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SUNDAY, MARCH 13, 2022 AT 3 PM IMPRESSIONS OF DEBUSSY AND RAVEL BUY TICKETS KRISTIN LEE, VIOLIN NICHOLAS CANELLAKIS, CELLO “Superb young soloist.” — The New Yorker Michael Brown, piano “Fearless performances…one of the leading figures in the current renaissance of performer-composers.” — The New York Times FEATURING ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE BUY TICKETS Impressions of Debussy and Ravel will showcase glittering musical highlights from La Belle Époque. Three of today’s most charismatic young musicians will perform Claude Debussy’s beguiling violin and cello sonatas in alternation with Maurice Ravel’s ravishing duo for violin and cello — his elegy to Debussy — and Ravel’s kaleidoscopic piano trio. PROGRAM Claude Debussy Violin Sonata in G minor, L. 140 Program Notes Maurice Ravel Sonata for Violin and Cello Program Notes Claude Debussy Cello Sonata in D minor, L. 135 Program Notes Maurice Ravel Piano Trio in A minor Program Notes Watch Kristin Lee, Nicholas Canellakis, and Michael Brown perform the first movement of Ravel’s Piano Trio in The Cathedral of Taormina (Sicily):

SUNDAY, MAY 21, 2023 AT 4 PM INSPIRED BY FRIENDSHIP BUY TICKETS MICHAEL PARLOFF, lecturer ALBERT CANO SMIT, PIANO “He established himself as an artist to watch.” — Montreal Gazette ZLATOMIR FUNG, CELLO The first American in four decades and youngest musician ever to win First Prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition Cello Division. KEVIN ZHU, VIOLIN “Awesome Technical Command and Maturity.” — The Strad FEATURING ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE BUY TICKETS Great music has often been inspired by friendships between like-minded artists. In this multimedia event, Artistic Director Michael Parloff will illuminate the relationships that inspired a trio of masterpieces by Brahms, Bartók, and Rachmaninoff to be performed by three of today’s fastest-rising young musicians: violinist Keven Zhu, cellist Zlatomir Fung, and pianist Albert Cano Smit. Preview: In the summer of 1886, the 53-year-old Johannes Brahms fell under the spell of the young contralto Hermine Spies. Inspired by her artistry and beauty, he composed songs for them to perform together at the idyllic Swiss resort of Thun. Later that summer, he wove themes from ‘her’ songs into the fabric of his radiant Violin Sonata No. 2 in A major, Op. 100. Béla Bartók maintained a lifelong friendship with his esteemed violinist colleague Joseph Szigeti. Their fruitful partnership yielded many remarkable works, including Bartók’s First Violin Rhapsody, dedicated to his friend and compatriot Szigeti. At the onset of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s career, the renowned Peter Tchaikovsky was one his most encouraging supporters. When the 53-year-old Tchaikovsky died unexpectedly in 1893, the shocked 20-year-old composer mourned and memorialized his lost mentor in his eloquent Trio élégiaque No. 2, dedicated “In Memory of a Great Artist.” PROGRAM Johannes Brahms Sonata in A, Op. 100 for violin and piano Kevin Zhu, violin; Albert Cano Smit, piano Program Notes Béla Bartók Rhapsody No. 1, Sz 86 for cello and piano Zlatomir Fung, cello; Albert Cano Smit, piano Program Notes Sergei Rachmaninoff Trio élégiaque No. 2 in D minor, Op. 9 Kevin Zhu, violin; Zlatomir Fung, cello; Albert Cano Smit, piano Program Notes Watch Zlatomir Fung play perform Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme: Watch Kevin Zhu play Weiniawski’s Fantasy on Themes from Gounod’s Faust: Watch pianist Albert Cano Smit perform Beethoven’s Sonata No. 17 in D minor, Op. 31 (“Tempest”) at the 2022 Van Cliburn Competition:

