September 24, 2017: Paul Neubauer, viola; Arnaud Sussman, violin; Rafael Figueroa, cello; Michael Brown, piano FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847) Octet in E-flat major, op. 20 September 24, 2017: Paul Neubauer, viola; Arnaud Sussman, violin; Rafael Figueroa, cello; Michael Brown, piano The sixteen-year-old Felix Mendelssohn completed one of the ultimate masterpieces of the chamber music literature—the Octet—on October 15, 1825. Even Mozart, with all his well-known precocity, did not create a work of such exquisite perfection by this time in his creative life. Dedicated to Mendelssohn’s violin and viola teacher Eduard Rietz, whose birthday fell on October 17, the Octet is unique not only in its revelation of such consummate skill in so young a composer but also in its instrumental configuration of four violins, two violas, and two cellos. Where did Mendelssohn get the idea for a string octet in which the instruments are not treated in double quartet fashion—as in Louis Spohr’s Double Quartets—but in myriad inventive combinations of the eight instruments? We find no true precedents for his stroke of genius. Though antiphonal effects between two quartets occasionally surface in the Octet, Mendelssohn most often layers the eight parts in an orchestral texture, from which each instrument emerges with solo lines—the first violin most prominently, as befitting a piece in which his teacher probably played the first violin part. Mendelssohn stressed his orchestral intentions in the score: “The Octet must be played by all the instruments in symphonic orchestral style. Pianos and fortes must be strictly observed and more strongly emphasized than is usual in pieces of this character.” No doubt he meant “usual” for chamber music in general, but there really is no other piece quite like the Octet with its combination of orchestral textures and technically virtuosic writing for each player. Since he was thirteen Felix had enjoyed a remarkable friendship with the aging Goethe, Germany’s most venerated writer of the time. The composer’s sister Fanny revealed that in the effervescent Scherzo, Felix had set to music a stanza from the Walpurgis Night Dream from Goethe’s Faust , Part I: “The flight of the clouds and the veil of mist / Are lit from above. / A breeze in the leaves, a wind in the reeds, / And all has vanished.” She continued: To me alone he told this idea: the whole piece is to be played staccato and pianissimo, the tremolos coming in now and then, the trills passing away with quickness of lightning; everything new and strange, and at the same time most insinuating and pleasing, one feels so near the world of spirits, carried away in the air, half inclined to snatch up a broomstick and follow the aerial procession. At the end the first violin takes a flight with a feather-like lightness, and—all has vanished. Mendelssohn scholar R. Larry Todd speculates convincingly that Mendelssohn not only represented additional aspects of Goethe’s dream sequence in the Scherzo—an orchestra of crickets, frogs, flies, mosquitos, and even a bagpipe blowing soap bubbles—but that other movements, too, may contain inspirations from Faust . He cites the first movement’s flamboyant, “Faustian” first violin part, with its bold soaring and tumbling opening, and the grandiose proportions of the movement as a whole. The archaic, lamenting quality of the slow movement perhaps reflects the cathedral scene before the Walpurgis Night, when the guilt-ridden Gretchen attends a church service and faints. And it may be that the fugal finale represents the struggle between Faust and Mephistopheles for Gretchen’s soul, which would also help to explain the reference to “And He shall reign for ever and ever” from the Hallelujah Chorus of Handel’s Messiah . Speculations aside, the first movement shows the kind of mastery of sonata form that enabled the composer to use it flexibly. In the recapitulation he felt free to bring back ideas in a different order and his coda shows the kind of developmental thinking that Beethoven liked to impart to his codas. The soulful Andante, ostensibly in C minor, spends most of its time ingeniously avoiding that key. Mendelssohn’s modulations spin out effortlessly and eventually leave the listener in F minor rather in the home key. The second theme captivates with its slowly cascading chains of thirds, which impart a sense of yearning through beautiful suspensions. Mendelssohn’s inspiration for his celebrated Scherzo has been mentioned, but we should also note that the music poured from his pen as a complete thought. Only this movement of the four shows no crossings-out, revisions, or afterthoughts in the manuscript. Instead of using a