CONCERTS
ESCHER QUARTET
September 28, 2026 | 7:30pm
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ESCHER QUARTET
Adam Barnett-Hart & Bryan Lee, violins
Pierre Lapointe, viola
Brook Speltz, cello
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The Escher String Quartet has received acclaim for its profound musical insight and rare tonal beauty. A former BBC New Generation Artist and recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, the quartet has performed at the BBC Proms at Cadogan Hall and is a regular guest at Wigmore Hall. In its home town of New York, the ensemble serves as season artists of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
Highlights of the 205-2026 season find the Escher Quartet performing in many of the great venues and organizations in the United States, including Alice Tully Hall, The Morgan Library, Ensemble Music Society Indianapolis, Buffalo Chamber Music Society, Arte Musica Montreal, Clark Library Los Angeles, and the Savannah Music Festival, among others. In addition to their North American engagements, the quartet returns once again to Wigmore Hall for a BBC live broadcast recital as well as other engagements in Germany and continental Europe.
The Escher Quartet has made a distinctive impression throughout Europe, with recent debuts including the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Berlin Konzerthaus, London’s Kings Place, Slovenian Philharmonic Hall, Les Grands Interprètes Geneva, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and Auditorium du Louvre. The group has appeared at festivals such as the Heidelberg Spring Festival, Budapest’s Franz Liszt Academy, Dublin’s Great Music in Irish Houses, the Risør Chamber Music Festival in Norway, the Hong Kong International Chamber Music Festival, and the Perth International Arts Festival in Australia. Alongside its growing European profile, the Escher Quartet continues to flourish in its home country, performing at the Aspen Music Festival, Bravo! Vail, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Bowdoin Music Festival, Toronto Summer Music, Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, OKM Festival, Chamber Music San Francisco, Music@Menlo, and the Ravinia and Caramoor festivals.
The Escher Quartet achieved critical success last season in their performances of the entire cycle of string quartets by Bela Bartok in single concert format, both at Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Their Bartok project was featured in the New Yorker in a substantial report by Alex Ross. Recently, the Escher quartet has had successful releases of multiple albums -including string quartets by Pierre Jalbert and the Escher’s studio recording of the complete Janacek quartets and Pavel Haas quartet no. 2 with multi award winning percussionist Colin Currie (BIS Label). Recordings of the complete Mendelssohn quartets and beloved romantic quartets of Dvorak, Borodin and Tchaikovsky were released on the BIS label in 2015-18 and received with the highest critical acclaim, with comments such as “...eloquent, full-blooded playing... The four players offer a beautiful blend of individuality and accord” (BBC Music Magazine). In 2019, DANCE, an album of quintet’s with Grammy award winning guitarist Jason Vieaux, was enthusiastically received. In 2021, the Escher’s recording of the complete quartets of Charles Ives and Samuel Barber was met with equal excitement, including “A fascinating snapshot of American quartets, with a recording that is brilliantly detailed, this is a first-rate release all around” (Strad Magazine). The quartet has also recorded the complete Zemlinsky String Quartets in two volumes, released on the Naxos label in 2013 and 2014.
Beyond the concert hall, the Escher Quartet is proud to announce the creation of a new non profit, ESQYRE (Escher String Quartet Youth Residency Education). ESQYRE’s mission as a non-profit classical music organization is to provide a comprehensive educational program through music performance and instruction for people of all ages. In addition to their non-profit work, the quartet has also held faculty positions at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX and the Univerity of Akron, OH.
Within months of its inception in 2005, the ensemble came to the attention of key musical figures worldwide. Championed by the Emerson Quartet, the Escher Quartet was invited by both Pinchas Zukerman and Itzhak Perlman to be Quartet in Residence at each artist's summer festival: the Young Artists Program at Canada’s National Arts Centre; and the Perlman Chamber Music Program on Shelter Island, NY.
The Escher Quartet takes its name from the Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher, inspired by Escher’s method of interplay between individual components working together to form a whole.
