November 12, 2023: Angel Blue, soprano; Bryan Wagorn, piano GEORGE GERSHWIN (1898-1937) Preludes November 12, 2023: Angel Blue, soprano; Bryan Wagorn, piano On Saturday afternoon, December 4, 1926, at the Hotel Roosevelt, Gershwin performed five preludes for piano on the first of several recitals with contralto Marguerite d’Alvarez. (For more about Gershwin’s background as a composer of songs and shows, see “American Songbook below.”) Two of these preludes had been published as Short Story, two “novelettes” for violin and piano, after violinist Samuel Dushkin had seen them in one of Gershwin’s notebooks marked “Preludes” and been given permission to make them into violin and piano pieces for a 1925 recital. Neither the five piano preludes nor the violin-piano arrangements attracted much attention. The five preludes plus a sixth, which Gershwin performed when the recital was repeated in Boston the following month, formed part of a project he had had in mind for some time: a set of twenty-four piano preludes to be called The Melting Pot. (The sixth was never written down in final form.) Although he abandoned the larger project, he published three of the preludes as a set, which has since become an established part of the repertoire. He dedicated them to his friend composer-conductor-pianist-arranger Bill Daly. This afternoon we hear the first two of the set, both heavily influenced by jazz. A bluesy syncopated five-note motive opens the first Prelude and serves as the building material for the piece’s jazzy rhythmic dance. Gershwin once called the second Prelude “a sort of blue lullaby,” and indeed it unfolds as a kind of nocturne over a repeating pattern. Following a new middle section with the melody in the bass, the languid opening returns. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

WU HAN, PIANO Pianist Wu Han ranks among the most esteemed and influential classical musicians in the world today. Leading an unusually multifaceted artistic career, she has risen to international prominence through her wide-ranging activities as a concert performer, recording artist, educator, arts administrator, and cultural entrepreneur. In high demand as a recitalist, concerto soloist, and chamber musician, Wu Han has appeared at many of the world’s most prestigious concert series and venues across the United States and around the world. She is a frequent collaborator with many of today’s finest musicians and ensembles. Wu Han appears extensively each season as duo pianist with cellist David Finckel, and in 2012, they were the recipients of Musical America’s 2012 Musicians of the Year award, one of the highest honors granted by the music industry. London’s Musical Opinion said of the duo’s Wigmore Hall debut: “They enthralled both myself and the audience with performances whose idiomatic command, technical mastery and unsullied integrity of vision made me think right back to the days of Schnabel and Fournier, Solomon and Piatigorsky.” In addition to her distinction as one of classical music’s most accomplished performers, Wu Han has established a reputation for her dynamic and innovative approach to the recording studio. In 1997, Wu Han and David Finckel launched ArtistLed, classical music’s first musician-directed and Internet-based recording company, whose catalogue of eighteen albums has won widespread critical acclaim. The duo’s recording for the ArtistLed label of the Rachmaninov, Shostakovich, and Prokofiev sonatas for cello and piano received BBC Music Magazine’s coveted “Editor’s Choice” award. The most recent addition to the ArtistLed catalogue, Wu Han LIVE, was released in December 2014 in collaboration with the Music@Menlo LIVE label and features Wu Han performing solo and chamber works of Mendelssohn, Bach, and Haydn. Now in their third term as Artistic Directors of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, David Finckel and Wu Han hold the longest tenure since Charles Wadsworth, the founding Artistic Director. They are the founding Artistic Directors of Music@Menlo, a chamber music festival and institute in Silicon Valley that has garnered international acclaim, soon to celebrate its thirteenth season. David Finckel and Wu Han also serve as Artistic Directors of Chamber Music Today, an annual festival held in Seoul, Korea. The festival, now celebrating its fifth anniversary, is at the forefront of expanding the presence of chamber music in the Far East. Wu Han has achieved universal renown for her passionate commitment to nurturing the careers of countless young artists through a wide array of education initiatives. For many years, she taught alongside the late Isaac Stern at Carnegie Hall and the Jerusalem Music Center. Under the auspices of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Wu Han and David Finckel direct the LG Chamber Music School, which provides workshops for young artists in Korea. In 2013, Wu Han and David Finckel established a chamber music studio at Aspen Music Festival.

