CECILIA BRAUER, ARMONICA Cecilia Brauer studied the piano with Isabelle Vengerova at the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. She has toured the U.S. in concert and has been an associate member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra since 1972 where she plays the celeste, and when on tour, the piano. In 1991, Cecilia added a new dimension to a very successful piano career, namely, the Armonica. She is now one of only a handful of musicians in the world actively involved performing on the instrument. She gives lecture/demonstration programs called “Ben Franklin and the Armonica” and “Ben Franklin, the Musician” at museums, historical sites, libraries, social organizations, etc. These have included The National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, Independence National Historical Park, Corning Glass Museum, Carnegie Museum, Franklin Institute, the Fraunces Tavern Museum, the Van Cortlandt House, and Asahi Glass Co. in Japan. She has been featured on “The Morry Story” on CBS-TV, and on “New York Views” on WABC-TV. She has introduced her program into the public schools elementary system where it has been enthusiastically received by students and educators alike. In recent seasons she has been heard on the Armonica at Metropolitan Opera performing Donizetti’s original solos for that instrument in the Mad Scene of Lucia di Lammermoor.

ANNA POLONSKY, PIANO Anna Polonsky is widely in demand as a soloist and chamber musician. She has appeared with the Moscow Virtuosi, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, the Memphis Symphony, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, and many others. Ms. Polonsky has collaborated with the Guarneri, Orion, Daedalus, and Shanghai Quartets, and with such musicians as Mitsuko Uchida, Yo-Yo Ma, David Shifrin, Richard Goode, Emanuel Ax, Arnold Steinhardt, Peter Wiley, and Jaime Laredo. She has performed chamber music at festivals such as Marlboro, Chamber Music Northwest, Seattle, Music@Menlo, Cartagena, Bard, and Caramoor, as well as at Bargemusic in New York City. Ms. Polonsky has given concerts in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Alice Tully Hall, and Carnegie Hall’s Stern, Weill, and Zankel Halls, and has toured extensively throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. A frequent guest at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, she was a member of the Chamber Music Society Two during 2002-2004. In 2006 she took a part in the European Broadcasting Union’s project to record and broadcast all of Mozart’s keyboard sonatas, and in the spring of 2007 she performed a solo recital at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium to inaugurate the Emerson Quartet’s Perspectives Series. She is a recipient of a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship and the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award. Anna Polonsky made her solo piano debut at the age of seven at the Special Central Music School in Moscow, Russia. She emigrated to the United States in 1990, and attended high school at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan. She received her Bachelor of Music diploma from The Curtis Institute of Music under the tutelage of the renowned pianist Peter Serkin, and continued her studies with Jerome Lowenthal, earning her Master’s Degree from the Juilliard School. In addition to performing, she serves on the piano faculty of Vassar College, and in the summer at the Marlboro and Kneisel Hall chamber music festivals. Beginning in 2018, Polonsky performs in a trio with clarinetist David Shifrin and cellist Peter Wiley. Ms. Polonsky is a Steinway Artist.

