Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Front Row:
Springtime Delights
Our concert film for the
month of April, featuring a performance of
Aaron Copland's beloved Appalachian Spring,
has finished its run, and we have
taken it down.
We will leave up the program information,
program notes and artists' biographies
through late April.
Join us again between May 1 and May 7
for another performance in this series.
Tristan Cook photo
PROGRAM
FRANCESCO GEMINIANI (1687-1762)
Sonata in C major for Cello and Continuo, Op. 5, No. 3 (1746)
Andante
Allegro
Affetuoso
Allegro
Timothy Eddy, cello • Mihai Marica, cello • Kenneth Weiss, harpsichord
JOSEPH HAYDN (1732-1809)
Quartet in F major for Strings, Op. 50, No. 5, “The Dream” (1787)
Allegro moderato
Poco adagio
Menuetto allegretto
Finale: Vivace
Orion String Quartet (Todd Phillips, violin • Daniel Phillips, violin • Steven Tenenbom, viola • Timothy Eddy, cello)
AARON COPLAND (1900-1990)
Appalachian Spring Suite for Ensemble (1944)
Gloria Chien, piano • Kristin Lee, violin • Chad Hoopes, violin • Arnaud Sussmann, violin • Angelo Xiang Yu, violin • Matthew Lipman, viola • Paul Neubauer, viola • David Finckel, cello • Nicholas Canellakis, cello • Anthony Manzo, bass • Ransom Wilson, flute • David Shifrin, clarinet • Marc Goldberg, bassoon
Program Notes
Sonata in C major for Cello and Continuo, Op. 5, No. 3 (1746)
Francesco Geminiani (Lucca, 1687 – Dublin, 1762)
Violinist and composer Geminiani is best known as a student of Corelli, a widely revered musician who (somewhat unusually for the time) was celebrated long after his death. Though his studies with Corelli in Rome are not well documented and may have been quite short, Geminiani left his native Italy and found fame in London as a leading expert on his teacher’s compositional and performance style. He even arranged a number of Corelli’s sonatas as concertos for the English market and composed in a Corelli-inspired manner. It was only later in life that he developed his own unique, almost idiosyncratic style.
The Op. 5 cello sonatas are prime examples of Geminiani’s late style. Unlike his contemporary Vivaldi, who deftly coordinated harmony and virtuosity to create moments of almost unbearable tension, Geminiani’s music is much more subtle. Sometimes described as rhapsodic, it has a calm searching quality to it. Each successive chord, each asymmetrical phrase is a new discovery. Geminiani’s six cello sonatas are some of the earliest solo sonatas for that instrument, which had previously mainly played the supporting continuo part. They were published in The Hague in 1746 and in London the following year.
Quartet in F major for Strings, Op. 50, No. 5, “The Dream” (1787)
Joseph Haydn (Rohrau, Austria, 1732 – Vienna, 1809)
The string quartet genre underwent a remarkable evolution in the 1780s in the hands of Haydn and Mozart. Haydn kicked off the decade with his Op. 33 set of six quartets, saying they were written in “a new, quite special way.” Not only did they show a deeper control over the musical materials and a fresh sense of playfulness, but they were also some of his first works published under a new contract with his employer, Nikolaus Esterházy. Haydn knew the Op. 33 quartets would be some of his first works to be officially distributed (his previous scores had circulated widely in bootleg copies and he was eager to finally make some money), so he carefully devised them to be some of his most path-breaking, appealing, exciting works—and they were. Mozart, recently moved to Vienna and quickly establishing himself, was so impacted by Haydn’s Op. 33 quartets that he wrote his own set of six and dedicated them to his "best friend" Haydn. Haydn heard them in early 1785 and told Mozart’s father, "Before God and as an honest man I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name…"
The six Op. 50 quartets were the next set of quartets that Haydn wrote after Mozart’s extraordinary tribute. Raising the bar yet again, the Op. 50 quartets are more for connoisseurs and less rousing crowd-pleasers that the Op. 33 set had been. Haydn was probably less concerned with popular publication, having had many successes in that area by that point, and more with his reputation and legacy as a master composer.