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: String Quartet No. 15 in D Minor, K. 421
Sergei Prokofiev: String Quartet No. 2 in F Major, Op. 92
Antonín Dvořák: String Quartet No. 13 in G Major, Op. 106
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RICHARD GOODE, piano
November 16, 2026 | 7:30pm
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RICHARD GOODE, piano
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Richard Goode has been hailed for music-making of tremendous emotional power, depth and expressiveness, and has been acknowledged worldwide as one of today’s leading interpreters of Classical and Romantic music. In regular performances with the major orchestras, recitals in the world’s music capitals, masterclasses in person or online, and through his extensive and acclaimed Nonesuch recordings, he has won a large and devoted following.
An exclusive Nonesuch recording artist, Goode has made more than two dozen recordings over the years, ranging from solo and chamber works to lieder and concertos. His 10-CD set of the complete Beethoven sonatas cycle, the first-ever by an American-born pianist, was nominated for a Grammy and has been ranked among the most distinguished recordings of this repertoire. Other recording highlights include Mozart piano concerti with Orpheus, with whom he launched the 2021 season at New York's 92nd St Y.
A native of New York, Richard Goode studied at the Mannes College of Music and the Curtis Institute. His numerous prizes over the years include the Young Concert Artists Award, First Prize in the Clara Haskil Competition, the Avery Fisher Prize, and a Grammy award for the Brahms Sonatas recorded with clarinetist Richard Stoltzman.
Mr. Goode served, together with Mitsuko Uchida, as co-Artistic Director of the Marlboro Music School and Festival in Marlboro, Vermont from 1999 through 2013. Participating initially at the age of 14, at what the New Yorker magazine recently described as "the classical world's most coveted retreat," he made a notable contribution to this unique community over the 28 summers he spent there. In Fall 2021, Mr. Goode joined the Peabody Conservatory as Distinguished Artist Faculty. For the 2025-26 season, Mr. Goode joins The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra as its newest Artistic Partner.
He is married to the violinist Marcia Weinfeld, and, when the Goodes are not on tour, they and their collection of some 5,000 volumes live in New York City.
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 8 in A Minor, K. 310
Carlo Gesualdo: ‘O Vos Omnes’, from Sacred Cantiones for 5 Voices, Book 1
William Byrd: Selections from ‘From My Ladye Nevells Booke’
Jean-Philippe Rameau: The Assembly of the Birds & The Indiscreet One
Christoph Willibald Gluck: Melody, from Orfeo and Eurydice (transc. by G. Sgambati)
Georges Bizet: Adagietto, from L’Arlesienne (transc. by L. Godowsky)
Ignacy Jan Paderewski: Legende, Op. 16, No. 1
Franz Schubert: Ungarische Melodie, D.817
Leoš Janáček: Dobrou Noc! (Good Night!) from On an Overgrown Path
Franz Schubert: Sonata in B-flat Major, D.960
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This concert will take place in Stern Chapel at Temple Emanu-El 8500 Hillcrest Road, Dallas, TX 75225
WITH GUEST MASUMI ROSTAD, VIOLA
HORSZOWSKI TRIO
December 7, 2026 | 7:30pm
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HORSZOWSKI TRIO
Jesse Mills, violin
Ole Akahoshi, cello
Rieko Aizawa, piano
- with guest artist Masumi Rostad, viola
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Giving performances that are “lithe, persuasive” (The New York Times), “eloquent and enthralling” (The Boston Globe), and described as “the most compelling American group to come on the scene” (The New Yorker), the Horszowski Trio has quickly become a vital force in the international chamber music world. Since their debut performance in New York City in 2011, they have toured extensively throughout North America, Europe, the Far East, and India, traversing the extensive oeuvre of traditional piano trio repertoire and introducing audiences to new music that they have commissioned and premiered.
They have performed at the 92nd Street Y in New York City; the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia; Schubert Club in Saint Paul, Minnesota; Spivey Hall in Atlanta; Bowdoin Music Festival in Maine; UCLA in Los Angeles; venues in Boston, San Francisco, and Canada; London’s Wigmore Hall; at Dresden’s Moritzburg Festival and throughout Germany; and on several tours in Japan. Their recording of the complete piano trios by Robert Schumann on AVIE Records has received tremendous acclaim: “great care and affection” (BBC Radio); “intoxicating” (Gramophone); “exciting and deeply felt” (Strings); “fresh, supple and fantastic” (The Strad).
