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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

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CHIARA STRING QUARTET Renowned for bringing fresh excitement to traditional string quartet repertoire as well as for creating insightful interpretations of new music, the Chiara String Quartet (Rebecca Fischer and Hyeyung Julie Yoon, violins; Jonah Sirota, viola; Gregory Beaver, cello) captivates its audiences throughout the country. The Chiara has established itself as among America’s most respected ensembles, lauded for its “highly virtuosic, edge-of-the-seat playing” (The Boston Globe). They are currently Hixson-Lied Artists-in-Residence at the Glenn Korff School of Music at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and were the Blodgett Artists-in-Residence at Harvard University from 2008-2014. For the 2015-2016 season, the Chiara was the quartet-in-residence at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The Chiara Quartet has been playing string quartets and asking probing questions since 2000. Always interested in engaging with the music at its core as well as reaching audiences, the quartet has dedicated itself to finding ways to make the musical experience meaningful for all involved. In this pursuit the quartet has performed in venues from major concert halls to clubs, created interactive programs for all ages, and most recently taken to performing and recording from memory, or “by heart.” Described by an audience member as “a 3-D experience for the listener,” playing by heart is deeply rewarding for the Chiara as well; memorizing the score helps them to closely relate to the composer’s compositional process. The Chiara’s latest recording is Bartók by Heart, a 2-CD set featuring Bartók’s six string quartets, played entirely from memory, released in August 2016 on Azica. The quartet’s previous album, Brahms by Heart, was released on Azica in March 2014. In addition to the Chiara Quartet’s regular performances in major concert halls across the country, including Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the National Gallery in Washington DC, the ensemble was one of the first string quartets to perform in alternative venues for chamber music performance. Recent highlights of the Chiara Quartet’s international performances include extensive tours of China, Korea, and Sweden. In addition to Bartók by Heart and Brahms by Heart, the complete Chiara discography includes a Grammy-nominated recording of Jefferson Friedman’s String Quartets Nos. 2 and 3 on New Amsterdam Records, the Mozart and Brahms clarinet quintets for SMS Classical, and the world premiere recordings of Robert Sirota’s Triptych and Gabriela Lena Frank’s Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout on the Quartet’s own New Voice Singles label. The Chiara has been committed to the creation of new music for string quartet since its inception, and has commissioned composers including Gabriela Lena Frank, Jefferson Friedman, Nico Muhly, Daniel Ott, Robert Sirota, among others. Recent collaborators in performance include The Juilliard and St. Lawrence String Quartets, Joel Krosnick, Roger Tapping, Todd Palmer, Robert Levin, Simone Dinnerstein, Norman Fischer, Nadia Sirota, and Paul Katz, as well as members of the Orion, Ying, Cavani, and Pacifica Quartets. In the summer, the Chiara Quartet is in residence at Greenwood Music Camp as well as the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Chamber Music Institute. The Chiara trained and taught at The Juilliard School, mentoring for two years with the Juilliard Quartet, as recipients of the Lisa Arnhold Quartet Residency. Chiara (key-ARE-uh) is an Italian word, meaning “clear, pure, or light.”

SARAH VONSATTEL, VIOLIN Violinist Sarah Crocker Vonsattel has been a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra since 2008. She previously held positions in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the Colorado Symphony. Sarah has appeared as soloist with the musicians of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Syracuse Symphony, and the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra, among others. Recent performances include appearances at Lake Tahoe Summerfest, the Dame Myra Hess Concert Series, the Bronxville Chamber Music Series, Downtown Music at Grace Church, the New Marlborough House Concerts, and the Syracuse Society for New Music. As a founding member of the Verklärte Quartet, Sarah was a Grand Prize Winner of the 2003 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, leading to concert tours in the U.S. and Italy with this ensemble. A proponent of new music, Sarah has appeared with the iO string quartet and the Talea Ensemble and can be heard on the Bridge Records label performing the music of Poul Ruders and Tod Machover. She has appeared as both performer and faculty member at festivals including the Orfeo International Music Festival (Italy), the Wellesley Composers Conference (Massachusetts), and the Musical Friends Academy (Tunisia). She holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she was a student of David Updegraff, and a Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School, where she studied with Ronald Copes and Naoko Tanaka. In her spare time, she enjoys distance running and traveling.