February 18, 2024: Michael Stephen Brown, piano Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) The Valley of the Bells for piano February 18, 2024: Michael Stephen Brown, piano In his autobiographical sketch Ravel said that his Miroirs of 1904–05 “mark a change in my harmonic development pronounced enough to have upset those musicians who till then had had the least trouble in appreciating my style.” He no doubt referred to his freedom to avoid the home key for long stretches and to use passages of unresolved chords over pedal points. Ravel’s formal structures in these five “mirrors” of nature were also freer than in his earlier works. When pianist Ricardo Viñes told him that Debussy dreamed of writing “a kind of music whose form was so free that it would sound improvised” (never minding old improvisatory-sounding forms such as fantasias and toccatas!), Ravel told Viñes that he, too, was working along similar principles. Several weeks later Ravel played his free-sounding Miroirs for the Apaches, his circle of Parisian artists. Ravel dedicated each of the five Miroirs to a fellow Apache—the last of the set, La vallée des cloches, to his only pupil, Maurice Delage. Viñes premiered Miroirs on January 6, 1906, at a concert of the Société Nationale de Musique to mixed reviews, as might be expected in view of Ravel’s remarkable new direction. La vallée des cloches, Ravel told pianist Robert Casadesus, was inspired by the sound of the Parisian church bells that rang at noon, and, reported Gabriel Fauré, Ravel referred to the bell sound at the end as “la Savoyarde,” the largest bell in the Basilica of Montmartre. Ravel would go on to feature bells in a number of his other works, such as L’heure espagnole, La cathédrale engloutie, and Gaspard de la nuit. The outer sections of La vallée des cloches depicts five sets of bells, repeating in fragmented phrases at varying rates, with intervals of parallel fourths and octaves prominent to suggest the overtones in the bells’ reverberations. Only in the middle section does a lush melody emerge. Striking but less obvious is Ravel’s use of larger structural planes, extended in time to create varied overarching patterns, much in the same way the Cubists were breaking up time and space to create illusions of solid objects. Ravel required three staves in the score to facilitate the representation of these layers. He was particular, as pianist Henriette Faure learned in a coaching, that the right-hand carillon and the left-hand high octave bells sound on two very distinct levels, “and the whole thing had to remain within a pianissimo that he could, in some mysterious way, achieve without it sounding feeble. . . . The great calm lyrical outpouring [of the central section], on the other hand, requires a profound sonority and a legato that comes from a hand closely wedded to the keys, and from a weight of arm that one ideally gets from sitting rather low at the keyboard.” —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

RAFAEL FIGUEROA, CELLO Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, cellist Rafael Figueroa is established as one of the most sought-after cellists of his generation, having appeared in numerous performances throughout the United States, Europe, Central and South Americas, Japan and his homeland of Puerto Rico. His impressive list of prizes and awards include the First Prize at the Gregor Piatigorsky Competition in Boston, The Bronze Medal at the International Pablo Casals Competition in Budapest, winner of the Jill Sackler Cello Competition at the Third American Cello Congress and winner of the Gina Bachauer Memorial Award. Mr. Figueroa occupies the prestigious position of principal cellist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra under James Levine in addition to his participation in many of the chamber music series in the New York area including The Lyric Chamber Music Society of New York, The Met Chamber Ensemble with James Levine, The New Jersey Chamber Music Society, The Morgan Library Chamber Music Series and Bargemusic. Rafael has appeared in recitals and concerts along such artists as the late Rudolf Serkin, Peter Serkin, the late Samuel Sanders, Andre Michel Shub, Ruth Laredo, Michael Tree, Cho Liang Lin, The Cleveland Quartet, the late Alexander Schneider and James Levine. Mr. Figueroa completed his studies at the Indiana University School of Music under Janos Starker and Gary Hoffman where upon graduation, he became a member of this school’s cello faculty. In 1987 Rafael moved to New York City where he began a ten year collaboration with The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, touring world-wide and recording for Deutsche Grammophon. For five years he was the cellist of The Amadeus Trio and a member of the Chelsea Chamber Ensemble, with whom he premiered and championed a large number of works by contemporary American composers. His summer festival activities have included the Verbier Music Festival in Switzerland, the Aspen Music Festival, The Casals Festival in Puerto Rico, Marlboro Chamber Music Festival, Lemi-Lappenranta Chamber Music festival in Finland and the Rockport and Marblehead Chamber music Festivals. In addition to his participation for the first time at the International Festival of Music in Cheyu, Korea in the summer of 2003. Highlights of the past seaons include a performance to critical acclaim of the Brahms Double Concerto with Concertmaster David Chan and The Met Orchestra under James Levine at Carnegie Hall on February 2 , 2003 as part of the orchestra’s subscription series at Carnegie Hall and a second performance of the Brahms Double and Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations in Seoul, Korea.