EMERSON STRING QUARTET The Emerson String Quartet has amassed an unparalleled list of achievements over four decades: more than thirty acclaimed recordings, nine Grammys® (including two for Best Classical Album), three Gramophone Awards, the Avery Fisher Prize, Musical America’s “Ensemble of the Year” and collaborations with many of the greatest artists of our time. The arrival of Paul Watkins in 2013 has had a profound effect on the Emerson Quartet. Mr. Watkins, a distinguished soloist, award-winning conductor, and devoted chamber musician, joined the ensemble in its 37th season, and his dedication and enthusiasm have infused the Quartet with a warm, rich tone and a palpable joy in the collaborative process. The reconfigured group has been praised by critics and fans alike around the world. “The Emerson brought the requisite virtuosity to every phrase. But this music is equally demanding emotionally and intellectually, and the group’s powers of concentration and sustained intensity were at least as impressive.” The New York Times The 2016-17 season marks the Emerson Quartet’s 40th Anniversary, and highlights of this milestone year reflect all aspects of the Quartet’s venerable artistry with high-profile projects and collaborations, commissions and recordings. Universal Music Group has reissued their entire Deutsche Grammophon discography in a 52-CD boxed set. After recent engagements together at the Kennedy Center and Tanglewood, illustrious soprano Renée Fleming joins the Emerson at Walt Disney Concert Hall, performing works by Alban Berg and Egon Wellesz from their first collaborative recording, released by Decca in fall of 2015. The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center has programmed celebratory concerts at Alice Tully Hall, as well as in Chicago and Purchase, NY, in October: the Calidore Quartet teamed up with the Emerson for the Mendelssohn Octet, and the Emerson gave the New York premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Shroud (co-commissioned by CMS). Former Emerson cellist David Finckel appears as a special guest for Schubert’s Quintet in C Major. In May 2017, international acclaimed pianist Yefim Bronfman will join the Quartet for a performance of the Brahms Quintet at Carnegie Hall. Additional highlights include a concert with clarinetist David Shifrin as part of the Quartet’s season-long residency at Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon, as well as a collaboration with cellist Clive Greensmith at the Soka Performing Arts Center in California. The Emerson continues its series at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC for its 38th season, and the quartet members have been selected as Artistic Advisors for Wolf Trap’s Chamber Music at The Barns in Virginia, curating the series in celebration of its 20th season. On April 21, 2017 the Quartet releases its latest album, Chaconnes and Fantasias: Music of Britten and Purcell, the first release on Universal Music Classics’ new US classical record label, Decca Gold. Multiple tours of Europe comprise dates in Austria, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, The Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom (including Wigmore Hall for a 40th Anniversary Gala);the Quartet also tours South America and Asia. Formed in 1976 and based in New York City, the Emerson was one of the first quartets whose violinists alternated in the first chair position. The Emerson Quartet, which took its name from the American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, is Quartet-in-Residence at Stony Brook University. During the spring of 2016, full-time Stony Brook faculty members Philip Setzer and Lawrence Dutton received the honor of Distinguished Professor, and part-time faculty members Eugene Drucker and Paul Watkins were awarded the title of Honorary Distinguished Professor. In January 2015, the Quartet received the Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award, Chamber Music America’s highest honor, in recognition of its significant and lasting contribution to the chamber music field.

