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EMI FERGUSON, BAROQUE FLUTE Emi Ferguson is a creative artist expanding the classical music world. Emi bridges genres and disciplines in many roles, as a director, flute player, singer, composer, arranger, radio host, and writer, she has always been excited about finding new ways for people to embrace classical music. She has spoken and performed at several TEDX events and has been featured on media outlets including The Discovery Channel, Netflix’s Explained (Vox), Amazon's The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel , and New York’s radio station, WQXR talking about how music relates to our world today. Emi’s ability to connect through music has resonated in some of the world’s most meaningful moments. Her performance of Amazing Grace at the 10th Anniversary Memorial Ceremony of 9/11 at Ground Zero alongside Yo-Yo Ma, Paul Simon, and James Taylor was broadcast globally and is now part of the permanent collection at the 9/11 Museum. As a radio host and programmer, Emi hosts WQXR’s Young Artists Showcase , a weekly show highlighting fantastic young classical musicians, and Once Upon A Composer , a series created for the youngest of radio listeners, introducing them to music through exciting stories about composers. Her book Iconic Composers co-written with Nicholas Csicsko and featuring artwork by David Csicsko, introduces music lovers of all ages to 50 incredible Western Classical composers from the past 1000 years. Emi first started working with New York’s WQXR as a member of their Artist Propulsion Lab, developing the podcast series T his Composer Is SICK! with Max Fine that explored the impact of Syphilis on composers Franz Schubert, Bedřich Smetana, and Scott Joplin as a way to highlight contemporary case surges. Emi’s recordings celebrate her fascination with reinvigorating music and instruments of the past for the present. Her debut album, Amour Cruel , an indie-pop song cycle inspired by the music of the 17th-century French court, was released by Arezzo Music in September 2017, spending four weeks on the classical, classical crossover, and world music Billboard charts. Her 2019 album Fly the Coop: Bach Sonatas and Preludes , a collaboration with continuo band Ruckus, debuted at #1 on the iTunes classical charts and #2 on the Billboard classical charts, and was called “blindingly impressive ... a fizzing, daring display of personality and imagination” by The New York Times. Emi’s discography also includes releases on Decca Records, Verve Records, New Focus Records, Old Focus Records, Orchid Classics, Canteloupe Music, National Sawdust Tracks, Brontosaurus Records, Coro, and MSR Classics. A 2023 recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, Emi enjoys performing as both a soloist and a collaborator, appearing at major festivals and concert halls around the world. She is the founder and artistic director of the ensemble, Exquisite Corpse , a collective dedicated to music and art that resists categorization. Its projects reimagine works of the past, revive forgotten voices, reframe classics, and bring history vividly back to life while also fostering new collisions amongst today’s composers, performers, and creators across disciplines. She collaborates regularly with AMOC*, Ruckus, the New York New Music Ensemble, the Handel and Haydn Society (where she is principal flute), the Manhattan Chamber Players, and as the music director of Camerata Pacifica Baroque. Recent collaborations include projects with vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, dancers Julia Eichten and Bret Easterling, composer Michael Hersch, harpist Ashley Jackson, pianists Dan Tepfer and Reed Tetzlof, saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins, composer Roscoe Mitchell, and the Metropolis Ensemble. Chamber music and its spirit of collaboration has always been central with experiences at festivals like Marlboro, Lucerne, Ojai, Bach Virtuosi, and June in Buffalo deepening her ability to listen, respond, and create dialogue in front of and within an ensemble. Emi became the first student to earn Undergraduate and Graduate degrees with Scholastic Distinction (for her simultaneous studies in Epidemiology) in flute performance at The Juilliard School. She later earned a second Graduate degree in Historical Performance as the only flutist accepted into Juilliard’s inaugural Historical Performance class as a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow. As an educator, Emi has taught on the faculties of The Juilliard School, the Bach Virtuosi Festival, and the University at Buffalo in addition to being sought after for masterclasses at universities around the country. Born in Japan and raised in London and Boston, she now resides in New York.

