March 9, 2025: Ravel’s 150th Birthday Concert, with Erika Baikoff, Soprano; Soohong Park, piano Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) Shéherazade for soprano and piano March 9, 2025: Ravel’s 150th Birthday Concert, with Erika Baikoff, Soprano; Soohong Park, piano While still a student at the Paris Conservatory in 1899, Ravel conceived an opera to be based on the tales of the Thousand and One Nights . Well-aware of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade (1888), Ravel wrote his own Shéhérazade Overture based on the legends, but the work’s lack of success when Ravel conducted it that June gave him pause, and he prohibited it from being published. Then in 1903 he was inspired to set three poems by fellow member of the Apache society Tristan Klingsor (pseudonym of Leon Leclerc), whose cycle entitled Shéhérazade had just been published. Wrote Leclerc: Ravel immediately announced his intent of setting some of my poems into music. His love of difficulty led him to choose, in addition to “L’indifférent and La flûte enchantée , one which, by reason of its length and narrative form, seemed the least likely suited for his purpose: Asie . The fact is that at this time he was extremely preoccupied with the challenge of adapting music to speech, heightening its accents and inflections and magnifying them by adapting them into melody; and to assist him to carry out his project he asked me to read the poems out loud to him. Like much of France and other European countries at the turn of the twentieth century, Ravel was fascinated with evocations of the Far East. The interest was not so much a kind of armchair tourism, but rather represented in the words of musicologist Kurt Oppens—whose knowledge of French poetry was second to none—“the decadence of a hypercivilized culture.” Worth quoting at length, Oppens wrote: Concerning decadence : all such once-fashionable catch names and slogans isolate one single element that, in truth, is common to all art. Every new style is “decadent” in the sense that it pays the price of progress by falling off from a previous achievement. Ravel’s Shéhérazade , however, is decadence with a capital D, a prototypical example of what Decadence as a movement was about. The kind of travel described in a poem such as Asie leads out of the boundaries of the self into archetypal images, a world of subconscious dreams, or eroticism and murder, a mixture that in its concrete political embodiments, led to the unspeakable tragedies of [the twentieth] century. . . . The emotonal-musical climax coincides with these words: “Je voudrais voir des rose et du sang; / Je voudrais voir mourir d’amour ou bien de haine .” (I would like to see roses and blood; / I would like to see those who die for love or else for hate.” . . . The “I” of Leclerc’s poem does not think of dying; he is looking at death and responding to it as if it were a stimulant, an aphrodisiac. . . . Ravel’s music for “Asie” is essentially one big rolling wave, a masterfully articulated and controlled crescendo and decrescendo. (The element of control is of course non-decadent; decadent art is in itself a contradictory or dialectical proposition.) It is fascinating that when Ravel conducted these songs himself, he began with “Le flûte enchantée,” followed by “L’indifférent,” and ended with “Asie,” as in the order of the premiere, which was sung by Jane Hatto of the Paris Opéra on May 17, 1904, with Alfred Cortot conducting the orchestra of the Société Nationale. The published order makes for a more subdued ending, in keeping with the intimate love songs of “La flûte enchantée” and “L’indifférent.” Of the two shorter songs, “La flûte enchantée” offers an intimate melody—often sad, occasionally joyful—evoking the thoughts of the poem’s slave girl, who in her master’s house hears her lover playing the flute. “L’indifferent” also unfolds as a private love song, one shrouded in an air of mystery both as to the poem and Ravel’s setting. Is the protagonist Scherherazade herself seducing a young boy or is the androgenous nature of the addressee something that attracted Ravel? Whatever the case, Ravel skillfully captures the elusive, maybe dreamed or imagined-from-afar seductiveness of the poem. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Texts and Translations Asie Asie, Asie, Asie, Vieux pays merveilleux des contes de nourrice Où dort la fantasie comme une impératrice En sa forêt tout emplie de mystère. Asie, Je voudrais m'en aller avec la goélette Qui se berce ce soir dans la port, Mystérieuse et solitaire, Et qui déploie enfin ses voiles violettes Comme un immense oiseau de nuit dans le ciel d’or. Je voudrais m’en aller vers des îles de fleurs En écoutant chanter la mer perverse Sur un vieux rythme ensorceleur, Je voudrais voir Damas et les villes de Perse Avec les minarets légers dans l’air, Je voudrais voir de beaux turbans de soie Sur des visages noirs aux dents claires; Je voudrais voir des yeux sombres d’amour Et des prunelles brillantes de joie En des peaux jaunes comme des oranges; Je voudrais voir des vêtements de velours Et des habits à longues franges, Je voudrais voir des calumets entre les bouches Tout entourées de barbe blanche; Je voudrais voir d’âpres marchands aux regards louches, Et des cadis, et des vizirs Qui du seul mouvement de leur