March 29, 2015 – Matthew Polenzani, tenor; Ken Noda, piano SAMUEL BARBER (1910-1981) Hermit Songs, Op. 29 March 29, 2015 – Matthew Polenzani, tenor; Ken Noda, piano Samuel Barber excelled in both singing and composition as a student at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Upon graduation he worked briefly as a baritone for NBC on the Music Guild Series and was even hired for his own series of weekly song broadcasts in 1935. As a composer he was naturally drawn to vocal expression—two-thirds of his compositions consist of songs—but even his instrumental works are infused with a lyrical impulse. In November 1952, Barber was already a well-established composer and had just completed his lighthearted ballet Souvenirs, when another project seized his fancy, drawing on his love of Irish literature and poetry. He wrote to his uncle, composer Sidney Homer, who served as his mentor for much of his career: I have come across some poems of the 10th century, translated into Modern English by various people, and am making a song cycle of them, to be called, perhaps “Hermit Songs.” These were extraordinary men, monks or hermits or what not, and they wrote these little poems on the corners of MSS they were illuminating or just copying. I find them very direct, unspoiled, and often curiously contemporaneous in feeling. Barber himself was something of a hermit, often holing up to compose, so the idea of these ancient scholars scribbling in unguarded moments greatly appealed to him. He elaborated further in his printed preface: They are settings of anonymous Irish texts of the eighth to thirteenth centuries written by monks and scholars, often on the margins of manuscripts they were copying or illuminating—perhaps not always meant to be seen by their Father Superiors. They are small poems, thoughts or observations, some very short, and speak in straightforward, droll, and often surprisingly modern terms of the simple life these men led, close to nature, to animals, and to God. Some are very literal translation, and others, where existing translation seemed inadequate, were especially made by W. H. Auden [“The Monk and his Cat” and “The Praises of God”] and Chester Kallman [“St. Ita’s Vision”]. Barber composed four of the Hermit Songs immediately and by mid-February had completed the other six. A year after he had begun, he received a commission for the cycle from the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation—Mrs. Coolidge had been a great supporter of his work for thirty years. Barber’s search for the ideal singer to present the songs culminated with Leontyne Price, who had recently become known for her portrayal of Bess in Porgy and Bess but had yet to make her recital debut. Price, with Barber at the piano, gave the first performance at the Coolidge Auditorium at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., on Mrs. Coolidge’s eighty-ninth birthday, October 30, 1953. She presented them again with the composer in April in Rome at the Twentieth-Century Music Conference and in November at her New York recital debut—thus began a long and rewarding friendship. The ten songs vary considerably in length and mood according to their subjects, from the tender lullaby of “St. Ita’s Vision” to the bombast of “Sea-Snatch.” But they make a cohesive group based in part on ancient-sounding fourths and fifths and other shared motivic material (a descending whole tone followed by a descending fourth appears in eight of the songs). Whether fast or slow, jaunty or reflective, Barber’s style of declamation fits the text precisely because he allows unhampered metric flow by omitting time signatures altogether. Attested to by the frequency of their performance and by the remarkable number of studies devoted to both their textual and musical analysis, The Hermit Songs rank among the great songs cycles of the twentieth century. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

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January 29, 2023: DANISH STRING QUARTET FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828) String Quartet No. 13 in A minor, D. 804, Op. 29 (“Rosamunde”) January 29, 2023: DANISH STRING QUARTET Schubert wrote his first string quartets—seven or eight of them not counting lost or incomplete works—between 1812 and 1814 while he was a student at the Kaiserlich-königliches Stadtkonvikt (Imperial and Royal City College), Vienna’s principal boarding school for non-aristocrats. Already an excellent violinist and pianist, Schubert had begun playing viola in his family’s string quartet from about 1811 on during school vacations—with his brothers Ignaz and Franz on violin and his father on cello. Then, between 