The Trio takes its inspiration from the musicianship, integrity, and humanity of the pre-eminent pianist Mieczysław Horszowski (1892–1993); the ensemble’s pianist, Rieko Aizawa, was Horszowski’s last pupil at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. Described as “power players” by the Los Angeles Times, the Horszowski Trio’s repertoire includes works by many of the composers with whom Maestro Horszowski had personal interaction, including Gabriel Fauré, Enrique Granados, Bohuslav Martinů, Maurice Ravel, Camille Saint-Saëns and Heitor Villa-Lobos. The Horszowski Trio’s debut recording – an album of works by Gabriel Fauré, Camille Saint-Saëns, and Vincent d’Indy on the Bridge label – was released in 2014 and dedicated to the memory of Mieczysław Horszowski. Gramophone praised the “exemplary performance” of the “highly accomplished group,” concluding, “I long to hear more of the Horszowski Trio.”
The ensemble has performed the complete cycles of piano trios by Ludwig van Beethoven, Robert Schumann, and Johannes Brahms. They also actively cultivate hidden treasures from the repertoire, works by Arno Babajanyan, Leonard Bernstein, Vincent d’Indy, Arthur Foote, Germaine Tailleferre, and Morton Feldman. The Horszowski Trio is a passionate advocate for the music of our time. The Trio has premiered, commissioned, championed, and recording works of a wide range of composers including Derek Bermel, Kenji Bunch, Paul Chihara, Morton Feldman, David Fulmer, Daron Hagen, John Harbison, Louis Karchin, Eric Moe, Andreia Pinto-Correia, Joan Tower, Charles Wuorinen. They will premiere Wuorinen’s Piano Trio No. 2, written for them, at the Library of Congress in April 2025. The Trio’s violinist Jesse Mills, a two-time Grammy nominee who is also a composer and arranger, wrote Painted Shadow for the ensemble; the work was commissioned by and premiered at Bargemusic in Brooklyn, New York in January 2015.
The Horszowski Trio enjoys opportunities to expand its chamber music horizons through collaborations, having worked with such musicians as Aaron Boyd (from the Escher Quartet), Kikuei Ikeda (Tokyo Quartet), Masumi Per Rostad (Pacifica Quartet), Phillip Ying (Ying Quartet), and Roberto Diaz.
The Horszowski Trio is based in New York City. It is the Ensemble-in-Residence at the Longy School of Music of Bard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and of the Leschetizky Association in New York City.
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Masumi Rostad, viola
Praised for his “burnished sound” (The New York Times) and described as an “electrifying, poetic, and sensitive musician,” the Grammy Award-winning, Japanese-Norwegian violist Masumi Rostad hails from the gritty East Village of New York City. He was raised in an artist loft converted from a garage with a 1957 Chevy Belair as the remnant centerpiece in his family’s living room. Masumi began his studies at the nearby Third Street Music School Settlement at age three and has gone on to become one of the most in demand soloists, chamber musicians, and teachers. In addition to maintaining an active performance schedule, he serves on the faculty of the prestigious Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY.
Recent performance highlights include concerto performances with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, and The Knights. Festival appearances include La Jolla SummerFest, Marlboro, Caramoor, Bowdoin, Aspen Music Festival, Beare’s Premiere Performances in Hong Kong, Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, Spoleto USA, Music@Menlo, and Music In the Vineyards. In 2025, he performed an all-Shostakovich program with pianist Evgeny Kissin and the Kopelman Quartet at Carnegie Hall and the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra Piano Festival. His guest violist collaborations include programs with the Miró, Ying, Pavel Haas, Verona, St. Lawrence, and Emerson String Quartets, as well as with the Horszowski Trio. He toured and recorded extensively as a former member of the International Sejong Soloists. Masumi can be heard on the Cedille, Naxos, Hyperion, Musical Observations, Bridge, and Tzadik record labels.
Masumi recently commissioned his childhood friend Jessie Montgomery to compose a Viola Concerto based on the experience they shared of growing up in NYC. The world premiere of L.E.S. Characters took place in October 2021 with Masumi as soloist with the Orlando Philharmonic. He has previously appeared as soloist with the Virginia Symphony, Juilliard Orchestra, New York Youth Symphony, and Sinfonia da Camera among others.
As a member of the Pacifica Quartet for almost two decades (2001-2017), Masumi regularly performed in the world’s greatest halls including Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, Sydney’s City Hall, New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, Vienna’s Konzerthaus and Musikverein, Munich’s Herkuleshaal, Paris’ Louvre and Cité de la Musique, and Berlin’s Konzerthaus among many others. During Masumi’s tenure with the Quartet, the ensemble was awarded the coveted Cleveland Quartet Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and it was named Musical America’s 2009 Ensemble of the Year.
Masumi is an ardent advocate for the arts, and often sought after as a contributing writer to such publications as the Huffington Post, Strings and Gramophone magazines as well as The Guardian. He also actively maintains a YouTube channel where he regularly publishes videos covering a variety of musical topics. He produces a video series called Sound Post, released in conjunction with The Violin Channel, which are interviews with his friends and colleagues about their instruments.
Passionate about breaking down barriers that prevent people from enjoying Classical music, Masumi was the founder of DoCha, a chamber music festival in Champaign, Illinois that produced innovative events with a focus on engaging new audiences through fun and inventive programming. DoCha-hosted events featured unique collaborations between members of the University and multi-genre presentations from Classical chamber music to contemporary dance, the spoken word, and much more. All programs were free of charge and took place at a beautiful former community Opera House. Other activities of DoCha included performances for elementary school students as well as master classes, competitions and performance opportunities for local music students.
Masumi has served on the faculties of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, the University of Chicago, Longy School of Music, University of Toronto, and Northwestern University. Appointed to the Viola Faculty of Eastman School of Music in 2017, he was elected and served two terms as the first, and only, chair of the University of Rochester Faculty Senate to come from Eastman. He has given master classes at the Colburn School, Cleveland Institute of Music, Music@Menlo, the Aspen Music Festival, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Interlochen and San Francisco Conservatory among many others.
He received his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Juilliard School where he studied with legendary violist and pedagogue Karen Tuttle from the age of 17 and became her teaching assistant just three years later at the age of 20. At Juilliard, he was awarded the Lillian Fuchs Award for the most outstanding graduating violist. He also won the Juilliard School Concerto Competition and performed the world premiere of Michael White’s Viola Concerto in Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, with conductor James DePreist. That same year, he gave the New York premiere of Paul Schoenfield’s Viola Concerto with the Juilliard Symphony to critical acclaim. In 2008 he was awarded the Rising Star Award by the Third Street Music School Settlement for his musical achievements.
Masumi is a D’Addario Artist and has used their strings since 1999. His Brothers Amati viola was crafted in Cremona, Italy in 1619.
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Bedřich Smetana: Piano Trio in G Minor, Op. 15
Arnold Schoenberg: Six Little Piano Pieces, Op. 19 (arranged for piano trio by R. Aizawa)
Robert Schumann: Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 47
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All our performances take place in Caruth Auditorium at Southern Methodist University
7:30pm | Performance
6:45pm | Pre-concert lecture
PAUL NEUBAUER, viola
ORION WEISS, piano
February 1, 2027 | 7:30pm
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PAUL NEUBAUER, viola
Violist Paul Neubauer’s exceptional musicality and effortless playing have earned him praise as “a master musician” from The New York Times. In the summer of 2026, he will premiere a new Viola Concerto by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich with conductor JoAnn Falletta at the Brevard Music Center. In 2025, he released two albums for First Hand Records, each presenting the final works of two great composers: an all-Bartók album, which includes the revised version of the Viola Concerto, and a Shostakovich album, featuring the monumental Viola Sonata.
At age 21, Mr. Neubauer was appointed principal violist of the New York Philharmonic, a position he held for six years. He has since appeared as a soloist with over 100 orchestras, including the New York, Los Angeles, and Helsinki Philharmonics; the Chicago, National, St. Louis, Detroit, Dallas, San Francisco, and Bournemouth Symphonies; and the Mariinsky, Santa Cecilia, English Chamber, and Beethovenhalle Orchestras. He has also premiered viola concertos by Béla Bartók (revised version of the Viola Concerto), Reinhold Glière, Gordon Jacob, Henri Lazarof, Robert Suter, Joel Phillip Friedman, Aaron Jay Kernis, Detlev Müller-Siemens, David Ott, Krzysztof Penderecki, Tobias Picker, and Joan Tower.
In addition to his solo career, Mr. Neubauer performs with SPA, a trio with soprano Susanna Phillips and pianist Anne-Marie McDermott, exploring a wide range of repertoire, including salon-style songs. He has been featured on CBS's Sunday Morning, A Prairie Home Companion, and in Strad, Strings, and People magazines. A two-time Grammy nominee, he has recorded for numerous labels, including Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, RCA Red Seal, and Sony Classical.
Mr. Neubauer is a frequent performer with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and serves as the artistic director of the Mostly Music series in New Jersey. He is on the faculty of The Juilliard School and Mannes College.
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ORION WEISS, piano
One of the most sought-after soloists and chamber music collaborators of his generation, Orion Weiss is widely regarded as a “brilliant pianist” (The New York Times) with “powerful technique and exceptional insight” (The Washington Post). With a warmth to his playing that outwardly reflects his engaging personality, Weiss’s “delicate, even fingerwork” (Washington Classical Review) and “head-spinning range of colors” (Chicago Tribune) have dazzled audiences around the world. He has performed with all of the major orchestras of North America, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the New York Philharmonic.
In February of 2025, Weiss released Arc III, the final album in his recital trilogy, on First Hand Records. Weiss’s 24-25 performance schedule includes engagements with violinist James Ehnes, who joins Weiss for a return to London’s Wigmore Hall and for performances of the complete Beethoven Violin Sonatas in Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, and Seattle. Among numerous engagements with U.S. orchestras, Weiss makes his David Geffen Hall debut in New York with the American Symphony Orchestra. He performs Bach's Goldberg Variations at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and Newport Classical in Rhode Island, among other recitals. He is featured in performances at Italy’s Teatro Marrucino Biglietteria and in the Great Artists Series at Washington University in St. Louis, on a tour with Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and at LaMusica Chamber Music Festival in Sarasota, Florida. Weiss also tours Japan, playing the complete Brahms Violin Sonatas with Akiko Suwanai and performs the complete Grieg Sonatas with James Ehnes in Bergen, Norway. Over the last year, Weiss made his return to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, led by Michael Tilson Thomas, and debuted with the National Symphony Orchestra, led by Ken-David Masur. He also toured the United States and Asia with violinist Augustin Hadelich and performed at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music, and Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall.
Known for his affinity for chamber music, Weiss performs regularly with Augustin Hadelich, as well as fellow violinists William Hagen and James Ehnes; pianists Michael Brown and Shai Wosner; and the Ariel, Parker, and Pacifica Quartets. As a recitalist and chamber musician, Weiss has appeared at venues and festivals including the Ravinia Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, Tanglewood, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the Mariinsky Theatre (St. Petersburg), the Edinburgh International Festival, the Schubert Club, Hong Kong Premiere Performances, Seattle Chamber Music Festival, the Lucerne Festival, Denver Friends of Chamber Music, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center’s Fortas Series, the 92nd Street Y, and at summer music festivals including Bard, Santa Fe, Bridgehampton, Bravo! Vail, Sunriver, and Grand Teton, among many others.
Other highlights from Weiss’s recent seasons include a live-stream with the Minnesota Orchestra; a performance of Beethoven's Triple Concerto with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; the release of his recording of Christopher Rouse’s Seeing, the first two installments of his critically acclaimed Arc recital trilogy; a recording of Korngold’s Left Hand concerto and other works with Leon Botstein and TON; and recordings of Gershwin’s complete works for piano and orchestra with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and JoAnn Falletta.
Weiss can be heard on the Naxos, Telos, Bridge, First Hand, Yarlung, and Artek labels on recordings such as The Piano Protagonists with The Orchestra Now, led by Leon Botstein; a disc of Scarlatti Sonatas for Naxos; a solo recital disc of Bartók, Dvorák, and Prokofiev; Brahms Sonatas with violinist Arnaud Sussmann; a solo recital album of J.S. Bach, Scriabin, Mozart, and Carter; and a recital disc with cellist Julie Albers. In March 2022, First Hand Records released the first album of Weiss’s Arc Trilogy – Arc I: Granados, Janáček, Scriabin – a recording exploring the omens and tension of the period preceding World War I. Gramophone Magazine praised the album as “expansive, colorful, and texturally varied.” Arc II, featuring the music of Ravel, Brahms, and Shostakovich, was released in November 2022. Arc III, featuring works by Brahms, Schubert, Debussy, Dohnányi, Ligeti, and Talma, was released in February 2025 and called a “a worthy successor to the distinguished predecessors” by Gramophone. Over recent years, Weiss has also raised his profile through video, assembling a broad and growing YouTube videography that includes Bach’s Goldberg Variations, the Op. 39 Rachmaninoff etudes, and Grieg’s Lyric Pieces, among many others.
In the summer of 2011, Weiss made his debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood as a last-minute replacement for Leon Fleisher. In recent seasons, he has also performed with the San Francisco Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and in summer concerts with the New York Philharmonic at both Lincoln Center and the Bravo! Vail Valley Festival. In 2005, he toured Israel with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Itzhak Perlman.
Weiss’s list of awards includes the Classical Recording Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year, Gilmore Young Artist Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Gina Bachauer Scholarship at The Juilliard School, and the Mieczyslaw Munz Scholarship. He won the 2005 William Petschek Recital Award at Juilliard and made his New York recital debut at Alice Tully Hall that April. Also in 2005, Weiss made his European debut in a recital at the Musée du Louvre in Paris. From 2002-2004, he was a member of Lincoln Center’s The Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two). A native of Lyndhurst, Ohio, Weiss attended the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Young Artist Program through high school, where he studied with Paul Schenly, Daniel Shapiro, and Sergei Babayan. His other teachers include Joseph Kalichstein, Jerome Lowenthal, Kathryn Brown, and Edith Reed. In February 1999, Weiss made his Cleveland Orchestra debut performing Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1. The next month, with less than 24 hours notice, Weiss stepped in to replace André Watts for a performance of Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and was immediately invited to return for a performance of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto that October. In 2004, he graduated from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Emanuel Ax.
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Benjamin Dale: Romance from Suite for Viola and Piano
Felix Mendelssohn: Trio for Piano and Strings in C Minor, Op. 66 (arr. for viola by P. Neubauer)
Joseph Joachim: Hebrew Melodies (on Poems of Byron) for Viola and Piano, Op. 9
Maurice Ravel: Kaddish for Viola and Piano (arr. for viola by P. Neubauer)
William Wolstenholme: Allegretto & Canzona for Viola and Piano
Americana: ‘I’m just a-goin’ over Jordan’ for Viola and Pianol (arr. for viola by P. Doktor)
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: ‘Deep River’ & ‘Shenandoah’ for Viola and Piano (arr. by Maud Powell, and for viola by P. Neubauer & P. Doktor)
Georges Boulander: ‘American Vision’ for Viola and Piano (arr. for viola by P. Neubauer)
Francis Casadesus: Romance Provençale and Danse for Viola and Piano
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26/27 NEXT GEN ARTISTS
BALOURDET QUARTET
March 8, 2027 | 7:30pm
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BALOURDET QUARTET
Angela Bae & Justin DeFilippis, violins
Benjamin Zannoni, viola
Russell Houston, cello
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The Balourdet Quartet is acclaimed for their vibrant energy and masterful blend of technical precision and emotional depth that brings a fresh perspective to both beloved classics and modern compositions. Its unique closeness and willingness to take creative risks earned it the 2024 Avery Fisher Career Grant, as well as Chamber Music America’s 2024 Cleveland Quartet Award. With more than 70 concerts per season, recent highlights include the Balourdet’s debuts at Carnegie and Wigmore Halls, and new string quartets by composers Karim Al-Zand, Paul Novak, and Nicky Sohn through grants from Chamber Music America (2021) and the Barlow Foundation (2023). They have recently been named the first ever Quartet-in-Residence at the Seattle Chamber Music Society and have recently completed residencies at Indiana University and the New England Conservatory’s Professional String Quartet Program.
Highlights of the 2025-26 season include performances at Carnegie Hall, the Freer Gallery at the Smithsonian, Boston’s Celebrity Series in Jordan Hall, and Chamber Music Houston. Recently, they have performed at the Kennedy Center, Buffalo Chamber Music, the Chamber Music Society of Detroit, and La Jolla Music Society and Rockport Music. Collaborations include violinist James Ehnes, pianists Marc-André Hamelin and Simone Dinnerstein, cellists Zuill Bailey and Astrid Schween, violist Jordan Bak, and the Dover, Pacifica, and Ying Quartets. They continue their position as String Quartet in Residence with the Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle in North Carolina where they curate the Up Close Chamber Music Series, serve as principals in the orchestra, and engage with the larger community of the Triangle region. Most recently, the Balourdet received the Chamber Music Award from the National Federation of Music Clubs for the 25-26 season and are winners of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music’s 2025 Innovation Competition for their educational initiative Expedition Strings.
Committed to sharing their musical values with the next generation, the quartet has served regularly as faculty at the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, JDR Summer Music Academy, Berkshire Summer Music, and Opus Chamber Music. They have also given masterclasses and coachings at Northwestern University, University of Michigan, Rice University, Emory University, New England Conservatory Preparatory Department, Fischoff Chamber Music Academy, Upper Valley Chamber Music, and Wright State University.
The Balourdet journey began in 2018 in the mountains of New Mexico at the Taos School of Music, where violinists Justin DeFilippis, Angela Bae, and cellist Russell Houston first bonded as friends over long evenings of chamber music, luxurious Peppermint Schnapps and extravagant meals created by chef extraordinaire Antoine Balourdet, a renaissance man with an exceptional love of life and music. It was the friendships, a shared passion for music and food, and gratitude for the role the festival played in the formation of the quartet, that inspired the members to name the ensemble in Chef Balourdet’s honor.
Soon thereafter, in the heat of a waning Texas summer, Justin, Angela, and Russell joined with violist Benjamin Zannoni at Rice University, and the Balourdet Quartet was formed. Inspired by their love for the repertoire and the excitement of having found each other, the four friends found themselves playing quartets late into the night for fun. After having been together for only one year at Rice University, and a summer at the Aspen Music Festival, they took second prize at the Nielsen International String Quartet Competition, and were selected as the only quartet admitted to Boston’s historic New England Conservatory Professional String Quartet Program under the tutelage of Cleveland Quartet cellist Paul Katz.
In 2021, the Quartet won the Grand Prize at New York’s Concert Artists Guild Competition, which included joint management by Concert Artists Guild in the U.S., and Young Classical Artist’s Trust (YCAT) in the UK and Europe. In addition, the Balourdet has been prizewinners in Canada’s Banff International String Quartet Competition, the International Premio Paolo Borciani Competition in Italy, Gold Medal winners at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, and Gold Medal and Audience Prizewinners at the Yellow Springs Competition. -
Franz Schubert: Quartettsatz, D. 703
Amy Beach: String Quartet in One Movement, Op. 89
Maurice Ravel: String Quartet in F major, M. 35
Johannes Brahms: String Quartet in C minor, Op. 51, No. 1
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BROOKLYN RIDER
May 3, 2027 | 7:30pm
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BROOKLYN RIDER
Johnny Gandelsman & Colin Jacobsen, violins
Nicholas Cords, viola
Michael Nicolas, cello——————————————————
Celebrating twenty years of shared musical exploration, Brooklyn Rider originated in a living room, four friends in search of an outlet for their curiosities. Inspired by the probing spirit of Germany’s pre-WW1 artistic collective Der Blaue Reiter, they recognized parallels with their creative community in Brooklyn at the time and began to build projects. In the following two decades, Brooklyn Rider has undertaken a staggering amount of work, carving a singular space in the world of string quartets. Through thoughtful programmatic framing, deep-rooted collaborations, and innovative commissioning projects, Brooklyn Rider has used the medium at every point in their adventurous journey as a vehicle for exploration and discovery. Inspired equally by the rich repertoire of the past and the limitless canvas of new creation, Brooklyn Rider seeks to create meaningful and memorable experiences for their audiences.