The first movement of “The Dream” quartet finds Haydn at his most charmingly clever and concise. The genteel movement is propelled by a two-note motive played by the two violins and echoed by the viola and cello. The second movement (which gives the quartet “The Dream” nickname) provides the first violin a gorgeous, ethereal solo that gracefully covers the instrument’s entire range. The Menuetto combines the form and style of the aristocratic minuet with gestures and accents of rustic peasant dances, one of Haydn’s favorite juxtapositions. The last movement is in 6/8 time (the beat is divided into two groups of three) and sonata form with a tripping theme that centers around one repeating note.
THE OP. 50 MANUSCRIPTS AFTER HAYDN:
The autograph manuscripts (written in Haydn’s hand) of the Op. 50 quartets were thought to be lost until they turned up in Australia almost two centuries after they were composed. Their story remains mysterious. Haydn probably retained ownership of the complete set until his death, when Nikolaus Esterházy II, his employer, bought his music library. They then somehow made their way to London and passed into the hands of Muzio Clementi. In 1851, almost 20 years after Clementi’s death, Nos. 3–6 turned up at a London auction and were purchased by an English colonel and musician who was moving to New Zealand and bought them as an investment for the trip. After the man’s death, ownership of the manuscripts transferred to his granddaughter, who lived on a New Zealand sheep station, and then to her half-sister, who took them to Australia.
In 1982, the owner brought them to a Melbourne concert celebrating the 250th anniversary of Haydn’s birth and showed them to English musicologist Christopher Hogwood. The woman (who wished to remain anonymous) had been storing them under her bed. After they were authenticated and their true worth revealed, she moved them to a safe deposit box. In 1995 they sold at auction for $1.04 million to German book dealer Hans Schneider. At the time a Sotheby’s spokeswoman described them as “the largest group [of Haydn quartet manuscripts] not already in a major library or institution.” Manuscript copies of the first two quartets in the set were never found.
Appalachian Spring Suite for Ensemble (1944)
Aaron Copland (Brooklyn, 1900 – North Tarrytown, NY, 1990)
The idea for Appalachian Spring, Copland’s most iconic piece, did not originate with him. It came from dancer/choreographer Martha Graham, who planned a ballet that showed “a legend of American living.” Copland received some general direction from Graham and wrote the music with only vague scene descriptions from her. After he delivered the music she finalized the dance around it. Their end product is an idealized archetype of prairie life that brings together various pieces of Americana. Graham eventually decided the setting would be western Pennsylvania, where she grew up, in the early 1800s and the story would center on a young couple settling into a home together. Copland chose the climactic melody, Simple Gifts, a Shaker tune believed to be composed in 1848 by Joseph Brackett in Maine. Graham added the title Appalachian Spring after the music was complete, taking it from a 1930 poem by Hart Crane called The Bridge. These references help create an imagined American scene that is elusive but firmly rooted in our collective memory.
Eminent music patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge commissioned the piece and Copland worked on it in 1943 and 1944. He spent considerable time making sure the music was simple and direct, with widely spaced open intervals evoking the vast open expanses of the American landscape. Copland had already had major successes in his new, American language—Billy the Kid, Fanfare for the Common Man, and Lincoln Portrait—but Appalachian Spring was something of a culmination of his evocative national style. It premiered on October 30, 1944 at the Library of Congress in a concert celebrating Coolidge’s 80th birthday. Critical reception was positive and it won the Pulitzer Prize for music. The following year Copland arranged a suite for orchestra from Appalachian Spring. Today’s performance is for the original 13 instruments that accompanied the ballet but in the shorter suite version. Between performances of the dance and the music alone, Appalachian Spring has defined an American aesthetic that still resonates over 75 years after its first performance.