1814 and 1816, during his so-called “song years,” he wrote only three more quartets, followed by a hiatus of four years until he began writing a string quartet in C minor. He abandoned this work after writing just one movement, known as the Quartettsatz, and a few bars of a slow movement. Finally, in the spring of 1824 he took up quartet writing again with the A minor Quartet, which along with his next quartet in D minor, “Death and the Maiden,” are some of the best in the repertoire. Two events impacted Schubert’s writing of the A minor Quartet, which he completed very quickly in February and March 1824. One was that he met violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh, who led the quartet that had premiered Beethoven’s recent quartets. When the Schuppanzigh Quartet premiered the A minor Quartet on March 14 that year, it was the first public performance of any of Schubert’s quartets. Dedicated to Schuppanzigh, the work received only minimal though at least not negative notice in the press, and Schubert immediately began composing the D minor Quartet, but that work was not performed until two years later, and he gave up on his idea of writing a third quartet to publish in a set of three. He later did compose the G major Quartet as a separate work, but only the D minor was published during his lifetime—many of his works remined unpublished for decades. The other life event was his health having taken a turn for the worse. Schubert had contracted syphilis in late 1822, and this recent intensification brought extreme dejection as he realized his time was limited. Surely the poignantly beautiful A minor Quartet shows some of that despair. On March 31, shortly after the premiere of the work, he poured out his misery in a letter to his friend Leopold Kupelweiser: I find myself to be the most unhappy and wretched creature in the world. Imagine a man whose health will never be right again, and who in sheer despair continually makes things worse and worse instead of better; imagine a man, I say, whose most brilliant hopes have perished, to whom the felicity of love and friendship have nothing to offer but pain at best, whom enthusiasm (at least of the stimulating variety) for all things beautiful threatens to forsake, and I ask you, is he not a miserable, unhappy being? “My peace is gone, my heart is sore, I shall find it nevermore.” I might as well sing every day now, for upon retiring to bed each night I hope that I may not wake again, and each morning only recalls yesterday’s grief. The quote in that letter is from his 1814 song “Gretchen am Spinnrade,” words by Goethe, and it seems more than coincidence that the first movement of the A minor Quartet begins much like the song that deals with Gretchen’s forlorn state—a restless opening accompaniment figure topped by the violin’s lyrical outpouring of the main theme. The repetition of the theme in the major mode does not banish the mood, nor does the major-mode second theme. Schubert’s development section is a masterpiece of thematic and harmonic construction, exploring several minor keys in a dramatic arc, and the recapitulation takes some unexpected harmonic turns, ending in the minor mode. Schubert borrowed the theme of the slow movement from his incidental music to Wihelm von Chézy’s ill-fated play Rosamunde, Fürstin von Zypern (Rosamunde, princess of Cypress), which closed after only two performances in December 1823. Schubert employs the tender, memorable theme—originally the entrance music for a shepherdess and her flock—not as the subject for variations but for a simple A-B-A-B-coda form in which the coda expressively combines the music of the two sections. Schubert would return to the Rosamunde theme yet again in his B-flat major Impromptu. The characteristic long-short-short rhythm was a favorite with many composers, but it seems especially striking that Beethoven uses it so memorably in the Allegretto of his Seventh Symphony, which Schubert greatly admired. The Menuetto opens with another self-reminiscence, in this case from his song “Die Götter Griechenland” (The gods of Greece) where it sets Schiller’s words “Schöne Welt, wo bist du?” (Beautiful world, where are you?). It soon swings into a lilting dance rhythm, though still tinged with melancholy. Schubert carries the opening motive into the trio section, which provides major-mode though short-lived contrast. The finale gives the impression of a rustic peasant dance, though it does not project the kind of exuberance of, say, the last movement of Mendelssohn’s A minor Italian Symphony. Schubert constructed an ingenious sonata-rondo form in which the main theme does not return in complete form as a refrain. Instead the first part returns before the development section and the second part recurs after. The A major tonality of this movement, as customary in Schubert’s hands, is a very fluid affair; he eventually ends solidly in the major home key in some delightful delicacy topped off with two emphatic cadential chords. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2017 AT 3 PM LOS ANGELES GUITAR QUARTET BUY TICKETS LOS ANGELES GUITAR QUARTET “The world’s hottest classical ensemble or its tightest pop band? However it helps you to think about the LAGQ, keep the emphasis on superlatives for its unrivaled joy, technical élan and questing spirits.” — Los Angeles Times “Ensemble guitar playing doesn’t doesn’t come any better.” — The Kansas City Star FEATURING ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE BUY TICKETS On November 19 , the Grammy Award-winning Los Angeles Guitar Quartet will offer a varied program of classical favorites, tracing a broad dramatic arc and emotional journey. For three decades, the LAGQ has set the standard for expression and virtuosity among guitar ensembles. Their acclaimed transcriptions of concert masterworks provide a fresh look at the music of the past while their interpretations from the contemporary realm continually break new ground. The highlight of the program will be Road to the Sun , written for the LAGQ by guitar legend Pat Metheny. This six-movement work is a journey through the musical worlds of Metheny, including jazz, groove, ballad, rock and expressionist elements. Not to be missed! PROGRAM Music from the Time of Cervantes (arr. W. Kanengiser) Anonymous (17th century) Jácaras Antonio Martín y Coll El Villano Antonio Martín y Coll Diferéncias Sobre Las Folias Juan Arañéz Chacona (“La Vida Bona”) Juan de Encina Oy Comamos Program Notes Johann Sebastian Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 6, BWV 1051 Program Notes Three Brazilian Pieces Hermeto Pascoal Da Sábado pra Dominguihnos Hermeto Pascoal A Lenda do Caboclo Baden Powell Samba Novo Program Notes Opals Phillip Houghton Opals Program Notes Pat Metheny Pat Metheny Road to the Sun Program Notes Watch the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet play a Tarantella: Watch the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet play music from the time of Cervantes:

YOON KWON, VIOLIN Described by Dorothy DeLay as a violinist with “staggering imagination” and “one of the most expressive tones I’ve ever heard”, violinist Yoon Kwon’s compelling musicianship and dynamic stage presence have won the hearts of audiences around the world. Her performances have earned her critical acclaim across four continents, garnering remarks such as “magic that transcends mere pyrotechnical flash”, “infinitely beautiful sound… holding an audience spellbound”, and “utterly assured and carefree…a talent that kept us enchanted throughout”. Yoon Kwon began her professional career in 1993 as a thirteen-year-old, youngest winner in the history of the New Jersey Symphony Young Artists Auditions joining the roster of IMG Artists, alongside such artists as Itzhak Perlman and Joshua Bell. She has since concertized extensively as soloist with major orchestras and in recitals and chamber music appearances with distinguished musicians. Today, still only in her mid-twenties, Yoon Kwon is a seasoned artist with a remarkable and excitingly versatile career. In addition to her solo appearances, she is currently the youngest first violinist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, a member of the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society Two, and the lead violinist of her own jazz ensemble, Emergence, appearing regularly in New York City’s jazz clubs. As soloist, Ms. Kwon has appeared abroad with such orchestras as the Cologne Philharmonic, Warsaw Philharmonic, (it’s 100th season opening gala) Orquesta Sinfonica de Teatro Colon (Argentina), Euro-Asian Philharmonic, Vancouver Symphony, Istanbul State Symphony, and the Mexico State Symphony Orchestra, to name a few. Her numerous US appearances include performances with the symphonies of Cincinnati, Chicago, Colorado, Greenville, Houston, Honolulu, Phoenix, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, St. Louis, and Wichita, and others. Among the conductors she has collaborated with are James Conlon, Lawrence Foster, Sergiu Commissiona, Paavo Jarvi, Haermann Michael, Stefan Sandering, Alan Gilbert, Tandeuz Strugala, Gurer Aykal, David Lockington, Andre Raphael Smith, and Enrique Batiz. Her recital credits are also numerous: Ravinia Rising Stars Series, St. Louis Great Artist Series, La Jolla Discovery Series, and Aspen Winter Series. During the 1998-2003 