friends of
CHAMBER MUSIC
Greater Reading, Pennsylvania
The '08-'09 Concert Season
Welcome to our 56th year of chamber music concerts in Reading! All concerts are free and open to the public. Patron-subscribers are asked to contribute $75 for the series. Most performances are held at the WCR Center for the Arts, 140 North Fifth Street, Reading, PA.
The MENDELSSOHN STRING QUARTET
Saturday, October 11, 2008 at 8:00 p.m. (WCRCA)
Appearing by popular demand for the second time on our series, The Prague Cello Family is a truly unique ensemble which was brought to the attention of the Friends of Chamber Music by cellist Marcy Rosen of the Mendelssohn Quartet, who taught Tomas Koci as a scholarship student at the North Carolina School of the Arts. Family members of this talented family have all enjoyed distinguished careers in the Czech Republic and on the international stage. Hana Koci currently teaches at the Music School of Prague City. Lucie Koci currently studies violin at the Prague School of Music, having performed throughout Europe since the age of six. Vladan Koci is currently professor of cello and chamber music at the Prague Conservatoire. One of the most distinguished cellists of his generation, he founded the Prague Cello Family ensemble and regularly arranges the diverse repertoire which the ensemble performs on its international tours.
THE PROGRAM
Mendelssohn: String Quartet in A Major, Op. 13
Haydn: String Quartet in D Major,
Op. 20, No. 4
Mendelssohn: String Quartet in E
Flat Major, Op. 44, No. 3
The PRAGUE CELLO FAMILY
Friday, November 14, 2008 at 8:00 p.m. (WCRCA)
The N-E-W Trio has won grand prize at the 61st Coleman National Chamber Music Competition and first prize at the second Plowman National Chamber Music Competition (where they also won the Audience Prize). Their 2008 season includes two performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., including a performance alongside the Naumburg award-winning Biava String Quartet and violinist Itzhak Perlman. The trio has been presented by the Juilliard School-Chamber Music series at Alice Tully, the Bangor Symphony, the Kneisel Hall Music Festival, and Bösendorfer New York. The Trio's members are pursuing graduate degrees at the Juilliard School and work closely with pianists Joseph Kalichstein, Seymour Lipkin and clarinetist Charles Neidich. The group’s members have collaborated in performance with Cho-Liang Lin, Jane Coop, Andrew Dawes, Bonnie Hampton, Kathleen Winkler, and the Juilliard String Quartet. Committed to the music of the twenty-first century, the trio commissioned and premiered Juilliard School composer Michael Stephen Brown's second piano trio in March, 2007.
The N-E-W PIANO TRIO
Friday, January 9, 2009 at 8:00 p.m. (WCRCA)
THE PROGRAM
Paquito D’Rivera: New York Suite
Astor Piazzola: Histoire du Tango
Steven Galante: Saxsounds 1: Sealed with a Kiss
Michael Torke: July
Steven Gillespie: A Night in Tunisia
Saturday, February 7, 2009 at 8:00 p.m. (WCRCA)
The LOS ANGELES PIANO QUARTET
Friday, March 6, 2009 at 8:00 p.m. (WCRCA)
The Los Angeles Piano Quartet appears for the 11th time with the Friends of Chamber Music. This illustrious ensemble made its debut in Los Angeles in 1977, and has attained international stature since. In 1986 the Quartet made its European debut to great acclaim at the Cheltenham Festival, and has subsequently toured Europe and the United States extensively. In recent seasons, the Los Angeles Piano Quartet appeared at both the Library of Congress and the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., and on concert series and campuses throughout the country. The Quartet has been an active force in the creation of new works for piano quartet, commissioning numerous compositions from composers of note, including Stephen Hartke and Gerard Schurmann.
THE PROGRAM
William Walton: Piano Quartet
Vaughan-Williams: “The Lark Ascending” for violin and piano
Faure: Piano Quartet No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 15
The BRENTANO STRING QUARTET
Two Concerts! Saturday & Sunday, May 9 and 10, 2009
The Brentano String Quartet appears this season for the 13th time on our series. Since its inception in 1992, this fine ensemble has been praised for its elegance, technical brilliance, and musical insight. The Brentano Quartet has won numerous awards, including the prestigious 1995 Naumberg Chamber Music Award, the 10th Annual Martin E. Segal Award, and the First Cleveland Quartet Award. The Quartet has toured extensively in the United States and Europe, with their first tour of Australia in 1998. They serve as Quartet-in-Residence at Princeton University. The Brentano String Quartet has made appearances in the major musical centers in North America, including New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, La Jolla, Detroit, Toronto, Washington DC, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Houston, New Orleans and Kansas City. In Europe, venues include the Royal Festival Hall in London, the Accademia de Santa Cecilia in Rome, Mozarteum in Salzburg, Auditorio Nacional in Madrid, AlterOper in Frankfurt, Philharmonie in Cologne, Liederhalle in Stuttgart, Beethovenhaus in Bonn and Casino in Basel. They are joined for their first concert by noted violist, Hsin-Yun Amory, a longtime collaborator with the Brentano Quartet and wife of Misha Amory.