traditional scherzo-trio-scherzo form he opted for a miniature sonata form, with the development section breaking out in seven-part imitation that anticipates the fugal finale. Mendelssohn himself noted that the Scherzo almost always elicited an encore. He later bowed to its popularity by adding wind parts and substituting it for the minuet of his First Symphony for a performance in London, a practice that was often repeated. The finale begins with a touch of humor as the second cello in its lowest register presents an energetic solo line, which soon blossoms into a cheerful eight-voice fugue. Mendelssohn offers the perfect foil to this contrapuntal complexity with a powerful second theme in fortissimo octaves. His inspired mix of sonata and rondo form, infused by fugal sections surely had its roots in Mozart’s celebrated Jupiter Symphony finale. Bows to two of his other predecessors occur in the development (middle episode)—first the Handel reference noted above, then a nod to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony as he cleverly recalls the Scherzo just before the recapitulation. Throughout one can only marvel at the deft contrapuntal handling of the eight individual voices by the sixteen-year-old. The Octet, whose inspiration and effectiveness Mendelssohn may have recaptured but never surpassed, retained a lofty place in his affections. He later called it “my favorite of all my compositions,” nostalgically recalling that “I had the most beautiful time writing it.” © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

November 15, 2026: Café Music Bohuslav Martinů (1809-1959) Suite from La revue de cuisine ("The Kitchen Review")  November 15, 2026: Café Music The life circumstances of Czechoslovakian composer Bohuslav Martinů made him an exile twice—first by choice, then by force; he ultimately became a wanderer. In 1923 he won a small scholarship to study in Paris and ended up making the French capital his home for seventeen years. Blacklisted by the Nazis, he and his wife were forced to flee in 1940, arriving in New York in 1941 after a series of delays. Never entirely comfortable in the United States, Martinů spent the seven years following World War II in and out of the country, unable to accept a position in 1946 in Czechoslovakia owing to a slow recovery from a bad fall and other personal considerations. With the help of a Guggenheim fellowship he relocated to Paris in 1953, then lived briefly in Nice, later in Italy, and twice more in the U.S., not to mention many shorter sojourns in various places. He finally “settled” in Switzerland, where he died in 1959. La revue de cuisine (The Kitchen Revue; 1927) was the product of Martinů’s happy, early years in Paris, where he became caught up in the flood of musical activities there—the jazz craze, the irreverent music of Les Six, and the various styles of Stravinsky, whom the Czech composer greatly admired. Commissioned by Božena Nebeskâ, Martinů composed a witty one-act ballet originally entitled Pokušení svatouška hrnce (Temptation of the Saintly Pot) to a naive scenario about kitchen utensils by choreographer Jarmila Kröschlová. The scoring for a sextet of clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, violin, cello, and piano not only approximated the jazz bands of Parisian clubs and cafés, but also reflected the period’s new reduced scoring for theater pieces. At the same time it answered criticisms that his earlier ballets were too densely scored. The ballet was first performed in Prague in November 1927, but it was the first performance of the suite from the ballet, now titled La revue de cuisine, that brought the composer great recognition. Performed on Alfred Cortot’s concert series on January 31, 1930, the suite was immediately accepted for publication, the publisher Leduc agreed to publish several other of Martinů’s works, and a repeat performance was requested by the elite Parisian Chamber Music Society. The lighthearted plot of the ballet concerns a Pot and a Lid, whose marriage is threatened by the Twirling Stick’s seduction of the Pot. The Twirling Stick has attempted to interest the Lid in the Dishcloth, who makes eyes at the Lid, but is challenged to a duel by the Broom. The Pot soon begins to long for the Lid, who has rolled into a corner. Miraculously, a big foot brings about the happy ending by kicking the Lid back onto the stage, enabling the Pot and the Lid to make up. The jazz-infused suite of four movements reflects the merry and sometimes satiric elements of the plot without following its twists and turns. An idiomatic trumpet fanfare opens the Prologue’s jaunty march. Shifting meters throw the introduction slightly off kilter before the main part of the march settles in. The middle movements were inspired by dances popular in Paris in the 1920s: the seductive Tango is replete with traditional mournful touches; the Charleston lets loose merrily after a clever wind-up. Another march, the Final, concludes the suite, bringing back cleverly rearranged themes of previous movements. Martinů was extremely proud of the score of La revue de cuisine, which he considered on a par with his quite dissimilar First Symphony from the standpoint of technical perfection. The difference in applying that technique, he realized, was subconscious assuredness in the case of Le revue, whereas the technique for the First Symphony resulted from conscious striving. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

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SUNDAY, MARCH 24 2019 AT 3 PM BACH’S BIRTHDAY CONCERT BUY TICKETS TIMOTHY COBB, BASS Principal Bass New York Philharmonic DOV SCHEINDLIN, VIOLA EDWARD ARRON, CELLO PAUL HUANG, VIOLIN GILLES VONSATTEL, PIANO KRISTIN LEE, VIOLIN “Kristin Lee gave a sterling performance…the performance was beautifully integrated and seamless.” — Oberon’s Grove MING-FENG HSIN, VIOLIN JOEL NOYES, CELLO DANBI UM, VIOLIN “Danbi Um’s playing is utterly dazzling…a marvelous show of superb technique” — The Strad MAURYCY BANASZEK, VIOLA PIERRE LAPOINTE, VIOLA SARAH CROCKER VONSATTEL, VIOLIN MIHAI MARICA, CELLO “Stunning Performance” — New York Times WEN QIAN, VIOLIN FEATURING ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE BUY TICKETS Celebrate Bach’s 334th Birthday with fourteen outstanding artists performing six irresistible Bachian classics. PROGRAM J.S. Bach Prelude from Suite for Cello in D, BWV 1012 Edward Aaron, cello Program Notes J.S. Bach Double Violin Concerto in D Minor BWV 1043 Paul Huang and Danbi Um, solo violins Program Notes J.S. Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, BWV 1048 Program Notes J.S. Bach Prelude from Violin Partita in E, BWV 1006 Kristin Lee, violin Program Notes J.S. Bach Violin and Piano Sonata in E, BWV 1016 Sarah Crocker Vonsattel, violin; Gilles Vonsattel, piano Program Notes J.S. Bach Piano Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1052 Gilles Vonsattel, solo piano Program Notes

May 21, 2023: Zlatomir Fung, cello; Albert Cano Smit, piano BÉLA BARTÓK (1881–1945) Rhapsody No. 1, Sz 86 for cello and piano May 21, 2023: Zlatomir Fung, cello; Albert Cano Smit, piano Bartók first let on that he had written his Rhapsody No. 1—initially for violin and piano—when he wrote to his friend, violinist Joseph Szigeti in the autumn of 1928: “I simply have to talk to you. . . . I have written a minor (12-minute) composition for you (based on folk dances); and I want to talk to you about one or two points.” The same year Bartók wrote his Second Rhapsody for violin, which as it turns out was composed almost simultaneously with No. 1. The Second he offered to Zoltán Székely, a gifted young violinist who became the first violinist of the Hungarian Quartet. In his two Rhapsodies Bartók used many of the authentic folk tunes he had spent years collecting. In a long letter in 1931 to Romanian diplomat and music historian Octavian Beu, who was preparing a radio program about the composer, Bartók wrote: “The two Rhapsodies contain folk melodies from various sources. I intentionally did not indicate any source here, so I restrict myself to saying to you that No. 1 uses Romanian and Hungarian melodies, No. 2 Romanian, Hungarian, and Ruthenian.” Enterprising scholars have identified some of the melodies he used from his great collection entitled Romanian Folk Songs. Like his predecessor and compatriot Liszt, Bartók associated the rhapsody with typical folk improvisations consisting of two sections, lassú (slow) and friss (brisk or lively), and adapted the freely ornamented style, accompanimental figurations, and instrumental colors. Both first movements feature a characteristic short-long Hungarian rhythm—similar to the “Scotch snap” but probably unrelated. In the First Rhapsody Bartók went so far as to include the cimbalom (a Gypsy hammer-dulcimer-like instrument) in his orchestration, which he imitates in the original piano accompaniment. Bartók once admitted to his mother that there was something to be said for music that was pleasing and would make money by being played “a great many times, on the radio, etc.” To this end he made his Rhapsodies playable in as many ways as possible. Although both were initially written for violin with piano accompaniment, he transcribed them almost immediately for violin and orchestra. He also transcribed No. 1 for cello and piano—the version played here—which Pablo Casals played all over the world. Additionally, Bartók stated that each section (lassú or friss) of either Rhapsody could be performed separately. Curiously, not Szigeti but Székely premiered the First Rhapsody with the composer at the piano on March 4, 1929, in London. Szigeti, did, however, premiere the orchestral version in Königsberg on November 1, 1929, Hermann Scherchen conducting. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