2016-2017 ARTIST ROSTER MARIKO ANRAKU, HARP CARTER BREY, CELLO INN-HYUCK CHO, CLARINET DAVID FINCKEL, CELLO FRANK HUANG, VIOLIN ISABEL LEONARD, MEZZO-SOPRANO DOV SCHEINDLIN, VIOLA JASON VIEAUX, GUITAR EMANUEL AX, PIANO EMMANUEL CEYSSON, HARP ESCHER STRING QUARTET ÉRIK GRATTON, FLUTE JERUSALEM STRING QUARTET CYNTHIA PHELPS, VIOLA PHILIP SETZER, VIOLIN WU HAN, PIANO JONATHAN BISS, PIANO DAVID CHAN, VIOLIN RAFAEL FIGUEROA, CELLO JERRY GROSSMAN, CELLO WARREN JONES, PIANO CATHERINE RO, VIOLIN SHERYL STAPLES, VIOLIN MELINDA WAGNER, COMPOSER

2009-2010 SEASON 2009-2010 SEASON Artist Roster Parlance Program Notes LOCATION At West Side Presbyterian Church 6 South Monroe Street Ridgewood, NJ 07450 For map and directions, click here . CONCERT AMENITIES Whee lchair Accessible Fr e e Parking for all concerts

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ANNE CRUMB, NARRATOR An internationally known singer and actress, Ann has performed classical and jazz concerts throughout the USA and Europe, having appeared in Austria at the Salzburg Festival, in Holland for the Nederlandse Programma Stichting, in Germany with the Bochumer Symphoniker and in Italy with the Lirico Sinfonica Petruzelli e Teatri di Bari. Recent US appearances include performances at Carnegie Hall and Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center. Ann has originated numerous leading roles on Broadway and London’s West End. Ms. Crumb starred in Aspects of Love (becoming the first American actress chosen by Andrew Lloyd Webber to create a starring role), Neil Simon’s premiere of The Goodbye Girl opposite British comic Gary Wilmot, Nine opposite Jonathan Price, Les Miserables, Chess, and Anna Karenina, for which she received a Best Actress Tony nomination. She headlined the National Tours of Swing and Music of the Night and starred in National Tours of Evita and Man of La Mancha (opposite John Cullum). Ann is also the recipient of two Barrymore nominations (winning for her performance as Ludmilla in Bed and Sofa at the Wilma Theater), a Broadway National Theater Award nomination and an Arts Recognition Award. Her extensive list of theatre credits includes everything from the classics to post-modernist theater, Shakespeare to premieres of Shepard and Ionesco. Ann has also appeared on numerous television shows including Law and Order, One Life to Live, and Criminal Intent. Her first jazz recording “A Broadway Diva Swings” with Harry Allen and his All Star Jazz Band charted nationally, and she recorded “Three Early Songs” for the Grammy Award winning “George Crumb’s 70th Birthday Album”. Ann can also be heard on numerous cast albums and compilations as well as the Bridge premiere recordings of “Unto the Hills” and “River of Life.” (“Best of the Year” Classics.com and All Music Guide, Diapason D’Or) Her most recent release is Daniel Dorff’s “The Tortoise and the Hare and other Fables” which she co-narrated with television news anchor Ukee Washington. Future projects include a new jazz album and the Bridge recordings of her father’s “Songbook VI” with Orchestra 2001 and new song cycle “Sun and Shadow.” In addition to her performance and recording commitments, Ann is completing her first novel tentatively titled “Eben, City Dog” and “It Actually Happened!” a collection of true theater stories.

April 2, 2023: BORIS BERMAN, PIANO JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897) Three Intermezzos for piano, Op. 117 April 2, 2023: BORIS BERMAN, PIANO In the four sets of piano pieces that appeared in 1892–93, opp. 116–119, Brahms took up the writing of “miniatures” that he had begun with the Ballades, op. 10, and the Piano Pieces, op. 76. The later pieces, particularly the Intermezzos, which make up fourteen of the twenty pieces in these four sets, tend generally toward the introspective. No precise chronology can be determined for these pieces, yet the structural economy and tendency toward harmonic and textural “impressionism” all point to Brahms’s late style. Brahms used the label “intermezzo” for a wide range of expressive styles, but all three of the Opus 117 pieces can be considered lullabies. If the sweet lilt of the famous first Intermezzo were not suggestion enough, Brahms headed the piece with two lines of the Scottish ballad Lady Anne Bothwell’s Lament in Herder’s translation: Schlaf sanft, mein Kind, schlaf sanft und schön! Mich dauert’s sehr, dich weinen sehn. (Sleep softly, my child, sleep softly and well! It grieves me so to see you weep.) The piece presents its tender melody “cradled” in an inner voice in the right hand. Brahms employs ternary form here as in most of his Intermezzos and, true to type, he varied the return of the opening, this time with gently leaping chords and later a rippling “inner-voice” accompaniment pattern. The darker central section in the tonic minor sets up the special radiance of the reprise. The second Intermezzo, as beloved as the first, maintains a delicate arpeggiated texture in its first section, which seems only to be hinting at a melody. The melody becomes more explicit in the second section, which in the manner of a sonata form is presented in