doigt qui se penche Accordent vie ou mort au gré de leur désir. Je voudrais voir la Perse, et l’Inde, et puis la Chine, Les mandarins ventrus sous les ombrelles, Et les princesses aux mains fines, Et les lettrés qui se querellent Sur la poésie et sur la beauté; Je voudrais m’attarder au palais enchanté Et comme voyageur étranger Contempler à loisir des paysages peints Sur des étoffes en des cadres de sapin Avec un personnage au milieu d’un verger; Je voudrais voir des assassins souriant Du bourreau qui coupe un cou d’innocent Avec son grand sabre courbé d’Orient, Je voudrais voir des pauvres et des reines; Je voudrais voir des roses et du sang; Je voudrais voir mourir d’amour ou bien de haine. Et puis m’en revenir plus tard Narrer mon aventure aux curieux de rêves En élevant comme Sinbad ma vieille tasse arabe De temps en temps jusqu’à mes lèvres Pour interrompre le conte avec art . . . La flûte enchantée L’ombre est douce et mon maître dort Coiffé d’un bonnet comique de soie Et son long nez jaune en sa barbe blanche. Mais moi, je suis éveillée encor Et j’écoute au dehors Une chanson de flûte où s’épanche Tour à tour la tristesse ou la joie. Un air tour à tour langoureux ou frivole Que mon amoureux chéri joue. Et quand je m’approche de la croisée Il me semble que chaque note s’envole De la flûte vers ma joue Comme un mystérieux baiser. L’indifférent Tes yeux sont doux comme ceux d’une fille, Jeune étranger, et la courbe fine De ton beau visage de duvet ombragé Est plus séduisante encor de ligne. Ta lèvre chante sur le pas de ma porte Une lange inconnue et charmante Comme une musique fausse. Entre! Et que mon vin te réconforte . . . Mais non, tu passes Et de mon seuil je te vois t’éloigner Me faisant un dernier geste avec grâce Et la hanche légèrement ployée Par ta démarche féminine et lasse . . . —Tristan Klingsor Asia Asia, Asia, Asia, Ancient, marvelous country of fairy tales, where fantasy sleeps like an empress in her forest filled with mystery. Asia, I would like go away with the ship which is rocking this evening in the port, mysterious and lonely, and which finally spreads its violet sails like an immense bird of night in the golden sky. I would like to go towards the islands of flowers, while listening to the wayward sea sing to an old bewitching rhythm. I would like to see Damascus and the Persian cities with airy minarets rising into the sky. I would like to see beautiful silk turbans above black faces with bright teeth; I would like to see eyes dark with love and pupils shining with joy in faces with skins yellow as oranges; I would like to see velvet clothes and robes with long fringes, I would like to see pipes held between lips all surrounded by white beards; I would like to see harsh merchants with shifty looks, and cadis, and viziers, who with a single movement of their bending fingers, grant life or death according to their wish. I would like to see Persia, and India, and then China, The pot-bellied mandarins beneath the umbrellas, and the princesses with fine hands, and the scholars who quarrel over poetry and beauty; I would like to linger at the enchanted palace and as a foreign traveler contemplate at leisure countrysides painted on fabrics in frames of fir with a figure in the midst of an orchard; I would like to see smiling assassins, the executioner who cuts an innocent neck with his great curved sabre from the Orient. I would like to see beggars and queens; I would like to see roses and blood; I would like to see those who die of love or hate. And then come back later narrate my adventure to those curious of dreams while raising like Sinbad my old Arab cup from time to time to my lips to interrupt the tale with artistry . . . The Enchanted Flute The shadow is soft and my master sleeps wearing a comical bonnet of silk and his long yellow nose in his white beard. But I, I am still awake, and I hear outside a flute song in which pours out sadness or joy in turn. An air sometimes languorous, sometimes frivolous that my dear lover plays. And when I draw near the window, it seems to me that each note flies away from the flute to my cheek like a mysterious kiss. The Indifferent One Your eyes are soft like those of a girl, young stranger, and the fine curve of your beautiful face shadowed with down is still more seductive in its curve. Your lip sings on my doorstep an unknown and charming language like a false music. Enter! And let my wine refresh you . . . But no, you pass, and from my doorstep I see you leaving making a last gesture with grace and your hips gently swaying, with your feminine and languid walk . . . Return to Parlance Program Notes

