WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791)
Concerto No. 14 in E-flat major for Piano and String Quintet, K. 449 (1784)
Allegro vivace
Andantino
Allegro ma non troppo
Alessio Bax, piano • Arnaud Sussmann, violin • Bella Hristova, violin • Paul Neubauer, viola • Sophie Shao, cello • Joseph Conyers, double bass

BÉLA BARTÓK (1881-1945)
Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion (1937)
Assai lento—Allegro molto
Lento ma non troppo
Allegro non troppo
Alessio Bax, piano • Lucille Chung, piano • Ian David Rosenbaum, percussion • Ayano Kataoka, percussion

NOTES ON THE PROGRAM

Concerto No. 14 in E-flat major for Piano and String Quintet, K. 449 (1784)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Salzburg, 1756 - Vienna, 1791)

Mozart composed this concerto at a watershed moment in his career. By 1784, he had been living in Vienna for three years and, after attempting various money-making ventures, came upon the one that would earn him substantial money and increase his fame: his own subscription concert series. He rented a small performance space for the last three Wednesdays in Lent and secured an impressive 176 subscribers that comprised a veritable who’s who of Viennese society. A renowned pianist, he knew that performing a new concerto would be a highlight. The first concert, on March 17, 1784, featured this concerto, K. 449 in E-flat major. Mozart wrote to his father, “The hall was full to overflowing; and the new concerto I played won extraordinary applause. Everywhere I go I hear praises of that concert.” The years 1784-86 were Mozart’s most successful years in Vienna and his piano concertos played a major role in his popularity.

Mozart’s music was also in demand for home performance and K. 449 was one of a number of piano concertos that he said could be accompanied by a string quartet (reinforced by double bass in this performance) rather than the small orchestra that performed the premiere. In his catalogue he marked the wind parts ad libitum (or optional). The first movement, in concerto form with an extended introduction and dramatic solo entrance, is in an unusual 3/4 time and the major key is shaded by passages in minor throughout. The cadenza near the end was written out by the composer. The poised slow movement leads to a jaunty rondo finale infused with intricate counterpoint. Another cadenza (which Mozart did not write out) introduces a romping final section in 6/8 time.

Alessio Bax on Mozart

Since I was a little boy, Mozart has held a very special place in my heart, for it is in Mozart’s output that we can clearly see the universality of the musical language. His music speaks to each one of us directly, honestly, and without any boundaries or need for translation. Somehow, Mozart wrote music that is simple yet deep, immaculate yet human. That is perhaps why Mozart is so universally understood and loved. We musicians are always humbled, astonished, and also challenged and intimidated by the perfection of Mozart’s music and the skill that is required in order to share its depth and constant sense of wonder with the audience. Honoring the genius of Mozart is one of the greatest privileges a musician could have. -Alessio Bax

Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion (1937)
Béla Bartók (Nagyszentmiklós, Hungary [now in Romania], 1881 - New York, 1945)

Bartók wrote this piece in 1937 for Swiss benefactor Paul Sacher and the International Society for Contemporary Music in Basel. The composer thought up the unusual instrumentation, perhaps inspired by the success of another Sacher commission that premiered at the beginning of the year: his Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, which included piano. After that orchestral work, Bartók stated that he believed two pianos were necessary to balance out a battery of percussion for a chamber work. In a nod to the difficulty of the percussion parts, Bartók changed the title from Quartet to Sonata before the premiere to allow for performances that may require three percussionists. The premiere took place in Basel on January 16, 1938 with the composer and his wife at the pianos alongside two Swiss percussionists.

Three days before the premiere, Bartók published a detailed analysis of the sonata in the local newspaper. The first movement—by far the longest—is in sonata form with a slow introduction, percussive first theme, and mysterious second theme. The main part of the development section breaks down the first theme before it returns in a powerful climax punctuated by the xylophone. The slow movement is in Bartók’s characteristic night music style, with quiet, atmospheric melodies broken up by rustling insect sounds. The last movement is a boisterous rondo.

The Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, in addition to reimagining the chamber ensemble, opened a new chapter in Bartók’s performing career. He and his wife, Ditta Pásztory, went on to perform frequently together in the following turbulent years, especially after they moved from their native Hungary to the US in 1940. In order to increase their performance opportunities, Bartók arranged this sonata as the Concerto for Two Pianos, Percussion, and Orchestra, and his last public appearances were at Carnegie Hall in the US premiere on January 21-22, 1943.

Program notes by Laura Keller, CMS Editorial Manager

Lucille Chung on Duo Playing with Alessio Bax

Alessio and I were first asked to play together for the 10th anniversary of the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival and Steinway and Sons’ 150^th anniversary. It was a huge piano extravaganza which included 16 pianists and 10 Steinway Concert Grand Pianos on the stage of the National Arts Centre in Canada. In the middle of this gargantuan program, we performed the Romance from Rachmaninov’s Suite No. 2 for Two Pianos. In that evening’s context, it felt like an intimate interlude and the heart of the program. Now, 17 years later (!), we still love to explore a genre of music making that is so human, trusting, intimate, and satisfying. -Lucille Chung


TWO QUESTIONS FOR ALESSIO BAX

What advice do you have for aspiring musicians?

Alessio Bax: Every day that I play the piano I try to think first about the music I’m playing. In a way we’re so lucky to make close contact with some of the greatest art that has ever been produced so I think that should always come first. Not to showcase our abilities but to use our abilities to showcase the music.

Was there a moment when you knew you had to be a musician?