THE ORIGIN OF APPALACHIAN SPRING:
Appalachian Spring began with a letter from dancer Erick Hawkins (and later Martha Graham’s husband) to Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge in 1942, “I feel that it is extremely important, now that [Graham] is at the height of her career, that she should be able to use the music of the finest composers of the time for her dance. It is impossible for her under the present circumstances to ask Mr. Copland or Mr. Hindemith, for example, (since I know she has been considering how she could approach them) to write for her since she has no money to offer them.” Coolidge commissioned both composers to write for Graham, bringing to life those and many other major artistic collaborations.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Hailed by the New Yorker as a “superb young soloist,” Nicholas Canellakis has become one of the most sought-after and innovative cellists of his generation. In the New York Times his playing was praised as "impassioned... the audience seduced by Mr. Canellakis's rich, alluring tone.” His recent highlights include his Carnegie Hall concerto debut with the American Symphony Orchestra; concerto appearances with the Albany, Delaware Lansing, Bangor, and New Haven symphonies, Erie Philharmonic; and Europe and Asia tours with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He also performs recitals throughout the United States with his long-time duo collaborator, pianist-composer Michael Brown, including a recital of American cello-piano works presented by CMS. He is a regular guest artist at many of the world's leading music festivals, including Santa Fe, Ravinia, Music@Menlo, Bard, La Jolla, Bridgehampton, Hong Kong, Moab, Music in the Vineyards, and Saratoga Springs. He was recently named artistic director of Chamber Music Sedona. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, Mr. Canellakis is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and New England Conservatory. Filmmaking and acting are special interests of his. He has produced, directed, and starred in several short films and music videos.
Taiwanese-born pianist Gloria Chien has a diverse musical life as a noted performer, concert presenter, and educator. She was selected by the Boston Globe as one of its Superior Pianists of the year. She made her orchestral debut at the age of 16 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra with Thomas Dausgaard, and performed again with the BSO with Keith Lockhart. In recent seasons she has performed as a recitalist and chamber musician at Alice Tully Hall, the Library of Congress, the Phillips Collection, the Kissinger Sommer festival, the Dresden Chamber Music Festival, and the National Concert Hall in Taiwan. She performs frequently with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and is an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program. In 2009 she launched String Theory, a chamber music series at the Hunter Museum of American Art in downtown Chattanooga that has become one of Tennessee's premier classical music presenters. The following year she was appointed Director of the Chamber Music Institute at the Music@Menlo festival by Artistic Directors David Finckel and Wu Han. In 2017, she joined her husband, violinist Soovin Kim, as Co-Artistic Director of the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival in Burlington, Vermont. The duo has recently been appointed Artistic Directors Designees at Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon. Ms. Chien received her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from the New England Conservatory of Music as a student of Russell Sherman and Wha-Kyung Byun. She is an artist-in-residence at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee and is a Steinway Artist.
Co-artistic director of the Chamber Music Society, cellist David Finckel is a recipient of Musical America’s Musician of the Year award, one of the highest honors granted to musicians from the music industry in the United States. He leads a multifaceted career as a concert performer, recording artist, educator, administrator, and cultural entrepreneur that places him in the ranks of today’s most influential classical musicians. He appears annually at the world’s most prestigious concert series and venues, as both soloist and chamber musician. As a chamber musician, he appears extensively with duo partner pianist Wu Han and in a piano trio alongside violinist Philip Setzer. He served as cellist of the nine-time Grammy Award-winning Emerson String Quartet for 34 seasons. His wide-ranging musical activities also include the launch of ArtistLed, classical music’s first musician-directed and Internet-based recording company, whose catalogue has won widespread critical praise. Along with Wu Han, he is the founder and artistic director of Music@Menlo, Silicon Valley’s acclaimed chamber music festival and institute. The first American student of Rostropovich, Mr. Finckel serves on the faculty at The Juilliard School and Stony Brook University. His new website now hosts Resource, an innovative exploration of challenges and opportunities facing today’s classical musicians.
A member of the New York Woodwind Quintet and St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, Marc Goldberg is principal bassoonist of Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, American Ballet Theater, NYC Opera, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Riverside Symphony, and a member of the American Symphony Orchestra. Previously the associate principal bassoonist of the New York Philharmonic, he has also been a frequent guest of the Metropolitan Opera, Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, touring with these ensembles across four continents and joining them on numerous recordings. Solo appearances include performances throughout the US, in South America, and across the Pacific Rim with the Brandenburg Ensemble, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Saito Kinen Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Riverside Symphony, Jupiter Symphony, New York Chamber Soloists, and the New York Symphonic Ensemble. He has been a guest of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Da Camera Society of Houston, Musicians from Marlboro, Music@Menlo, the Brentano Quartet, Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Band, and the Boston Chamber Music Society. Summer festival appearances include Spoleto, Ravinia, Chautauqua, Tanglewood, Caramoor, Saito Kinen/Ozawa Music Festival, Bard Music Festival, and Marlboro. He is on the faculty of The Juilliard School Pre-College Division, Mannes College, New England Conservatory, The Hartt School, Bard College Conservatory of Music, Columbia University, and NYU.
