Artistic Director Kristin Lee shares her inspiration behind this program: “After the thrilling success of the Evolution of the Keyboard last season, I’m excited to cement the “Evolution Series” moving forward as part of the ECM programming oeuvre. I’m joined by co-curator Nathan Whittaker – baroque cello specialist – as we explore the fascinating history of the cello. From what was a five-stringed instrument that only functioned as a “bass line” in an ensemble during the 16th century, the cello evolved to become one of the most celebrated solo instruments of today. Throughout the evening, you will witness rarely seen instruments that were created and experimented with before the cello became what we recognize now as the modern cello. Along the way, you will hear a variety of eclectic and historical works composed at each phase of the cello’s evolution.
Experience this rare opportunity to hear the 2022 winners of the most pre-eminent piano competition in the world: The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Every four years, The Cliburn features the world’s top 18- to 30-year-old pianists competing for gold in front of an audience of over 10 million online and live. Emerald City Music is proud to present Russian pianist, Anna Geniushene (2022 Cliburn Competition Silver prize winner) and Ukrainian pianist, Dmytro Choni (2022 Cliburn Competition bronze prize winner) alongside the legendary pianist and Cliburn juror, Wu Han. The unique experience of seeing these pianists perform piano four-hands and on two, side-by-side pianos demonstrates the staying power of music bringing people of all cultures and backgrounds together. The performance will delve into the deep influence of Russian composers on piano literature, beginning with the Romantic music of Tchaikovsky, later exploring the mystical melodies of Scriabin, and finally concluding with music by Rachmaninoff, whose 150th birthdate we celebrate this season.
Mothers are foundational to the human experience: a figure in the lives of every person – whether one associates as positive or negative, joyful or complex feelings with their own mother. In this collaborative initiative, Emerald City Music aligns the mediums of film and live music together to explore the true diverse stories of Pacific Northwesterners that coalesce to define one word: “mother.” These challenging and inspirational accounts – as told by community members and captured by filmmaker Carlin Ma – are presented alongside works by Dvorák, Brahms, Clyne, Beach, and Schumann that all wrote music inspired by this ubiquitous theme.
From their latest album, Babel, the award-winning Calidore String Quartet performs quartets by Robert Schumann and Dmitri Shostakovich that demonstrate how music substitutes for language in the deepest human experiences. Filmed by Zac Nicholson from Gymnopedie in Brooklyn, NY.
Performing from New York City, pianist Peter Dugan and mezzo-soprano Kara Dugan make their ECM debut on our casual Wine Down Monday series.
In our busy world, rest comes with a price. 17th Century Count Keyserling was no stranger to restlessness. He suffered from insomnia and had hired a fourteen year-old boy, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, to play for him during his sleepless nights. Johann Sebastian Bach – now considered one of the greatest composers of all time – happened to be the music teacher of the young Goldberg and was requested by the Count to write some harpsichord pieces for Goldberg to play whenever he could not sleep. Bach produced this set of Variations based on this request, and Emerald City Music will offer these iconic works arranged for string trio.
Emerald City Music presents the iconic Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center for a limited time on ETV. About the performance: The United States has been greatly enriched by the influences of its many distinguished visitors, including artists who came to perform, create, teach, or simply to be inspired by this country’s natural beauty and welcoming spirit. In a program celebrating America’s imported musical diversity, we will enjoy the sublime music of Dvořák twice, once through his “American” voice in the Sonatina, composed in Spillville, Iowa, and through his quintessentially Czech mode with his iconic Piano Quintet. In between, the stage is shared by the Belgians and English, as we hear the touching “Child’s Dream” by Eugène Ysaÿe, who led the Cincinnati Symphony from 1918-22, and the stunning Piano Quintet by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, who as an Afro-British composer felt a kinship to the Black American folk song tradition, incorporating those tunes into a tapestry of rich orchestration. This experience and admiration was mutual and multiple chapters of the Coleridge-Taylor society were established in the early 1900s by American audiences to promote his music.
Artistic Director Kristin Lee shares her inspiration behind this program: “After the thrilling success of the Evolution of the Keyboard last season, I’m excited to cement the “Evolution Series” moving forward as part of the ECM programming oeuvre. I’m joined by co-curator Nathan Whittaker – baroque cello specialist – as we explore the fascinating history of the cello. From what was a five-stringed instrument that only functioned as a “bass line” in an ensemble during the 16th century, the cello evolved to become one of the most celebrated solo instruments of today. Throughout the evening, you will witness rarely seen instruments that were created and experimented with before the cello became what we recognize now as the modern cello. Along the way, you will hear a variety of eclectic and historical works composed at each phase of the cello’s evolution.