To mark the twenty year milestone, a wide range of projects are on the horizon for 2025 and beyond that celebrate the key elements of their work. Honoring a long-standing relationship with the string quartets of Philip Glass (String Quartet # 3, Mishima was on Brooklyn Rider’s first public program), Brooklyn Rider has embarked on the first ever retrospective of the composer’s complete works for the medium. Initially presented by the Yale Schwarzman Center, the retrospective was repeated at the Met Cloisters in NYC in May 2025. A major commission by Gabriela Lena Frank, Frida’s Dreams is due for the 2025-26 season. Their latest recording, The Four Elements (May 2025, In A Circle Records) serves as a dual metaphor for the complex inner world of the string quartet and the future of planet Earth, the latest example of the kind of programmatic concept long associated with Brooklyn Rider. The quartet expands their reach into the orchestral world in upcoming seasons with a major new work for quartet and orchestra by Nico Muhly, to be presented by a wide ranging consortium of orchestras across Europe and North America. This summer, the quartet presented a mini festival “Brooklyn Rider; Twenty Years At Play” at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival in August as well as a special concert at Tanglewood which featured the Schubert Cello Quintet alongside the quartet’s friend and mentor Yo-Yo Ma.
The beginning days of Brooklyn Rider’s history included numerous self-produced concerts events, and the quartet has since cherished the live performance experience in its many guises. In more recent years, the quartet has made regular appearances in many of the major musical centers of North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia - from Zurich’s Tonhalle, Carnegie Hall, the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, the Sydney Opera House, the National Centre for Performing Arts in Beijing, and London’s Wigmore Hall. Comfortable in a wide range of performance outlets, they have also appeared on the main stage of the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, at Austin’s South By Southwest Music Festival, and in two NPR Tiny Desk Concerts. Brooklyn Rider has been the long-standing resident string quartet of the Vail Dance Festival, collaborating with many of the finest dancers and choreographers of our time. They have also been privileged to use the balming powers of music at deeply challenging moments along the way. The quartet made a special appearance at a Buddhist Temple in the decimated fishing village of Kesennuma, Japan in the months following the devastating 2011 tsunami. Most recently, Brooklyn Rider played an all Glass concert at the Wallis Annenberg Center in Beverly Hills in the midst of the 2025 Los Angeles area fires.
Brooklyn Rider has remained steadfast in their commitment to generate new music for string quartet at every phase of their history. Through commissioning, collaborative exploration, and the inimitable works of BR’s own Colin Jacobsen, the quartet has left a lasting contribution to the repertoire. Shared at the height of the US lockdown, the Grammy®-nominated recording and commissioning project Healing Modes (In A Circle Records) was described by The New Yorker as a project which "...could not possibly be more relevant or necessary than it is currently." The upcoming season will unveil a new program called Citizenship Notes with commissioned works by Don Byron, Ted Hearne, and Angélica Negrón.
Brooklyn Rider has had a voracious appetite for collaboration since their inception, encapsulating their wide-ranging projects and programmatic frames and giving rise to NPR Music’s observation that Brooklyn Rider is “recreating the 300-year-old form of string quartet as a vital and creative 21st-century ensemble.” The Butterfly (In A Circle Records), an album which the Irish Times described as “a masterclass in risk-taking,” explored a collaboration with the legendary Irish fiddler Martin Hayes. The 2021-22 season boasted two unique partnerships: one with Israeli mandolin virtuoso Avi Avital, and the other a new chapter of work with Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter (following So Many Things on Naïve Records, 2016). 2022’s The Stranger (Avie Records) with tenor Nicholas Phan was nominated for a 2023 Grammy® award and made numerous best-of lists, including The New Yorker. In fall 2018, Brooklyn Rider released Dreamers on Sony Music Masterworks with Mexican jazz vocalist Magos Herrera which topped charts and garnered a Grammy® nomination for best arrangement (Gonzalo Grau’s “Niña”). Other collaborators include former NYC Ballet prima ballerina Wendy Whelan, banjo icon Béla Fleck, jazz saxophonist Joshua Redman, Syrian clarinetist Kinan Azmeh, and the Iranian kemancheh virtuoso Kayhan Kalhor.
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Franz Joseph Haydn: String Quartet in F Minor, Op. 20, No. 5
Don Byron: String Quartet No. 3
Angélica Negrón: Our Children Speak Spanish and English
Ted Hearne: We Are Working Tirelessly For A Ceasefire
Bob Dylan: The Times They Are A-changin’ (arr. by C. Jacobsen)
Ludwig van Beethoven: String Quartet No. 9 in C Major, Op. 59, No. 3
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