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

May 19, 2019: Wendy Bryn Harmer, soprano; Ken Noda, piano WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) Three Late Songs, K. 596 – 598 May 19, 2019: Wendy Bryn Harmer, soprano; Ken Noda, piano Mozart composed three songs on January 14, 1791, just short of two weeks before his thirty-fifth and last birthday. His lodge brother Ignaz Alberti printed them early that same year in the Frühlingslieder (Spring Songs) section of the Liedersammlung für Kinder und Kinderfreunde (Song collection for children and their friends). This four-volume set, of which only the spring and winter volumes survive, was edited by teacher, poet, humanities scholar, and Catholic priest Placidus Partsch, who likely had the responsibility of assigning texts to different composers. Mozart’s three songs are all strophic—that is, several verses sung to the same melody and, unlike his usual practice, Mozart formatted them like piano pieces with one verse written between the staves. The remaining verses were printed on separate pages. Sehnsucht nach dem Frühling (Yearning for spring), placed first in the spring volume, has achieved folk-song-level popularity owing to its happy melody and charming storytelling images. The poem by Christian Adolf Overbeck (1755–1821) was originally titled Fritzchen an den Mai (Little Fritz, to May), referring to an appealing character Overbeck had contributed to German children=s literature. The title Mozart used stems from a collection edited by J. H. Campe, though many people know the song simply by its first line, Komm, lieber Mai (Come, dear May). The poem consists of five verses, but many modern performers often omit one or more of the middle verses. Clearly Mozart had the melody on his mind because he had just used it as the theme of the rondo finale in his last Piano Concerto, K. 595, completed only nine days earlier. For Im Frühlingsanfange (At spring’s beginning), Mozart sets a poem by Christian Christoph Sturm (1740–1786) titled simply Der Frühling (Spring). Mozart’s own title stems from the catalog he kept of his works, but the first edition bore the title Dankesempfindungen gegen den Schöpfer des Frühlings (Thankful feelings toward the creator of spring). Here, despite the strophic setting, Mozart leaves the world of childhood behind with his dramatic opening chords, a touching melody with signature upward leap and gently elaborated descent, a throbbing bass repeated note in the middle, judicious chromatic harmonies, and a sophisticated if brief piano postlude. Sturm’s poem contains six verses (ordered differently from the Mozart complete works edition as given below), but performers often omit two or three of them. Mozart returns to childlike fun and Overbeck’s poetry for Das Kinderspiel (Children’s play). The nine-verse poem was originally titled simply Kinderlied (Children’s song), but its carefree high spirits, which Mozart captures perfectly, make Kinderspiel an especially fitting title. As with the other songs in this set, singers today often omit some of the interior verses. Mozart gives the performance direction Munter (Blithely) and sets the text in a lightly dancing 3/8 meter. Little leaps and oscillations add to the playful atmosphere. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

KATHERINE FONG, VIOLIN Violinist Katherine Fong has been a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra since 2000. A native of Amarillo, Texas, she began playing at age four. Katherine leads a multifaceted existence as an orchestral musician, chamber musician, soloist, entrepreneur, and mother. In addition to the Metropolitan Opera season, Katherine frequently performs as soloist in Bogotá with the Orquesta Nacional de Colombia and runs her company Luxitune (www.luxitune.com ), designing bejeweled fine tuners for string instruments. She has performed with the Met Chamber Ensemble and Maestro James Levine at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall. Katherine received a Bachelor of Music from the New England Conservatory, where she studied with Eric Rosenblith, and continued her studies with Cho-Liang Lin and Joel Smirnoff at the Juilliard School, where she received her Master of Music degree. She is proud mommy to Ezekiel, age 2 and is married to violist Dov Scheindlin.