Embarking on a journey from the UK, the world-renowned Sitkovetsky Trio makes their Emerald City Music debut performance on our stage. This colorful evening of music explores one of the most storied and complicated love triangles of the classical music world: the relationship of Robert and Clara Schumann and their beloved friend, Johannes Brahms. Known through correspondence, this soap-opera-worthy tale explores degrees of musical respect, infatuation, care, and romantic propriety in the 19th century. Robert Schumann’s Phantasiestüke, Op. 88, was written shortly after his marriage to Clara, a brilliant pianist and composer. While her concert touring career was skyrocketing, he melancholically returned home to regain his confidence, penning an incredible six chamber music works, of which this was the last. Brahms’s Piano Trio No. 1 was the first chamber music work published by the twenty-one-year-old rising star. He meticulously labored over this work, throwing most drafts in the fire. At the end of his life, with countless masterworks to his name, he still returned to this trio perplexed and republished a revised work, making this piece unique in that it bears the handwriting and genius of both a young and old Brahms.
We were so excited to welcome WindSync back to our stage for the first time since our first-season opening-night! Their program, subtitled Gardens and Galaxies, features the world-premiere commission of a new wind quintet by GRAMMY-nominated flutist/composer Nathalie Joachim. Akshaya Avril Tucker’s “Hold Sacred” was written in the midst of pandemic and features a blend of abstracted raga-inspired fragments that swirl through unusual harmonies and (hopefully) invite a meditation on whatever is most soothing to the listener. WindSync commissioned Mellits in 2019 to write Apollo, a piece commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing. Apollo comprises seven short movements that present a kaleidoscopic view, from the famous phrase “One small step…” to the geography of the moon, the mythology behind cosmic bodies, and scenes from the composer’s own childhood. The musical style of Uruguayan-American composer Miguel del Aguila combines drama, driving rhythms, and nostalgic nods to his South American roots. About his Quinteto Sinfónico (symphonic quintet), the composer writes: “My inspiration was a technique often used by Andean folk ensembles where wind instruments share and continue each other’s melodies, making them sound as if played by only one performer. Cooperation is more important than showcasing the talent of each individual separately. This turns the music into a spontaneous dialogue.” The three movements of the quintet are: Giocoso, a humorous Latin dance, Misterioso, which evokes a warm summer night, and Luminous, a bright fanfare.
Artistic Director Kristin Lee writes, ”As we close our season at ECM, I wanted to mark the significance of not only celebrating our seventh season of Emerald City Music, but also what this number meant back in 2020. When I was stranded in New York City during the height of COVID in that year, I – along with many New Yorkers – was able to get through these times, looking forward to dusk every day. What felt like a deserted and a silent city other than the sounds of the sirens during the day changed at seven o’clock each evening… With sounds of clapping, cheering, music, the clinking of kitchen items, and all sorts of joyous noise filled the city to thank the frontline workers and also encourage the neighbors around us. It was one of the most uplifting things from the pandemic. It was really what kept us all going every day for a whole year! Andrea Casarrubios commemorates this shared experience with her piece and the program finishes with one of the most celebratory pieces ever written for chamber music- Beethoven’s Septet.
The term “improvisation” has often been associated with the genre of jazz music, but this practice has been the genesis to so many other types of music, including the classical. For Season 08’s opening night, Emerald City Music kicks off its season with its lauded Evolution Series, and this time we take a journey through the world of improvisation. We specifically compare the worlds of baroque and classical eras to the lineage of jazz and delve into this eclectic harmony like you have never experienced before! The evening is co-curated by lauded composer, producer, and bass player Anthony Tidd; a collaborator of myriad artists from Steve Coleman to The Black Eyed Peas.
For the first time, Emerald City Music presents a chamber orchestra on our stage! The evening features Tchaikovsky's capricious and whimsical Pezzo Capriccioso; a work written over a single week as the composer was preoccupied with the illness of his close friend. Cliburn gold-medal pianist Yekwon Sunwoo joins the orchestra for Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2. The young 19-year-old Chopin wrote this lyrical work – with its romantic and soaring melodic passages – as an homage to his Warsaw School muse, Polish soprano Konstancja Gładkowska. Closing the evening is the soul-stirring cello melodies in Tchaikovsky’s timeless Serenade, a piece the composer wrote "by the impulse of an intimate conviction... a piece that comes from the bottom of my heart."
Composers over the centuries found inspiration in folk music from around the world, and in the late 20th century, many composers found their influence in gamelan music from Indonesia. We’re proud to bring you an experience of chamber music works that transform the indelible instrument into each composer’s own style and setting. Debussy and Ravel paint with its harmonic color palette and common melodic shapes. Vivian Fung mimics the special timbres and sound world. Steve Reich lives within its rhythmic systems and poignant expression through repeated figures, while Lou Harrison captures its overall textures and tells an evocative story through the sense of gamelan’s coordinated interlocking parts. Come be transported by gamelan re-contextualized.
