STEFÁN RAGNAR HÖSKULDSSON, FLUTE Stefan Ragnar Hoskuldsson, a native of Iceland, is principal flutist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and is quickly being recognized as one of the leading soloist in the country. Before winning the principal position in 2008, Stefan served as second flutist with the orchestra for four years. Under the direction of James Levine, Mr. Hoskuldsson regularly performs at Carnegie Hall and Zankel Hall with the MET Orchestra and Chamber Ensemble. He has performed under the batons of Valerie Gergiev, Daniel Barenboim, Seiji Ozawa, Essa Pekka Salonen, Ricardo Muti and has collaborated with such artists as Alfred Brendel, Yifim Brofman, Gil Shiham and Diana Damrau. Stefan can be heard and seen on live HD broadcasts with the Metropolitan Opera. One of these recordings include the 2008 performance of Lucia di Lammermoor where he collaborated with Anna Netrebko in the famous flute and soprano cadenza from the mad scene. In addition to his active schedule with the MET, Mr. Hoskuldsson performs as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the US, Europe, South America and Japan. In 2009, he was invited to be a special guest artist at the Sir James Galway International Flute master class in Lucerne, Switzerland where he performed a solo recital and had the honor of playing a duet with Sir James. Stefan returned there in the summer of 2010 to perform and give a workshop on the flute in operatic music. In March 2011, as a part of a European tour Mr.Hoskuldsson gave a series of very successful masterclasses and recitals at the Guildhall School and the Royal Academy of Music in London, and at the Conservatorio Real in Madrid. He is also a regular guest professor at Mannes College of Music and Manhattan School of Music. Stefan is a faculty member of the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan. As an active soloist Stefan performed the Lowell Liebermann Flute Concerto with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra in 2006. He will return in August 2011 to perform Mozart Flute Concerto in D major in the newly inaugurated Symphony Hall “Harpa” in Reykjavik. Other Concerto engagements include a performance of the Mozart Flute and Harp Concerto with members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in New York in October 2011. Stefan will also perform the Nielsen flute concerto and the Bach b-minor Suite with the New York Repertory Orchestra in February 2012. In demand as an orchestral soloist, Mr. Hoskuldsson was invited to play Guest Principal Flute with the Mostly Mozart Festival during the 2009 season as well as with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the end of their 2010 -2011 season. Stefan attended the Royal Northern College where he studied with Peter Lloyd and Wissam Boustany. While in Iceland he attended the Reykjavik College of Music studying with Bernhard Wilkinson. Stefan has recorded for the Naxos label-American Classics Series.

2010-2011 ARTIST ROSTER DENIS BOURIAKOV, FLUTE - 2010 ANNE CRUMB, NARRATOR DANIEL DORFF, COMPOSER MICHELLE GOTT, HARP DAVID KRAUSS, TRUMPET JON MANASSE, CLARINET CYNTHIA PHELPS, VIOLA MARK ROMATZ, BASSOON SHERYL STAPLES, VIOLIN SHAI WOSNER, PIANO CARTER BREY, CELLO JON DEAK, COMPOSER RAFAEL FIGUEROA, CELLO WARREN JONES, PIANO YOON KWON, VIOLIN JOEL NOYES, CELLO MATTHEW POLENZANI, TENOR DOV SCHEINDLIN, VIOLA SCOTT STEVENS, PERCUSSION DAVID CHAN, VIOLIN SIMONE DINNERSTEIN, PIANO RICHARD FREDRICKSON, DOUBLE BASS MICHELLE KIM, VIOLIN KATE LINDSEY, MEZZO-SOPRANO JEEWON PARK, PIANO CATHERINE RO, VIOLIN WESTON SPROTT, TROMBONE RICHARD STOLTZMAN, CLARINET

January 18, 2026: Benjamin Beilman, violin; Jonathan Swenson, cello; Orion Weiss, piano FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847) Piano Trio No. 2 in C minor, Op. 66 January 18, 2026: Benjamin Beilman, violin; Jonathan Swenson, cello; Orion Weiss, piano On January 21, 1832, Mendelssohn wrote from Paris to his sister Fanny, “I should like to compose a couple of good trios.” Over a decade earlier he had written a trio for piano, violin, and viola that he never published, but he did not compose a “good trio”—one he thought worthy of publication—until 1839. Published in 1840, the D minor Trio, for the more conventional combination of piano, violin, and cello, was hailed by Schumann in the Neue Zeitschrift as “the master Trio of the age, as were the B-flat and D major trios of Beethoven and the E-flat Trio of Schubert in their time.” Mendelssohn finally made good on his 1832 wish when in 1845 he composed a second piano trio—his last—the present C minor. Owing to its strong outer sonata-form movements, the characteristic songfulness in the second movement, and the fleet-footed scherzo, the C minor Trio easily merits a place alongside the D minor. Mendelssohn dedicated the C minor Trio to violinist and composer Louis Spohr—along with playing much of Spohr’s chamber music, Mendelssohn had conducted and continued to perform many of his works with the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig. Mendelssohn wrote to him on February 14, 1846: Do not be angry with me for having been so bold as to dedicate the enclosed Trio to you without consulting you in advance. Hauptmann assures me that you would receive it well nevertheless, and so I hope he is not mistaken. I would like to have saved the honor for a somewhat longer piece; but then I should have had to put it off, as I so often have had to of late. . . . I no longer wished to delay expressing for once the heartfelt gratitude for so many pleasures, for so much instruction, for which I am indebted to you! Indeed Spohr received the C minor Trio well—he himself played the piece with the composer on several occasions. The main theme of the first movement is flexible and well suited for thematic and contrapuntal development; the restless theme, combined with the sustained low pedal tone (C, the cello’s lowest note), contributes a sense of dramatic anticipation to the opening. A particularly effective detail is Mendelssohn’s use of this theme in the coda where the strings play a broader version against the original version in the piano. The expansive