LAWRENCE BROWNLEE, TENOR Lawrence Brownlee is a leading figure in opera, both as a singer who has graced the world's leading stages, and as a voice for activism and diversity in the industry. Captivating audiences and critics around the globe, he has been hailed as “an international star in the bel canto operatic repertory” (The New York Times), “one of the world’s leading bel canto stars” (The Guardian), and “one of the most in-demand opera singers in the world today” (NPR). In the 2024-2025 season, Mr. Brownlee made his highly anticipated role debut in the title role of Mozart’s Mitridate, re di ponto with Boston Lyric Opera. He also returns to The Metropolitan Opera as Count Amaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia (broadcast Live in HD in theaters worldwide), and joins Opéra national de Paris as Tonio in La fille du régiment and Arturo in I puritani, as well as The New National Theatre in Tokyo as Count Almaviva, and Bayerische Staatsoper as Tonio. On the concert stage, Mr. Brownlee will join Levy Sekgapane in a duo concert with the Latvian National Orchestra, L’Auditori in the closing concert, and will embark on a recital tour featuring songs from his acclaimed Rising program across North America and Europe. Highlights of Mr. Brownlee’s recent seasons include his return as Ernesto in Don Pasquale at Teatro alla Scala Milan and as Tonio in La fille du régiment at Lyric Opera Chicago, as well as his role debuts as Tamino in Die Zauberflöte at The Metropolitan Opera, as Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor at The New National Theatre Tokyo and Fernand in a new production of Donizetti’s La Favorite with Houston Grand Opera. In spring 2021, Brownlee joined The Juilliard School as a Distinguished Visiting Faculty Member. He serves as artistic advisor for Opera Philadelphia and is an Ambassador for Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Lyric Unlimited as well as Opera for Peace. In recent years, Mr. Brownlee has emerged as a pivotal voice around equity and diversity in classical music. Mr. Brownlee works with companies and engages civic organizations in the cities he visits to create programs and experiences seeking to expand opera audiences. His critically acclaimed solo recital program Cycles of My Being, a song cycle that centers on the black male experience in America today, has toured extensively, including performances at Opera Philadelphia, Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and virtual broadcasts throughout 2020. Mr. Brownlee is a Grand Prize Winner of the 2001 Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions. He is also the recipient of numerous awards and distinctions including “Male Singer of the Year” (2017 International Opera Awards), the Kennedy Center’s Marian Anderson Award, and the Opera News Award (2021). In October 2019, he had the distinct honor of singing at Jessye Norman’s funeral in her hometown of Augusta, Georgia.

October 19, 2008 – Carter Brey, cello; Warren Jones, piano Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) Sonata in A Minor, Op. 36, for cello and piano October 19, 2008 – Carter Brey, cello; Warren Jones, piano Arguably the most popular composer ever to emerge from the Scandinavian peninsula, Edvard Grieg was born in Bergen, Norway, in 1843. He received his formal musical education at the Leipzig Conservatory, but he did not find his unique musical voice until returning to Scandinavia after his graduation. There, Grieg was strongly influenced by Rikard Nordraak, the composer of the Norwegian national anthem. Nordraak’s obsession with the sagas, fjords and music of their homeland inspired Grieg to believe that a form of national music was also possible. He studied and drew inspiration from Norwegian folk music and is today considered a leading musical voice of Norwegian nationalism. Nevertheless, Grieg wrote that “music which matters, however national it may be, is lifted high above the purely national level.” Indeed, his music was admired by many of the most respected composers of his day, including Franz Liszt and Peter Tchaikovsky, both of whom offered their encouragement and approval. History has branded Grieg as a composer of delightful miniatures, owing largely to the popularity of such well-known works as his Holberg Suite and incidental music to Henrik Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt. This impression, however, is belied by the massive scale of his cello sonata, one of the most passionate and expansively Romantic sonatas ever composed for the instrument. Grieg dedicated the piece to his brother John, an amateur cellist with whom he had not been on a good terms for some time. Unfortunately, there was no reconciliation, and it was another cellist, Ludwig Gritzmacher, who premiered the work with Grieg at the piano on October 22, 1883. Perhaps reflecting the pain of the brotherly separation, the first movement begins with a brooding, agitated theme, which quickly dissolves into a tender second theme more characteristic of Grieg – warmly lyrical, very Norwegian. The movement has a wide emotional range, heightened by the unusual inclusion of a mini cadenza for the cellist. The lyrical Andante draws its opening theme from an Homage March composed by Grieg as incidental music to a play about King Sigurd Jorsalfar of Norway. (The march was originally scored for four cellos.) There is a stormy middle section before the processional theme returns at the end of the movement. The final movement begins with a brief recitative-cadenza for solo cello, which ushers in a vigorously rustic folk dance. As in the first movement, the finale traces a huge expressive trajectory. Although the sonata has no known extra-musical program, it creates a strongly narrative impression and represents Grieg at his most intense and passionate. By Michael Parloff Return to Parlance Program Notes