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2020 AT 3 PM YING FANG, SOPRANO KEN NODA, PIANO BUY TICKETS KEN NODA, PIANO YING FANG, SOPRANO “A warm, agile, and appealing voice…a star in the making.” – Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times FEATURING ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE BUY TICKETS The luminous Metropolitan Opera soprano Ying Fang is one of today’s fastest-rising young artists. She 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.” Ying Fang will join the esteemed collaborative pianist Ken Noda in best-loved opera arias and songs by Händel, Mozart, Schubert, Bizet, and Rachmaninoff. PROGRAM Georg Friedrich Händel Endless Pleasure (from Semele ) Program Notes Georg Friedrich Händel Angels ever bright and fair (from Theodora ) Program Notes Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Un moto di gioia (from Le Nozze di Figaro ) Program Notes Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Deh vieni non tardar (from Le Nozze di Figaro ) Program Notes Franz Schubert Viola Program Notes Franz Schubert Nacht und Träume Program Notes Georges Bizet Chanson d’Avril Program Notes Georges Bizet La Coccinelle Program Notes Sergei Rachmaninoff Six Songs, Op. 38 In My Garden at Night, To Her, Daisies, Pied Piper, Dreams, A-oo Program Notes Watch Ying Fang perform S'altro che lagrime in the Met’s production of La Clemenza Di Tito:

December 4, 2022 – The Sitkovetsky Trio SAM PERKIN Freakshow December 4, 2022 – The Sitkovetsky Trio Sam Perkin earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in composition from the Cork Institute of Technology’s Cork School of Music and an Artist Diploma from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Lyon, France, where he was awarded the Prix Salabert for composition. He has since written for leading orchestras, ensembles, and soloists such as the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the Vanbrugh Quartet, the Fidelio Trio, and Finghin Collins. In 2017 he composed Language for contemporary violin specialist Miranda Cuckson, exploring the inner workings of different human languages, and in Waves (2016–18) he “attempted self-cure for tinnitus” as one of his projects for the Irish Chamber Orchestra. His many fruitful collaborations with that ensemble began in 2015 with his luminescent Nimbus for string orchestra. Based dually in France and Ireland, Perkin serves as composer-in-residence with the Crash Ensemble, Ireland’s leading new-music ensemble. His first major work for that group, Grey Area (2017–19), forges a novel combination of the world of street skateboarding with contemporary music. In Alta, another inventive work of 2019, Perkin collaborated with Finnish northern lights specialist Unto K. Laine to incorporate recorded sounds of the aurora borealis. Emerging from the pandemic in 2021, the Luminosa Orchestra premiered his Visualization, in which musicians “bathe” everyone in the vicinity in “invisible music,” inspired by the sonic meditations of Pauline Oliveros. Most recently, in July 2022, his hybrid new symphony Children in the Universe for ensemble and halo track was premiered by the Crash Ensemble at the Galway International Arts Festival. Perkin composed Freakshow in 2016 for the Fidelio Trio on a commission from the leading Welsh music festival Gwyl Gregynog to mark the centenary of the Dublin Easter Rising of 1916, when close to 2,000 activists were arrested and imprisoned in the Welsh camp Fron-Goch for six months. Perkin explained: “Freakshow is inspired by the research of Welsh journalist and broadcaster Lyn Ebenezer, whose book Fron-Goch Camp 1916 explains how the camp became known as the ‘University of Revolution’ because leading figures such as Michael Collins were imprisoned there. “One anecdote in particular fired my imagination: the story of the Circus of Rats which acts as a portal to the absurd world of this macabre Suite. One of the prisoners at Fron-Goch used to go to great lengths to catch these rats and to put on a show for his fellow inmates. From an oblique compositional perspective and through a macabre lens, I decided to write a set of miniatures dedicated to the stars of the ‘Freakshow.’ “Building on themes of captivity and spectacle, the seven movements in the work explore seven different stories. One such story is that of the two-headed nightingale, conjoined twins who were sold to the circus when they were very young, then went on to learn five languages, dance, and play music. They eventually went on to tour the globe and achieve stardom due to their famous waltzes and vocal duets. I conveyed this musically by composing a warped waltz that shifts slightly out of and back into time.” Other stories include The Living Skeleton as the third movement and The Gentle Giant, a tribute to the world’s tallest man, Robert Wadlow, as the fourth. The fifth movement deals with the Ovitz family, Hungarian Jewish actors/traveling musicians most of whom were dwarves and who were horrifically experimented on by Nazi “doctor” Josef Mengele. The sixth features Li Yeng, “The Basket Lady of Weijing Province,” a famed contortionist who dazzled audiences on world tours from 1880 to 1910 with the Circus of the Electric Antlers—an avant-garde troupe far ahead of their time in using psychedelic mushrooms and loudly amplified tape loops of electric guitar. The suite concludes with The Armless Fiddler, the story of Carl Unthan, who had no arms and instead played the violin with his toes. Says Perkin, “What I really enjoyed in this piece was composing for instruments in a slightly different way than I usually would, being sarcastic, macabre, humorous, something a bit different to how I usually write. How do you make a violin sound sarcastic? Sul pont, pizz, arco? It’s not really that simple; it’s more based on the gestures, the musical gestures, there’s something deeper to it than just an effect. That’s something I really explored in this piece.” Return to Parlance Program Notes