seasons, under the auspices of Columbia Artists Community Concerts, Yoon and her sister, pianist Min Kwon, undertook extensive tours of joint recitals and master classes across the US. Yoon Kwon is also a frequent performer at summer festivals, including Marlboro, Aspen, Santa Fe, La Jolla, Tanglewood, Vancouver, Rome and Cassamagiore (Italy), Kuhmo (Finland), and Interlaken, Verbier (Switzerland), collaborating with such distinguished musicians as Andras Schiff, Pinchas Zukerman, Richard Stolzman, Midori, Felix Galimir, Cho-Liang Lin, Robert McDuffie, Daniel Blumenthal, Carter Brey, and members of the Guarneri, Juilliard, and Emerson string quartets. Yoon Kwon released her debut CD on the BMG/RCA Red Seal label in Korea in 1997 to critical acclaim, becoming the first Korean artist to record for the label. She has also recorded You and Me, an album of solo and duo works with pianist Min Kwon, Anthony Newman’s Sonata for Violin and Piano with the composer at the piano. She can be also heard on a jazz album entitled Phoenix on the Songlines label. Yoon Kwon’s captivating and passionate performances have been seen and heard by television and radio audiences worldwide. Ms Kwon has been a feature performer on CBS TV’s New Year’s Eve Peace Concert hosted by Maya Angelou, and broadcast from New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine. She has also been featured on NBC TV (USA), TV Stuttgart and WDR (Germany), KBS and SBS TV (Korea), and numerous FM stations across the US. A native of Seoul, Korea, Yoon Kwon began her musical studies at the age of three, studying the piano. At the age of six, she began studying the violin, and two years later was accepted into the Juilliard School, where she studied with the late Dorothy DeLay. In 1997, at the age of the 17, she was the youngest winner in the history of The Juilliard School Concerto Competition, resulting in her Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center debut later that year. Ms. Kwon received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees as well as the prestigious Artist Diploma from The Juilliard School where she studied with Dorothy DeLay, Hyo Kang, Cho-Liang Lin, and Donald Weilerstein. She was the recipient of the Avery Fisher Stradivarius on loan from The Juilliard School and Sennhouser Guarnerius del Gesu on loan from the Stradivari Society. She also enjoys teaching, and has taught at Columbia University’s Young Musicians Program, Kuhmo International Music Course in Finland, and as assistant to Cho-Liang Lin, at The Juilliard School.

December 15, 2024: THE VIRTUOSO FLUTIST. DENIS BOURIAKOV, FLUTE. A RECITAL FOR FLUTE AND ORCHESTRA, with Erin Bouriakov, Flute. Musicians From The New York Philharmonic. Michael Parloff, Conductor. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) Flute Concerto in G, K. 313 December 15, 2024: THE VIRTUOSO FLUTIST. DENIS BOURIAKOV, FLUTE. A RECITAL FOR FLUTE AND ORCHESTRA, with Erin Bouriakov, Flute. Musicians From The New York Philharmonic. Michael Parloff, Conductor. In the winter of 1777 when Mozart was visiting Mannheim, he became very friendly with various wind players whose playing he thought was brilliant. One of these, flutist Johan Baptiste Wendling, had even gone so far as to try to get Mozart a position with Karl Theodor, Elector Palatine. When no position was available and it seemed Mozart would have to leave Mannheim, Wendling industriously procured commissions for him. One such commission came from wealthy Dutch surgeon and accomplished amateur flutist Ferdinand Dejean, who requested what the composer referred to in 1777 as “three short, simple concertos and a couple of quartets for flute” for which the fee was to be 200 gulden. By the time Dejean left for Paris on February 15, 1778, Mozart had completed two full-fledged concertos (though one was an arrangement of an earlier oboe concerto) and three quartets (though until relatively recently the C major Flute Quartet was not authenticated as dating from then because of a quirk in paper studies). He was chagrined, nonetheless, to receive only 96 gulden, saying it went against their agreement. Mozart’s father then surmised how many compositions the original commission must have entailed, based on the fact that his son had received less than half of his fee, and sent an angry letter berating him for his laziness. Yet the younger Mozart cannot be accused of lying about the scope of the commission to please his father, as has been repeated for more than a century—in fact his references to the commission vary as to number and type of composition. Rather, there simply remained an unknown number of works to be completed and Wolfgang wanted payment