Emerald City Music showcases the dextrous versatility of the oboe – a traditionally solo instrument – as a duo. The program was created with two specific super star oboists in mind: returning artist, James Austin Smith and Emerald City Music debut artist, Titus Underwood. The evening explores historical keystone pieces written for the oboe – from the baroque era to classical, mid-20th century, and finally to the contemporary sounds of 2024. The flurry of oboes is interjected with a light hearted and virtuosic piece by Mark O'Connor for violin, viola, cello, and double bass. The program features a world premiere by Fred Onovwerosuoke commissioned by Emerald City Music, written for two solo oboes and string quintet. The American composer, who was born in Ghana of Nigerian parents, writes music that bears influences from across Africa, the Caribbean, and the American Deep South. Instrumentation that features two oboes in double-soli is exceedingly rare and the works with this configuration were primarily popular in only the baroque era. The program platforms one of these works, Albinoni's Concerto, published in 1722, bookending the evening with its modern counterpart.
Emerald City Music brings you not one, but two incredible string quartets on the same stage: the Abeo Quartet and the Calidore Quartet for our Quartet in Spotlight annual series. The collaboration of these two ensembles celebrates a very meaningful relationship and built legacy: the multi-award winning Calidore have served as mentors and teachers to the emerging Abeo Quartet at the University of Delaware. Each ensemble will perform a work on their own in the spotlight. The Calidore performs Mozart’s Quartet No. 16, a tuneful work that redefined the possibility of musical form and bearing a dedication to his contemporary Joseph Haydn. The Abeo performs Shostakovich’s eleventh quartet, a cryptic suite of seven movements that bitterly elegizes the passing of Vasili Shrinsky, a close friend of Shostakovich and a member of the Beethoven Quartet to whom he dedicated four quartets. The Calidore and Abeo Quartets finally join together to perform arguably among the most resplendent pieces of music ever written: Mendelssohn’s String Octet in E-flat Major. Written at the mere age of sixteen, Mendelssohn’s prodigious symphonic vision met his affection late in life as he called it: “my favorite of all of my compositions.”
South Korean violinist Jinjoo Cho – first prizewinner of the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, Concours musical international de Montréal, and more – joins Emerald City Music for our first-ever full length concert for only the solo violin. Three vastly different works bring into vision a “circle of life” narrative. Beginning with the wandering mysteriousness of Biber’s Passacaglia – one of the world’s oldest surviving solo violin works – the night gives way to Bach’s stately Chaconne, widely considered the apogee of violin repertoire. Juri Seo’s Toy Store – a multimedia work dedicated to Jinjoo Cho – is not music for children, but rather a reflective journey through the various experiences of childhood that live on in our minds as adults. Drawing inspiration from punk jazz, John Adams, 19th century presto movements, and video game music, the first movement, “Jack-in-the-Box," is a dramatic portrayal of surprise, humor, and obsession as experienced in a childlike mind. The second movement, "Monster Truck”, combines heavy metal and 18th century Chaconne to create a musical narrative that is at once violent and hilarious. “Mobile," explores the feelings of comfort and fear associated with falling asleep, as one experiences a taste of death. In the penultimate movement, "Roller Skates,” resolution begins to take shape as the violin and prerecorded track participate in multi-part canonic unison. Finally in “Bubbles,” the ethereal soundscape of pizzicati, harmonics, and tremolo evokes lightness and release.
The flute, violin, viola, and harp make up this program that takes you to reverie. Featuring works by Beethoven, Debussy, and Saint-Saëns. Filmed by Tristan Cook and Zac Nicholson in New York, NY.
Two luscious string sextets from the late-romantic period complete this colorful program of music by Richard Strauss and Arnold Schoenberg. Filmed by Tristan Cook at the DiMenna Center in New York, NY.
Join acclaimed harpist, Bridget Kibbey, as she shares how she got started on the harp, where she gains her inspirations from, and how she’s changing the face of the harp.
Violist Melissa Reardon shares her multifaceted career as a violist, the challenges and beauty of playing in her practice room, and why she loves the viola.
Join clarinetist Yoonah Kim as she shares why she loves the clarinet and the journey she has taken with her instrument. Hear live performances, fascinating discussions on life as a clarinetist, and much more.
Special guest: Stefan Jackiw, violin
Join violinist Sean Lee as he performs selections from the virtuosic 24 Caprices written by Niccolò Paganini, and hear his in-depth knowledge on the pieces and techniques necessary to perform them.
Join Sandbox Percussion as they discuss their lives as a percussion quartet, the multifaceted art of playing percussion, and a world premiere performance of Pillar 1 from Seven Pillars by Andy Akiho.