second theme is also given an appearance just before the end of the coda, but this time strikingly in a new key (F minor). The gentle Andante espressivo, in a basic ternary pattern, is reminiscent of the composer’s Lieder ohne Worte (Songs without Words). It is followed by a scherzo that stems from the fairy-world atmosphere of the Octet, but is slightly more agitated and aggressive. Mendelssohn toyed successfully with the form by incorporating the trio theme in the reprise of the scherzo. The main theme of Mendelssohn’s Finale, with its quick ascent and more prolonged descent, exerted its influence on Brahms, who used it almost literally as the theme of the Scherzo of his F minor Piano Sonata. Another feature of Mendelssohn’s Finale—the inclusion of a contrasting choralelike melody—also found its way into Brahms’s Sonata Finale. Mendelssohn’s characteristic spiritual gesture—similar to the fifteenth-century “Herr Gott, Dich loben alle wir” (common Doxology), which Bach had used in his Cantata 130—creates a solemn mood at its first appearance and returns majestically in the coda to crown the entire work. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

December 19, 2017: Alessio Bax, piano; Lucille Chung, piano WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) Sonata for Piano Four-Hands in C major, K. 521 December 19, 2017: Alessio Bax, piano; Lucille Chung, piano Four-hand piano music—two players at one keyboard—first surfaced in England in the early seventeenth century and became immensely popular in the mid-eighteenth century. As children/teenagers in the 1760s, Mozart and his gifted older sister Maria Anna (Nannerl) greatly popularized four-hand playing all over Europe through the tours they were taken on by their father Leopold. A famous painting of the Mozart family from about 1780 depicts the two showing crosse-hand technique at the keyboard, their father standing by with violin, and a portrait of their recently deceased mother on the wall. Wolfgang apparently wrote his first four-hand sonata, K. 19d, in London in 1765 when he was nine years old. Nannerl also mentioned in a letter of 1800 that she had other similar four-hand works in her possession, some of which may have been even earlier works, but all of which regrettably are lost. Wolfgang returned to the genre in 1772 with the D major Sonata, K. 123a (K. 381), probably influenced by seeing circulating manuscripts of Charles Burney’s four-hand sonatas even before they were printed in 1777 as the first published set of piano duets. Mozart went on to complete three more, of which the present C major Sonata of 1787 was the last. In Mozart’s day it was customary for the woman to play primo (the higher part, often with the melody) and the man secondo (the lower part, often with the bass support)—Wolfgang and his sister always played thus and perhaps instigated the custom. (From 1769 onward, having reached marriageable age, Nannerl was no longer permitted to perform in public.) Charles Burney, famous for his observations on musical life in many European countries, requested that a lady who wished to play piano duets should remove the hoops from her skirt, and not be embarrassed if her left hand occasionally grazed the gentleman’s right. Today’s piano-duet players—as in the case of Alessio Bax and Lucille Chung—like to change up who plays which part for any number of reasons. In his own thematic catalog, Mozart dated the C major Sonata May 29, 1787, which happened to be the very day he received word of the death of his father Leopold. He shared the sad news that day with one of his best friends, Viennese court official and amateur musician Gottfried von Jacquin, at the same time asking him to “have the goodness to give the sonata to my lady, your sister [Franziska, one of Mozart’s most talented pupils], with my compliments—but she might have a go at it immediately, for it is a bit difficult.” Evidently Mozart was eager to play it with her! Several months earlier he had nicknamed Franziska “Signora Dinimininimi” (related to diminutio and minim), no doubt referring to her skill at playing fast notes. As it turned out, when Mozart published the piece the following year, he dedicated it to some other members of the Jacquin circle, Babette and Nanette Natorp, the young daughters of a wealthy Viennese merchant. Babette was also a pupil of Mozart’s and later married Gottfried and Franziska’s older brother Josef Franz. The C major Sonata breathes grace and elegance, much like Eine kleine Nachtmusik, which he composed just two months later—and in great contrast to the more brilliant character of the F major four-hand Sonata composed just ten months before. The C major Sonata’s sparkling first movement opens by contrasting a forthright idea in octave unison with a more delicate response that alternately highlights the secondo and primo parts. Mozart begins his elegant second theme with a distinct three-note pickup to a dotted idea related to the movement’s opening pronouncement, into which he injects darting fast-note decorations. His development section is a fascinating excursion through new ideas and keys that includes storm and brief melancholy before winding up to a full recapitulation. The middle movement ambles sweetly in its outer sections, which surround a more agitated central section. Each of these sections takes on the binary form of a traditional dance-suite movement—two halves each repeated, except for the return to the opening section which is reprised without repeats. The final rondo shows Mozart’s mastery of understatement in its genial refrain. Its subtle charms provide a great foil for the remarkable yet still seemingly effortless virtuosity of its intervening episodes. Mozart’s ingenuity shows up in some wonderfully unexpected harmonic diversions in the episodes and even in the coda, which Mozart caps with emphatic chords. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