October 17, 2021: Roman Rabinovich MAURICE RAVEL (1875-1937) Menuet sur le nom d’Haydn October 17, 2021: Roman Rabinovich Debussy composed his Hommage à Haydn at the request of Jules Écorcheville for a special issue of the Revue S.I.M. (Société Internationale de Musique) to celebrate the centennial in May 1909 of Haydn’s death. Five other composers also accepted the commission—Paul Dukas who wrote his Prélude élégiaque, Reynaldo Hahn his Thème varié sur le nom de Haydn, Charles-Marie Widor his Fugue sur le nom d’Haydn, and Vincent d’Indy and Maurice Ravel who both wrote pieces called Meneut sur le nom d’Haydn. The pieces were published in the January 15, 1910, issue of the Revue S.I.M. They were not premiered, however, until March 11, 1911, when nineteen-year-old pianist Ennemond Trillat performed them at a Société concert at the Salle Pleyel. Each composer was given the same assignment: Write a short piano piece using the letters of Haydn’s name as a five-note motive. This was an age-old practice to honor an important person, and in cases where there was no musical equivalent for a letter it could be skipped or be replaced by a substitution note. Here the composers were all given H (B natural in German nomenclature, A, Y (using D as the substitution), D, N (using G as the substitution). The substitution notes, given by the commissioner were obtained by “putting the letter’s alphabetical order over the diatonic series of the sound scale.” As a fascinating historical note, two of the other most important French composers of the day—Camille Saint-Saëns and Gabriel Fauré—declined to participate, presumably because, as Saint-Saëns wrote to Fauré, they would be the laughingstock of Germany for the wrong use of letter-note correspondences. Debussy’s Hommage à Haydn begins with a “soft and expressive” “Valse lent” (slow waltz) in which he presents a bass melody with a distinctive dotted-rhythmic pattern and then highlights his H-A-Y-D-N motive in the upper melody line of the right hand. The second section of the piece shifts to a lively, light character with the motive sped up in the first notes of the right hand. After an even more animated section Debussy concludes with a brief reminder of the expressive opening and a final fast but quiet flourish. This afternoon’s celebration of Haydn makes the perfect occasion to include Ravel’s Menuet sur le nom d’Haydn alongside Debussy’s tribute. Ravel writes a contemplative minuet with Impressionistic harmonies, presenting the motive six times, which he labels in the score. The motive begins the piece as the first five notes in the top line of the pianist’s right hand, migrates to the bass, and appears in inner voices in reverse order and inverted in reverse order (D-G-G-C♯-B). The final utterances appear in the top of the piano’s right hand and in a slow descent from the middle register to the bass. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

Soovin Kim, violin Korean-American violinist Soovin Kim is an exciting player who has built on the early successes of his prize-winning years to emerge as a mature and communicative artist. After winning first prize at the Niccolò Paganini International Competition, Mr. Kim was recipient of the prestigious Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and the Henryk Szeryng Foundation Career Award. Today he enjoys a broad musical career, regularly performing repertoire such as Bach sonatas and Paganini caprices for solo violin, sonatas for violin and piano by Beethoven, Brahms, and Ives, string quartets, Mozart and Haydn concertos and symphonies as a conductor, and new world-premiere works almost every season. In recent seasons he has been acclaimed for his “superb…impassioned” (Berkshire Review) performance of Alban Berg’s Chamber Concerto at the Bard Festival with the American Symphony Orchestra and a “sassy, throaty” (Philadelphia Inquirer) rendition of Kurt Weill’s concerto with the Curtis Chamber Orchestra. Other unusual concerto collaborations included Mendelssohn’s Double Concerto with conductor Maestro Myung-Whun Chung, the same Mendelssohn concerto with the Dallas Symphony and music director Jaap van Zweden, and Beethoven’s Triple Concerto in Carnegie Hall. He has performed in past seasons with the Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Stuttgart Radio Symphony, Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, and the Seoul Philharmonic and Accademia di Santa Cecilia Orchestra with Maestro Chung. For 20 years Soovin Kim was the 1st violinist of the Johannes String Quartet. Among their special projects was a two-season tour with the famed and now-retired Guarneri String Quartet in an unusual program including world-premieres of works by Esa-Pekka Salonen, Derek Bermel, and William Bolcom. Mr. Kim maintains a close relationship with the famed Marlboro Festival where he regularly spends his summers. He is well-known in Korea as a member of MIK, his ground-breaking piano quartet ensemble. He recently launched the exciting Chien-Kim-Watkins Trio with his wife, pianist Gloria Chien, and cellist Paul Watkins of the Emerson Quartet. Soovin Kim’s latest solo CD, Gypsy, was his third solo collaboration between American label Azica Records and Korea-based Stomp/EMI. They previously released a French album of Fauré and Chausson with pianist Jeremy Denk and the Jupiter Quartet, and Paganini's demanding 24 Caprices for solo violin which was named Classic FM magazine’s Instrumental Disc of the Month (“he emerges thrillingly triumphant…a thrilling debut disc.”). He made his first solo recording with Jeremy Denk for Koch-Discover in duo works by Schubert, Bartók, and Strauss. Mr. Kim also has six commercial chamber music recordings including an acclaimed live performance from the Marlboro Festival of Beethoven’s Archduke trio with pianist Mitsuko Uchida and the late cellist David Soyer. In 2019 his recording of Bach’s monumental solo sonatas and partitas will be released. Soovin Kim founded the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival in Burlington, Vermont in 2009. With its focused programming and exceptional artists the festival is “increasing its stature as one of this country’s summer chamber music meccas (Rutland Herald).” Mr. Kim and the Lake Champlain festival helped to create the ONE Strings program in Burlington which makes violin lessons part of the regular curriculum for every 3rd, 4th, and 5th grader. In May 2015 he received an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Vermont in recognition of his contributions to the community. Soovin Kim dedicates much of his time to his passion for teaching. He has been on the faculties of Stony Brook University and the Peabody Institute, and now he teaches exclusively at the New England Conservatory in Boston. Mr. Kim studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music with David Cerone and Donald Weilerstein, and at the Curtis Institute of Music with Victor Danchenko and Jaime Laredo. Graduate of the Curtis Institute; studies at Cleveland Institute of Music. Studies with David Cerone, Donald Weilerstein, Victor Danchenko, Jaime Laredo.