Acclaimed by critics for his exceptional talent and magnificent tone, American violinist Chad Hoopes has remained a consistent performer with many of the world’s leading orchestras since winning First Prize at the Young Artists Division of the Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition. He is a 2017 recipient of Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Career Grant. Highlights of past seasons include performances with The Philadelphia Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, and Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse for the French premiere of Qigang Chen’s concerto La joie de la souffrance. He has performed with leading orchestras, including the San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Houston, and National Symphonies, as well as the Minnesota, Colorado Music Festival, and National Arts Centre Orchestras. He has additionally performed recitals at the Ravinia Festival, the Tonhalle Zürich, the Louvre, and at Lincoln Center’s Great Performers series in New York City. His debut recording with the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra under Kristjan Järvi featured the Mendelssohn and Adams concertos and was enthusiastically received by both press and public. His recording of Bernstein’s Violin Sonata with pianist Wayne Marshall was recently released. Born in Florida, he began his violin studies at the age of three in Minneapolis, and continued his training at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He additionally studied at the Kronberg Academy under the guidance of Professor Ana Chumachenco, who remains his mentor. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, he plays the 1991 Samuel Zygmuntowicz, ex Isaac Stern violin.
Recipient of a 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant, as well as a top prizewinner of the 2012 Walter W. Naumburg Competition and Astral Artists’ 2010 National Auditions, Kristin Lee is a violinist of remarkable versatility and impeccable technique who enjoys a vibrant career as a soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, and educator. She has appeared with top orchestras such as The Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Ural Philharmonic of Russia, the Korean Broadcasting Symphony, and in recital on many of the world’s finest stages including Carnegie Hall, David Geffen Hall, Kennedy Center, Kimmel Center, Phillips Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Louvre Museum, Korea’s Kumho Art Gallery, and the Ravinia Festival. An accomplished chamber musician, she has appeared with Camerata Pacifica, Music@Menlo, La Jolla Festival, Medellín Festicámara of Colombia, the El Sistema Chamber Music Festival of Venezuela, and the Sarasota Music Festival. She is the concertmaster of the Metropolis Ensemble, with which she premiered Vivian Fung’s Violin Concerto, written for her, which appears on Fung’s CD Dreamscapes (Naxos) and won the 2013 Juno Award. Born in Seoul, Ms. Lee moved to the US to study under Sonja Foster and soon after entered The Juilliard School’s Pre-College. She holds a master’s degree from The Juilliard School under Itzhak Perlman. An alum of CMS's Bowers Program, she is a member of the faculty of the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College and the co-founder and artistic director of Emerald City Music in Seattle.
American violist Matthew Lipman has been praised by the New York Times for his “rich tone and elegant phrasing.” He has appeared with the Minnesota Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Grand Rapids Symphony, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Montgomery Symphony, Juilliard Orchestra, and at Chicago’s Symphony Center. Recent solo appearances include the Aspen Music Festival, Carnegie Hall, New World Symphony, Seoul’s Kumho Art Hall, and CMS’s Rose Studio. The Strad praised his “most impressive” debut album Ascent, released by Cedille Records in February 2019, and his recording of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with violinist Rachel Barton Pine and Sir Neville Marriner on the Avie label topped the Billboard Charts. He was featured on WFMT Chicago’s list of “30 Under 30” of the world’s top classical musicians and has been published in The Strad, Strings, and BBC Music magazines. He performs regularly with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and at renowned chamber music festivals including Music@Menlo, Marlboro, Ravinia, Bridgehampton, and Seattle. The recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a winner of the Primrose, Tertis, Washington, Johansen, and Stulberg International Viola Competitions, he studied at The Juilliard School with Heidi Castleman and was further mentored by Tabea Zimmermann at the Kronberg Academy. A native of Chicago and an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, Mr. Lipman is on faculty at Stony Brook University and performs on a 1700 Matteo Goffriller viola on generous loan from the RBP Foundation.
Romanian-born cellist Mihai Marica is a first prize winner of the Dr. Luis Sigall International Competition in Viña del Mar, Chile and the Irving M. Klein International Competition, and is a recipient of Charlotte White’s Salon de Virtuosi Fellowship Grant. He has performed with orchestras such as the Symphony Orchestra of Chile, Xalapa Symphony in Mexico, the Hermitage State Orchestra of St. Petersburg in Russia, the Jardins Musicaux Festival Orchestra in Switzerland, the Louisville Orchestra, and the Santa Cruz Symphony in the US. He has also appeared in recital performances in Austria, Hungary, Germany, Spain, Holland, South Korea, Japan, Chile, the United States, and Canada. A dedicated chamber musician, he has performed at the Chamber Music Northwest, Norfolk, and Aspen music festivals where he has collaborated with such artists as Ani Kavafian, Ida Kavafian, David Shifrin, André Watts, and Edgar Meyer. He is a founding member of the award-winning Amphion String Quartet. A recent collaboration with dancer Lil Buck brought forth new pieces for solo cello written by Yevgeniy Sharlat and Patrick Castillo. Last season, he joined the acclaimed Apollo Trio. Mr. Marica studied with Gabriela Todor in his native Romania and with Aldo Parisot at the Yale School of Music where he was awarded master's and artist diploma degrees. He is an alum of CMS's Bowers Program.
Anthony Manzo’s vibrantly interactive and highly communicative music making has made him a ubiquitous figure in the upper echelons of classical music, performing at noted venues including Lincoln Center in NYC, Boston’s Symphony Hall, and the Spoleto Festival in Charleston. He appears regularly with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, both in NY and across the country. He serves as the solo bassist of San Francisco’s New Century Chamber Orchestra and as a guest with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and A Far Cry. He is a regular guest with the National Symphony Orchestra, the Smithsonian Chamber Society, and the Baltimore Symphony when he happens to be near his home in Washington, DC. Formerly the solo bassist of the Munich Chamber Orchestra in Germany, he has also been guest principal with Camerata Salzburg in Austria, where collaborations have included a summer residency at the Salzburg Festival and two tours as soloist alongside bass/baritone Thomas Quasthoff, performing Mozart's “Per questa bella mano.” He is an active performer on period instruments, with groups including The Handel & Haydn Society of Boston (where his playing was lauded as “endowed with beautiful and unexpected plaintiveness” by the Boston Musical Intelligencer), Philharmonia Baroque in San Francisco, and Opera Lafayette in Washington, DC. He is on the double bass and chamber music faculty of the University of Maryland. Mr. Manzo performs on a double bass made around 1890 by Jerome Thibouville Lamy in Paris (which now has a removable neck for travel!).
Violist Paul Neubauer has been called a “master musician” by the New York Times. He recently made his Chicago Symphony subscription debut with conductor Riccardo Muti and his Mariinsky Orchestra debut with conductor Valery Gergiev. He also gave the US premiere of the newly discovered Impromptu for viola and piano by Shostakovich with pianist Wu Han. In addition, his recording of the Aaron Kernis Viola Concerto with the Royal Northern Sinfonia was released on Signum Records and his recording of the complete viola/piano music by Ernest Bloch with pianist Margo Garrett was released on Delos. Appointed principal violist of the New York Philharmonic at age 21, he has appeared as soloist with over 100 orchestras including the New York, Los Angeles, and Helsinki philharmonics; National, St. Louis, Detroit, Dallas, San Francisco, and Bournemouth symphonies; and Santa Cecilia, English Chamber, and Beethovenhalle orchestras. He has premiered viola concertos by Bartók (revised version of the Viola Concerto), Friedman, Glière, Jacob, Kernis, Lazarof, Müller-Siemens, Ott, Penderecki, Picker, Suter, and Tower and has been featured on CBS's Sunday Morning, A Prairie Home Companion, and in Strad, Strings, and People magazines. A two-time Grammy nominee, he has recorded on numerous labels including Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, RCA Red Seal, and Sony Classical and is a member of SPA, a trio with soprano Susanna Phillips and pianist Anne-Marie McDermott. Mr. Neubauer is the artistic director of the Mostly Music series in New Jersey and is on the faculty of The Juilliard School and Mannes College.