September 27, 2009 – Danielle de Niese, soprano; Ken Noda, piano WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) Al desio di chi t’adoro September 27, 2009 – Danielle de Niese, soprano; Ken Noda, piano The Marriage of Figaro received a decidedly positive reception at its Viennese premiere in 1786. The cast was strong and the audience so enthusiastic that almost every piece had to be encored, effectively doubling the opera’s already considerable length. In order to ensure reasonable ending times at subsequent performances, Emperor Joseph decreed that only the solo arias could be repeated. Despite its initial success with the public, Figaro was dropped from the Burgtheater repertoire after only nine performances, not return to Vienna for another three years. Mozart had powerful competitors in the court’s musical establishment, Antonio Salieri among them, and these politically savvy rivals may have contributed to the opera’s disappointingly short initial run. Although the performances of The Marriage of Figaro were an artistic and public triumph, they did not constitute the financial success that Mozart had hoped for. In 1789, Figaro returned to Vienna with a greatly altered cast. Perhaps the most significant change was the loss of Nancy Storace, the enchanting English/Italian soprano for whom Mozart had created the role of Susanna. Storace’s replacement was Adriana Ferrarese, one of the most successful sopranos of the day but a singer of very different vocal and dramatic strengths. Storace was known for the subtlety of her singing and the wit and flexibility of her acting. Ferrarese, by contrast, was reared in the more formal world of Opera Seria and was known for her dramatic gravitas, formidable power and coloratura agility. In order to ensure the success of the all-important second Viennese run of Figaro, Mozart felt that some musical adjustments should be made in the role of Susanna. Mozart liked to boast that he could make an aria fit a singer like a well-made garment. Here he outfitted Ferrarese with music designed to highlight her particular blend of dignity and virtuosity. In the fourth act he abandoned Susannas’s subtly seductive aria, Deh vieni non tardar, and replaced it with Al desio di chi t’adoro, a more extroverted work tailored around Farrarese’s strengths. Al desio is written in the form of a two-movement (slow/fast) rondó concertante, the longest and most aristocratic type of aria then in vogue. Accompanied by an unusual complement of solo woodwind instruments (including basset horns, French horns, and bassoons), the aria evokes the sufferings of a tragic heroine. The aria is extremely expressive and provides opportunities for the soprano to display her dramatic temperament and vocal agility. Although rarely included in modern day performances of The Marriage of Figaro, Al desio has taken its rightful place as a favorite concert aria in the Mozartian soprano repertoire. By Michael Parloff Return to Parlance Program Notes

ALBERT CANO SMIT, PIANO A musician who has been praised as “a moving young poet” (Le Devoir), Spanish/Dutch pianist Albert Cano Smit enjoys a growing international career on the orchestral, recital, and chamber music stages. Noted for his captivating performances, storytelling quality and nuanced musicality, the First Prize winner of the 2019 Young Concert Artists Susan Wadsworth International Auditions has appeared as a soloist with the Las Vegas Philharmonic, the San Diego Symphony, Montréal Symphony, the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle, Orquesta Filarmónica de Boca del Río, Barcelona Symphony, Catalonia National Orchestra, Manchester Camerata, Nottingham Youth Orchestra, and American Youth Symphony. Recital highlights have included his Carnegie Hall debut presented by The Naumburg Foundation, his Merkin Concert hall debut presented by Young Concert Artists, recitals at San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, Paris’ Fondation Louis Vuitton (the performance was streamed live globally), the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater in Washington, DC, Germany’s Rheingau Music Festival, and return performances at the Steinway Society in San Jose. He has been in residence at France’s Festival de Musique de Wissembourg for seven years, a piano fellow at Bravo! Vail Music Festival and Tippet Rise Art Center, and has had his recital debut in Asia at Xiamen’s Banlam Grand Theater. Albert has been presented in recital by Festival Bach Montréal, University of Florida Performing Arts, the Krannert Center (Urbana, IL), and Matinée Musicale (Cincinnati, OH). He recently premiered Katherine Balch’s “Spolia” with flutist Anthony Trionfo taking them to the Morgan Library and Carnegie Hall. Recent recitals with Trionfo have included the Alys Stephens Center, Kravis Center, Evergreen Museum & Library, and others. Cano Smit is set to continue touring with violinist William Hagen, with whom he has recorded the CD “Danse Russe”. During the 22-23 season Albert will appear in recital and chamber music performances at Merkin Hall (New York, NY), the Cosmos Club (Washington, DC), the Crystal Valley Concert Series (Middlebury, IN), Friends of Music Concerts (Sleepy Hollow, NY), Artist Series Concerts of Sarasota (Sarasota, FL), and Abbey Church Events (Lacey, WA), and will also participate in the inaugural chamber music ensemble of YCA on Tour. He will appear as soloist playing Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 4 in G Minor with the Seattle Symphony (Seattle, WA), Gershwin’s Concerto in F with the Aiken Symphony (Aiken, SC), and Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto No. 5 in E-Flat Major with the Elgin Symphony (Elgin, IL). An advocate for new music, Albert has premiered numerous solo works on his recital programs, commissioned for him by Stephen Hough, Miquel Oliu, and Katherine Balch. He has given four hand performances with Jean-Yves Thibaudet at the Wallis Annenberg Center Hall and Zipper Hall, taken part in the Jupiter Chamber Players in New York and the Bridgehampton Chamber Festival, and performed with such artists as Gary Hoffman, Andrej Bielow, Thomas Mesa, and Lev Sivkov. As a chamber musician, he has collaborated with such ensembles as the Ebene, Szymanowski, Casals, Cosmos, Gerhard, and Verona Quartets, and has released an album of Austrian viola music for Champs Hills with Emma Wernig. Albert was First Prize winner at the 2017 Walter W. Naumburg Piano Competition. Additional special prizes at the 2019 Young Concert Artists International Auditions include The Paul A. Fish Memorial Prize, the Alexander Kasza-Kasser Concert Prize for support of his Kennedy Center debut, the Friends of Music Concert Prize (NY), and the Sunday Musicale Prize (NJ). Born in Geneva, Switzerland, Albert recently completed an Artist Diploma with Robert McDonald at the Juilliard School, where he was awarded the 2020 Rubinstein Prize for Piano. Early on, he studied music at Montserrat mountain’s Escolanía de Montserrat choir, where he sang as an alto. Later, he studied piano with Graham Caskie, Marta Karbownicka, and Ory Shihor. He is an alum of the Verbier Festival Academy and holds a BA in Piano Performance from the Colburn School, as well as a MM from the Juilliard School. He currently resides in New York City.