November 12, 2023: Angel Blue, soprano; Bryan Wagorn, piano CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862-1918) Clair de lune November 12, 2023: Angel Blue, soprano; Bryan Wagorn, piano Debussy was enchanted by the poetry of Paul Verlaine. Around 1890 he composed Suite bergamasque, a set of piano pieces taking its title from a line of Verlaine’s famous poem Clair de lune. That poem had appeared in a collection of poems entitled Fêtes galantes, which in turn were inspired by the paintings of Watteau and his followers. In these paintings idealized landscapes of parks and gardens in the twilight are often populated by revelers in costumes of the tragic-comic characters of the commedia dell-arte—Harlequin, Pierrot, Colombine, and company. Originally Debussy had called the present piece “Promenade sentimentale” after another Verlaine poem, but when he polished the Suite bergamasque for publication in 1905 he changed the title to Clair de lune (Moonlight). Since that time the piece has taken on a life of its own, having become extraordinarily popular and, sad to say, trivialized. Its luminous qualities and inspired construction, however, should inspire listeners to look beyond its familiarity. That amazing opening—how it just hangs there then gently descends as silvery light from the moon! The rhythmic freedom gives the feeling of floating as does the delay of the anchoring pitch of the home key. Debussy, like his contemporary Ravel, was justly famous for his water imagery. The rippling central section no doubt responds to the line in Verlaine’s poem describing the moonlight bringing sobs of ecstasy to the fountains. The ending is magical—Debussy fragments the theme as moonlight would be broken up by shadows and allows it to die away in a haunting final cadence. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

April 2, 2023: ETTORE CAUSA, VIOLA; BORIS BERMAN, PIANO JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897) Sonata in E-flat for viola and piano, Op. 120, No. 2 April 2, 2023: ETTORE CAUSA, VIOLA; BORIS BERMAN, PIANO This rich, warm product of Brahms’s later years was originally conceived for the clarinet. While writing his G major String Quintet in the summer of 1890 at Ischl, his holiday haunt, Brahms decided he would retire from composing. Yet the following spring he became so enamored of the playing of Richard Mühlfeld, principal clarinetist of the Meiningen orchestra, that in the next few years he wrote four works all featuring the instrument: the Clarinet Trio and the Clarinet Quintet, both composed mostly in the summer of 1891, and the two Clarinet Sonatas, op. 120, written in the summer of 1894. In order to reach a wider audience Brahms also produced alternate versions of all these works, substituting the viola for the clarinet. He even made violin versions of the Trio and of the two Sonatas. Brahms was drawn to Mühlfeld as a musician, not for his flash and technical brilliance, but for his warm tone, sophistication, and sensitivity—qualities Brahms emphasized in the four late clarinet works. The composer accompanied Mühlfeld in the first private performance of the Sonatas in November 1894 and also in the first public performances in January 1895. In arranging the Sonatas for viola Brahms transposed certain passages an octave lower and introduced some double stops, but the works were already well suited for the deep, mellifluous tone of the viola; the piano part was left unchanged. With these Sonatas Brahms broke new ground in the repertoire for both the clarinet and the viola. The Sonatas follow Brahms’s tendency to compose in pairs—usually contrasting in character. The F minor Sonata displays storminess in its first movement and ebullience in its last, framing more intimate inner movements in a fairly traditional four-movement framework. The E-flat major Sonata projects a more relaxed feeling in its outer movements, which surround an impassioned scherzo—a less orthodox three-movement sequence. The E-flat major first movement, Brahms’s last in sonata form, shows just how pliable the form could be in his hands. The songful, amabile (amiable) main theme is immediately varied, leading succinctly to his second theme, which as in many of his works is a theme group. Brahms delights in obscuring the outlines of the form so that the end of the exposition and beginning of the development flow seamlessly together. Similarly the end of the development and beginning of the recapitulation are dovetailed. The E-flat minor second movement, Brahms’s last scherzo, takes an intense stand as the Sonata’s centerpiece. Yet it, too, relaxes in a lovely oasis, a trio in B major, rich in the parallel thirds and sixths and the octave doublings of which Brahms was so fond. Brahms turned to his beloved variation form one last time in the closing movement. The first three variations return to the Classic technique of employing increasingly faster note values so that the basic subdivisions change from predominantly eighth notes, to sixteenths, to thirty-second notes. Far from becoming cluttered, Brahms’s texture retains a miraculous clarity. The fourth variation relaxes with quiet, syncopated chords to set up the only fiery variation, the fifth, which also shifts to the minor mode. Amiability returns with the Più tranquillo coda, but Brahms allows the two instrumentalists their virtuosic say in the final bars of the piece. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