March 11, 2018: Benjamin Beilman, Violin; Orion Weiss, piano FREDERIC RZEWSKI Demons for violin and piano (2017) March 11, 2018: Benjamin Beilman, Violin; Orion Weiss, piano Dynamic, engaging, and committed to social issues, pianist and composer Frederic Rzewski earned his undergraduate degree at Harvard, where he studied with Randall Thompson and Walter Piston, and his master’s degree at Princeton, where his teachers included Roger Sessions and Milton Babbitt. Following additional studies with Luigi Dallapiccola on a Fulbright scholarship in Florence, Rzewski began making a name for himself as a performer and teacher of new music in Europe. In 1966 in Rome he cofounded Musica Elettronica Viva (MEV), where he explored collaborative improvisation. Rzewski returned to New York in 1971 but later took a post at the Royal Conservatory in Liège and continued to work with MEV in Rome. He has taught periodically at other renowned institutions, in particular the universities of Cincinnati, SUNY–Buffalo, California–San Diego as well as Yale, the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, and the Berlin Hochschule der Künste. As both composer and performer, Rzewski has long focused on issues that dominate the headlines. Coming Together (1972), for example, sets a letter by Attica State Prison inmate Sam Melville who was later killed in the Attica riots, and Rzewski’s monumental piano work The People United Will Never Be Defeated (1975) presents a set of variations on Sergio Ortega’s song for the mass mobilization of working-class people. More recently, Songs of Insurrection for piano (2016) treats melodies by imprisoned soldiers at a Nazi concentration camp, Korean peasants of the Donghak Rebellion, and Irish nationalists during the “Easter Rising,” among many others. To Rzewski’s credit, his works are incredibly moving and show a characteristic drive whether he employs atonal or tonal techniques, incorporates improvisation or not, or treats his own or popular melodies. Rzewski composed Demons in the spring and summer of 2017 for violinist Benjamin Beilman and pianist Orion Weiss on a commission from Music Accord. Dedicated to author and political activist Angela Davis, the work receives its premiere on March 3, 2018, in Baltimore at the Carice Smith Performing Arts Center and continues its round of premiere performances in Boston at the Longy School of Music, here on the Parlance Chamber Concerts, and in Heidelberg, Germany. The composer writes: “In Dostoyevsky’s 1871 novel of the same name, the character Kirillov kills himself in order ‘to become God.” Inspired by the Russian Nihilist movement of the 1860s and specifically by the charismatic figure Nechayev, Dostoyevsky’s book is a study of the self-destructive forces present in the Russian society of his time. It foreshadows Lenin and the Revolution of 1917, as well as the ideas of Nietzsche and Freud, and had a deep influence on writers like Mann, whose Doctor Faustus is a similar study of modern Germany. “While it is futile to try to express musical ideas in words, it is possible to say that my piece is a meditation on similar trends in the world of today. “In early November 2016, I had the honor to assist at a spectacular performance of my composition Coming Together of 1972 at the San Francisco Conservatory, with Angela Davis as the speaking soloist, a few days before the presidential elections. There was a public discussion that followed. Davis seemed to know the results already. She said that if the Left had done its job, the present situation would not have arisen. “These and similar ideas were all going through my head as I was writing Demons a few months later. I am not religious, and don’t know much about devils and such, but as an artist I cannot help feeling sensitive to whatever it is that awakens these ideas in humans, causing them to go crazy. I am not sure that scientists or doctors understand these things any better than writers or musicians. Perhaps, on the contrary, although we cannot explain them in rational terms, we can nevertheless throw some light on them, in our own way. “My piece is in four movements, and so is a kind of sonata. . . . There are periodic references to two songs throughout the piece: “Iroes,” made popular in the 1990s by the singer Maria Dimitriadis, and a song that became known during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s (notably as performed by Barbara Dane), “Freedom Is a Constant Struggle,” which also provided the title for the recent book of Angela Davis. “Thanks to a new generation of classical musicians like Benjamin Beilman, there is a revival of interest among younger players in new music that in some way continues the classical tradition. One can only hope that this trend will continue. Although Marx’s analysis of capitalism as a ruthless system following its relentless course independently of human will continues to be valid, there are nonetheless reasons to think that alternatives are possible. As Mark Twain put it, prophecy is really hard, especially when it’s about the future.” © Jane Vial Jaffe *Commissioned by Music Accord for Benjamin Beilman. Comprised of top classical music presenting organizations throughout the United States, Music Accord is a consortium that commissions news works in the chamber music, instrumental recital, and song genres. The consortium’s goal is to create a significant number of new works and to ensure presentation of these works in venues throughout this country and, if the occasion arises, internationally. For more information, please go to www.musicaccord.org . Return to Parlance Program Notes