February 9, 2025: The Virtuoso Cellist, with Steven Isserlis and Connie Shih Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) 3 Pieces for cello and piano February 9, 2025: The Virtuoso Cellist, with Steven Isserlis and Connie Shih Nadia Boulanger together with her equally gifted sister, Lili, created quite a stir in many areas of French music that had typically been the domain of men. Their father and grandfather had been professors at the Paris Conservatoire, in which steps Nadia followed, though not without a struggle. Their mother, a Russian countess and singer, oversaw their early musical education but also instilled rigid values in them and rarely praised their achievements. Nadia often felt eclipsed by her sister, but devoted herself to promoting her younger sister’s works after Lili’s untimely death at age twenty-four in 1918. Nadia, however lived until the ripe old age of ninety-two, and became far more influential as a teacher of composition to many of the most renowned composers of the era—Leonard Bernstein, Elliott Carter, Aaron Copland, Roy Harris, and Virgil Thomson, to name just a few of the Americans she taught. She also influenced American musical life by conducting American works while touring the United States in the 1920s. In between the two World Wars she became the first woman to conduct the London Philharmonic Orchestra and famously conducted the première of Stravinsky’s Dumbarton Oaks in Washington (1938). During WWII she resided in the United States, where she guest-conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, and New York Philharmonic and taught at Wellesley College, Radcliffe College, and the Juilliard School. After WWII Boulanger returned to teach at the Paris Conservatory, though she continued to travel internationally in response to a plethora of invitations, even teaching for a time at the Yehudi Menuhin School in England. Failing hearing and eyesight curtailed her activities at the end of her life, but she continued to work almost until her death in 1979. Boulanger composed her Trois pièces (Three pieces) in 1911 originally for organ, transcribing them for cello and piano in 1914. The Impressionistic opening piece projects a diaphonous effect whose delicacy was much admired by her contemporaries. The gently rippling piano effects complemented by long lines on the muted cello build toward the center point before ebbing. The second piece also projects an air of intimacy, now with a folklike melody whose tiny short-short-long melodic units in the cello are instantly imitated by the piano. The vigorous dance character of the final piece provides complete contrast, propelled by its motoric rhythms. The first section broadens into 5/8 time, its unusual metric feel taken up by the slower middle section now in 5/4. A tantalizing hesitancy brings on a vigorous return of the opening music to round off the piece in ebullient style. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

THOMAS HAMPSON, BARITONE Thomas Hampson enjoys a singular international career as a recitalist, opera singer, and recording artist, and maintains an active interest in teaching, research, and technology. The American baritone has performed in all of the world’s most important concert halls and opera houses with many renowned singers, pianists, conductors, and orchestras. Praised by the New York Times for his “ceaseless curiosity,” he is one of the most respected, innovative, and sought-after soloists performing today. Hampson has won worldwide recognition for his thoughtfully researched and creatively constructed programs that explore the rich repertoire of song in a wide range of styles, languages, and periods. He is one of the most important interpreters of German Romantic song, and with his celebrated “Song of America” project (www.songofamerica.net ), a collaboration with the Library of Congress, has become the “ambassador” of American song. Through the Hampsong Foundation, founded in 2003, he employs the art of song to promote intercultural dialogue and understanding. Hampson begins his 2011-12 season at San Francisco Opera, where he will create the role of Rick Rescorla in the world premiere of Christopher Theofanidis’s Heart of a Soldier. The new opera, commemorating the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, features a libretto by Donna Di Novelli and is directed by Francesca Zambello. Based on the 2002 book by James B. Stewart, the work is inspired by the true story of Rescorla, his wife, Susan, and his friend Daniel J. Hill, culminating in Rescorla’s tragic death in the collapse of the South Tower of the World Trade Center following his heroic evacuation of all 2,700 employees of Morgan Stanley. Hampson’s other operatic engagements this season include Iago in Verdi’s Otello and the title role in Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler, both at Zurich Opera, and Verdi’s Macbeth at New York’s Metropolitan Opera. Among other season highlights for Hampson are the opening night gala concert with Christoph Eschenbach and the National Symphony Orchestra, marking two anniversaries: the orchestra’s 80th and the Kennedy Center’s 40th; Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erdewith the