May 15, 2016: James Morris, bass-baritone; Ken Noda, piano JOHN DUKE (1899-1984) Three Songs May 15, 2016: James Morris, bass-baritone; Ken Noda, piano After early music training from his mother, a talented singer, John Duke attended the Peabody Institute where he studied composition with Gustav Strube and piano with Harold Randolph. He continued his studying composition in New York with Howard Brockway and Bernard Wagenaar and furthered his piano skills with Franklin Cannon. He gave his piano debut piano recital in New York’s Aeolian Hall in 1920 in a program of Chopin, Debussy, and Liszt, among others, and performed the Grieg Concerto with the New York Philharmonic on tour in his hometown of Cumberland, Maryland, the following year. Fully aware of the challenges of a career as a concert pianist, he joined the faculty of Smith College in 1923, where he taught piano until his retirement in 1967. He furthered his musical training on sabbatical in 1929–30, studying composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and piano with Artur Schnabel in Berlin. He also spent a summer at Yaddo, the renowned artists’ community in Saratoga Springs, New York, and many summers at the Seagle Colony, a school for singers in Schroon Lake, New York. Though Duke composed a handful of orchestral and chamber pieces, the vast majority of his output features the voice—265 songs, several stage works, and a few choral pieces. His family background no doubt fostered his interest in song, though he himself said he was amazed at the way his career turned out. “In my early days, my ambition was to be a great pianist, and I could not have believed anyone who told [me] I was destined to be a song composer.” He came to believe that “vocal utterance is the basis of music’s mystery. The thing that makes melody a concrete expression of feeling and not just a horizontal design in tones is its power to symbolize the pull, the tension of our feeling of duration.” Duke was particularly interested in setting texts by American poets and he corresponded with many, among them Archibald MacLeish, William Rose Benet, Mark Van Doren, and Richard Nickson. Just as this correspondence attests to his choice of texts, his correspondence with prominent musicians—among them Roger Sessions, Aaron Copland, Walter Piston, Daniel Gregory Mason, Mack Harrell, Ross Lee Finney, Roy Harris, Arthur Fieldler, William Warfield, and Douglas Moore—reflects the neo-Romantic orientation of his style. This afternoon’s selections, “Richard Cory,” “Miniver Cheevy,” and “Luke Havergal,” feature three of four songs that Duke set to poems of Edwin Arlington Robinson in 1945. Duke creates a perfect musical description of the elegant saunter of Richard Cory as a man about town with his jaunty accompaniment in 6/8 meter. The shocking suicide moment he treats bare of accompaniment, followed by a brief dissonant piano comment. Duke sets “Miniver Cheevy” as “a satire in the form of variations.” The nine colorful variations following the presentation of the theme are labeled Melancholy, Sprightly, Dreamy, Dolorous, Grandiose, Indignant, Puzzled, Tipsy, and Epilogue, all describing someone who thought himself born too late, said to be Robinson’s skewering of his own anachronistic tendencies and referencing his alcoholic brother. “Luke Havergal,” in which a voice from the grave encourages Luke Havergal to join his dead lover, follows a ternary form in which the rich outer sections flank a chilling central section and the final section becomes positively majestic before ebbing. The poem might bring to mind Aeneas of classic lore being led by Sibyl to Queen Dido, who has died by suicide, but coupled with Duke’s music the result especially embodies the nineteenth-century Romantics’ theme of an intense yearning for death so as not to have to endure grief-stricken loneliness. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

2012-2013 SEASON 2012-2013 SEASON Artist Roster Parlance Program Notes LOCATION At West Side Presbyterian Church 6 South Monroe Street Ridgewood, NJ 07450 For map and directions, click here . CONCERT AMENITIES Whee lchair Accessible Fr e e Parking for all concerts

March 11, 2018: Benjamin Beilman, Violin; Orion Weiss, piano BÉLA BARTÓK (1881–1945) Violin Sonata No. 2, BB 85 (Sz. 76) March 11, 2018: Benjamin Beilman, Violin; Orion Weiss, piano Bartók wrote his two sonatas for violin and piano in 1921 and 1922 for violinist Jelly d’Arányi, with whom he played them in London, the first in 1922 and the second in 1923. The composer especially like performing the Second Sonata, not only with d’Arányi but with Imre Waldbauer, József Szigeti, and Zoltán Székely. Along with The Miraculous Mandarin and the First Piano Concerto, the violin sonatas are products of Bartók’s “expressionist” period, when he came closest to the ideals of the Second Viennese School of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern. Lecturing in America in 1927–28 Bartók said: “There was a time when I thought I was approaching a species of twelve-tone music. Yet even in works of that period the absolute tonal foundation is unmistakable.” The composer himself described the First Violin Sonata as “in C-sharp minor” and the Second as “in C major,” but the tonality is extremely clouded in both. In the Second Sonata a pivotal relationship proves to be that of a tritone from F-sharp to C. Further, in both he refrains from the traditional sharing or imitation of materials between the two instruments, which makes these two works unlike any other works in the genre. In the Second Sonata in particular Bartók also avoids the conventional form of a sonata, employing instead a condensed two-movement form related to the model of traditional Hungarian verbunkos (recruiting music) consisting of a slow section (lassù ) and a fast section (friss ). The first movement adopts a free, declamatory style with elaborate ornamentation and frequent pushing and pulling of the tempo typical of the slow (lassù ) section, albeit in a more dissonant style. Bartók hasn’t completely distanced himself from Classic forms here, drawing on a kind of sonatina structure—that is, exposition and recapitulation with no development—but his recapitulation varies the four sections of his exposition themes significantly and the overall effect sounds freely rhapsodic rather than betraying its careful organization. The opening theme, which Bartók recalls not only at the opening of the recapitulation but twice in the coda, also plays a unifying role in the second movement. A technique that comes into play in the first movement, though less than in the first movement of the First Sonata, is the placing of successive melody notes in different registers (octave displacement), a common technique in twelve-tone composition. This greatly alters, for example, the sound of the return of the third section in the recapitulation. Bartók in his Hungarian Folk Music suggests a folk equivalent to this “high art” technique: Hungarian peasants do not devote much care to selecting a suitable pitch, but they simplify difficulties in proportion as they occur: whenever a note is too high or two low for them, they transpose it by an octave, regardless of design and rhythmic conditions. This they will do ad libitum, perhaps several times in the course of one tune. Hence at times peculiar leaps of a seventh occur. . . . In the course of time this practice has become so usual that many peasants resort to changes of octaves without being driven by need. The connected second movement exhibits a lively dance character, like the friss section of verbunkos style, and unfolds in a form somewhat like a rondo in which the “refrain” returns in varied guises. Bartók ingeniously links his two movements by recalling themes from the first movement in the intervening episodes and by having the violin return to the first movement’s opening theme at the climax near the end. The piece ends with an atmospheric fade to a somewhat surprising but radiant C major chord. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

November 19, 2017: Los Angeles Guitar Quartet JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750) Brandenburg Concerto No. 6, BWV 1051 November 19, 2017: Los Angeles Guitar Quartet Written in 1721 as a means of gaining favor from the Margrave of Brandenburg, Bach’s “Six concerts à plusieurs instruments” never garnered payment or even thanks for the composer. Yet they establish him today as the master of the concerto grosso style pioneered by Corelli. Brandenburg Concerto #6 is scored for string orchestra, but without violins; violas carry the upper melodic material. This lower tessitura makes the piece ideal for an arrangement for guitar quartet. Set in a fast-slow-fast structure, the piece showcases Bach’s peerless use of imitative writing. The first movement is drivingly propulsive, with the two top parts chasing each other in a canon at the 1/8th note. The middle movement is one of Bach’s stately and shimmering Adagios, while the final movement is one of Bach’s most joyous gigues, with a rondo theme recurring in a variety of guises. Return to Parlance Program Notes