September 14, 2025: “SINGERS” FROM THE MET ORCHESTRA WILLIAM SHORT, BASSOON; MUSICIANS FROM THE MET ORCHESTRA; MICHAEL PARLOFF, CONDUCTOR WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) Bassoon Concerto in B-flat, K. 191 September 14, 2025: “SINGERS” FROM THE MET ORCHESTRA WILLIAM SHORT, BASSOON; MUSICIANS FROM THE MET ORCHESTRA; MICHAEL PARLOFF, CONDUCTOR Mozart completed his Bassoon Concerto—the first of his existing concertos for wind instruments—in Salzburg on June 4, 1774. The manuscript on which he recorded this date is now lost, but was once in the possession of publisher A. André, who published the work in 1801 and issued another edition in 1805. It is infinitely regrettable that Mozart may have composed as many as four other bassoon concertos, but this is the only one that survives. We have no documentation about a bassoonist for whom he intended the work or about the first performance. Most likely Mozart wrote it for one of the two bassoonists employed by the Archbishop Colloredo of Salzburg—Johann Heinrich Schulz or Melchior Sandmayr. The Concerto admirably displays the lyrical expressiveness, staccato capabilities, and contrasting ranges of the bassoon. The sonata-form first movement begins with the traditional presentation of ideas by the orchestra alone—a shortened version of the main theme, a second theme of notably unusual phrase lengths, and a closing arpeggiated theme, which remains the property of the orchestra only in the course of the movement. Mozart’s treatment of the second theme is especially elegant—when the orchestra plays this theme in the soloist’s exposition Mozart gives the bassoon a countermelody and in the corresponding place in the recapitulation the bassoon and orchestra melodies are reversed. By qualifying the Andante tempo marking with “ma adagio” and by employing muted strings throughout, Mozart infuses a tinge of pathos into the serene atmosphere of the second movement. His writing for the bassoon shows off its singing qualities to great advantage. The opening idea bears a similarity—intended or not?—to the Countess’s aria “Porgi amor” from The Marriage of Figaro , and also appears in a sketchbook Mozart used during his London journey of 1766. For his finale Mozart chose the type of minuet-rondo favored by J. C. Bach, whom he greatly admired; that is, in the style and triple meter of a minuet but with the rondo form of a recurring refrain with intervening episodes. Mozart also ingeniously incorporates elements of variation form by giving the soloist variation material or figuration in the episodes between the orchestra’s statements of the rondo refrain. He offers intriguing variety, though, by entrusting the next to last statement of the refrain to the bassoon while the strings offer contrapuntal interest. By providing places for an “Eingang ” (short cadenza-like passage) in the outer movements, and for cadenzas proper in the first two movements, Mozart allows the soloist ample opportunities for additional display and imagination. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

February 20, 2022 – Paul Huang, violin; Danbi Um, violin AMY BARLOWE Hebraique Elegie for two violins February 20, 2022 – Paul Huang, violin; Danbi Um, violin Daughter of acclaimed natural history artists Dorothea and Sy Barlowe, Amy Barlowe began playing viola in elementary school, but she really wanted to play violin. Her parents found her a local teacher and she was good enough to play very difficult repertoire even if her technique was unconventional. In high school she worked her way from the back of the second violins to concertmaster, but she needed a good teacher. The great Ivan Galamian accepted her after some “reconstruction work” with Margaret Pardee, and she won admission to the Juilliard School where she earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Barlowe’s playing career blossomed with acclaimed solo and chamber music concerts across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. She toured the Northwest with the Oregon Trio and she performed and recorded with her husband, Alan Bodman, as Duo [AB]2 (AB squared). She has also taught extensively—at Willamette University, Juilliard Pre-College, New York’s School for Strings, and the Ohio Conservatory, as well as during summers at the Estherwood and Bowdoin Summer Music Festivals and—for over twenty-five years—the Meadowmount Music School. The death of her father in 2000 gave the impetus for her to begin composing, and two years later, with the onset of an incurable tremor, composition became a more frequent outlet for her energy. She did develop techniques so she could still play the violin, but with the curtailment of her solo career, she realized “that the impending void could be filled if I were to become more creative than re-creative. If I were to write music that I envisioned, it would be another form of ‘world-building’ that I could explore for the rest of my life.” Barlowe’s compositions and arrangements include many works for two violins and