Munich Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta; Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel; Brahms’s Requiem and Dvořák’s Biblical Songs with the Pittsburgh Symphony and Manfred Honeck; and recitals in the U.S., Spain, Germany, Switzerland and Austria (Vienna’s Musikverein), including “Song of America” programs in New York and Cologne. The 2011-12 season will also see the debut of the syndicated “Song of America” radio series, co-produced by the Hampsong Foundation and the WFMT Radio Network of Chicago for release in October. Hosted by Hampson, the series will consists of 13 one-hour programs exploring the history of American culture through song, bringing the “Song of America” project to a national audience of radio listeners. Hampson’s 2010-11 season was dominated by performances celebrating the 150th anniversary of Gustav Mahler’s birth and the 100th anniversary of his death. Recognized as today’s leading interpreter of the Austrian composer’s songs, the baritone began the worldwide celebrations on July 7, 2010 – Mahler’s 150th birthday – in Kaliste, Czech Republic, with a recital from the composer’s birth house, streamed live on medici.tv, as well as an internationally televised orchestral concert, available on DVD. Throughout the season he performed Mahler with orchestras including the Vienna Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra, Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra, and the Czech Philharmonic with conductors such as Alan Gilbert, Mariss Jansons, Philippe Jordan, and Antonio Pappano. Hampson also featured the composer’s songs in recitals in Munich, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Zurich, Milan and Oslo, and presented the complete songs as “Mahler Artist-in-Residence” at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie. His new recording of Des Knaben Wunderhorn with the Wiener Virtuosen – a conductorless ensemble comprising principal players of the Vienna Philharmonic – was widely acclaimed. Additional highlights of Hampson’s 2010-11 season included season-opening performances in the title role of a new production of Verdi’s Macbeth at Lyric Opera of Chicago; three all-Strauss concerts with Renée Fleming and the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Christian Thielemann; selections from George Crumb’s American Songbooks, with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; “Song of America” recitals at Duke University and Minnesota Beethoven Festival; and the world premiere of William Bolcom’s Laura Sonnets, written especially for him. In Switzerland, he performed at Zurich Opera in new productions of Verdi’s I Masnadieri and Wagner’s Parsifal under Adam Fischer and Daniele Gatti, and appeared in a series of opera galas. In March 2011 he oversaw the inaugural season of the Heidelberg Lied Academy, of which he is artistic director; the academy is part of the Heidelberger Frühling music festival and trains young singers in text-based song interpretation. Raised in Spokane, Washington, Hampson has received many honors and awards for his probing artistry and cultural leadership. His discography of more than 150 albums includes winners of a Grammy Award, two Edison Prizes, and the Grand Prix du Disque. He holds honorary doctorates from Manhattan School of Music, Whitworth College (WA), and the San Francisco Conservatory, and is an honorary member of London’s Royal Academy of Music. In the 2009-10 season he served as the New York Philharmonic’s first artist in residence, and in 2011 he received the Concertgebouw Prize. He carries the titles of Kammersänger of the Vienna State Opera and the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the Republic of France, and was awarded the Austrian Medal of Honor in Arts and Sciences in 2004. He is the 2009 Distinguished Artistic Leadership Award recipient from the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC, and in 2008 was named Special Advisor to the Study and Performance of Music in America by Dr. James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress. In 2010, Hampson was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

May 6, 2018: Kerry McDermott, violin; Paul Neubauer, viola MARK O’CONNOR F.C.’s Jig May 6, 2018: Kerry McDermott, violin; Paul Neubauer, viola Mark O’Connor has long embraced both folk and classical music, influenced by such giants as folk fiddler Benny Thomasson and jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli as well as classical icons Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, Yehudi Menuhin, and Pinchas Zukerman. He has produced some forty-five feature albums—mostly of his own compositions—that have greatly influenced succeeding generations. O’Connor’s multiple Grammy-winning recordings include Appalachia Waltz with Yo-Yo Ma and Edgar Meyer, which was released in 1996 and topped the Billboard classical music charts for a year. The O’Connor Band, which he formed with family members and friends, received the 2017 Grammy Award for “Best Bluegrass Band” with its album Coming Home. His Fiddle Concerto, released on the Warner Bros. label in 1995, has been performed over 250 times, making it the most-performed modern violin concerto composed in the last half century. He has since gone on to write three other violin concertos, one of which is a double concerto that he premiered with Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and the Chicago Symphony in 2000. At age thirteen O’Connor was the youngest person ever to win the Grand Master Fiddler Championships—competing against amateurs and professionals of all ages—and he is still the only person to have also won national titles on guitar and mandolin. Winner of a record-breaking six Country Music Association Musician of the Year awards, O’Connor has played with a number of influential bands, including the David Grisman Quintet, The Dregs, and Strength in Numbers. In his twenties he appeared on over five hundred albums with all of Nashville’s greatest artists. A dedicated educator, O’Connor has taught at string camps and universities across the country. In 2009 he released The O’Connor Method (2009), based on traditional American tunes, which has been hailed by the New Yorker and teachers across the country for filling a gap in the education of classical violin players. O’Connor’s F. C.’s Jig (short for “Fiddle Concerto’s Jig”) is a duet for violin and cello arranged from the third movement of his popular Violin Concerto. He and Yo-Yo Ma recorded this captivating arrangement on the album Appalachia Waltz. Colorful episodes alternate with the lively refrain, along the way incurring delightful metric hiccups. The piece is heard here in its equally engaging version for violin and viola, maintaining its witty and virtuosic interplay from start to finish. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