SUNDAY, APRIL 3, 2016 AT 3 PM Sir James Galway and Friends BUY TICKETS TIMOTHY COBB, BASS Principal Bass New York Philharmonic SIR JAMES GALWAY, FLUTE “He has a technical mastery so complete that it makes everything look easy… No one in their right mind, or ear, could object to such committed, insightful and lovable performances.” – The Los Angeles Times PAOLO BORDIGNON, HARPSICHORD “Bordignon’s stylings were right on the mark as he amply showed us his fluid technique and mastery of the instrument.” — Salt Lake Tribune MARK HOLLOWAY, VIOLA “Warm and intimacy.” — Neue Zürcher Zeitung DANBI UM, VIOLIN “Danbi Um’s playing is utterly dazzling…a marvelous show of superb technique” — The Strad NICHOLAS CANELLAKIS, CELLO “Superb young soloist.” — The New Yorker BENJAMIN BEILMAN, VIOLIN 2015 “He brought dark chocolate sound and lyricism to his rhapsodic playing and compellingly dispatched the breathless, perpetual-motion finale.” — The New York Times LADY JEANNE GALWAY, FLUTE SEAN LEE, VIOLIN “Breathtakingly beautiful.” — The New York Times YING FANG, SOPRANO “A warm, agile, and appealing voice…a star in the making.” – Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times FEATURING ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE BUY TICKETS he living legend of the flute, Sir James Galway is regarded as both the supreme interpreter of the classical flute repertoire and a consummate entertainer whose appeal crosses all musical boundaries. Through his extensive touring, over 30 million albums sold, and his frequent international television appearances, Sir James has endeared himself to millions worldwide and is a tireless promoter of the arts. Sir James will share his great love of Bach in a special collaboration with nine brilliant young soloists. This concert promises to be unforgettable afternoon of music-making. PROGRAM Johann Sebastian Bach Sonata in E, BWV 1035 for flute and continuo Program Notes Johann Sebastian Bach Jesus soll mein erstes Wort from Cantata 171 for soprano, violin and continuo Program Notes Johann Sebastian Bach Sheep Safely Graze, from Cantata 208 for soprano, two flutes, and continuo Program Notes Johann Sebastian Bach Suite in B minor, BWV 1067 for flute, strings, and continuo Program Notes Johann Sebastian Bach I follow you with Joyful Steps from St. John Passion for soprano, two flutes, and continuo Program Notes Johann Sebastian Bach Adagio and Presto from Sonata in G minor, BWV 1001 for solo violin Program Notes Johann Sebastian Bach Air on the G String (from Suite in D, BWV 1068) for flute, strings, and continuo Program Notes Johann Sebastian Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 4, BWV 1049 for two flutes, solo violin, strings, and continuo Program Notes James Galway - Bach Sonata in E, BMV 1034, Mvt 1 James Galway - Reicha Sinfonia in D for 4 Flutes, Mvt 1 (PCC) James Galway - Bach Badinerie from Suite in B minor

CATHERINE RO, VIOLIN Catherine Ro, violinist in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, has established herself as an active chamber musician, soloist, and recitalist. Her concerts have taken her all around the globe to such countries as Russia, Finland, Lithuania, Spain, France, China, Hong Kong, Japan, and Korea. Ms. Ro made her debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the direction of Esa-Pekka Salonen at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Since then, she has performed with various other orchestras including the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, Palo Alto Philharmonic, Diablo Symphony, Los Angeles Youth Orchestra, and the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra at Tanglewood. In addition, she has performed at Carnegie Hall with the MET Chamber Ensemble under James Levine. Ms. Ro received her Bachelor and Master degrees from the Juilliard School, where she was the recipient of the Gluck Fellowship Award, as well as scholarships from the Starling Foundation and the Dorothy DeLay scholarship, given to one violinist per year. While at Juilliard, she studied with Dorothy DeLay, Masao Kawasaki, and the late Felix Galimir. Ms. Ro was a teaching fellow and assistant to Dorothy DeLay both at the Juilliard School and the Aspen Music Festival. She has also been on the faculty of the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra Chamber Music Workshop. Ms. Ro resides in the New York City area with her husband, violinist David Chan, and their children Annalise, Micah, and Arianna.

FRANK HUANG, VIOLIN Frank Huang joined the New York Philharmonic as Concertmaster, The Charles E. Culpeper Chair, in September 2015. The First Prize Winner of the 2003 Walter W. Naumburg Foundation’s Violin Competition and the 2000 Hannover International Violin Competition, he has established a major career as a violin virtuoso. Since performing with the Houston Symphony in a nationally broadcast concert at the age of 11, he has appeared with orchestras throughout the world including The Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony, NDR Radio Philharmonic Orchestra of Hannover, Amadeus Chamber Orchestra, and the Genoa Orchestra. He has also performed on NPR’s Performance Today, ABC’s Good Morning America, and CNN’s American Morning with Paula Zahn. Recent engagements include his debuts at Wigmore Hall (in London), Salle Cortot (Paris), Kennedy Center (Washington, DC), and the Herbst Theatre (San Francisco), as well as a second recital in Alice Tully Hall (New York), which featured the World Premiere of Donald Martino’s Sonata for Solo Violin. Mr. Huang’s first commercial recording—featuring fantasies by Schubert, Ernst, Schoenberg, and Waxman—was released on Naxos in the fall of 2003. Mr. Huang has had great success in competitions since the age of 15 and received top prize awards in the Premio Paganini International Violin Competition and the Indianapolis International Violin Competition. Other honors include Gold Medal Awards in the Kingsville International Competition, Irving M. Klein International Competition, and D’Angelo International Competition. In addition to his solo career, Mr. Huang is deeply committed to chamber music. He has attended the Marlboro Music Festival, Ravinia’s Steans Institute, Seattle Chamber Music Festival, and Caramoor, and frequently participates in Musicians from Marlboro’s tours. He was also selected by The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center to be a member of the prestigious CMS Two program. Before joining the Houston Symphony, Mr. Huang held the position of first violinist of the Grammy Award-winning Ying Quartet and was a faculty member at the Eastman School of Music. Frank Huang was born in Beijing, China. At the age of seven he moved to Houston, Texas, where he began violin lessons with his mother. He commenced study with Fredell Lack at the University of Houston and at 16 he enrolled in the pre-college program at the Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM) where he studied with Donald Weilerstein. He continued studies with Weilerstein in college and earned his bachelor of music degree from CIM in 2002. He subsequently attended The Juilliard School in New York City, studying violin with Robert Mann, and is an alumnus of the Music Academy of the West, now a partner in the New York Philharmonic Global Academy. Mr. Huang, who began his tenure as concertmaster of the Houston Symphony in 2010, also serves on the faculties of the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University and the University of Houston.

BRUCE ADOLPHE, COMPOSER Composer, author, lecturer, and performer Bruce Adolphe — known to millions of Americans from his public radio show Piano Puzzlers, which has been broadcast weekly on Performance Today, hosted by Fred Child, since 2002 — has created a substantial body of chamber music and orchestral works inspired by science, visual arts, and human rights. Mr. Adolphe has composed several works based on writings by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio: Body Loops (piano and orchestra); Memories of a Possible Future (piano and orchestra); Memories of a Possible Future (piano and string quartet); Self Comes to Mind (solo cello and two percussionists); Obedient Choir of Emotions (chorus and piano); and Musics of Memory (piano, marimba, harp, guitar). Yo-Yo Ma premiered Self Comes to Mind, with a text written by Antonio Damasio especially for the project, in 2009 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Mr. Adolphe’s other science-based music include Einstein’s Light for violin and piano, recorded by Joshua Bell and Marija Stroke on Sony Classical, and his tribute to NASA scientist and astronaut Piers Sellers, I saw how fragile and infinitely precious the world is, which received its world premiere at the Off the Hook Arts Festival in Colorado in 2018 and was performed at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in March, 2019. Among his human rights works are I Will Not Remain Silent for violin and orchestra and Reach Out, Raise Hope, Change Society for chorus, wind quintet, and three percussionists, both recorded on the Naxos/Milken Archive label. Mr. Adolphe is the resident lecturer and director of family concerts for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the author of several books, including Visions and Decisions: Imagination and Technique in Music Composition (Cambridge, 2023); The Mind’s Ear (third edition, 2021, OUP). He contributed the chapter “The Musical Imagination: Mystery and Method in Musical Composition” to the recently published book Secrets of Creativity: What Neuroscience, the Arts, and Our Minds Reveal (OUP, 2019), an anthology of writings by neuroscientists and artists. Mr. Adolphe contributed the chapter “The Sound of Human Rights: Wordless Music that Speaks for Humanity” to The Routledge Guide to Music and Human Rights (2022).

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2022 AT 4 PM WINDS OF THE MET BUY TICKETS ELAINE DOUVAS, OBOE DAVID GOULD, BASSET HORN NATHAN HUGHES, OBOE DEAN LEBLANC, BASSET HORN JESSICA PHILLIPS, CLARINET MARK ROMATZ, BASSOON HUGO VALVERDE, HORN BRAD GEMEINHARDT, FRENCH HORN JOEL NOYES, CELLO EVAN EPIFANIO, BASSOON JAVIER GÁNDARA, HORN BRENDAN KANE, BASS MARON KHOURY, FLUTE ANTON RIST, CLARINET JOHN UPTON, OBOE BRYAN WAGORN, PIANO SETH MORRIS, FLUTE ANNE SCHARER, FRENCH HORN FEATURING ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE BUY TICKETS The inaugural concert of Parlance Chamber Concerts’s 15th season will showcase the brilliant virtuosity of the MET Orchestra’s wind section. The program will highlight the eighteen musicians’s operatically-honed insight into fantasies on themes from Rigoletto and Lucia di Lammermoor, and lyrical music by Amilcare Ponchielli, the composer of La Gioconda. The afternoon will culminate in a performance of Mozart’s sublime ”Gran Partita,” the majestic wind serenade that inspired Peter Shaffer, author of the play Amadeus, to have Mozart’s envious rival, Salieri, sigh, “It seemed to me that I was hearing the voice of God.” PROGRAM Franz & Karl Doppler Rigoletto Fantasie for 2 flutes & piano Seth Morris & Maron Anis Khoury, flutes; Bryan Wagorn, piano Program Notes Henri Brod Duo from Lucia di Lammermoor, Op. 55 for oboe and cello & piano accompaniment Elaine Douvas, oboe; Joel Noyes, cello; Bryan Wagorn, piano Program Notes Amilcare Ponchielli Quartetto for woodwinds & piano accompaniment Seth Morris, flute; Elaine Douvas, oboe; Anton Rist, B-flat clarinet, Jessica Phillips, E-flat clarinet; Bryan Wagorn, piano Program Notes Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Serenade No. 10 in B-flat, K. 361/370a (Gran Partita) Program Notes Watch the Winds of the Met Orchestra perform Mozart’s Serenade No. 10 (“Gran Partita”)

November 20, 2016: Frank Huang, concertmaster; Sheryl Staples, principal associate concertmaster; Cynthia Phelps, viola; Carter Brey; cello ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK (1841-1904) String Quartet No. 12 in F major, B. 179, op. 96, “American” November 20, 2016: Frank Huang, concertmaster; Sheryl Staples, principal associate concertmaster; Cynthia Phelps, viola; Carter Brey; cello Beginning in the fall of 1892 Dvořák served as artistic director and professor of composition at the National Conservatory of Music in America (in New York City) at the urging of the institution’s president, Jeannette Thurber, who offered him twenty-five times the amount he was being paid at the Prague Conservatory. His life in the U.S. was hectic with teaching, public appearances, and engagements as a guest conductor, so he happily accepted an invitation to spend the summer of 1893 relaxing in a small farming community (300 residents) of Czech immigrants in Spillville, Iowa. Overjoyed to be reunited with four of his children who had just arrived from Czechoslovakia with their aunt and a maid, Dvořák traveled to Spillville by train in a party that also included his wife, his two oldest children, and his secretary Josef Jan Kovařík who had grown up there. His delight at being in a rural setting among his countrymen immediately erupted in the composition of his American Quartet, which he sketched in only three days, June 8–10. At the end of the sketch he wrote: “Thanks to the Lord God, I am satisfied, it went quickly. Completed June 10, 1893.” Polishing the score occupied him until June 23, and members of the Kovařík family assisted in trying out the Quartet with the composer himself making his way through the first violin part. The Kneisel Quartet gave the premiere in Boston on New Year’s Day 1894 and in New York on January 12. By far the most popular of Dvořák’s fourteen quartets, the American reflects his aim “to write something really melodious and simple.” As several scholars have pointed out, however, his effortless-sounding result masks remarkable unifying and thematic procedures. The first, second, and fourth movements all begin with an accompanimental backdrop before the main thematic material emerges. The first movement’s viola solo rising confidently over bass pedal and upper-string shimmer specifically brings to mind the opening of another famous Czech string quartet, Smetana’s “From My Life,” which Dvořák knew well. Dvořák chose the “pastoral” key of F major for his work, in which pedals or drones and permeating pentatonic themes (based on five “white-key” notes, F, G, A, C, D) help transmit a rural, “simple” flavor. We should note, too, that these traits relate to American, Slavic, and many other folk traditions. Just one example, however, shows the kind of sophistication at work: the lovely pentatonic melody in the violin that closes the exposition begets the related but altered expressive theme for the cello just after the start of the recapitulation. Many commentators have singled out the nostalgic Lento as the crowning movement of the Quartet, and Dvořák scholar Michael Beckerman has drawn attention to the Schubertian quality of its endless melody. Unfolding in a broad arch that comes to one of chamber music’s most exquisite climaxes, the movement relies primarily on the simple texture of the violin or cello carrying the melody with constant undulating support from the other instruments. Occasionally the second violin joins the first in a melodic role, as at the poignant climax. The final keening of the main theme by the cello against simple repeated chords rather than the former busy accompaniment lends an air of tragedy. Dvořák bases his entire scherzo on the same theme, with a variant serving as the contrasting section, which appears twice. Kovařík suggested that the quiet high violin tune that enters shortly after the opening was inspired by a bird call Dvořák heard outside his home in Spillville. Though the exact species of bird has never been determined beyond question, the most likely candidate is the scarlet tanager. The composer offsets the cheerful main theme of the rondo finale with episodes of more reflective quality. Toward the center, one of these quieter passages suggested to Dvořák scholar John Clapham an occasion when the composer enchanted the St. Wenceslas congregation of Spillville by spontaneously playing the organ during their typically music-less morning mass. The ebullient high spirits cannot be suppressed for long and the movement ends with a plethora of affirmative phrases. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

JERUSALEM STRING QUARTET The Jerusalem Quartet, hailed by The Strad as “one of the young, yet great quartets of our time,” has garnered international acclaim for its rare combination of passion and precision. The ensemble has won audiences the world over, both in concert and on their recordings for the Harmonia Mundi label. They will begin the 2016/17 season with an extensive tour of Australia, followed by two visits to the United States, which include performances in Philadelphia, New York, Houston, Palm Beach, and Cleveland, among a total of 14 cities nationwide. Fall of 2016 will also see Harmonia Mundi’s release of the ensemble’s long-awaited recording of all six of Bartók’s string quartets. The Jerusalem Quartet is a record three-time recipient of BBC Music Magazine’s Chamber Music Award, for their recordings of Mozart (2012), Haydn (2010), and Shostakovich (2007). The quartet’s recording of Schubert’s Death and the Maiden and Quartettsatz in C minor was featured as Editor’s Choice in the July 2008 edition of Gramophone, and was also awarded an ECHO Classic chamber music award in 2009. The Quartet records exclusively for Harmonia Mundi. In 2003, they received the first Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, and were part of the first ever BBC New Generation Artists scheme between 1999 and 2001. The Jerusalem Quartet formed while its members were students at the Jerusalem Conservatory of Music and Dance. They quickly found a shared commitment to the music that has not only endured, but has propelled them to the highest level of performance.

MICHAEL BORISKIN, PIANO Best known as an internationally-active pianist and prolific recording artist, Michael Boriskin has been extensively involved in every aspect of the concert music world, and has been hailed by American Record Guide as “one of the most skilled and versatile musical figures of his generation.” A native New Yorker, he has performed throughout the United States and in over 30 countries. Taking listeners on captivating journeys across four centuries of music, he has appeared at many of the world's foremost concert venues, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the BBC, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Berlin and South West German Radios, and Vienna’s Arnold Schönberg Center. He has also performed as soloist with the Munich and Polish National Radio Orchestras, San Francisco, Utah, and Seattle Symphonies, UNAM Philharmonic of Mexico, and American Composers Orchestra, and as a sought-after chamber music collaborator with the Borromeo, Lark, St. Lawrence, and St. Petersburg String Quartets, Dorian and Arioso Wind Quintets, and New York Philharmonic Ensembles. His innovative broadcast series, CENTURYVIEW, on National Public Radio was heard regularly by over one million listeners on 200 stations coast-to-coast. A prolific recording artist, his large discography ranges from Brahms and Tchaikovsky to the present on labels such as BMG/Conifer, New World, Harmonia Mundi, Bridge, Albany, Koch International, and SONY Classical, which has re-released in Europe his acclaimed recording with Jonathan Sheffer and the EOS Orchestra of Gershwin’s complete works for piano and orchestra. Mr. Boriskin has worked with virtually every major American composer of the past 30 years. He is a frequent guest of major educational institutions for master classes, residencies, workshops, and lectures, and is also an accomplished writer whose work has been published by Schirmer Books, American Record Guide , Symphony , Fanfare , Piano and Keyboard , Clavier , Stagebill (Lincoln Center), Chamber Music , Ballet Review , and other periodicals. He was Music Director for three seasons of Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project, overseeing the musical production and performance of nearly 250 concerts on ten national and international tours. In addition, he has served as artistic advisor or program consultant for many prominent organizations and institutions, including the United States Department of State, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Tisch Center for the Arts at the 92nd Street Y, New Line Cinema, and Columbia University’s Miller Theater, among many others. Michael Boriskin was named Artistic Director of Copland House in 1998, and his title was expanded to include Executive Director in 2003. As Artistic and Executive Director, he works closely with the Board of Trustees to guide the institutional development and administration of Copland House, and formulate and implement all of its programs and operations.

January 19, 2025: THE VIRTUOSO ORGANIST PAUL JACOBS, ORGAN Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 65 January 19, 2025: THE VIRTUOSO ORGANIST PAUL JACOBS, ORGAN One of the most accomplished organists of his day, Mendelssohn had begun studying organ at the age of eleven with August Wilhelm Bach (not a descendent of J. S. Bach). This was in addition to his lessons in piano, violin, drawing, painting, Latin and Greek (and other languages), music theory, and general studies, as well as gymnastics, swimming, horseback riding, dancing, and chess—all of which showed his prodigious talents. A few of Mendelssohn’s great organ highlights include improvising on the St. Paul’s Cathedral organ when he was in London in 1833 to premiere his Italian Symphony and in 1837 completing his three organ Preludes and Fugues, op. 37. He performed organ works by Bach at the Birmingham Festival, when he also premiered his Piano Concerto No. 2 and conducted a performance of his oratorio St. Paul . Then in 1840 he gave a challenging concert of Bach’s organ works at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig to raise funds for a new Bach monument. He also began drafting the pieces that would become the six Organ Sonatas, op 65. He completed the first in F minor on December 28, 1844, and the other five by January 1845. Mendelssohn wrote to the publisher Coventry that he considered these sonatas a “kind of Organ-school” and to Breitkopf & Härtel that they represented his personal way of handling the organ. They are all very representative of his adoration of Bach in their use of chorales and fugues. At the same time, in their varied movements, they show Mendelssohn’s interest in contemporary styles of writing, such as song and Lieder ohne Worte (songs without words), while eschewing the usual sonata forms and also refecting his penchant for improvisation. Sonata No. 1 unfolds in four innovative movements—the first full of contrasts including an exordium for full organ, a fugato over organ pedal point, the calm introduction of the chorale Was mein Gott will, das ich g’scheh allzeit alternating with strains of a fugue, the fugue in mirror inversion, the mirror combined with the original, and finally a return to the chorale. The unusual form may have been inspired by a recitative in the same key in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion (No. 25), in which Jesus’ agitated utterances alternate with a chorale. The second movement sounds like a song without words, the third like a recitative, and the fourth a fantasia-like movement with virtuosic toccata elements that may have arisen in Mendelssohn’s imaginative improvisations at the organ. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

HENRY KRAMER, PIANO Praised by The Cleveland Classical Review for his “astonishingly confident technique” and The New York Times for “thrilling [and] triumphant” performances, pianist Henry Kramer is developing a reputation as a musician of rare sensitivity who combines stylish programming with insightful and exuberant interpretations. In 2016, he garnered international recognition with a Second Prize win in the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels. Most recently, he was awarded a 2019 Avery Fisher Career Grant by Lincoln Center – one of the most coveted honors bestowed on young American soloists. Kramer began playing piano at the relatively late age of 11 in his hometown of Cape Elizabeth, Maine. One day, he found himself entranced by the sound of film melodies as a friend played them on the piano, inspiring him to teach himself on his family’s old upright. His parents enrolled him in lessons shortly thereafter, and within weeks, he was playing Chopin and Mozart. Henry emerged as a winner in the National Chopin Competition in 2010, the Montreal International Competition in 2011 and the China Shanghai International Piano Competition in 2012. In 2014 he was added to the roster of Astral Artists, an organization that annually selects a handful of rising stars among strings, piano, woodwinds and voice candidates. The following year, he earned a top prize in the Honens International Piano Competition. Kramer has performed “stunning” solo recital debuts, most notably at Alice Tully Hall as the recipient of the Juilliard School’s William Petschek Award, as well as at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. At his Philadelphia debut, Peter Dobrin of The Philadelphia Inquirer remarked, “the 31-year-old pianist personalized interpretations to such a degree that works emerged anew. He is a big personality.” A versatile performer, Kramer has been featured as soloist with orchestras around the world, including the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra, Belgian National Orchestra, Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, Hartford Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony and the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestras, among many others, collaborating with conductors such as Marin Alsop, Gerard Schwarz, Stéphane Denève, Jan Pascal Tortelier and Hans Graf. He has also performed recitals in cities such as Washington (Phillips Collection), Durham (St. Stephens), Hilton Head (BravoPiano! festival), and Seattle (Emerald City Music and the Seattle Series) and made summer appearances at the Anchorage, Lakes Area, Rockport, and Vivo music festivals. Appearances in the 2022-23 season include a debut with New York's Salon Séance, recitals with Newport Classical, Ravinia, Toronto's Koerner Hall, Vancouver Chamber Music Society, and additional appearances in Seattle, Chicago, Detroit, Ithaca, and Montreal. Highlights of the current season include performances with the Adrian Symphony and Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, a return to the Phillips Collection, further appearances with Salon Séance, and recital debuts with Cecilia Concerts in Halifax, Chapelle Historique du Bon-Pasteur in Montréal, Bargemusic, Northwestern University’s Winter Chamber Music Festival, and Music Mountain Summer Festival together with the Borromeo String Quartet. His love for the chamber music repertoire began early in his studies while a young teenager. A sought-after collaborator, he has appeared in recitals at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Mainly Mozart Festival, the Mostly Mozart Festival, and La Jolla Music Society’s Summerfest. His recording with violinist Jiyoon Lee on the Champs Hill label received four stars from BBC Music Magazine. This year, Gramophone UK praised Kramer’s performance on a recording collaboration (Cedille Records) with violist Matthew Lipman for “exemplary flexible partnership.” Henry has also performed alongside Emmanuel Pahud, the Calidore and Pacifica Quartets, Miriam Fried, as well as members of the Berlin Philharmonic and Orchestra of St. Luke’s. Teaching ranks among his greatest joys. In the fall of 2022, Kramer joined the music faculty of Université de Montréal. Previously, he served as the L. Rexford Whiddon Distinguished Chair in Piano at the Schwob School of Music at Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia. Throughout his multifaceted career, he also held positions at Smith College and the University of Missouri Kansas City Conservatory of Dance and Music. Kramer graduated from the Juilliard School, where he worked with Julian Martin and Robert McDonald. He received his Doctorate of Musical Arts from the Yale School of Music under the guidance of Boris Berman. His teachers trace a pedagogical lineage extending back to Beethoven, Chopin and Busoni. Kramer is a Steinway Artist.