AB: As a kid, once you love something you think there’s nothing else in the world. Music was not my first love. I was born in Italy and as an Italian my first love was soccer. After a few weeks, I saw my friends playing in the street who were so much better than I was. That dream was over so the next thing was music. I feel very lucky not to have changed that dream.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Pianist Alessio Bax—a First Prize winner at both the Leeds and Hamamatsu International Piano Competitions, and the recipient of a 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grant—has appeared with more than 100 orchestras, including the London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Houston Symphony, Japan’s NHK Symphony, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, and City of Birmingham Symphony. In summer 2017 he launched a three-season appointment as artistic director of Tuscany’s Incontri in Terra di Siena festival, having also appeared at such festivals as Music@Menlo, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Switzerland’s Verbier Festival, Norway’s Risør Festival, Germany’s Klavier-Festival Ruhr and Beethovenfest, and England’s Aldeburgh Festival, Bath Festival, and International Piano Series. An accomplished chamber musician, he regularly collaborates with his wife, pianist Lucille Chung, superstar violinist Joshua Bell, Berlin Philharmonic principals Daishin Kashimoto and Emmanuel Pahud, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, where he is an alum of The Bowers Program. Last season brought the release of Italian Inspirations, his 11th recording for Signum Classics, whose program was also the vehicle for his solo recital debut at New York’s 92nd Street Y. Last season, he undertook Beethoven’s complete works for cello and piano at CMS and on a forthcoming Signum Classics release with Paul Watkins of the Emerson String Quartet. At age 14, Mr. Bax graduated with top honors from the conservatory of Bari, his hometown in Italy, and after further studies in Europe, he moved to the US in 1994.

Canadian pianist Lucille Chung made her debut at the age of ten with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and went on tour with Charles Dutoit in Asia. She has performed with over 65 leading orchestras including The Philadelphia Orchestra, Moscow Virtuosi, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Israel Chamber Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Weimar, Dallas Symphony, and has appeared with conductors such as Penderecki, Spivakov, Nézet-Séguin, Petrenko, and Dutoit. She has given solo recitals in over 35 countries in venues including New York’s Weill Hall and Lincoln Center, Washington’s Kennedy Center, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Wigmore Hall in London, and Madrid’s Auditorio Nacional. Festival appearances include the Verbier, Bard, Music@Menlo, and Santander festivals. She has received excellent reviews for her discs of the complete piano works of Ligeti and Scriabin on the Dynamic label, garnering five stars from BBC Music Magazine and Fono Forum (Germany), as well as the highest rating, R10, from Répertoire Classica (France). Her vast discography includes Saint-Saëns piano transcriptions, Mozart rarities, and more recently for Signum Records, a piano duo album with Alessio Bax, Poulenc piano works, and Liszt piano works. Ms. Chung graduated from both the Curtis Institute and The Juilliard School before she turned 20. She furthered her studies in London, at the “Mozarteum,” and in Imola, Italy. She and her husband, pianist Alessio Bax, live in New York City with their daughter Mila and are co-artistic directors of the Joaquín Achúcarro Foundation.

Joseph H. Conyers, assistant principal bass of The Philadelphia Orchestra since 2010, joined Philadelphia after tenures with the Atlanta Symphony, Santa Fe Opera, and Grand Rapids Symphony where he served as principal bass. A 2004 Sphinx Competition laureate, he has performed with many orchestras as soloist and in numerous chamber music festivals collaborating with international artists and ensembles. In addition to being the most recent recipient of the C. Hartman Kuhn Award (the highest honor given to a musician in The Philadelphia Orchestra by music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin), he is the inaugural recipient of the Young Alumni Award from his alma mater, the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Hal Robinson and Edgar Meyer. An advocate for music education, he is executive director of Project 440—an organization that provides young musicians with the career and life skills they need to develop into tomorrow's civic-minded, entrepreneurial leaders. Additionally, he is the music director of the All City Orchestra, which showcases the top musicians of the School District of Philadelphia. Project 440 partners with the School District in providing its curriculum in college and career preparedness, social entrepreneurship, and leadership. He is a frequent guest clinician presenting classes across the country including Yale University, New England Conservatory, The Colburn School, and University of Georgia. Mr. Conyers currently sits on the National Advisory Board for the Atlanta Music Project. He performs on the "Zimmerman/Gladstone" 1802 Vincenzo Panormo double bass which he has affectionately named “Norma.”

Acclaimed for her passionate, powerful performances, beautiful sound, and compelling command of her instrument, violinist Bella Hristova’s growing international career includes numerous appearances as soloist with orchestra including performances with the Milwaukee and Kansas City symphonies, and Beethoven’s ten sonatas with acclaimed pianist Michael Houstoun on tour in New Zealand. Last season, she performed ten different works as soloist with orchestra, from Mozart to Sibelius to Bartók, as well as concertos by Florence Price (with the Knoxville Symphony) and David Ludwig (with the Hawaii Symphony and Symphony Tacoma). She has performed at major venues and worked with conductors including Pinchas Zukerman, Jaime Laredo, and Michael Stern. A sought-after chamber musician at festivals, she performs at Australia’s Musica Viva, Music from Angel Fire, Chamber Music Northwest, and the Santa Fe Chamber and Marlboro Music festivals. Her recording Bella Unaccompanied (A.W. Tonegold Records) features works for solo violin by Corigliano, Kevin Puts, Piazzolla, Milstein, and J. S. Bach. She is recipient of a 2013 Avery Fisher Career Grant, first prizes in the Young Concert Artists International Auditions and Michael Hill International Violin Competition, and a laureate of the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. Ms. Hristova attended the Curtis Institute of Music, where she worked with Ida Kavafian and Steven Tenenbom, and received her artist diploma with Jaime Laredo at Indiana University. An alum of CMS's Bowers Program, she plays a 1655 Nicolò Amati violin.