a secondary key area. After a short development of sorts, an altered and still developmental “reprise,” and a coda based on the “second theme,” we realize that Brahms has treated us to a full miniature sonata form. Brahms’s first biographer Max Kalbeck was the first to point out that the third Intermezzo may also have been inspired by another Herder translation of a Scottish poem, O weh! O weh, hinab ins Thal’ (O woe! o woe, down into the valley), which Brahms had copied out alongside Schlaf sanft in one of his notebooks. The somber murmuring in bare octaves reminds us of similar Brahms themes, such as the opening of the finale of his Third Symphony. This Intermezzo is also in ternary form with a major-key central section that delicately ranges the entire keyboard. Again the return to the opening is varied; here the main melody appears in an inner voice. In a letter to a friend Brahms referred to the Intermezzos as “three lullabies to my sorrows.” And when his publisher hoped the first might be another smash hit as a song—just as the famous Lullaby, op. 49, no. 4, had been—Brahms warned him that it would have to be entitled “Lullaby of an Unfortunate Mother,” or “of a disconsolate bachelor,” or with illustrations by Max Klinger entitled “Sing Lullabies of My Sorrow.” The air of sadness in many of Brahms’s late works gives them that quality that commentators so often call “autumnal,” but if they are tinged with regret they also show the mastery and poetry that Brahms could only have gained through years of experience. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

September 26, 2021: Arnaud Sussmann, violin; Danbi Um, violin; Nathan Melzer, violin; Kevin Zhu, violin; James Thompson, violin; Jeanelle Brierley, violin; Oliver Neubauer, violin; Clara Neubauer, viola; Paul Neubauer, viola; Isabella Bignasca, viola; Nicholas Canellakis, cello; Sihao He, cello; David J. Grossman, bass; Paolo Bordignon, harpsichord ANTONIO VIVALDI (1678-1741) Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione, op. 8, nos. 1–4, “The Four Seasons” September 26, 2021: Arnaud Sussmann, violin; Danbi Um, violin; Nathan Melzer, violin; Kevin Zhu, violin; James Thompson, violin; Jeanelle Brierley, violin; Oliver Neubauer, violin; Clara Neubauer, viola; Paul Neubauer, viola; Isabella Bignasca, viola; Nicholas Canellakis, cello; Sihao He, cello; David J. Grossman, bass; Paolo Bordignon, harpsichord September 26, 2021: Arnaud Sussmann, violin; Danbi Um, violin; Nathan Melzer, violin; Kevin Zhu, violin; James Thompson, violin; Jeanelle Brierley, violin; Oliver Neubauer, violin; Clara Neubauer, viola; Paul Neubauer, viola; Isabella Bignasca, viola; Nicholas Canellakis, cello; Sihao He, cello; David J. Grossman, bass; Paolo Bordignon, harpsichord Vivaldi’s greatness as a composer lay in his extraordinary mastery of instrumental forms and orchestration. An accomplished violinist, he also trained for the priesthood, taking his Holy Orders in 1703; he was dubbed “the red priest” because of his striking hair color. For much of his career he worked at the Pio Ospedale Pietà, an orphanage and famous conservatory for girls in Venice. Many of his instrumental works, including most of his 500 concertos, were written for his students there. He also traveled throughout Italy in connection with the presentation of his operas, and for a time around 1718–20 he was employed as court music director in Mantua. We know from Vivaldi’s own preface that he composed The Four Seasons long before their publication in 1725, but the precise date and place of composition may forever elude us. Possibly composed as early as 1716, these concertos appeared as the first of twelve making up his Opus 8 collection, which he dedicated to music-loving Bohemian Count Morzin. Vivaldi’s preface implies that he knew the count’s “virtuoso orchestra”—had the composer visited Prague? The Four Seasons spread Vivaldi’s fame far and wide in his own lifetime. Would he have been surprised to find that these concertos later achieved such ultra-popularity as to be played as restaurant background music, in television commercials, and for movie soundtracks? Though he might have been irritated at some of these applications, he might have been intrigued that their use in Alan Alda’s film The Four Seasons and on the Weather Channel actually relates to one of their most salient attributes—that of being program music, or music that tells a story. On the most basic level these works give a musical representation of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. But what makes them so innovative and memorable is the vividness and detail of Vivaldi’s programmatic description. The concertos were prefaced by four “explanatory sonnets”—presumably written by the composer—whose verses refer to points in the score through a system of keyed letters (see below). Reading the poetry in sync with the music illuminates what the images are, but it is the remarkable music with its myriad nuanced references to mankind’s relationship with nature that shows the height of Vivaldi’s artistry. As a fascinating aside, Vivaldi’s sonnets recently helped