piano, solo violin, two Requiems—Aeternum in memory of her father and a Requiem for soprano and orchestra—and 12 Etudes in the Style of the Great Performers, which has won worldwide acclaim. Her arrangement of John Williams’s Theme from Schindler’s List for two violins or violin and viola with orchestra or piano won the endorsement of the composer. More recently The Peace of Wild Things was premiered in June 2019 by Akron Baroque, a chamber orchestra founded by Barlowe in 2006 in which she plays assistant concertmaster to her husband. On the same concert he premiered her Sicliano, written as the middle movement of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 for which he left just two chords on which creative performers were meant to improvise. Even more recently, in October 2021, Barlowe’s Epitaph for viola and soprano was premiered at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Barlowe composed her Hebraique Elegie in 2001 in memory of her father and has often performed it with her husband to great accalim. The piece has also received a number of performances by today’s violinists, Paul Huang and Danbi Um. Barlow has also arranged it for two violas and for solo violin. She writes: “There is something about the history of the Jewish people, their struggle for survival, their innate ability to buoy themselves from the depths of tragedy through the use of humor, that has always fascinated me. The Hebraique Elegie was born of the desire to find a home for the emotions I experienced at the passing of my father. The hypnotic dance at its core is a sweet reminiscence of dancing with my father at Bar Mitzvahs, while a very little girl, first with my feet atop his polished black shoes; then on my own. From the lonely, chant-like cadenza at its opening, to reflection and reluctant acceptance at its close, the Hebraique Elegie is a lament expressing the irony and juxtaposition of joy and suffering; the struggle with the inevitable.” © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

ADAM COCKERHAM, THEORBO, BAROQUE GUITAR Adam Cockerham Theorbo, Baroque guitar Adam Cockerham has appeared as a continuo player and accompanist with leading ensembles in New York and San Francisco. A specialist in seventeenth-century Italian opera, he has participated in numerous modern premieres with organizations including the Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik and Ars Minerva. He earned his doctorate from The Juilliard School.

ITAMAR ZORMAN, VIOLIN Itamar Zorman is one of the most soulful, evocative artists of his generation, distinguished by his emotionally gripping performances and gift for musical storytelling. Since his emergence with the top prize at the 2011 International Tchaikovsky Competition, he has wowed audiences all over the world with breathtaking style, causing one critic to declare him a “young badass who’s not afraid of anything.” His “youthful intensity” and “achingly beautiful” sound shine through in every performance, earning him the title of the “virtuoso of emotions. Awarded the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award for 2014, violinist Itamar Zorman is the winner of the 2013 Avery Fisher Career Grant, and the 2011 International Tchaikovsky Competition in Russia. Mr. Zorman has performed as a soloist with such orchestras as the Mariinsky Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, New World Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, KBS Symphony Seoul, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, German Radio Philharmonic, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Kremerata Baltica, RTE National Symphony Orchestra (Dublin) and American Symphony. In 2024 he performed with the RAI National Symphony Orchestra in their traditional televised Christmas concert, following the Pope’s blessing.He has worked with conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Michael Tilson-Thomas, David Robertson, Valery Gergiev, James DePreist, Karina Canellakis, Yuri Bashmet, and Nathalie Stuztmann. Mr. Zorman has performed around the world in halls such as Avery Fisher Hall, Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium, Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Zurich Tonhalle, Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow, and Teatro Massimo Palermo. As a recitalist he performed at Carnegie Hall's Distinctive Debut series, Wigmore Hall, People's Symphony Concerts, Merkin Hall, the Louvre Museum, Suntory Hall Laeiszhalle Hamburg and HR-Sendesaal Frankfurt. Mr. Zorman was invited to the Verbier, Marlboro, Rheingau, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brevard, Classical Tahoe, MITO SettembreMusica, and Radio France Festivals. He has also collaborated with a number of legendary artists such as Richard Goode (including performances at Carnegie Hall and Library of Congress), Mitsuko Uchida, Steven Isserlis and Jörg Widmann. Mr. Zorman’s latest CD, “Violin Odyssey”, a collection of works for violin from five continents, was released in 2022 by First Hand Records to critical acclaim. As part of an ongoing exploration of the music of Paul Ben-Haim, Mr. Zorman released a CD of the works for violin and orchestra with BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Philippe Bach for BIS Records, in April 2019, entitled “Evocation”. His first solo CD recording, entitled “Portrait”, features works by Messiaen, Schubert, Chausson, Hindemith, and Brahms and was released by Profil - Editions Günther Hänssler. Described as a “poet of the violin”, Itamar Zorman is also a committed chamber player. He is a founding member of the Israeli Chamber Project and a member of the Lysander Piano Trio, with which he won the 2012 Concert Artists Guild Competition, the Grand Prize in the 2011 Coleman Chamber Music Competition, 1st prize in the 2011 Arriaga Competition, and a bronze medal in the 2010 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. Born in Tel-Aviv in 1985 to a family of musicians, Itamar Zorman began his violin studies at the age of six with Saly Bockel at the Israeli Conservatory of Music in Tel-Aviv. He graduated in 2003 and continued his studies with Professor David Chen and Nava Milo. He received his Bachelor of Music from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance as a student of Hagai Shaham, and his Master of Music from The Juilliard School in 2009, where he studied with Robert Mann and Sylvia Rosenberg. He then went on to receive an Artist Diploma from Manhattan School of Music in 2010 and an Artist Diploma from Julliard in 2012 under the tutelage of Sylvia Rosenberg, and he is an alumnus of the Kronberg Academy where he studied with Christian Tetzlaff and Mauricio Fuks. He is also the recipient of scholarships from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation and has taken part in numerous master classes around the world, working with Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Shlomo Mintz, Ida Haendel, and Ivry Gitlis. Mr. Zorman is an Associate Professor of Music (Violin) at Indiana University’s Jacob’s School of Music. He plays on a 1734 Guarneri del Gesù, from the collection of Yehuda Zisapel.

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

MARK WALKER, DRUMS Drummer/percussionist/composer Mark Walker, originally from “Central America” (Chicago, Illinois) began his tenure with Paquito D’Rivera in 1989, when Paquito came to Chicago and needed a drummer who could handle a variety of rhythmic styles. Since then Mark has performed around the globe and recorded many Grammy award-winning albums, not only with Paquito, but also Oregon, Caribbean Jazz Project, Michel Camilo, Lyle Mays, Cesar Camargo Mariano, New York Voices, Patricia Barber, and many more. Mark is also associate professor at Berklee College of Music and has a side project called the “Berklee Brothers,” comprised of Berklee faculty.

May 17, 2026: Chee-Yun, violin; Sterling Elliott, cello; Henry Kramer, piano Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) Piano Trio No. 1 in B, Op. 8 May 17, 2026: Chee-Yun, violin; Sterling Elliott, cello; Henry Kramer, piano “I am thinking of not publishing any of my trios,” wrote the twenty-year-old Brahms in November 1853 to Schumann, his new mentor and friend. How many trios had he written, and what didn’t he like about them? Brahms was notorious for destroying his sketches, student pieces, incomplete works, and compositions that did not measure up to his high standard, so it is unlikely that any of these early trios will ever turn up. The fact that he had written other trios, however, does explain how his “first” Trio—that in B major, which he composed in 1853–54—could be such an accomplished work. It was the first chamber work he considered worthy of publication, and with Clara Schumann recommending it to Breitkopf & Härtel, the Trio was duly published in November of 1854. Almost half a century later, in 1889, Simrock acquired rights from other publishers to the early works by Brahms that were not yet in his catalog, which raised the prospect of reissuing the Trio. The mature composer decided to revise this favored product of his youth by reining in some of its excesses. “You’ll never guess,” he wrote to Clara in September, “with what childish amusement I whiled away the beautiful summer days. I have rewritten my B major Trio and can call it op. 108 instead of op. 8. It will not be so wild as before—but whether it will be better—?” His revisions resulted in a work of roughly two-thirds the length of the original. He tightened up the first movement by writing a new second theme preceded by a shorter transition, and by deleting a fugue, but he left the sublime first theme intact—all fifty-plus measures of it. Like many of Schubert’s melodious themes, this expansive theme and the original second theme were hard to treat developmentally, but his new second theme worked well in that regard. Brahms had always excelled at writing scherzos and he found little to change in his 1854 version. His delicate, almost Mendelssohnian opening soon erupts in a tempestuous “ride to the hounds,” replete with hunting-horn calls. The trio luxuriates in a lovely theme that pairs instrumental lines in intervals of sixths and then thirds apart—sonorities much beloved by Brahms. The few changes the composer did make involved tightening up his coda. Again in the slow movement Brahms retained his first theme, a pious dialogue between piano and strings, but he wrote a completely new middle section. The opening returns in a slightly varied guise that preserves the original version’s atmospheric modulations, but dispenses with an interpolated