December 4, 2022 – The Sitkovetsky Trio LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827) Piano Trio in G major, op. 1, no. 2 December 4, 2022 – The Sitkovetsky Trio Beethoven carefully considered his presentation to the musical world of Vienna. Though he had composed quite a few works by 1795, he chose the three Trios that form Opus 1 as his first publication. He had been sponsored by Elector Maximilian Franz to move from his hometown of Bonn to Vienna at the end of 1792, to study with the great Joseph Haydn and to make his name in a musically more active world. Haydn was writing piano trios at that time, and though Beethoven probably had started work on his trios before he left Bonn, it was natural for him to work on them under the influence of his new teacher. When Haydn left for a sojourn in London in January 1794, Beethoven immediately began studies with Johann Albrechtsberger, which continued for fourteen months until Haydn’s return. A sketch for one of the movements of the G major Trio, op. 1, no. 2, was found among lessons Beethoven had done for Albrechtsberger. Beethoven’s Opus 1Trios were performed privately in 1794 at the house of Prince Lichnowsky, who received the dedication. Ferdinand Ries, later Beethoven’s pupil, reported many years after the fact that Haydn was among the distinguished guests in the audience and that the older composer had many nice things to say about the works, but advised against publishing the Third in C minor, saying the public would have difficulty understanding it. Ries also reported that Beethoven took this to be a sign of jealousy on Haydn’s part. It has been shown more recently that Ries’s account mixed up the chronology and that any possible qualms Haydn may have had about the C minor Trio were raised upon his second return from London in 1795, after the Trios had already been published. In response to this and other accounts that Haydn was envious of the younger composer, esteemed musicologist James Webster wrote, “It is inconceivable that the powerful and original genius of Haydn at the height of his powers should have had any difficulty with this work . . . or indeed any of Beethoven’s music of the 1790s, unless for reasons that reflect on Beethoven’s limitations rather than his own.” Furthermore, Webster demonstrated that no irreparable falling out between the two composers occurred in the 1790s, though they did experience a period of distrust between 1800 and 1804. Beethoven may have worked more on the Trios after the 1794 performance and perhaps other performances of them at Prince Lichnowsky’s. But his most likely reason for delaying their publication until 1795 was to build up a following—meaning a sufficient number of subscribers. Like the other Opus 1 Trios and the Opus 2 Piano Sonatas, Beethoven conceived of the Trio in four movements, despite the custom of the day to compose chamber works with piano in three movements. The G major Trio opens with an elaborate slow introduction in which the piano predominates. Both the piano and violin preview the main theme of the Allegro vivace, which makes its entrance in the “wrong key” before righting itself to G major. The slow movement contrasts with the surrounding fast movements by its 6/8 meter, expressive nuances, and unusual key of E major. Haydn also used the key of E major for the slow movement of his famous G major Gypsy Trio, but his Trio was written in England in 1795. Beethoven wrote a fleet scherzo instead of a minuet for the third movement of his Trio. Haydn had written minuets in fast enough tempos to be considered scherzos, whereas Beethoven actually called these movements scherzos. The cello, playing quietly in its lowest range, initiates the furtive-sounding main section. The hushed quality remains until the loud closing bars of the main section. The Trio provides contrast in texture, but remains quiet. The principal section’s return is literal, followed by a soft coda that ends pianissimo. The sonata-form finale also begins quietly but soon bursts forth exuberantly. Beethoven’s obvious fun with repeated notes generates the first theme and, in a different fashion, the second. He must also have enjoyed disguising the beginning of his recapitulation, something that Haydn also did on occasion. Beethoven winds down the movement with quiet fragmentation of motives then jolts the listener with the final fortissimo chords. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

LIAM BOISSERT, OBOE Oboist Liam Boisset has performed with many of the most reputable orchestras around the United States. He regularly performs with the Metropolitan Opera and has recently served as guest Principal Oboe with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. During the 2019-2020 season, he also joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic on two international tours as Principal Oboe. He can be heard playing both oboe and English horn in The Witcher on Netflix. In addition to his fruitful performance career, Mr. Boisset is a passionate educator, and has taught masterclasses and lessons at The Juilliard School, Mannes School of Music at The New School, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Aspen Music Festival and School, and Oberlin Conservatory. During the heart of the pandemic, he co-founded the online teaching platform, Aperto Oboe Academy, to connect with and mentor promising young oboists from around the globe. He currently serves on the faculty of Princeton University’s Department of Music.