paleo-ecologist/climatologist Ulla Kokfelt, who was working on climatic reconstructions from Venice and Po just following the “late maunder minimum” period (1675–1715, the culmination of a “little ice age”). She was able to draw certain conclusions because of the sonnets’ specificity and the fact that the concertos were probably written well before 1725. * * * One of Vivaldi’s great achievements was establishing the three-movement norm for the concerto. For the outer fast movements he often used ritornello form, in which periodic returns of thematic material alternate with contrasting episodes. His programs for the Four Seasons, while occasionally shaping the form, more often fit admirably into his characteristic concerto models. Vivaldi found ritornello form perfect for depicting the sonnets’ contrasting images in the fast movements, and the slow movements particularly apt for setting the mood of an entire scene or succession of scenes. Of the myriad glorious depictions in these concertos, we might single out the picturesque bird calls in the first movement of Spring, which are interrupted by a dramatic squall, or the slow movement’s exquisite sleepy mood, which is punctuated by the faithful dog “barking” in the viola part. The burning dryness of Summer’s opening contrasts so vividly with the cuckoo’s outbreak, as do the gentle breezes with the intrusion of the north wind. The anticipation of a storm builds ingeniously in the slow movement and the tempest’s fury in the final movement is truly impressive. In Autumn’s opening movement Vivaldi cleverly intersperses the ritornello refrain of the dancing country-folk with the colorful episodes of the bacchanal, brilliantly enacted by the solo violin with solo cello, and the atmospheric slumbering represented by the solo violin accompanied only by the pulsing of the ensemble violins. The muted slow movement traditionally gives the keyboard player a chance to improvise, while the closing movement contrasts the ritornello refrains representing the riding hunters with an episode of horn calls, another of the wounded prey, and finally of the animal’s death. Vivaldi’s depictions of shivering and of icy winds, of stamping feet and of chattering teeth are truly miraculous in Winter’s first movement. The slow movement’s peace by the fireside is shattered by the return of icy images in the finale. The Concerto and the entire cycle come to one of music’s most rousing conclusions as the howling winds wage war. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

DAVID CHAN, VIOLIN David Chan is the concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and an active soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. Mr. Chan made his Carnegie Hall debut during the 2002-2003 season, performing the Brahms Double Concerto with cellist Rafael Figueroa and the Met Orchestra under the baton of James Levine. In addition, he was a featured soloist in the Met Chamber Ensemble’s performance of Alban Berg’s Chamber Concerto for Piano, Violin and 13 Winds at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, also with Maestro Levine. Mr. Chan first gained international recognition when, at the age of seventeen, he won a top prize at the Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow. Upon his winning both the bronze medal and the special Josef Gingold prize at the prestigious Indianapolis International Violin Competition, the Strad magazine praised him for his “spectacular virtuosity,” while the Indianapolis News commented on his “lustrous tone” and “the kind of authority that usually comes only with maturity.” Mr. Chan made his New York debut at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall in 1995, performing Paganini’s Concerto No. 2 under the direction of Hugh Wolff. He has performed throughout the United States, Europe, and the Far East, appearing as soloist with such orchestras as the Moscow State Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Taiwan National Symphony, the Aspen Chamber Symphony, and the San Diego, Indianapolis, Richmond, Springfield, and Northbrook symphonies. As a chamber musician, he is a frequent guest at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival and at La Jolla’s SummerFest. His recordings include a recital program, a disc of two Paganini concertos with the English Chamber Orchestra, and an album of violin/cello duos with Rafael Figueroa. A native of San Diego, Mr. Chan began his musical education at the age of four. When he was fourteen, he won the San Diego Symphony’s Young Artists Concerto Competition and subsequently appeared with the orchestra in two series of concerts. That same year he was the featured soloist on the San Diego Youth Symphony’s tour of Austria, Germany, Hungary, and the former Czechoslovakia. Mr. Chan, whose principal teachers were Dorothy DeLay, Hyo Kang, and Michael Tseitlin, received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and his master’s degree from the Juilliard School. He is currently on the faculty of The Juilliard School and lives in the New York area with his wife, violinist Catherine Ro, his daughter Annalise, and his son Michal.