March 6, 2016: The Escher String Quartet LEOŠ JANÁČEK (1854-1928) String Quartet No. 1 after L. N. Tolstoy: The Kreutzer Sonata March 6, 2016: The Escher String Quartet Between October 30 and November 7, 1923, Janáček quickly penned a string quartet inspired by his rereading of Leo Tolstoy’s rather lengthy “short story” entitled The Kreutzer Sonata . Just as it was not Janáček’s first string quartet (he destroyed a student work that he wrote in Vienna in 1880), the piece was not his first to deal with the Tolstoy story, which in 1908–09 had inspired a piano trio, of which only a sheet of fragments remains. Clearly Janáček was profoundly affected by Tolstoy’s theme of love, both in and outside of marriage. The story, heard by the author during a train ride, is told with every emotional detail by a husband who murders his wife in a jealous rage upon finding her with a violinist, to whom he, ironically, had introduced her. The catalyst for the heightened feelings between the wife and the violinist—and the intensifier of the husband’s jealousy—is Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata, which the wife and the violinist perform for a small gathering. The husband tells of the music’s terrible and dangerous powers, which can incite people to abnormal actions. One day the husband returns home unannounced and, finding them eating dinner together, stabs her to death in a frenzy. By the time of this Quartet, Janáček’s own life had been profoundly affected by the flowering of his rather one-sided love for Kamila Stösslová, a beautiful married woman more than thirty-five years his junior, whom he had met in 1917, and who inspired all of his late works. He and his wife, estranged but living with him, maintained a friendly relationship with the Stössels for the next ten years, but at the time of Janáček’s death in 1928 his wife’s jealousy had escalated to a feverish pitch over his deepening relationship with Kamila. Janáček’s love interests had strayed outside of marriage several times before, but Tolstoy’s examination of passionate extramarital love, and of how destructive marriage could become, seems to have resonated especially during the composer’s late all-encompassing love for Kamila. Janáček’s affinity for Tolstoy’s story seems somewhat surprising given his fundamentally optimistic outlook on life as compared to Tolstoy’s pessimism. Further, Tolstoy reputedly hated music—though his story clearly shows he knew quite a bit about the music he describes—and Janáček, on the other hand, lived and breathed music. Then there is the issue of Beethoven, whose music Janáček is reported to have said “left me cold.” What is not surprising is that Janáček’s four movements do not pretend to follow the narrative, and in fact his choice of an instrumental rather than vocal medium allowed him a vagueness that was actually advantageous for intermingling outside influences with abstract musical elements. The brief first movement, while outlining sonata form, certainly creates an air of passion and tension with its opening of yearning, sustained lines overlaid with scurrying phrases. The second theme seems to start more cheerfully, but becomes stormy and then ruminating as a quasi-development leads in very short order to the recall of the opening. Janáček infuses his second movement with the elements of a polka, an idea he may have gotten from the First String Quartet, “From My Life” of his countryman Smetana. Yet his few merry dance strains are constantly interrupted by darting fragments, disquieting tempo adjustments, pauses, an eerie rustling played sul ponticello (on the bridge), and an impassioned melodic snippet with insistent accompaniment that becomes positively angry. The violin and cello duet that opens the third movement makes reference, as biographer Jaroslav Vogel noted, to the lovely second theme in the first movement of Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata. The calm of this opening is short-lived—again Janáček interrupts with sul ponticello jabs. The struggle between these ideas becomes monumental, which, combined with later pensive moments, make this movement possibly the most emotionally draining of the Quartet. The last movement opens quietly with a reminiscence from the first. The finale also features long melodic lines over driving accompanimental patterns, which erupt in a remarkable sounding pizzicato passage toward the center of the movement. Several commentators have noted how likely it is that Janáček’s performance directions, such as “shyly,” “as in tears,” or “as if speaking” allude to moments in Tolstoy’s story, but the composer left these to the imagination of the listener. After a climax of almost unbearable anguish, the ending sinks to a resigned rather than restful quiet. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