The Orion Quartet is one of the leading chamber music ensembles on the classical music scene today. Admired for its diverse programming that juxtaposes masterworks of the quartet literature with key works of the 20th and 21st centuries, the Orion provides a singularly rich dimension to its music-making. The members of the Orion String Quartet—violinists Daniel Phillips and Todd Phillips (brothers who share the first violin chair), violist Steven Tenenbom, and cellist Timothy Eddy—have worked closely with such illustrious musicians as Pablo Casals, Sir András Schiff, Rudolf Serkin, Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zukerman, Peter Serkin, members of the ensemble TASHI, the Beaux Arts Trio, and the Budapest, Végh, Galimir, and Guarneri String Quartets. The Orion String Quartet is a season artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
In the summer of 2019, the Orion String Quartet returned to the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival to perform three programs that included music by Schubert, Mozart, and Kreisler. Last season, the quartet appeared with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in Alice Tully Hall. The quartet also performed with Chamber Music Pittsburgh, at the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and at The Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of Met Live Arts’ celebration of the Guarneri Quartet.
During the quartet’s 30th anniversary season in 2017-18, the group celebrated at principal chamber music series throughout North America. The Orions played the complete string quartets of Beethoven in a series of six concerts at the Mannes School of Music, where they held the position of quartet-in-residence for 27 years. At CMS they performed an all-Haydn program and presented a contemporary music concert of works written for them, including the world premiere of Sebastian Currier’s Etudes and Lullabies (a commission by CMS), David Dzubay’s String Quartet No. 1, “Astral,” and Brett Dean’s Quartet No. 2 for Strings and Soprano, “And once I played Ophelia.” Tony Arnold joined the Orion in that concert as vocal soloist.
The Orion String Quartet has given stimulus to the development and expansion of the string quartet repertoire through commissions from composers Chick Corea, David Del Tredici, Alexander Goehr, Thierry Lancino, John Harbison, Leon Kirchner, Marc Neikrug, Lowell Liebermann, Peter Lieberson, and Wynton Marsalis. For its 25th anniversary, the Orion collaborated with choreographer Bill T. Jones and the Arnie Zane Dance Company in a two-week project that featured music by Mozart, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Ravel, and Beethoven. WQXR’s The Greene Space produced a live broadcast of the collaboration, including the performance and a discussion between members of the quartet and Mr. Jones. Heard frequently on National Public Radio’s Performance Today, the Orion has also appeared on PBS’s Live from Lincoln Center, A&E’s Breakfast with the Arts, and on ABC television’s Good Morning America.
Formed in 1987, the quartet takes its name from the Orion constellation as a metaphor for the personality each musician brings to the group in its collective pursuit of the highest musical ideals.
Violinist Daniel Phillips enjoys a versatile career as an established chamber musician, solo artist, and teacher. A graduate of Juilliard, he studied with Ivan Galamian, Sally Thomas, Nathan Milstein, Sandor Vegh, and George Neikrug. Since winning the 1976 Young Concert Artists Auditions, he has been an emerging artist who has performed as a soloist with numerous symphonies. He appears regularly at the Spoleto Festival USA, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, Chesapeake Music Festival, and the International Musicians Seminar in Cornwall, England. He was a member of the renowned Bach Aria Group, and has toured and recorded in a string quartet for SONY with Gidon Kremer, Kim Kashkashian, and Yo-Yo Ma. He is a professor at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College and on the faculties of the Mannes College of Music, Bard College Conservatory, and The Juilliard School.
Todd Phillips has performed as a guest soloist with leading orchestras throughout North America, Europe, and Japan including the Pittsburgh Symphony, New York String Orchestra, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, with which he made a critically acclaimed recording of Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for Deutsche Grammophon. He has appeared at the Mostly Mozart, Ravinia, Santa Fe, Marlboro, and Spoleto festivals. He has collaborated with such renowned artists as Rudolf Serkin, Jaime Laredo, Leon Fleischer, Peter Serkin, and Pinchas Zukerman and has participated in 18 Musicians from Marlboro tours. He has recorded for the Arabesque, Delos, Deutsche Grammophon, Finlandia, Koch International, Marlboro Recording Society, New York Philomusica, RCA Red Seal, and SONY Classical labels. He serves as professor of violin at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, Mannes College at the New School for Music, Manhattan School of Music, and Bard College Conservatory of Music and is visiting chamber music faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Music.
