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Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
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PRESS ACCLAIM

"It's hard to overstate the players' sense of fun, which burst through in every bar.... The eight musicians mined every minute for maximum propulsion and drama."

-The Strad

"Though every musician on the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center roster is superb, the sum of the parts is even greater...a potent evening of first class music making."

-The Strad

"An unmissable event.  A rare opportunity to hear an unusual and absorbing program. It was performed with all the vitality, incisive attention to detail and spontaneity one has come to associate with the Chamber Music Society brand."

-Chicago Tribune

“The great joy of the society’s concerts is the interaction of up-and-coming musicians with established ones."

-The New York Times

“This program provided yet more evidence of how much the Society has been reinvigorated and strengthened under the nine-year artistic leadership of the indefatigable husband-and-wife team, cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han.”

-Chicago Sun Times

“The interpretations, like the scores, were tender and monumental, steamy and chiseled in stone."

-New York Magazine

REPERTOIRE

2024 - 2025 PROGRAMS

TOUR 1: "POULENC'S HOMAGE TO WINDS"

(6 Musicians: Anne-Marie McDermott, piano; Adam Walker, flute; James Austin Smith, oboe; David Shifrin, clarinet; Marc Goldberg, bassoon; Radek Baborák, horn)
Available:  November 6-15. 2024

Beethoven Duo No. 3 in Bb Major for Clarinet and Bassoon
Gliere Four Pieces for Horn and Piano, op. 35
Poulenc Sonata for Clarinet and Bassoon
Martinu Sonata for Flute and Piano
Reineke Trio for Oboe, Horn and Piano in A minor, op. 188
Poulenc Sextet for Winds and Piano

This program spotlights the wealth and variety of chamber music for winds in multiple combinations and introduces the former Principal Horn of the Berlin Philharmonic, Radek Baborák, to American audiences. The first half features duos for clarinet and bassoon, bringing these orchestral neighbors to the front of the stage in works that span more 100 years. The duos are interspersed with pieces highlighting the soloistic nature of both flute and horn with piano. One of Reinecke’s later works, the trio that begins the second half brings together an unusual combination of oboe, horn, and piano with lyrical melodies in the Romantic style, and all of the instruments gather at last for Poulenc’s Sextet, which he described as “an homage to the wind instruments I have loved from the moment I began composing.”

TOUR 3: "TROUT QUINTET"

(6 musicians: Wu Han, piano; Arnaud Sussmann & Julian Rhee, violin; Paul Neubauer, viola; Sterling Elliot, cello; Anthony Manzo, double-bass )
Available:  March 14-26, 2025

WF Bach: Fugue in F minor arr. For string trio by Mozart K 404a
Mozart: Adagio and Fugue for string quartet and bass
Mozart: Piano Quartet in Eb
Schubert: “Trout” Quintet

One of the most beloved chamber music works for strings and piano, Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet not only demonstrates his genius for melody and lyricism, but also features a distinct combination of instruments: only one violin and the addition of double bass. The robust sound of the lowest of the strings can also be heard in Mozart’s Adagio and Fugue, a piece that deepens the string quartet’s tonal range. Original instrumentation is also attributed to Mozart’s set of piano quartets, the first music written for this combination, which inspired future generations of composers. CMS Co-Artistic Director Wu Han is one of the featured performers.

TOUR 2: "SPANISH JOURNEY"

(5 musicians: Soyeon Kate Lee, piano; Kristin Lee, violin; Clive Greensmith, cello; Jason Vieaux, guitar; Vanessa Becerra, soprano)

Available:  Jan 31 – Feb 14, 2025

Obradors: Canciones Espanolas
Albeniz: Mallorca
Arbos: Three Original Pieces in Spanish Style
De Falla: Suite Populaire Espagnole
Sarasate:Romanza Andaluza
Rodrigo: Tres Canciones
Joaquín Turina: Piano Trio no. 2 in b minor, op. 76

Spend a musical evening in Spain, a country of enchanting colors, rhythms, and textures, in a program imaginatively created by violinist Kristin Lee. The distinctive Spanish style is beautifully expressed in piano trios of Falla and Turina, while guitar, an instrument deeply associated with Spain, is also featured in the program, played by Grammy Award–winner Jason Vieaux. Song complements the balance of the program with vocal works by Sarasate, Rodrigo, and Obradors, the texts of which beautifully express the flair and passion of the Spanish language. The combination of the guitar’s intoxicating sounds, the language’s seductive tones, and the trios’ vivid style illustrates the richness of this culture.

TOUR 4: "TWO TIMES THREE"

(6 musicians: Paul Huang & Danbi Um, violin; Matthew Lipman & Timothy Ridout, viola; David Finckel & Sihao He, cello)
Available:  April 22-30, 2025

Bach: Ricercar from the Musical Offering
Haydn: Trio in G major for Vln, Via, and Cello, Hob. XVI:40, Op. 53,  No. 1
Schubert: String Trio in Bb D. 581
Strauss: Sextet from Capriccio
Tchaikovsky: Souvenir de Florence

CMS Co-Artistic Director David Finckel is joined by colleagues from around the world in a program featuring string sextets, an ensemble comprised of pairs of violins, violas, and cellos—in other words, 2 times 3. The expansiveness of the sextet provides a distinctive depth of sonority to the ensemble, equally balanced between the instruments, which will be heard in Bach’s ingenious six-voice fugue (on a theme given to him by Frederick the Great) to the sextet from Richard Strauss’s final opera to the ravishing Souvenir de Florence by Tchaikovsky. The multi-dimensional sextet allows for smaller subsets, notably the string trio, which has its own unique sonority and rounds out the program, including one of Schubert’s great early string works, the B-flat major String Trio.

March 2023

BIOGRAPHY

The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (CMS) is one of twelve constituents of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the largest performing arts complex in the world. Along with other constituents such as the New York Philharmonic, New York City Ballet, Lincoln Center Theater, and The Metropolitan Opera, the Chamber Music Society has its home at Lincoln Center. The Chamber Music Society’s performance venue, Alice Tully Hall, has received international acclaim as the world's most exciting new venue for chamber music.

 

CMS presents chamber music of every instrumentation, style, and historical period in its extensive concert season in New York, its national tours, its many recordings and national radio broadcasts, its broad commissioning program, and its multi-faceted educational programs. Demonstrating the belief that the future of chamber music lies in engaging and expanding the audience, CMS has created programs to bring the art of chamber music to audiences from a wide range of backgrounds, ages, and levels of musical knowledge. The artistic core of CMS is a multi-generational, dynamic repertory company of expert chamber musicians who form an evolving musical community.  As part of that community, the CMS Two program discovers and weaves into the artistic fabric a select number of highly gifted young artists - individuals and ensembles - who embody the great performance traditions of the past while setting new standards for the future.

 

CMS produces its own recordings on the CMS Studio Recordings label, which has been highly praised for both the artistry and the recorded sound of the eclectic range of repertoire it has released. These recordings are sold on-site at concerts in New York, on tour, and through the CMS website as well as online retailers such as iTunes. CMS also has a broad range of historic recordings on the Arabesque, Delos, SONY Classical, Telarc, Musical Heritage Society, MusicMasters, and Omega Record Classics labels. Selected live CMS concerts are available for download as part of Deutsche Grammophon’s DG Concerts series.

 

In 2004, CMS appointed cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han artistic directors. They succeed founding director Charles Wadsworth (1969-89), Fred Sherry (1989-93), and David Shifrin (1993-2004).

 

Visit the Chamber Music Society online at www.ChamberMusicSociety.org.

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