence, SuperNova, and Ying String Quartets. He also tours widely as a member of Intersection, a piano trio that includes violinist Kaura Frautschi and cellist Kristina Reiko Coooper. Mr. Novacek has given numerous world premieres and worked closely with composers John Adams, John Harbison, Jennifer Higdon, George Rochberg, John Williams, and John Zorn.

Sunday, November 13, 2011 at 4 p.m.

Program

Esa-Pekka Salonen: Homunculus for String Quartet (2007)
Mozart: Quartet No. 22 in B-flat, K. 589
Respighi: String Quartet in D Major (1907)

Returning to Candlelight Concerts by popular demand, the Johannes Quartet brings together the first American to win the Paganini Violin Competition in 24 years, Soovin Kim, and Concert Artists Guild Competition winner, Jessica Lee. The quartet’s violist, C. J. Chang, is the Principal Violist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and cellist Peter Stumpf is the Principal with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The collaboration among these fine musicians was forged at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont, and shaped by the legendary Guarneri String Quartet. Indeed, the Johannes continues a legacy of excellence which stretches back to the Budapest String Quartet in the early twentieth century.

In addition to its recent broadcasts on Performance Today and St. Paul Sunday and a triumphant Carnegie Hall debut, the Johannes has had great successes with audiences and critics all over the country. During the 2007-08 and 2008-09 seasons the Johannes collaborated with the Guarneri String Quartet in a program featuring William Bolcom’s Octet: Double Quartet, especially written for them and commissioned by the Music Accord consortium of presenters. They also premiered a newly commissioned string quartet, Homunculus, written for the Johannes Quartet by Esa-Pekka Salonen. For their performances of these groundbreaking works, they received acclaim from audiences across the country, most notably at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Santa Fe Chamber Festival.

Sunday, September 25, 2011 at 4 p.m.

Program

Schumann: Kinderszenen, op. 15
Mozart: Fantasy in C minor, K. 475
Mozart: Sonata in B-flat, K. 281
Schumann: Kreisleriana, op. 16

Richard Goode’s music making recently prompted a critic to remark that he’d “swear the composer himself was at the keyboard, expressing musical thoughts that had just come into his head.” The American pianist’s tremendous emotional power, depth and expressiveness can be heard in recitals, chamber and orchestral collaborations around the world as well as in a series of highly acclaimed Nonesuch recordings including the recent Nonesuch release of the complete Beethoven concerti.

Over the past seasons, Mr. Goode has performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Herbert Blomstedt and with the Cleveland Orchestra under Ivan Fischer. Carnegie Hall featured Richard Goode in an eight-event series entitled Perspectives, and Mr. Goode was invited to hold master classes at New York’s three leading conservatories — Juilliard, Manhattan and Mannes —  as well as to give two illustrated talks on his Perspectives repertoire at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His orchestral appearances included the Boston Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, the Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.

A native of New York, Richard Goode studied privately with Elvira Szigeti and Claude Frank, with Nadia Reisenberg at the Mannes College of Music and with Rudolf Serkin at the Curtis Institute. He has won many prizes including the Young Concert Artists Award, the Clara Haskil Competition, the Avery Fisher Prize, and a Grammy Award with clarinetist Richard Stoltzman. His remarkable interpretations of Beethoven came to national attention when he played all five concerti with the Baltimore Symphony under David Zinman and when he performed the complete cycle of sonatas at New York’s 92nd Street Y and Kansas City’s Folly Theater. For the New York Times the cycle was among the season’s most important and memorable events. Subsequent performances around the country were similarly triumphant.

Richard Goode has appeared with many of the world’s greatest orchestras including the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Ozawa, the Chicago Symphony under Eschenbach, the Cleveland Orchestra under Zinman, the San Francisco Symphony under Blomstedt, the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester under Ashkenazy, and the BBC Symphony under Belohlavek at the London Proms. He has also appeared with the Orchestre de Paris, toured with Ivan Fischer and his Budapest Festival Orchestra, and made his Musikverein debut with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. He has been heard throughout Germany in sold-out concerts with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields under Sir Neville Marriner.

Mr. Goode serves with Mitsuko Uchida as co-Artistic Director of the Marlboro Music School and Festival in Marlboro, Vermont. He is married to the violinist Marcia Weinfeld. When the Goodes are not on tour (with each new city offering the chance to visit a new or favorite bookstore), they and their collection of some 5,000 volumes live in New York City.