Percussionist Ayano Kataoka is known for her brilliant and dynamic technique, as well as the unique elegance and artistry she brings to her performances. The first percussionist to be chosen for The Bowers Program, she has collaborated with many of the world’s most respected artists, including Emanuel Ax, Jaime Laredo, Ani Kavafian, David Shifrin, and Jeremy Denk. She gave the world premiere of Bruce Adolphe’s Self Comes to Mind for cello and two percussionists with cellist Yo-Yo Ma at the American Museum of Natural History in 2009. She presented a solo recital at Tokyo Opera City Recital Hall which was broadcast on NHK, the national public station of Japan. Her performances can also be heard on the Deutsche Grammophon, Naxos, New World, Bridge, New Focus, and Albany record labels. Since 2013 she has toured the US and Mexico extensively as a percussionist for Cuatro Corridos, a chamber opera led by soprano Susan Narucki and Mexican author Jorge Volpi that addresses human trafficking across the US-Mexican border. The recording of Hebert Vazquez's Azucena, the first scene of Cuatro Corridos, on Bridge Records was nominated for a Latin Grammy in the Best Contemporary Composition category. A native of Japan, Ms. Kataoka began her marimba studies at age five, and percussion at 15. She received her artist diploma degree from Yale University, where she studied with marimba virtuoso Robert van Sice. She is currently an associate professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst.

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 The 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. 

Praised for his “spectacular performances” (Wall Street Journal), and his “unfailing virtuosity” (Chicago Tribune), percussionist Ian David Rosenbaum has developed a musical breadth far beyond his years. As a passionate advocate for contemporary music, he has premiered over one hundred new chamber and solo works. He has collaborated with and championed the music of established and emerging composers alike, from Andy Akiho, Christopher Cerrone, and Amy Beth Kirsten to John Luther Adams, George Crumb, and Paola Prestini. In 2017, he released his first full-length solo album, Memory Palace, on NS Tracks. It features five of his commissions as well as collaborations with Brooklyn Rider and flutist Gina Izzo. He has appeared at the Bay Chamber, Bridgehampton, Chamber Music Northwest, Music@Menlo, and Yellow Barn festivals, and has collaborated with the Dover Quartet and Brooklyn Rider. In 2012 he joined CMS’s Bowers Program as only the second percussionist in the program's history. Highlights of the 2019-20 season included the world premiere of Seven Pillars, an evening-length multidisciplinary work by Andy Akiho at the Mondavi Center, performances at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and debuts at the Moab Music Festival, Rockport Music, and Dumbarton Oaks. He is on faculty at the Mannes School of Music and a member of Sandbox Percussion, the Percussion Collective, and the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble. Mr. Rosenbaum performs with Pearl/Adams instruments, Vic Firth mallets, and Remo drumheads.

Cellist Sophie Shao received an Avery Fisher Career Grant at age 19, was a major prizewinner at the 2001 Rostropovich Competition, and was a laureate of the XII Tchaikovsky Competition in 2002. She has given the world premiere performances of Howard Shore's Mythic Gardens, a concerto written for her, and Richard Wilson's Concerto for Cello and Mezzo-Soprano with Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra. She has also appeared as soloist with the BBC Concert Orchestra and Keith Lockhart in performances of the Elgar and Haydn C major concertos; performed Saint-Saëns’s La Muse et Le Poete with violinist Miranda Cuckson at the Bard Music Festival; and presented the six Bach Suites in one afternoon at Union College in Schenectady. She can be heard on EMI Classics, Bridge Records (Marlboro Music’s 50th anniversary recording), and on Albany Records, and released a double-CD set of the Bach Cello Suites. Ms. Shao studied at the Curtis Institute with David Soyer and Felix Galimir, and, upon graduating, continued with Aldo Parisot at Yale University, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in Religious Studies from Yale College and a Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music, where she was enrolled as a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow. Ms. Shao is an alum of CMS's Bowers Program, on the faculty of Vassar College, and plays an Honore Derazey cello previously owned by Pablo Casals.

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.

PROGRAM

JOHN Field (1782-1837)
Nocturne No. 2 in C minor for Piano (1812)
Gloria Chien, piano

FRANZ Liszt (1811-1886)
Grand duo concertant sur la romance de ‘Le Marin’ for Violin and Piano (1835)
Benjamin Beilman, violin • Gloria Chien, piano

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
Quartet in C minor for Piano, Violin, Viola, and Cello, Op. 1 (1822)
Allegro vivace
Adagio
Scherzo: Presto
Allegro moderato
Gloria Chien, piano • Sean Lee, violin • Richard O’Neill, viola • Narek Hakhnazaryan, cello

NOTES ON THE PROGRAM

FROM GLORIA CHIEN:

All three works on this program are rarely-performed treasures by composers who greatly admired each other. They were written within a 23-year period. I hope these three pieces will take center stage in more concerts as each is a masterpiece in its own right!

Nocturne No. 2 in C minor for Piano (1812)
John Field (Dublin, 1782 – Moscow, 1837)

John Field is not frequently performed today but he had an outsize influence on early Romantic piano composition and performance. He was born in Dublin, educated in London, and spent most of his career in St. Petersburg, where successful foreign artists were well supported by the nobility. His influence reached across Europe through his many published works and he was acquainted with most of the famous composers of his day. Glinka described Field’s playing, “It seemed that he did not strike the keys but his fingers fell on them as large raindrops and scattered like pearls on velvet.” He is best known for inspiring Chopin to write nocturnes. Though Field didn’t invent the nocturne, he produced 16 of them (plus other short pieces in a similar style) that placed him at the forefront of a shift toward a sensitive new style of piano playing. His first three nocturnes were published in St. Petersburg in 1812 and the second, in C minor, is typical of the form. It’s a simple song with a twist—the interest is not in the melody but rather in the roiling accompaniment and fluid ornamentation, demonstrating the delicately melancholy, understated virtuosity that Field was known for.

FROM GLORIA CHIEN:

Field's Nocturne No. 2 in C minor is an intimate, melancholic, hauntingly beautiful gem. For me, it is like a distant memory too precious to share. It certainly has all the essential elements that make nocturnes such a beloved genre embraced by all the composers.

Grand duo concertant sur la romance de ‘Le Marin’ for Violin and Piano (1835)
Franz Liszt (Raiding, Hungary, Austrian Empire, 1811 – Bayreuth, Germany, 1886)

Liszt was one of the leading virtuoso pianists of the 19^th century. He ushered in the modern age of superstar piano soloists by championing sturdy, loud pianos (as opposed to lighter pianos more appropriate for the music of Field or Chopin) that could fill a hall meant for an entire orchestra. His influence touched nearly every aspect of the craft of piano playing:

“[Liszt] is still the model followed by pianists today,” writes Alan Walker in Grove Music Online. “He was the first to play entire programs from memory; the first to play the full range of the keyboard repertory (as it then existed) from Bach to Chopin; the first consistently to place the piano at right-angles to the stage, so that its open lid reflected the sound across the auditorium; the first to tour Europe from the Pyrenees to the Urals. Even the term ‘recital’ was his.”

Liszt also performed his own works, as well as over a hundred transcriptions, paraphrases, and fantasies on the works of other composers. He sometimes collaborated with other composers, as was the case with Charles Philippe Lafont and Lafont’s ballad Le départ du jeune marin (The Departure of the Young Sailor). This Grand duo is a set of intensely virtuosic variations on Lafont’s song complete with an introduction and coda. Lafont probably helped compose the violin part and the pair premiered the piece on October 1, 1835 in Geneva. Liszt revised the piece in 1849 and published it three years later. As the title implies, the piano doesn’t accompany the violin but is rather a full-fledged partner in this glittering duet.

FROM GLORIA CHIEN:

Liszt's Grand duo is one of the most virtuosic pieces ever written for piano and violin. It is extremely difficult to coordinate and so satisfying when it works. I could not have asked for a better partner than Ben (Beilman). Ben and I have played some devilishly difficult pieces together over the years through CMS including Szymanowski’s Nocturne and Tarantella and this Grand duo. Both of these pieces require total trust in your partner, and Ben was right there with me every step of the way. It was a thrilling experience performing this piece with him on that stage! (And you might have noticed, there was so much momentum at the end that my iPad fell down! Thankfully it was at the home stretch so it was not disastrous, phew!)

Quartet in C minor for Piano, Violin, Viola, and Cello, Op. 1 (1822)
Felix Mendelssohn (Hamburg, 1809 – Leipzig, 1847)

Mendelssohn was a child prodigy. He may have been one of the most impressive musical prodigies who ever lived, maybe even better than Mozart. His young success is all the more remarkable because, unlike many child prodigies, he didn’t come from a musical family. His grandfather was the Enlightenment philosopher Moses Mendelssohn and his father, Abraham, was a successful banker first in Hamburg then Berlin. Also unlike many prodigies, Felix received a first rate general education with a strong grounding in the classics, including reading Shakespeare in German translation. His music education was likewise classically oriented. With his teacher Carl Friedrich Zelter, he studied the music of past great composers like Bach, Mozart, Haydn, and Handel. Zelter also led the Singakademie, which performed sacred vocal works by composers from the 18th century and earlier. Mendelssohn sang in the ensemble beginning at age 11 and was introduced to many older works that were otherwise not publicly performed.

By age 13, Mendelssohn had already written a wide variety of works but he decided to make his public composition debut with this piano quartet. He may have intended it as a tribute to Mozart, who had famously written two of them, or as a way of staying out of Beethoven’s shadow as he didn’t write any mature piano quartets. But in any case, the quartet is incredibly advanced for a composer who was barely a teenager when it was written. In the stormy key of C minor, the first movement begins almost hesitantly in the strings before launching into a full Classical-style sonata form. The second movement, a beautiful chordal ballad, has a fascinating episode where each string instrument enters in turn until the violin comes in on a gorgeously dissonant C-flat. The C minor scherzo features sparkling piano runs around a trio for viola, cello, and piano left hand. The last movement revisits the first movement with the same form and similar first theme, but in a faster, more impetuous tempo to end this remarkable debut by one of the most precocious composers of the 19^th century.

Program notes by Laura Keller, CMS Editorial Manager

FROM GLORIA CHIEN:

Mendelssohn's Piano Quartet in C minor was his first published work at age 13, three years before he wrote his masterful String Octet. The piano takes the lead here and already shows all the great strengths of Mendelssohn's lyricism as in his Songs Without Words as well as his signature scherzo writing that requires the utmost virtuosity and finesse. It is quite a workout for the pianist! Some of it feels like a Mendelssohn piano concerto.

———

I don't remember a time when classical music was not played in my household growing up. My mother is a violinist who played in the Taipei City Symphony and my father is an avid classical music lover. They hoped that my brother and I would become musicians. I remember attending concerts when I was too small to even see the musicians, and I loved going to work with my mother sitting in the orchestra pit during opera productions. It has been quite a journey. And I am happy to say classical music was a way of life back then and I am grateful it still is today!

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Violinist BenjaminBeilman has won praise both for his passionate performances and deep, rich tone which the Washington Post called “mightily impressive,” and the New York Times described as “muscular with a glint of violence.” Highlights of his 2018-19 season included play-directing and curating a program with the Vancouver Symphony; making his debut at the Philharmonie in Cologne with Ensemble Resonanz and with the Munich Chamber Orchestra in Koblenz; performing Four Seasons with the Cincinnati Symphony and Richard Egarr; returning to the City of Birmingham Symphony; and debuting with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Elim Chan. In recital, he was presented by Lincoln Center in New York, Spivey Hall in Atlanta, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and performed Mozart sonatas at Philadelphia’s Perelman Theater and Carnegie Hall with pianist Jeremy Denk. His European recital and chamber music engagements included the Moritzburg Festival, Concertgebouw, and Wigmore Hall for a BBC Radio 3 live broadcast. He released his first disc for Warner Classics in 2016, titled Spectrum and featuring works by Stravinsky, Janácek, and Schubert. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, Mr. Beilman studied with Ida Kavafian and Pamela Frank at the Curtis Institute of Music, and Christian Tetzlaff at the Kronberg Academy. He plays the "Engleman" Stradivarius from 1709 generously on loan from the Nippon Music Foundation.

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, OR. 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.

Since winning the Cello First Prize and Gold Medal at the XIV International Tchaikovsky Competition, NarekHakhnazaryan has performed with most major orchestras and in recital and chamber music across the globe at many of the world’s most prestigious festivals. He has played with orchestras such as the Orchestre de Paris, London Symphony, London Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Frankfurt Radio, Berlin Konzerthaus, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, LA Philharmonic, Baltimore Symphony, Sydney Symphony, Seoul Philharmonic, and NHK Symphony orchestras. A former BBC New Generation Artist, he has performed with all the BBC orchestras and debuted at the BBC Proms. In 2017 the Vienna Konzerthaus invited him to be a “Great Talent” and during the two seasons that followed he performed there regularly in recital, chamber music, and with orchestra. An eager chamber musician, he has performed at most major festivals worldwide and in major halls across Europe with chamber partners including Sergey and Lucine Khachatryan, Benjamin Beilman, Louis Schwizgebel, and Sergey Dogadin as well as the ZEN Trio. Mentored by Rostropovich, he received an Artist Diploma from the New England Conservatory where he studied with Lawrence Lesser. As First Prize winner in the 2008 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, he made his debut in Washington, DC and at Carnegie Hall. Mr. Hakhnazaryan was born in Yerevan, Armenia, and plays the 1707 Joseph Guarneri cello and F.X. Tourte and Benoit Rolland bows.

Violinist Sean Lee has captured the attention of audiences around the world with his lively performances of the classics. A recipient of a 2016 Avery Fisher Career Grant, he is one of few violinists who dares to perform Niccolò Paganini’s 24 Caprices in concert, and his YouTube series, Paganini POV, continues to draw praise for its use of technology in sharing unique perspectives and insight into violin playing. He has performed as a soloist with orchestras including the San Francisco Symphony, Israel Camerata Jerusalem, and Orchestra del Teatro Carlo Felice; and his recital appearances have taken him to Vienna's Konzerthaus, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall. As a season artist at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, he continues to perform regularly at Lincoln Center, as well as on tour. Originally from Los Angeles, Mr. Lee studied with Robert Lipsett of the Colburn Conservatory and legendary violinist Ruggiero Ricci before moving at the age of 17 to study at The Juilliard School with his longtime mentor, violinist Itzhak Perlman. He currently teaches at The Juilliard School’s Pre-College Division, as well as the Perlman Music Program. He performs on a violin originally made for violinist Ruggiero Ricci in 1999 by David Bague.

Violist Richard O’Neill is an Emmy Award winner, two-time Grammy nominee, and Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient. He has appeared with the London, Los Angeles, Seoul, and Euro-Asian philharmonics; the BBC, KBS, Hiroshima and Korean symphonies; the Moscow, Vienna, Württemburg and Zurich chamber orchestras; and Kremerata Baltica and Alte Musik Köln with conductors Andrew Davis, Vladimir Jurowski, François-Xavier Roth, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Highlights of last season include the complete Beethoven string quartet cycle for the Seattle Chamber Music Society with the Ehnes Quartet, and a South Korean recital tour with harp player Emmanuel Ceysson. As a recitalist he has performed at Carnegie Hall, David Geffen Hall, Disney Hall, Kennedy Center, Wigmore Hall, Louvre, Salle Cortot, Madrid’s National Concert Hall, Teatro Colón, Hong Kong’s Cultural Center, Tokyo’s International Forum and Opera City, Osaka Symphony Hall, and LOTTE Concert Hall and Seoul Arts Center. A Universal/DG recording artist, he has made nine solo albums that have sold more than 200,000 copies. His chamber music initiative DITTO has introduced tens of thousands to chamber music in South Korea and Japan. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, he was the first violist to receive the artist diploma from Juilliard and was honored with a Proclamation from the New York City Council for his achievement and contribution to the arts. He serves as Goodwill Ambassador for the Korean Red Cross, the Special Olympics, and UNICEF and runs marathons for charity. He recently joined the Takács Quartet as their new violist.

PROGRAM

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750)
Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G major, BWV 1049 (1720)
Allegro
Andante
Presto
Arnaud Sussmann, violin • Sooyun Kim, flute • Tara Helen O'Connor, flute • Bella Hristova, violin • Francisco Fullana, violin • Richard O'Neill, viola • Dmitri Atapine, cello • Xavier Foley, bass • Hyeyeon Park, piano-harpsichord

ERNEST CHAUSSON (1855-1899)
Concerto in D major for Violin, Piano, and String Quartet, Op. 21 (1889-91)
Décidé—Calme—Animé
Sicilienne: Pas vite
Grave
Très animé
Arnaud Sussmann, violin • Wu Han, piano • Kristin Lee, violin • Yura Lee, violin • Richard O'Neill, viola • Nicholas Canellakis, cello

NOTES ON THE PROGRAM

Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G major, BWV 1049 (1720)
Johann Sebastian Bach (Eisenach, 1685 – Leipzig, 1750)

Though Bach practically defined Baroque music as we know it today, he met with a surprising number of setbacks in his own lifetime. The Brandenburg Concertos were one such unsuccessful attempt for recognition. They were named after Christian Ludwig, the Margrave of Brandenburg, who Bach only met once—in 1719 during a trip to Berlin. The Margrave asked for some of his music but it took two years for Bach to deliver, at which time his employer, Prince Leopold of Cöthen, was having financial difficulties and Bach was probably looking for leads on a new job. Bach gathered six concertos with vastly different instrumentations, made revisions, and sent them to the Margrave. Not only did Bach not get a job, there is no record the Margrave ever listened to them or even acknowledged Bach’s gift. The Brandenburgs remained virtually unknown until the Bach revival of the mid-19^th century.

The Fourth Brandenburg Concerto features a violin and two flutes accompanied by strings (two violins and viola) and continuo (cello, bass, and piano-harpsichord). In the first movement, the flutes take the lead playing the ritornello melody while the violin has virtuosic passages in the episodes. The second movement is a feature for the flutes while the violin alternately accompanies them and joins the string section. The last movement is a series of lively fugal sections separated by episodes of graceful flute collaboration and fiery violin virtuosity.