in advance. This suggests that Dejean would be crossing paths with Mozart after Paris—and indeed Dejean, a fellow Freemason, took up residence in Vienna. It is even possible that the Fourth Flute Quartet (associated with Gottfried von Jacquin) may have been played by Dejean and possibly even counted as an extension of the earlier Dejean commission. But to return to Mozart’s response to his father’s angry letter, it contains a line as an excuse that has grieved flute lovers ever since: “You know that I am quite powerless when I am obliged to write for an instrument I cannot bear.” Is this really what he meant? How can he have written such idiomatic, engaging music for an instrument he supposedly did not like? And did he not greatly admire the flute playing of his friend Wendling? The G major Concerto is a charming work and is by no means “short” and “simple.” The first movement’s opening tutti (ensemble) section presents the forthright main theme and hints at a second theme, but closes with a new, rhythmic arpeggiated passage that returns at important junctures. After the flute’s elaborated exposition of the majestic theme, a bit of the arpeggiated tutti returns to launch the second theme. One of the many ways Mozart displays the soloist’s prowess is in frequent wide leaps, which tests the ability to project in the low register and to move quickly between registers. Mozart provides an opportunity for a solo cadenza just before the arpeggiated tutti closes the movement. The Adagio ma non troppo is one of those leisurely, exquisite movements at which Mozart was so adept. He follows slow-movement sonata form, in which an exposition and recapitulation are separated by a short episode rather than a full development section. Of special note here is the velvety sonority achieved by having the upper strings play muted and the lower strings sometimes in gentle pizzicato. Throughout the flute shows its ability to play lyrically and ornament gracefully. Here, too, Mozart provides an opportunity for a cadenza toward the end. The closing sonata-rondo movement brings in the flute right at the outset. Each return of this delightful refrain brings subtle variants to keep the ear engaged. Mozart introduces the contrasting minor mode episode with a little hint that “something is up” by varying the little tutti scale figures that lead up to it. The placement of the cadenza here before the recapitulation allows this section to proceed without interruption and even to end in quiet elegance. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

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HUGO VALVERDE, HORN Hugo Valverde carries an orchestral and solo career in the United States and his native Costa Rica as a French horn player, currently holding the position of Second Horn with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra since 2017. As an orchestra player he has performed with the Costa Rican National Symphony Orchestra, the Classical Tahoe Festival Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Americas, The Pacific Music Festival Orchestra and The Philadelphia Orchestra. In his role as a soloist he performed Richard Strauss’ Concerto No. 1 with the Lynn Philharmonia Orchestra under Guillermo Figueroa and he premiered the piece “Tributo al Ciudadano Pablo” by Marvin Camacho with the Heredia Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica under Josué Jiménez. The piece is written and dedicated to him by the composer and it reflects Hugo Valverde’s commitment to Latin American repertoire, having performed and premiered in concert pieces by Manuel Matarrita, and other Latin American composers. He often performs chamber music concerts with his colleagues of the, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at the Carnegie Hall Concert Series (Met Orchestra Chamber Ensemble) at Weill Recital Hall and also with the woodwind quintet “Quinteto de Luz” in Costa Rica. Mr. Valverde studied at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, Lynn University Conservatory of Music and the National Music Institute of Costa Rica. His main teachers are Luis Murillo, Gregory Miller and William VerMeulen. In his spare time, Hugo enjoys cycling in Central Park and his native Barva, in Costa Rica, and is a coffee lover.

2017-2016 SEASON 2015-2016 SEASON OCTOBER 4, 2015 Richard Goode, piano NOVEMBER 15, 2015 Jeremy Denk, piano, and Stefan Jackiw, violin DECEMBER 13, 2015 Kristin Lee, violin; Paul Watkins, cello; Gilles Vonsattel, piano MARCH 6, 2016 Escher String Quartet APRIL 3, 2016 Sir James Galway and Friends MAY 15, 2016 Stephanie Blythe, mezzo-soprano; Craig Terry, piano 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