ISABELLA BIGNASCA, VIOLA Isabella, 22, recently completed her Undergraduate Degree at The Juilliard School, under the tutelage of Paul Neubauer. Before she decided to begin her music studies in the US, she was a part of the Sydney Conservatorium Open Academy program with Roger Benedict. Isabella won the Multiple Section of the 2015 NSW KPO Concerto Competition and had several recordings broadcast on Fine Music FM102.5 as part of the Young Performers Award Broadcast Series. She has toured around Europe, playing chamber music, and also performed several times in the Sydney Opera House. Past summer festival participation include the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival and School, Music Academy of the West and the Heifetz International Music Institute where she also later became a part of the Heifetz on Tour series.

YING FANG, SOPRANO Soprano Ying Fang has been hailed by the New York Times for her “pure and moving soprano, phrasing with scrupulous respect for the line and traveling with assurance through the mercurial moods,” as well as “singing with a fresh, appealing soprano and acting with coquettish flair.” She is blooming as a well-rounded singer. Ms. Fang has most recently performed Susanna in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro conducted by Gary Thor Wedow and directed by Stephen Wadsworth at The Juilliard School. She sang the title role in Gluck’s Iphigenie en Aulide conducted by Jane Glover. She sang The Dew Fairy in Hansel and Gretel, Barbarina in the season opening new production of Le Nozze di Figaro conducted by James Levine at the Metropolitan Opera. She has performed Cleopatra in Wolf Trap Opera Company’s 2014 production of Giulio Cesare. She has been featured in The Metropolitan Opera and The Juilliard School’s production of “A concert of comic operas” conducted by James Levine, in which she sang Konstanze, Teresa, and Adina. Ms. Fang made her Metropolitan Opera debut in their 2013–14 season, singing the role of Madame Podtochina’s Daughter in Shostakovich’s opera The Nose. The roles she performed include: Contessa di Folleville in Rossini’s Il Viaggio a Reims with Wolf Trap Opera Company, the title role in Mozart’s opera Zaide with the New World Symphony; Bellezza in Handel’s oratorio Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno with the Juilliard 415 under the baton of William Christie at Alice Tully Hall. She was also heard in the role of Pamina in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte with the Aspen Opera Theater Center, and gained acclaim: “Soprano Ying Fang sang Pamina with a creamy tone and marvelous specificity in each moment” (The Aspen Times). She also did Maria in Bernstein’s West Side Story with the Aspen Opera Theater Center. She made her Alice Tully Hall debut performing Handel’s motet Silete Venti with conductor Steven Fox leading the Juilliard 415. She sang the soprano solo in Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Filene Center in Wolf Trap. In Juilliard opera productions, she has been featured as Zerlina in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Fanny in Rossini’s La Cambiale di Matrimonio, and The Spirit of the Boy in Britten’s Curlew River. A native of Ningbo, China, Ms. Fang is the recipient of Martin E. Segal Award, Hildegard Behrens Foundation Award, The Rose Bampton Award of The Sullivan Foundation, The Opera Index Award of The 2013 Opera Index Vocal Competition and 1st Prize Award of 2013 Gerda Lissner International Vocal Competition. She won one of China’s most prestigious awards, the 2009 7th Chinese Golden Bell Award for Music. One of the youngest singers ever accorded this honor, she has been hailed as “the most gifted Chinese soprano of her generation” (Ningbo Daily). Ms. Fang holds a master’s degree from The Juilliard School and a bachelor’s degree from The Shanghai Conservatory of Music. She is a member of The Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program and The Artist Diploma in Opera Study program at Juilliard.