Violist Steven Tenenbom has established a distinguished career as chamber musician, soloist, recitalist, and teacher. He has worked with composer Lukas Foss and jazz artist Chick Corea, and has appeared as a guest artist with such ensembles as the Guarneri and Emerson string quartets, and the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio. He has performed as a soloist with the Utah Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, and Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, and toured with the Brandenburg Ensemble throughout the United States and Japan. His festival credits include Mostly Mozart, Aspen, Ravinia, Marlboro, June Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, Music from Angel Fire, and Bravo! Vail. A former member of the Galimir Quartet, he is currently a member of the piano quartet OPUS ONE. He serves on the faculties of The Juilliard School, the Curtis Institute of Music, and the Conservatory of Music at Bard College. He and his wife, violinist Ida Kavafian, live in Connecticut where they breed, raise, and show champion Vizsla purebred dogs.
Cellist Timothy Eddy has earned distinction as a recitalist, orchestral soloist, chamber musician, recording artist, and teacher. He has performed with such symphonies as Dallas, Colorado, Jacksonville, North Carolina, and Stamford, and has appeared at the Mostly Mozart, Ravinia, Aspen, Marlboro, Lockenhaus, Spoleto, and Sarasota music festivals. He has won prizes in numerous national and international competitions, including the 1975 Gaspar Cassadó International Violoncello Competition in Italy. Mr. Eddy was frequently a faculty member at the Isaac Stern Chamber Music Workshops at Carnegie Hall. A former member of the Galimir Quartet, the New York Philomusica, and the Bach Aria Group, he collaborates in recital with pianist Gilbert Kalish. He has recorded a wide range of repertoire from Baroque to avant-garde for the Angel, Arabesque, Columbia, CRI, Delos, Musical Heritage, New World, Nonesuch, Vanguard, Vox, and SONY Classical labels.
A Yale University faculty member since 1987, clarinetist David Shifrin is artistic director of Yale's Chamber Music Society and Yale in New York, an annual concert series at Carnegie Hall. He has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 1982 and served as its artistic director from 1992 to 2004, inaugurating CMS's Bowers Program and the annual Brandenburg Concerto concerts. He has been the artistic director of Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon since 1981. He has collaborated with the Guarneri, Tokyo, and Emerson quartets and frequently performs with pianist André Watts. Winner of the Avery Fisher Prize, he is also the recipient of a Solo Recitalist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. A top prize winner in the Munich and Geneva competitions, he has held principal clarinet positions in numerous orchestras including The Cleveland Orchestra and the American Symphony under Leopold Stokowski. His recordings have received three Grammy nominations and his performance of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra was named Record of the Year by Stereo Review. His most recent recordings are the Beethoven, Bruch, and Brahms Clarinet Trios with cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han on the ArtistLed label and a recording for Delos of works by Carl Nielsen. Mr. Shifrin performs on a MoBA cocobolo wood clarinet made by Morrie Backun in Vancouver, Canada and uses Légère Reeds.
Winner of a 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Arnaud Sussmann has distinguished himself with his unique sound, bravura, and profound musicianship. Minnesota’s Pioneer Press writes, “Sussmann has an old-school sound reminiscent of what you'll hear on vintage recordings by Jascha Heifetz or Fritz Kreisler, a rare combination of sweet and smooth that can hypnotize a listener.” A thrilling musician capturing the attention of classical critics and audiences around the world, he has recently appeared as a soloist with the Mariinsky Orchestra under Valery Gergiev, the Vancouver Symphony, and the New World Symphony. As a chamber musician, he has performed at the Tel Aviv Museum in Israel, London’s Wigmore Hall, Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, the White Nights Festival in Saint Petersburg, the Dresden Music Festival in Germany, and the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC. He has been presented in recital in Omaha on the Tuesday Musical Club series, New Orleans by the Friends of Music, and at the Louvre Museum in Paris. He has also given concerts at the OK Mozart, Moritzburg, Caramoor, Music@Menlo, La Jolla SummerFest, Mainly Mozart, Seattle Chamber Music, Chamber Music Northwest, and Moab Music festivals. He has performed with many of today’s leading artists including Itzhak Perlman, Menahem Pressler, Gary Hoffman, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Wu Han, David Finckel, and Jan Vogler. An alum of The Bowers Program, he regularly appears with CMS in New York and on tour. Mr. Sussmann is Co-Director of Music@Menlo’s International Program and teaches at Stony Brook University.