MODIGLIANI QUARTET The Paris-based Modigliani Quartet celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2023. They are regular guests at the world’s top venues and finest string quartet and chamber music series. In 2017 it was a special honor for the ensemble to be the first string quartet ever performing in the big hall of the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. In 2020, the quartet became artistic directors of the string quartet festival “Vibre! Quatuors à Bordeaux” as well as the renowned “The Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition”. In addition the quartet are founders and artistic directors of the Saint-Paul-de-Vence Festival. Since autumn 2023 they have been teaching the first String Quartet class at the École Normale de Musique de Paris Alfred Cortot. Modigliani Quartet has been recording for the Mirare label since 2008 and has released 13 award winning CDs since. In January 2024, the quartet’s latest album featuring quartets by Grieg and Smetana was published and received enthusiastically by the international press: “The French Quatuor Modigliani brings these highly emotional works to life with energy, color and glowing passion.” (Rondo, January 2024) The recording was also featured in the bestseller list 2-2024 (category chamber music) at the “Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik”. In the 2024/2025 season, Modigliani Quartet will be dedicated to the greatest challenge in the life of a string quartet: recording all 16 string quartets by Beethoven. Other highlights of the new season include a tour of North America in October 2024, as well as concerts at the Laeiszhalle in Hamburg, the L’Auditori in Barcelona (as part of the string quartet biennial), the Konserthus Stockholm, and at the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg. Thanks to the generosity and support of private sponsors, Modigliani Quartet plays on four outstanding Italian instruments: Amaury Coeytaux plays a 1715 violin by Stradivari Loïc Rio plays a 1780 violin by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini Laurent Marfaing plays a 1660 viola by Luigi Mariani François Kieffer plays a 1706 cello by Matteo Goffriller

October 18, 2009 – Rafael Figueroa, cello GASPAR CASSADÓ (1897-1966) Suite for Solo Cello October 18, 2009 – Rafael Figueroa, cello Gaspar Cassadó was one of the foremost cellists of the 20th Century. A musician of great versatility, he appeared regularly as a soloist with the world’s finest conductors and orchestras; performed chamber music with the most renowned musicians of the day; and produced a sizeable body of charming, well-crafted compositions and arrangements designed to showcase his own considerable talents as a cellist. His performance style and compositional oeuvre are often likened to those of the violinist Fritz Kreisler, who also wrote and performed his own concertos, showpieces, and charming recital encores that display the performer’s wit, agility, and lighter side. Born in Barcelona in 1897, Cassadó progressed quickly in his musical studies. In 1906 the emerging 21-year-old cellist Pablo Casals attended a performance by the nine-year-old prodigy and was so impressed that he invited him to become his first fulltime student. Cassadó eventually attained a scholarship from the city of Barcelona to move to Paris, where he studied for many years with Casals. Cassadó considered Casals to be his greatest musical influence and his “spiritual father.” While in Paris, Cassadó also pursued his studies in composition, working closely with such masters as Manuel de Falla and Maurice Ravel. Their stylistic influence can be heard in Cassadó’s 1926 Suite for Solo Cello, which was inspired by Casals’ legendary performances of the Bach cello suites. Up until the early 20th Century, Bach’s six cello suites were not widely known to the listening public; they were regarded as cello teaching material not quite suitable for general consumption. Casals radically altered that perception, performing them often and serving as their staunch advocate. His performances served as a catalyst for a vast outpouring of 20th Century solo cello works by major composers as diverse as Zoltán Kodály, Max Reger, Paul Hindemith, Benjamin Britten, George Crumb, and Gaspar Cassadó. Cassadó’s Suite for Solo Cello combines the Baroque formalism and dance orientation of Bach’s suites with his own native Spanish flair. The first movement begins, á la Bach, with a free preludium that evolves into a zarabanda, a dignified Spanish dance related to the Baroque sarabande. The movement quotes Zoltán Kodaly’s Sonata for Cello Solo and, reflecting Cassadó’s studies with Ravel, makes extensive use of the motive that begins the famous flute solo from the ballet Daphnis et Chloe. The second movement is written in the form of a two-part sardana. Beginning with a characteristicly slow, introductory section (in classic saradanas the first tirada was danced with the arms down), the music soon breaks into an animatedly rustic dance in 2/4 (the second tirada was usually danced with the arms up). The jauntily rhythmic flavor of the movement makes this the most overtly “danceable” of the three. Cassadó continues to honor antique Spanish folkdance styles by basing the final movement largely on the jota, a dance originally performed in colorful costumes and accompanied by castanets. The movement begins slowly with a ruminative intermezzo featuring lyrical, five-beat phrases. The intermezzo gradually gives way to the more vigorous, swinging jota. The movement alternates between the introspection of the intermezzo and the extroverted, flamenco-like jota, bringing the suite to a lively, Spanish-style conclusion. By Michael Parloff Return to Parlance Program Notes