FROM ARNAUD SUSSMANN:

It’s hard for me to believe that this performance marked the ten-year anniversary of my relationship with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. It was fitting to celebrate with the Brandenburg Concertos of J.S. Bach, as I performed them in my first Alice Tully Hall concert with CMS ten years before. The one-of-a-kind Brandenburgs always sound fresh and vital to me, with their wide assortment of melodies, both lively and stirring, and incredibly varied combinations of solo instruments and sections that bring together a large, diverse cast of artists. I never get tired of studying, rehearsing, and performing these pieces and I so enjoyed sharing the stage with all of the wonderful musicians for this performance.

The "Gould" Piano

You will notice the presence of a concert grand piano on the stage. The “Gould” piano, as we have come to call it, was discovered by us in a marvelous performance, found online, of the great Bach interpreter playing the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto on an instrument modified to combine the sonorities of both harpsichord and modern piano. All of the instruments in this performance have been improved over the ages. Violins made in Bach’s time have been altered to increase projection and widen coloristic palette. Winds and brass have gained the keys and valves that enable accuracy and perfect intonation. We decided last year to add the “Gould” piano to the mix, as we believe it is an excellent complement to the rich sound that CMS has brought to the Alice Tully stage for 50 years.
–David Finckel and Wu Han

FROM ARNAUD SUSSMANN:

From the moment I took my first music lessons, I never really looked back. I left home when I was 14 years old to go study in Lyon, then Paris and finally New York in 2001.

Concerto in D major for Violin, Piano, and String Quartet, Op. 21 (1889-91)
Ernest Chausson (Paris, 1855 – Limay, France, 1899)

Chausson lived at a transitional time in French music history. Wagner’s music was omnipresent in France and Chausson was initially drawn to it (he even honeymooned at Bayreuth) but ultimately rebelled from it. Chausson complained about “the terrible Wagnerian ghost” as he struggled to create distinctly French music. Writing chamber music, which was making a comeback in France after a century of neglect, was a natural way to try to sidestep the influence of Wagner’s massive music dramas. Chausson composed slowly with many doubts along the way, and he wrote this unusual piece over the course of two years while working on his opera Le roi Arthus. It premiered in Brussels on March 4, 1892 under the auspices of Les XX, a group of Belgian visual artists whose yearly exhibition included concerts and lectures. The performers were violinist Eugène Ysayë, pianist Auguste Pierret, and the Crickboom Quartet.

Chausson looked back to the French Baroque, the heyday of French chamber music, for inspiration. He gave this work the French title ‘Concert,’ which was used in the 17^th and 18^th centuries to describe various small ensemble pieces. This work’s unusual instrumentation—violin and piano accompanied by a string quartet—may have been a late Romantic reimagining of the Baroque trio sonata, with two melody instruments and continuo. Chausson simply described the violin and piano parts as “projections against the quartet background.” The first movement is thoroughly modern, dominated by a three-note motive first stated in the opening Décidé section. The emotional intensity is high throughout—it starts elevated and climbs higher with only short respites in the course of the movement. The second movement breaks the tension with a calm Sicilienne, a poised, pastoral Baroque dance form. The third movement, actually the first to be composed, is an ingenious study in chromatics with a descending line in the violin solo and a hauntingly beautiful piano theme. The last movement recalls themes from the previous movements while building to a triumphantly intense finale.

Program notes by Laura Keller, CMS Editorial Manager

FROM ARNAUD SUSSMANN:

My violin was made by Carlo Ferdinando Landolfi around 1760 in Milan, Italy. It has a wonderful provenance, which I learnt about after a gentleman sent me a care package at the Chamber Music Society office a few years ago. 

This instrument was purchased by the great American entrepreneur George Eastman and loaned to David Hochstein, an American virtuoso violinist from Rochester, New York. Hochstein’s life and career were tragically cut short as he was killed in October 1918 during the last major Allied offensive of the Great War.

———

I’ve been teaching at Stony Brook University since 2014. I absolutely love teaching and I think it’s one of the most important and rewarding aspects of being a musician. What I find particularly interesting is the idea that music can really only be passed down from a mentor to a student. No book or recording can convey all the intricacies of music making. My two main teachers were Boris Garlitsky in France and Itzhak Perlman in the USA. One can trace their lineage all the way back to Joseph Joachim (Brahms’ favorite violinist), Giovanni Battista Viotti, Leopold Auer, to name a few. –Arnaud Sussmann

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Dmitri Atapine has been described as a cellist with “brilliant technical chops” (Gramophone), whose playing is “highly impressive throughout” (The Strad). He has appeared on some of the world's foremost stages, including Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing, and the National Auditorium of Spain. An avid chamber musician, he frequently performs with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and is an alum of The Bowers Program. He is a habitual guest at leading festivals, including Music@Menlo, La Musica Sarasota, Pacific, Aldeburgh, Aix-en-Provence, and Nevada. His performances have been broadcast nationally in the US, Europe, and Asia. His many awards include First Prize at the Carlos Prieto Cello Competition, as well as top honors at the Premio Vittorio Gui and Plowman chamber competitions. He has collaborated with such distinguished musicians as Cho-Liang Lin, Paul Neubauer, Ani and Ida Kavafian, Wu Han, Bruno Giuranna, and David Shifrin. His recordings, among them a critically acclaimed world premiere of Lowell Liebermann’s complete works for cello and piano, can be found on the Naxos, Albany, MSR, Urtext Digital, Blue Griffin, and Bridge record labels. He holds a doctorate from the Yale School of Music, where he was a student of Aldo Parisot. Professor of Cello and Department of Music Chair at the University of Nevada, Reno, Mr. Atapine is the artistic director of Apex Concerts and Ribadesella Chamber Music Festival.

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.