Kenneth Weiss has an active career as a soloist, conductor, chamber musician, and teacher. He has performed extensively in Europe, North America, and Asia, including appearances at Wigmore Hall, Tokyo's Bunkakaikan Hall, Théâtre de la Ville in Paris, Library of Congress, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, La Roque d'Antheron, Auditorio Nacional in Madrid, and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. He is a frequent guest of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, and NYC's Music Before 1800. Highlights of the 2019-20 season included the Brandenburg Concertos with the Orchestre de Rouen, a tour with the Berkshire Bach Society in December, and The Art of Fugue in Confinement in May on YouTube. Other planned engagements included a live recording of Jean-Féry Rebel’s Eléments on the historic Taskin harpsichord in Lisbon, and appearances at the Lausanne Bach Festival and Emerald City Music in Seattle. His recordings for Satirino records have been widely acclaimed. They include Bach's Goldberg Variations, partitas, and Well-Tempered Clavier, a recording of Rameau operas and ballets transcriptions, two Scarlatti albums, and two CDs devoted to Elizabethan keyboard music—A Cleare Day and Heaven & Earth. A native New Yorker, he attended the High School of Performing Arts and the Oberlin Conservatory where he studied with Lisa Goode Crawford, later studying with Gustav Leonhardt at the Amsterdam Conservatory. He is professor of harpsichord at the Haute Ecole de Musique in Geneva, Switzerland, and professor of chamber music at the Paris Conservatory.
Flutist and conductor Ransom Wilson has performed in concert with major orchestras the world over. As a flutist, he recently launched an ongoing series of solo recordings on the Nimbus label in Europe. As a conductor, he is starting his fourth season as music director of the Redlands Symphony in Southern California, and he has become the Director of Orchestral Programs at Idyllwild Arts. He has led opera performances at the New York City Opera, and was for ten years an assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera. He has been a guest conductor of the London, Houston, KBS, Kraków, Denver, New Jersey, Hartford, and Berkeley symphonies; the Orchestra of St. Luke's; the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra; the Hallé Orchestra; and the chamber orchestras of St. Paul and Los Angeles. He has also appeared with the Glimmerglass Opera, Minnesota Opera, and the Opera of La Quincena Musical in Spain. As an educator, he regularly leads master classes at the Paris Conservatory, The Juilliard School, Moscow Conservatory, and Cambridge University. A graduate of The Juilliard School, he was an Atlantique Foundation scholar in Paris, where he studied privately with Jean-Pierre Rampal. His recording career, which includes three Grammy Award nominations, began in 1973 with Jean-Pierre Rampal and I Solisti Veneti. Since then he has recorded over 35 albums as flutist and/or conductor. Mr. Wilson is a professor at the Yale University School of Music, and has performed with the Chamber Music Society since 1991. He plays exclusively on a hand-made Haynes flute.
Violinist Angelo Xiang Yu, recipient of both a 2019 Avery Fisher Career Grant and a 2019 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award as well as First Prize in the 2010 Yehudi Menuhin competition, has won consistent critical acclaim and enthusiastic audience response for his astonishing technique and exceptional musical maturity. In North America, his recent and upcoming performances with orchestra include appearances with the San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Vancouver, Houston, Colorado, North Carolina, San Antonio, and Charlotte symphonies and the Rochester and Calgary philharmonics. Internationally, he has appeared with the New Zealand Symphony, Shanghai Philharmonic, Auckland Philharmonia, Norwegian Radio Symphony, and the Oslo Philharmonic. An active recitalist and chamber musician, he has appeared in recital in Berlin, Paris, Beijing, Singapore, Shanghai, Chicago, New York, and Boston. He is also a frequent guest at summer music festivals, including Aspen, Ravinia, Grant Park, Music@Menlo, Sarasota Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, Saratoga, and Verbier. Born in Inner Mongolia, China, Mr. Yu moved to Shanghai at the age of 11 and received his early training from violinist Qing Zheng at the Shanghai Conservatory. He earned his bachelor’s and master's degrees as well as the prestigious artist diploma at the New England Conservatory, where he was a student of Donald Weilerstein and Miriam Fried and served as Mr. Weilerstein’s teaching assistant. He resides in Boston and performs on a 1729 Stradivarius violin generously on loan from an anonymous donor. He joined CMS's Bowers Program in September 2018.