JERRY GROSSMAN, CELLO Jerry Grossman has been the principal cellist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra since1986. He has appeared in recital, and with symphony orchestras and chamber ensemblesthroughout the United States. His highly acclaimed New York debut at the MetropolitanMuseum of Art was followed by the American premiere of Kurt Weill’s 1920 CelloSonata, leading to recording that work, as well as works by Dohnanyi, Prokofiev,Bartok, and Kodaly for Nonesuch Records. His recording of works for cello by VictorHerbert is available on New World Records. He has appeared as soloist in Carnegie Hall and on domestic and European tours with the Met Orchestra under James Levine playing Don Quixote by Richard Strauss. The performance has also been recorded for Deutsche Grammophon . A long association with the Marlboro Music Festival, including numerous ‘Music from Marlboro’ tours and recordings, figures prominently in Mr. Grossman’s chamber musicexperience. He is a former member of Orpheus and Speculum Musicae, and has alsoappeared as a guest artist with the Guarneri, Vermeer, and Emerson String Quartets. Hewas the founding cellist of both the Chicago String Quartet and the Chicago Chamber Musicians. Before assuming his position at the Metropolitan Opera, Mr. Grossman wasa member of the Chicago Symphony for two seasons and the New York Philharmonic for two seasons. Mr. Grossman began his music studies in his native Cambridge, Massachusetts. His teachers there included Judith Davidoff, Joan Esch and Benjamin Zander. He attended the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied cello with David Soyer and chamber music with the other members of the Guarneri Quartet. Sandor Vegh and Harvey Shapiro were also important influences. Mr. Grossman has held faculty positions at the Juilliard School, the State University of New York at Binghamton, and DePaul University in Chicago. He currently teaches at the Kneisel Hall Summer Music Festival in Blue Hill, Maine.

October 20, 2024: Modigliani Quartet Joaquín’s Turina (1882 - 1949) La oración de torero (The Bullfighter’s Prayer) October 20, 2024: Modigliani Quartet Like most Spanish composers of his time, Turina went to Paris to study. While there he performed his already published Piano Quintet, op. 1, to an audience that included Isaac Albéniz. His compatriot advised him to look to his native Spain for material. Turina took the advice to heart, later claiming that the conversation had changed his whole attitude to music. More interested than his countrymen in pursuing the conventional (German) major forms, he sought to combine them with his Andalusian, particularly Sevillian, heritage in a style that had also absorbed Romantic and Impressionistic elements. His works in the smaller genres admirably exhibit Spanish traits, sometimes with humor and often with elegance. Turina composed La oración del toraro in 1924 as a lute quartet, dedicated to the lute virtuosos of the Aguilar family—Elisa, Ezequiel, José, and Francisco; he arranged it two years later for string quartet or string orchestra. The work’s roots in Andalusian folk music appear not only in the sounds of plucked strings, achieved by pizzicato in the string orchestra version, but in the rhythms, modal inflections, and alternating fast and slow sections. The piece also shows French influence, including that of Ravel, and even a bit of English harmonic texture—Vaughan Williams or Delius, perhaps. The bullfighter’s prayer climaxes in the slow middle section with an intensity in the high registers that seems particularly well suited to the sustained sounds of bowed rather than plucked strings. Turina condenses and varies the return of the opening section—without its introduction—now rising again to beseeching heights but without the previous intensity, ending quietly. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

SETH MORRIS, FLUTE Seth Morris serves as Principal Flute with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and previously held the same position with the Houston Grand Opera and Houston Ballet Orchestras. He also was a member of the New World Symphony and West Michigan Symphony and has performed with ensembles across the United States including the Houston, Detroit, and Pacific Symphony Orchestras, American Ballet Theatre, Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra, and the Dallas Winds. Seth was a Fellow of the Tanglewood Music Center, as well as a member of the American Institute of Musical Studies Festival Orchestra in Graz, Austria, and performed at the Bay View Music Festival. A laureate of multiple competitions, Seth won first prize in the National Flute Association's Young Artist Competition, the James Pappoutsakis Memorial Competition, the Myrna W. Brown Artist Competition, and both the Kentucky Flute Festival's Young Artist and Collegiate Artist Competitions. In 2015, Seth won the bronze medal at the Ima Hogg Competition where he gave the Houston Symphony premiere of the Carl Nielsen Flute Concerto; other concerto performances include the Boston Chamber Symphony, the Bay View Chamber Orchestra, and the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra. In addition to performing, Seth has taught at numerous universities and festivals around the country including serving as guest professor at the University of Michigan and University of Texas at Arlington. He has been a Guest Artist or featured clinician for the Texas Music Festival, Texas Flute Festival, Houston Flute Fest, San Diego Flute Club, Long Beach Flute Institute, Floot Fire Houston, and Kentucky Flute Festival, and has served on the faculty for Carnegie Hall’s NYO-USA and the Houston Youth Symphony. His articles have been published in The Flutist Quarterly and The Floot Fire Book: Advanced. Originally from Louisville, Kentucky, Seth went on to earn a Bachelor of Music and Bachelor of Music in Music Education at the University of Kentucky, a Master of Music at the New England Conservatory, and a Doctor of Musical Arts in Flute Performance degree at the University of Michigan. His teachers include Paula Robison, Amy Porter, Fenwick Smith, and Gordon Cole. Seth is a William S. Haynes Artist.