Parlance Chamber Concerts. New Jersey Symphony and Classical Orchestra Style Concerts REVISIT HIGHLIGHTS FROM PCC's 2024–2025 SEASON! Thank you for helping make Parlance Chamber Concerts’ 17th season such a resounding success! As we put the finishing touches on our exciting 18th season, we invite you to check back in mid-June for full details about the 2025–26 lineup. You can also stay informed by signing up to receive our e-mail announcements here . In the meantime, we hope you'll enjoy this 5-minute video highlighting memorable moments from the season that just concluded. As we look ahead, we invite you to become a participating partner in the music-making by making a tax-deductible contribution. Your support helps us to bring exceptional musical artistry to our community. SUPPORT PARLANCE CHAMBER CONCERTS PAST CONCERTS 2024 – 2025 SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2024 AT 4 PM CELLOBRATION! CARTER BREY, CELLO RAFAEL FIGUEROA, CELLO EDWARD ARRON, CELLO ZVI PLESSER, CELLO JEEWON PARK, PIANO Parlance Chamber Concerts’s 17th season will begin joyfully on September 29 with a “Cellobration” spotlighting four of today’s leading cellists. Carter Brey , principal of the New York Philharmonic; Rafael Figueroa , principal of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra; Zvi Plesser , professor at The Juilliard School; and the versatile soloist and chamber musician Edward Arron will join forces in a rich selection of cello solos and ensembles by Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Rachmaninoff, and others . LEARN MORE SUNDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2024 AT 4 PM MODIGLIANI QUARTET AMAURY COEYTAUX, VIOLIN LOÏC RIO, VIOLIN LAURENT MARFAING, VIOLA FRANÇOIS KIEFFER, CELLO Founded in 2003, the Paris-based Modigliani Quartet occupies the upper echelon of string quartets. In addition to their annual tours in the United States and in Asia, the quartet’s European tours have inspired acclaim in the major concert halls of London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, and Saint Petersburg. The elite French ensemble will perform a wide-ranging program that will include Joaquín’s Turina’s lushly impressionistic La oración de torero (The Bullfighter’s Prayer), Brahms’s tenderhearted Quartet in B-flat, Op. 67 , and Beethoven’s sublime Quartet in E minor, Op. 59, No. 2 . His student, Carl Czerny, wrote that the second movement “occurred to Beethoven while he was contemplating the starry sky and thinking of the music of the spheres.” LEARN MORE “ A gripping and persuasive performance, played with awesome individual and communal brilliance ” — The Strad (London) SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2024 AT 4 PM PIANIST PAUL LEWIS PLAYS SCHUBERT’S LAST THREE SONATAS On November 17 , the poetic English pianist Paul Lewis will return to PCC's stage. Universally acclaimed for his sovereign Schubert interpretations, Lewis will perform Schubert’s profound final trilogy of sonatas . LEARN MORE “Mr. Lewis’s playing offered warmth and fluidity with no loss of clarity…[he] transported the listener to the world of late Schubert ” — The New York Times SUNDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2024 AT 4 PM THE VIRTUOSO FLUTIST DENIS BOURIAKOV, FLUTE A RECITAL FOR FLUTE AND ORCHESTRA with MUSICIANS FROM THE NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC MICHAEL PARLOFF, CONDUCTOR On December 15 , the phenomenal Crimean flutist Denis Bouriakov will perform a recital of concertos for flute and orchestra by Mozart, Bach, François Devienne and Saint-Saëns . He will be supported by an ensemble of Musicians from the New York Philharmonic conducted by PCC’s Artistic Director Michael Parloff. LEARN MORE SUNDAY, JANUARY 19, 2025 AT 4 PM THE VIRTUOSO ORGANIST PAUL JACOBS, ORGAN On January 19 , the Grammy Award-winning organist Paul Jacobs will again grace our stage in a afternoon of towering masterpieces for the King of Instruments by Bach, Mendelssohn, Franck, Ives and Liszt . Don’t miss the musician that the Washington Post called “one of the great living virtuosos . LEARN MORE “Paul Jacobs is one of the great living virtuosos.” — The Washington Post “… An obliterating performance by one of the major musicians of our time.” - Alex Ross, The New Yorker SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2025 AT 4 PM THE VIRTUOSO CELLIST STEVEN ISSERLIS, CELLO CONNIE SHIH, PIANO On February 9, the renowned British cellist Steven Isserlis will make his long-awaited Parlance debut. Celebrated worldwide for his deeply communicative artistry, Isserlis radiates joy and virtuosity with every note he plays. His internationally diverse program will include works by Beethoven, Martinu, Boulanger , and Edvard Grieg’s soaring sonata for cello and piano . “Steven Isserlis can have the listener in perpetual wonder at the ingredients of his art…” — The Australian “Isserlis's incomparable technique, phrasing, expression and sensitivity across all the tempi and dynamics, quite simply, were incredible. There can be no doubt that Isserlis is an inspired and inspiring - musician” — Limelight Magazine LEARN MORE SUNDAY, MARCH 9, 2025 AT 4 PM CELEBRATE RAVEL’S 150th BIRTHDAY! ERIKA BAIKOFF, SOPRANO SOOHONG PARK, PIANO On March 9 , celebrate Maurice Ravel’s 150th Birthday with the beguiling Russian-American soprano Erika Baikoff and the stellar Korean pianist Soohong Park. Their recital will feature a selection of Ravel’s most alluring song cycles and ravishing piano solos, including Shéhérazade and Gaspard de la nuit . LEARN MORE “As Barbarina in the Met’s Le Nozze di Figaro, soprano Erika Baikoff made the most of her moment to shine. When staged simply and sung so beautifully, as it was here, Barbarina’s short aria, ‘L’ho perduta…me meschina’, is one of the brightest musical gems in the opera.” — Seen and Heard International "What sounds like easy playing in both senses of the word actually requires not only extraordinary technique but also a sensitive feeling for the breaks and depths of Schumann's music. Only a few people can do this really well, like pianist Soohong Park , the gold medal winner of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama” — Die Glocke, Germany. SUNDAY, APRIL 13, 2025 AT 4 PM QUARTETTO DI CREMONA CRISTIANO GUALCO, VIOLIN PAOLO ANDREOLI, VIOLIN SIMONE GRAMAGLIA, VIOLA GIOVANNI SCAGLIONE, CELLO On April 13 , the lustrous Quartetto di Cremona will make their eagerly anticipated return to PCC. The award-winning Italian ensemble will perform pinnacles of the quartet repertoire including Debussy’s luminous String Quartet and Beethoven’s spiritually transcendent Quartet in A minor, Op. 132 . LEARN MORE “It’s a rare blend: breadth of sound and capriciousness combined with perfect tuning and ensemble has the players sounding absolutely of one voice… Nothing less than life-affirming.” 
 – Gramophone SUNDAY, MAY 18, 2025 AT 4 PM LATE NIGHT WITH LEONARD BERNSTEIN A MULTIMEDIA CABARET JAMIE BERNSTEIN, HOST AMY BURTON, SOPRANO JOHN MUSTO, PIANO MICHAEL BORISKIN, PIANO On May 18 , you won’t want to miss our star-studded seasonal finale, Late Night with Leonard Bernstein . This multimedia cabaret will be hosted by the Maestro’s daughter, Jamie Bernstein , in collaboration with acclaimed soprano Amy Burton and pianists John Musto and Michael Boriskin . They will provide an affectionately intimate portrait of the multifaceted titan of 20th-century American music. LEARN MORE “A look at the after-hours maestro [that] revealed his mischievous personality and musical predilections … the audience filled the room with lusty laughs and applause.” — The New York Times ABOUT PARLANCE CHAMBER CONCERTS VIDEO INTRO TO PARLANCE CHAMBER CONCERTS Michael Parloff introduces the mission and history of PCC. Audience members share their experiences. LEARN MORE PCC: A VIDEO SAMPLER See short video clips from past seasons, featuring the Emerson Quartet, Sir James Galway Richard Goode, and others. MEET THE ARTISTS ABOUT THE SEASON 17 YEARS OF GREAT MUSIC MAKING COVID-19 Info for Parlance Chamber Concerts attendees: Read more here.

WENDY BRYN HARMER, SOPRANO This season, soprano Wendy Bryn Harmer returns to the Metropolitan Opera as Freia and Ortlinde in The Ring Cycle and makes her debut at the Tanglewood Festival in a concert version of Die Walküre, conducted by Andris Nelsons. A graduate of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, Ms. Harmer has appeared in their productions of Le nozze di Figaro, War and Peace, Khovanshchina, Parsifal, Die Agyptische Helena, Jenufa, and the complete Ring Cycle. She also appeared in the Met’s HD broadcasts of the Ring Cycle and The Magic Flute, which have subsequently been released on DVD (Deutsche Gramophone). Other recent opera engagements have included the title role in Ariadne auf Naxos and Adalgisa in Norma at the Palm Beach Opera, Leonora in Fidelio at Opera Omaha, Senta in Die fliegende Holländer and multiple roles in the Ring Cycle at the Seattle Opera, Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus at the Houston Grand Opera, Eglantine in Euryanthe at the Bard Music Festival , Die Walküre at the San Francisco Opera, Glauce in Medea at the Glimmerglas Festival, Wanda in La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein and Vitellia in La Clemenza di Tito at Opera Boston, and Mimi in La Bohéme at the Utah Opera Festival. In concert, Ms. Harmer recently made her debuts with Boston Baroque in performances of Fidelio, and with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra in performances of Vaughn William’s Sea Symphony. She has also appeared with the San Francisco Symphony in performances of the Beethoven Symphony No. 9, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra in concert performances of Das Rheingold, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir as a soloist at the Schubert Festival, and in Lincoln Center’s Tribute to Renata Tebaldi. In 2005, she made her New York recital debut under the auspices of The Marilyn Horne Foundation, and was presented by the George London Foundation in a recital with Ben Heppner at the Morgan Library. Born in Roseville, California, Ms. Harmer graduated with a Bachelor’s degree from The Boston Conservatory and attended the Music of Academy of the West. She was also a member of the Merola Opera Program at San Francisco Opera, the Gerdine Young Artist Program at Opera Theater of St Louis, and was one of nine singers invited to study at The Music Academy in Villecroze, France. Her many awards include a 2010 Richard Tucker Grant, the 2007 Jensen Award, the Teatro alla Scala Award at the 2007 Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition, first place at the Palm Beach Opera Competition, the 2005 winner of the George London/Leonie Rysanek Award, and an award from The Marilyn Horne Foundation.