Double bassist Xavier Foley is the recipient of a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. He was recently recognized on New York WQXR’s "19 for 19" Artists to Watch list and featured on PBS Thirteen’s NYC-Arts. As a concerto soloist, he has performed with orchestras including the Atlanta Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Nashville Symphony. Also a composer, he was co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall and the Sphinx Organization for a new work entitled For Justice and Peace for Violin, Bass, and String Orchestra, which was performed at Carnegie Hall last season as part of a program designed to promote social justice. Other distinctions include First Prizes at the Young Concert Artists International Auditions, Astral National Auditions, Sphinx’s Competition, and International Society of Bassists Competition. In 2018, he made acclaimed debuts in the Young Concert Artists Series at Merkin Concert Hall and the Kennedy Center. He has also given recitals at New York’s Morgan Library and Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. An active chamber musician, he has been re-engaged to perform on tour and at Alice Tully Hall with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center as a member of CMS’s Bowers Program. A native of Marietta, Georgia, Mr. Foley is an alum of the Perlman Music Program and earned his bachelor’s degree from the Curtis Institute of Music with Edgar Meyer and Hal Robinson. His double bass was crafted by Rumano Solano.

Spanish violinist Francisco Fullana has been praised as a “rising star” (BBC Music Magazine) and “frighteningly awesome” (Buffalo News). His thoughtful virtuosity has led to collaborations with conducting greats like the late Sir Colin Davis, Hans Graf, and Gustavo Dudamel, who described Fullana as “an amazing talent.” Besides his career as a soloist, which includes recent debuts with the Philadelphia and St. Paul Chamber Orchestras and the Buffalo Philharmonic, he is making an impact as an innovative educator. He created the Fortissimo Youth Initiative, a series of seminars and performances in partnership with youth and university orchestras, which explore and deepen young musicians’ understanding of 18th-century music. His first CD, Through the Lens of Time (released by Orchid Classics), showcases both his incandescent virtuosity and the range of his artistic inquisitiveness. The album is centered around Max Richter’s re-composition of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, recorded alongside the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and has been praised by critics as "explosive" (Gramophone) and "electric and virtuosic" (The Strad). He was awarded the 2018 Avery Fisher Career Grant and was a first prize winner of the Johannes Brahms and Angel Munetsugu International Violin Competitions. He is currently a member of The Bowers Program at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. A graduate of The Juilliard School and the University of Southern California, he performs on the 1735 Mary Portman ex-Kreisler Guarneri del Gesù violin, on loan from Clement and Karen Arrison through the Stradivari Society of Chicago.

Acclaimed for her passionate, powerful performances, beautiful sound, and compelling command of her instrument, violinist Bella Hristova’s growing international career includes numerous appearances as soloist with orchestra including performances with the Milwaukee and Kansas City symphonies, and Beethoven’s ten sonatas with acclaimed pianist Michael Houstoun on tour in New Zealand. Last season, she performed ten different works as soloist with orchestra, from Mozart to Sibelius to Bartók, as well as concertos by Florence Price (with the Knoxville Symphony) and David Ludwig (with the Hawaii Symphony and Symphony Tacoma). She has performed at major venues and worked with conductors including Pinchas Zukerman, Jaime Laredo, and Michael Stern. A sought-after chamber musician at festivals, she performs at Australia’s Musica Viva, Music from Angel Fire, Chamber Music Northwest, and the Santa Fe Chamber and Marlboro Music festivals. Her recording Bella Unaccompanied (A.W. Tonegold Records) features works for solo violin by Corigliano, Kevin Puts, Piazzolla, Milstein, and J. S. Bach. She is recipient of a 2013 Avery Fisher Career Grant, first prizes in the Young Concert Artists International Auditions and Michael Hill International Violin Competition, and a laureate of the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. Ms. Hristova attended the Curtis Institute of Music, where she worked with Ida Kavafian and Steven Tenenbom, and received her artist diploma with Jaime Laredo at Indiana University. An alum of CMS's Bowers Program, she plays a 1655 Nicolò Amati violin.

Praised as “a rare virtuoso of the flute” by Libération, Sooyun Kim has established herself as one of the rare flute soloists on the classical music scene. Since her concerto debut with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, she has enjoyed a flourishing career performing with orchestras, including the Bavarian Radio Symphony, Munich Philharmonic, Munich Chamber Orchestra, and Boston Pops. She has been presented in recital in Budapest’s Liszt Hall, Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center, Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, and Kobe’s Bunka Hall. Her European debut recital at the Louvre was streamed live on medici.tv. A winner of the Georg Solti Foundation Career Grant, she has received numerous international awards and prizes including the third prize at the ARD International Flute Competition. Her summer appearances include the Music@Menlo, Spoleto USA, Yellow Barn, Rockport, Olympic, Charlottesville, Ravinia, and Tanglewood festivals. Her special interest in interdisciplinary art has led her to collaborate with many artists, dancers, and museums around the world such as Sol Lewitt, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and Glassmuseet Ebeltoft in Denmark. She choreographed and performed in dance works for Chamber Music Northwest and the Tivoli Dance Troupe in Denmark. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, she studied at the New England Conservatory under the tutelage of Paula Robison. She is currently on the faculty of the Longy School of Music of Bard College and teaches summer courses at Orford Musique. Ms. Kim plays a rare 18-karat gold flute specially made for her by Verne Q. Powell Flutes.

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, KristinLee 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.

Violinist/violist Yura Lee is a multifaceted musician, as a soloist and as a chamber musician, and one of the very few that is equally virtuosic on both violin and viola. She has performed with major orchestras including those of New York, Chicago, Baltimore, Cleveland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. She has given recitals in London’s Wigmore Hall, Vienna’s Musikverein, Salzburg’s Mozarteum, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. At age 12, she became the youngest artist ever to receive the Debut Artist of the Year prize at the Performance Today awards given by National Public Radio. She is the recipient of a 2007 Avery Fisher Career Grant and the first prize winner of the 2013 ARD Competition. She has received numerous other international prizes, including top prizes in the Mozart, Indianapolis, Hannover, Kreisler, Bashmet, and Paganini competitions. Her CD Mozart in Paris, with Reinhard Goebel and the Bayerische Kammerphilharmonie, received the prestigious Diapason d’Or Award. As a chamber musician, she regularly takes part in the festivals of Marlboro, Salzburg, Verbier, and Caramoor. Her main teachers included Dorothy DeLay, Hyo Kang, Miriam Fried, Paul Biss, Thomas Riebl, Ana Chumachenko, and Nobuko Imai. An alum of CMS's Bowers Program, Ms. Lee is on the faculty at the USC Thornton School of Music.