THE PROGRAM
SATURDAY, MAY 9, 8 PM
WCRCA
Haydn: String Quartet
Op. 1, No. 5
Schoenberg:
String Quartet No. 4
Mendelssohn: Viola Quintet in
B-flat Major, Op. 87
SUNDAY, MAY 10, 7 PM
TRINITY LUTHERAN CHURCH
527 WASHINGTON STREET
Monteverdi: Madrigals (arranged by Mark Steinberg)
Haydn: String Quartet
Op. 20, No. 3
Beethoven: String Quartet in C Major, Op. 59, No. 3, “Hero”
The ViM Saxophone Quartet was awarded the Gold Medal at the 2006 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competitions, America's premier educational chamber music competition, where they were also the youngest group among all competitors. In the 2005/06 MTNA Collegiate Chamber Music Competition, ViM won the New York State and Eastern U.S. Divisional auditions en route to capturing First Prize in the National Finals. Since their formation in the fall of 2003, ViM has appeared in numerous international saxophone events, including those of the North American Saxophone Alliance (NASA), and the U.S. Navy Band International Saxophone Symposium. ViM made their Washington debut at the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater in May, 2007. They have appeared with the Eastman Wind Ensemble in Pulitzer Prize winning composer Michael Colgras's Urban Requiem for saxophone quartet and wind ensemble.
The ViM SAXOPHONE QUARTET
THE PROGRAM
Mozart: Piano trio in B-flat, K. 502
Ravel: Piano Trio
Brown: Piano Trio
Mendelssohn: Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 49
This concert series receives
generous financial support from
the Reading Musical Foundation;
we enthusiastically encourage
contributions to the RMF.
Support for the Brentano Quartet's concerts
is provided by Trinity Lutheran Church.
Post-concert receptions are
sponsored by Sovereign Bank.
THE PROGRAM
Program to include arrangements for this unique ensemble of works from the Baroque through the Modern periods of classical music.
Saturday, March 1, 2008 at 8:00 p.m. (Woman's Club)
Formed in 2003 at the Juilliard School, The Attacca Quartet was recently awarded the Grand Prize at the 2006 Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition in Pasadena, California, and was one of three quartets chosen internationally to participate in the Pacific Music Festival’s 2006 String Quartet Course in Sapporo, Japan. The Attacca Quartet has represented Juilliard in the John F. Kennedy Center Conservatory Project concert series and the Guarneri Quartet’s 40th anniversary celebration master class, and has distinguished itself in seminars and master classes with members of the Emerson, Guarneri, Mendelssohn, Miami, Miró, and St. Lawrence string quartets. Currently studying at Juilliard with Joel Smirnoff and Samuel Rhodes, the quartet has performed at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall with the Juilliard String Quartet, and participated in the 2005 Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, and the 2005 Music@Menlo Festival outside San Francisco.
The ATTACCA STRING QUARTET
THE PROGRAM
Haydn: String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 33, No. 2
Janacek: String Quartet No. 2
“Intimate Letters”
Schubert: String Quartet
in G Major, D. 887
Friday, April 3, 2009 at 8:00 p.m. (WCRCA)
MUSIC CONTROL CONSOLE
Currently playing: The Brentano String Quartet: Haydn Op. 71, #3
Returning for its 21st appearance in Reading, The Mendelssohn String Quartet is now in its 26th season as a performing ensemble. The Quartet was for nine years the Blodgett Artists in Residence at Harvard University, and has performed at such distinguished venues as Carnegie Hall in New York City, Washington DC's Kennedy Center and Library of Congress, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Wigmore Hall in London, and the Tonhalle in Zurich. The resident quartet of the Eastern Shore Chamber Music Festival and formerly resident quartet of the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Mendelssohn Quartet has performed at the Caramoor Festival, the Festival Pablo Casals in Prades, France, and makes frequent appearances at New York's Mostly Mozart Festival as well as the Ravinia, Aspen, and Saratoga Music Festivals. They were the first American ensemble invited to appear at the International Dialogues Festival in Kiev, Ukraine. The Mendelssohn String Quartet has established a reputation as one of the most imaginative, vital and exciting quartets of its generation. The Quartet tours annually throughout North America with regular trips to foreign destinations.
"You'll not hear a sweeter, more delicate, more fluent, more flawlessly tuned string playing anywhere"
-- Kansas City Star
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