2023-2024 ARTIST ROSTER BRUCE ADOLPHE, COMPOSER ALESSIO BAX, PIANO MICHAEL STEPHEN BROWN, PIANO LUCILLE CHUNG, PIANO BRUNO EICHER, VIOLIN BRAD GEMEINHARDT, FRENCH HORN HESPÈRION XXI, EARLY MUSIC ENSEMBLE JOSEPH JORDAN, OBOE LEIGH MESH, BASS PAUL NEUBAUER, VIOLA JORDI SAVALL, VIOLA DA GAMBA SARAH VONSATTEL, VIOLIN MARIKO ANRAKU, HARP ANGEL BLUE, SOPRANO NICHOLAS CANELLAKIS, CELLO KARI DOCTER, CELLO GARRETT FISCHBACH, VIOLA GOLDMUND STRING QUARTET MING-FENG HSIN, VIOLIN LYSANDER PIANO TRIO SETH MORRIS, FLUTE ALBERTO PARRINI, CELLO ANNE SCHARER, FRENCH HORN BRYAN WAGORN, PIANO ANTIOCH CHAMBER ENSEMBLE, CHOIR BRENTANO STRING QUARTET CHEE-YUN, VIOLIN ELAINE DOUVAS, OBOE KATHERINE FONG, VIOLIN RICHARD GOODE, PIANO STEFAN JACKIW, VIOLIN ANTHONY MCGILL, CLARINET OLIVER NEUBAUER, VIOLIN WEN QIAN, VIOLIN DOV SCHEINDLIN, VIOLA NANCY WU, VIOLIN

John Novacek, piano Versatile, Grammy-nominated pianist JOHN NOVACEK regularly tours the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia as solo recitalist, chamber musician and concerto soloist; in the latter capacity he has presented over thirty concerti with dozens of orchestras. Mr. Novacek begins his current season with an appointment to the Piano and Collaborative Piano faculty of The Mannes School of Music at The New School’s College of Performing Arts. John Novacek’s major American performances have been heard in New York City’s Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ David Geffen and Alice Tully halls, 92nd Street Y, Columbia University’s Miller Theater, Merkin Concert Hall, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Symphony Space, Washington’s The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Boston’s Symphony Hall, Chicago’s Symphony Center and Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl, while international venues include Paris’ Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Salle Gaveau and Musée du Louvre, London’s Wigmore Hall and Barbican Centre and Tokyo’s Suntory, Opera City and Bunkamura halls. He is also a frequent guest artist at festivals, here and abroad, including New York City’s Mostly Mozart Festival, California’s Festival Mozaic and those of Aspen, Cape Cod, Caramoor, Chautauqua, Colorado College, Great Lakes, Mendocino, Mimir, Music in the Vineyards, Ravinia, Seattle, SummerFest La Jolla, Wolf Trap, Canada’s Festival of the Sound, Ottawa, Chamberfest, Scotia, SweetWater and Toronto Summer Music, BBC Proms (England), Braunschweig (Germany), Lucerne, Menuhin Gstaad and Verbier (Switzerland), Serenates d’Estiu (Spain), Sorrento (Italy), Stavanger (Norway), Toulouse (France) and Sapporo (Japan). He has also made his debuts with the Orquesta Filarmónica de la Ciudad de México, as well as with the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, the Austin, Duluth Superior, Springfield (MA) and Traverse symphony orchestras, National Academy Orchestra of Canada and Symphony Nova Scotia. Often heard on radio broadcasts worldwide, John Novacek has appeared on NPR’s Performance Today, St. Paul Sunday and, as both featured guest composer/performer, on A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor. He was also seen and heard on television, including The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Entertainment Tonight and CNN International. Recently, Mr. Novacek has been prominently featured in discussion and performance on the highly successful PBS/Great Performances series Now Hear This. Hosted by Scott Yoo. John Novacek is a highly sought-after collaborative artist and has performed with Joshua Bell, Renaud Capuçon, Jeremy Denk, Matt Haimovitz, Leila Josefowicz, Cho-Liang Lin, Yo-Yo Ma, Truls Mørk, Elmar Oliveira and Emmanuel Pahud, and, as well as the Afiara, Colorado, Harrington, Jupiter, New Hollywood, St. Lawrence, SuperNova and Ying string quartets. He also tours widely as a member of the multi-faceted Intersection, a piano trio that includes violinist Kaura Frautschi and cellist Kristina Reiko Cooper. As a tireless advocate for contemporary music, Mr. Novacek has also given numerous world premieres and worked closely with composers John Adams, Kenji Bunch, Gabriela Lena Frank, John Harbison, Jennifer Higdon, George Rochberg, Robert Sierra, John Williams and John Zorn. John Novacek took top prizes at both the Leschetizky and Joanna Hodges international piano competitions, among many others. He studied piano with Polish virtuoso Jakob Gimpel at California State University, Northridge, where he earned a Bachelor of Music degree, summa cum laude. Subsequently, he earned a Master of Music degree from New York City’s Mannes College of Music, studying with Peter Serkin in piano and Felix Galimer and Julius Levine in chamber music. Mr. Novacek’s coaches in composition included Frederick Werle, Aurelio de la Vega and Daniel Kessner. John Novacek’s original compositions have been widely performed and frequently recorded by major international soloists and ensembles. Commissioning entities include: New York Philharmonic, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Pacific Symphony, Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, Fresno Ballet, Accordo/Schubert Club (film score), Fuji TV, Seattle Commissioning Club, Scotia Festival, Eastman School of Music, McGill University, West Texas A&M University, The 5 Browns, Concertante, Ensemble Liaison, Millennium, Manasse/Nakamatsu Duo, Harrington String Quartet, Ying Quartet, Quattro Mani. He has also prepared special arrangements for The Three Tenors, Boosey & Hawkes, EMI, Atlantic Records, John Williams, Lalo Schifrin, Kiri Te Kanawa and pop diva Diana Ross. John Novacek has recorded over 35 CDs, encompassing solo and chamber music by most major composers from Bach to Bartók, as well as many contemporary and original scores. Mr. Novacek records for Philips, Naxos, Nonesuch, Arabesque, Warner Classics, Sony/BMG, IBS Classical, Koch International, New World, Universal Classics, Ambassador, Arkay, Azica, EMI Classics, Four Winds, Pony Canyon and Virtuoso. CD titles include Road Movies (2004 GRAMMY nomination as “Best Chamber Music Performance”), Great Mozart Piano Works, Spanish Rhapsody, Novarags (original ragtime compositions), Classic Romance, Hungarian Sketches, Intersection, Romances et Meditations and, with Leila Josefowicz, Americana (GRAMOPHONE: “Editor’s Choice”), For the End of Time, Shostakovich and Recital (BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE: 5 stars/June 2005's chamber choice). 2020 saw the IBS Classical releases of Chausson’s Concert in D for Violin, Piano & String Quartet and an album of viola sonatas by Glinka, Hindemith and Schubert with Randolph Kelly. John Novacek is a Steinway Artist.