Tara Helen O'Connor is a charismatic performer noted for her artistic depth, brilliant technique, and colorful tone spanning every musical era. Winner of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a two-time Grammy nominee, she was the first wind player to participate in CMS's Bowers Program. A Wm. S. Haynes flute artist, she regularly appears at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Music@Menlo, the Chamber Music Festival of the Bluegrass, Spoleto USA, Chamber Music Northwest, Mainly Mozart Festival, Music from Angel Fire, the Banff Centre, the Great Mountains Music Festival, Chesapeake Music Festival, Rockport Chamber Music Festival in Massachusetts, Bay Chamber Concerts, and the Bravo! Vail Music Festival. She is a newly appointed co-artistic director of the Music from Angel Fire Festival in New Mexico. A much sought-after chamber musician and soloist, she is a founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning New Millennium Ensemble and a member of the woodwind quintet Windscape. She has premiered hundreds of new works and has collaborated with the Orion String Quartet, St. Lawrence Quartet, and Emerson Quartet. She has appeared on A&E's Breakfast with the Arts, Live from Lincoln Center, and has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, EMI Classics, Koch International, CMS Studio Recordings with the Chamber Music Society, and Bridge Records. She is associate professor of flute and coordinator of classical music studies at Purchase College. She is also on the faculty of Bard College and Manhattan School of Music and is a visiting artist at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.

Violist Richard O’Neill is an Emmy Award winner, two-time Grammy nominee, and Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient. He has appeared with the London, Los Angeles, Seoul, and Euro-Asian philharmonics; the BBC, KBS, Hiroshima and Korean symphonies; the Moscow, Vienna, Württemburg and Zurich chamber orchestras; and Kremerata Baltica and Alte Musik Köln with conductors Andrew Davis, Vladimir Jurowski, François-Xavier Roth, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Highlights of last season include the complete Beethoven string quartet cycle for the Seattle Chamber Music Society with the Ehnes Quartet, and a South Korean recital tour with harp player Emmanuel Ceysson. As a recitalist he has performed at Carnegie Hall, David Geffen Hall, Disney Hall, Kennedy Center, Wigmore Hall, Louvre, Salle Cortot, Madrid’s National Concert Hall, Teatro Colón, Hong Kong’s Cultural Center, Tokyo’s International Forum and Opera City, Osaka Symphony Hall, and LOTTE Concert Hall and Seoul Arts Center. A Universal/DG recording artist, he has made nine solo albums that have sold more than 200,000 copies. His chamber music initiative DITTO has introduced tens of thousands to chamber music in South Korea and Japan. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, he was the first violist to receive the artist diploma from Juilliard and was honored with a Proclamation from the New York City Council for his achievement and contribution to the arts. He serves as Goodwill Ambassador for the Korean Red Cross, the Special Olympics, and UNICEF and runs marathons for charity. He recently joined the Takács Quartet as their new violist.

Described as “a pianist with power, precision, and tremendous glee” (Gramophone), pianist HyeyeonPark has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician on major concert stages around the world, performing with orchestras such as the Seoul Philharmonic, KNUA Symphony Orchestra, Incheon Philharmonic, Gangnam Symphony, and Seoul Festival Orchestra, among others. A Seoul Arts Center “Artist of the Year 2012,” she is prizewinner of numerous international competitions, including Oberlin, Ettlingen, Hugo Kauder, Prix Amadèo, and Corpus Christi, and her performances have been broadcast on KBS and EBS television (Korea) and RAI3 (Italy), WQXR (New York), WFMT (Chicago), WBJC (Baltimore), and WETA (Washington, DC). An active chamber musician, she has performed at multiple festivals including Music@Menlo, Chamber Music Northwest, Yellow Barn, and Santander (Spain) and has collaborated with such distinguished musicians as David Shifrin, Cho-Liang Lin, and Ani and Ida Kavafian. She released, among others, a critically acclaimed world-premiere recording of Lowell Liebermann’s works for cello and piano with cellist Dmitri Atapine, and her solo CD Klavier 1853 was released in 2017. Ms. Park holds a doctorate from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, and degrees from Yale School of Music, and Korea National University of Arts. She is artistic director of Apex Concerts (Nevada) and piano professor at the University of Nevada, Reno.

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.

Co-artistic director of the Chamber Music Society, pianist Wu Han is among the most esteemed and influential classical musicians in the world today. She is a recipient of Musical America’s Musician of the Year award and has risen to international prominence through her wide-ranging activities as a concert performer, recording artist, educator, arts administrator, and cultural entrepreneur. In high demand as a recitalist, soloist, and chamber musician, she appears at many of the world’s most prestigious venues and performs extensively as duo partner with cellist David Finckel. Together, they co-founded ArtistLed, classical music’s first musician-directed and Internet-based recording company, whose catalogue has won widespread critical praise. Recent recordings include a set of three Wu Han LIVE albums, a collaborative production between the ArtistLed and Music@Menlo LIVE labels. The latest captures her live performances of Fauré's piano quartets from the festival. Complementing her work as a performing artist, Wu Han’s artistic partnerships bring her in contact with new audiences in the US and abroad: she is Artistic Advisor of The Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts’ Chamber Music at the Barns series and co-founder and artistic director of Music@Menlo Chamber Music Festival and Institute in Silicon Valley. In recognition of her passionate commitment to music education, Montclair State University has appointed her a special artist-in-residence.