fast section that Brahms thought excessive. As in the first and third movements, Brahms fit his finale with a new second theme, one that Clara disliked but which he considered much better suited to motivic development. He also substantially rewrote much of the remainder of the movement. The most striking feature of the finale, however, was present from the start: Brahms cast it in the minor mode, and though he traverses other keys in the course of the movement, the minor mode prevails even at the forceful close. This Trio, therefore, is one of the extremely rare pieces that flaunt custom by beginning in the major and concluding in the minor. To the delight of American audiences it was long thought that the first performance of the Trio in the original version took place in New York of all unlikely places. William Mason, an American piano student of Liszt, had brought back a copy of the Trio and performed it on November 27, 1855, with Theodor Thomas and Karl Bergmann in Dodsworth’s Hall. More recent research has determined, however, that the work was first performed in Danzig (Germany) on October 13, 1855, played by Messrs. Haupt (piano), Braun (violin), and Klar (cello). Brahms himself gave the first public performance of the revised version in Budapest on January 10, 1890, with violinist Jenö Jubay and cellist David Popper. Vienna had to wait until February 22, when Brahms again took the piano part, this time with Arnold Rosé and Mr. Hummer. Brahms did not consider the new version of his Trio a replacement of the old, but merely an alternative. He remained ambivalent about its merits, as did his friends who loved the familiar youthful work. Clara wrote in her diary, “The whole trio strikes me as better proportioned than it was, but I do not altogether like it.” And the musically sophisticated Elisabet von Herzogenberg wrote, “You had no right to intrude your masterly touch on this lovable, if sometimes vague, product of your youth,” though she ended by saying, “It is beautiful in its present form, and I gladly leave it to the musical philologues to remonstrate with you.” Posterity has decided overwhelmingly in favor of the revised version, which is now heard almost exclusively whenever the beloved B major Trio is programmed. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

February 9, 2025: The Virtuoso Cellist, with Steven Isserlis and Connie Shih Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) Cello Sonata, Op. 36 February 9, 2025: The Virtuoso Cellist, with Steven Isserlis and Connie Shih The last formal position of Grieg's career was as conductor of the Bergen Harmoniske Selskab from 1880 to 1882, after which his activities centered around composition and concert tours. In 1883, newly freed from official commitments, Grieg composed his only Cello Sonata, op. 36, the Walzer-Capricen for piano duet, op. 37, a second set of Lyric Pieces, op. 38, and he worked on a second piano concerto (never completed). Grieg wrote twenty years later that he did not rate the Cello Sonata very highly, "because it does not betoken any forward step in my development." As has been noted previously in these pages, he was not as comfortable in the extended forms of a sonata, as in the lyrical miniatures that were his strength. He may have been concerned about his struggle with form, but his remarks cannot detract from the work's singing melodies, expressive writing for both cello and piano, and Norwegian folk-like characteristics. Moreover, Grieg thought enough of the work to perform it several times with notable cellists. In addition to playing the première with Friedrich Grützmacher in Dresden, October 22, 1883, Grieg performed it soon after in Leipzig with Julius Klengel, and twice in Christiania two years later with his older brother John Grieg, to whom the work is dedicated. The composer became acquainted with Pablo Casals through his friend Julius Röntgen, Dutch composer, conductor and pianist, and heard Casals and Röntgen play the Sonata in Amsterdam. The Cello Sonata continued to appear on Casals's recital programs for years. Both the first and last movements of this three-movement Sonata are based on a free sonata form, and both movements contain rich chromaticism and several surprising jazz-foreshadowing sonorities. The first movement begins as if it had already been in progress and the listener just now "tuned in"—a kind of opening favored by many Romantic composers. The second theme is like a folk song, as is the lyrical secondary theme in the last movement. In the slow movement, one imagines the sound of a harp upon hearing the solo piano opening and subsequent accompaniment figures. The last movement opens with a solo cello recitative before breaking into a sprightly dance. Although the Sonata has had its detractors, it has also had supporters. The Boston cellist Wulf Fries, a close associate of Artur Rubinstein, liked the Sonata so much that he wrote to Grieg asking for more of the same kind. Grieg replied that he was ill and had written nothing else for cello, although arrangements for cello of some of his pieces had been made by Goltermann. The great scholar William S. Newman in The Sonata Since the Classic Era regarded it as one of Grieg's best-sounding, most-rewarding sonatas. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes