Tickets for another exemplary five-concert Chamber Music Monterey Bay season for 2018-2019 are on sale now, with bonus tickets to the opening concert with the up-and-coming French ensemble Van Kuijk Quartet available for new and renewing subscribers.
Carmel, CA, August 02, 2018 — Tickets for another exemplary five-concert Chamber Music Monterey Bay season for 2018-2019 are on sale now, with bonus tickets to the opening concert with the up-and-coming French ensemble Van Kuijk Quartet available for new and renewing subscribers.
New season subscribers will be able to get five concerts for the price of four, while both new and returning subscribers will receive two additional tickets to Van Kuijk Quartet’s Oct. 6, 2018 season-opening concert at the Sunset Center in Carmel, in addition to the season tickets they purchase.
The 2018-2019 season continues Nov. 3, 2018 with keepers of the Aaron Copland flame, Music from Copland House; followed by the multiple award-winning Borromeo String Quartet with acclaimed clarinetist Richard Stoltzman on Jan. 19, 2019; with the Catalyst Quartet, comprised of top laureates and alumni of the internationally acclaimed Sphinx competition, on Feb. 23, 2019: and the Montrose Trio, a collaboration of pianist Jon Kimura Parker and the Tokyo String Quartet, concluding the season on April 6, 2019.
Andy Sudol, who became executive director of CMMB in December 2017, is looking forward to an exciting 2018-2019 season, and gaining new subscribers for the 52-year-old organization.
“There are a lot of classical music presenters in the area, Carmel Music Society, Bach Festival, the Symphony, Ensemble Monterey and so forth, but I think we occupy a unique niche,” he said. “We present a balance of contemporary composers and traditional composers. In fact, I think we present more living composers than any other local organization. When you attend one of our concerts you’ll definitely hear new compositions or pieces you haven’t heard before.”
Sudol also hopes to build on CMMB’s educational outreach program, which already offers musician visits to local schools, Kids Up Front & Free!, in which children grades 3-12 are invited to sit in the center-front three rows for an “up-close-and-personal” concert experience, master classes for student musicians and special ticket pricing for students ages 17-30.
CMMB’s concerts have been earning exceptional reviews for decades, including this one from a concert earlier this year.
“Chamber Music Monterey Bay (CMMB) has a long tradition of presenting the crème de la crème of chamber ensembles and also of commissioning significant new works by contemporary composers,” wrote music review Lyn Bronson in Peninsula Reviews, a website he edits, about a CMMB concert earlier this year. “CMMB once again hit it out of the ballpark. The Claremont Trio was at the top of its form, and the commissioned work, ‘Four Folk Songs for piano trio’ by Gabriela Lena Frank, was a hit with the audience.”
Each concert in the season will be preceded by a lecture by Kai Christiansen, noted San Francisco musicologist and founder of earsense.org, an online chamber music exploratorium. Learn about the concert’s composers and their works and gain deeper insights into the music you’re about to hear.
The lecture starts at 6:45 p.m. in the Sunset Center concert hall, and is free of charge.
The 2018-2019 CMMB Season:
Van Kuijk Quartet
7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 6, 2018
Sunset Center, Carmel
Tickets, $33-$52, go on sale Sept. 5.
Musical selections:
Franz Schubert : String Quartet No. 10, (D 87) in E-flat Major
György Ligeti : String Quartet No 1 (Métamorphoses nocturnes)
Maurice Ravel : String Quartet in F Major
Nicolas Van Kuijk, violin
Sylvain Favre-Bulle, violin
Emmanuel François, viola
François Robin, cello
“Extensive color palette, precise blending, and the sense of fun that makes these serious performances so vivid.”
– The Guardian
Currently BBC New Generation Artists, the Van Kuijk Quartet’s international accolades boast First, Best Beethoven and Best Haydn Prizes at the 2015 Wigmore Hall International String Quartet competition, First Prize and an Audience Award at the Trondheim International Chamber Music Competition, as well as becoming laureates of the Aix-en-Provence Festival Academy. Further to this, they join the ECHO Rising Stars roster for the 2017/2018 season.
Since their formation in 2012, the ensemble is already an established presence in major international venues, performing at the Wigmore Hall in London, Auditorium du Louvre and Salle Gaveau in Paris, Tonhalle in Zurich, Musikverein in Vienna, Berliner Philharmonie, Tivoli Concert Series in Denmark, Sage Gateshead, and at festivals in Cheltenham, Heidelberg, Lockenhaus, Davos, Verbier, Aix-en-Provence, Montpellier/Radio France, Evian, Auvers-sur-Oise, Stavanger (Norway), Concentus Moraviae (Czech Republic), Haydn/Esterházy in Fertod (Hungary), Eilat (Israel) and Canberra (Australia).
This season saw the quartet make their debut in Hong Kong, Australia & Taiwan. They are also due to return to North America this autumn for appearances at The Frick Collection in New York, The Phillips Collection in Washington DC, and Salle Bourgie in Montreal.
The Quartet records exclusively for Alpha Classics. Their debut recording, “Mozart,” was released to outstanding critical acclaim in Autumn 2016, and is followed by a disc of French music in late 2017.
The Van Kuijk Quartet is in residence at Proquartet, Paris, where they study with members of the Alban Berg, Artemis and Hagen quartets. Having taken their first steps as students of the Ysaye Quartet, the young musicians have worked with Günter Pichler at the Escuela Superior de Mùsica Reina Sofia in Madrid; supported generously by the International Institute of Chamber Music of Madrid.
The quartet also participates in international academies; at the McGill International String Quartet Academy in Montreal, with Michael Tree of the Guarneri Quartet and André Roy; at the Weikersheim International Chamber Music Course with the Vogler Quartet and Heime Müller, formerly of the Artemis Quartet, as well as the renowned academies in both Verbier and Aix-en-Provence.
Mécénat Musical Société Générale is the Van Kuijk’s main sponsor.
Music from Copland House
7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 3, 2018:
Tickets: $33-$52
Dmitri Shostakovich : Piano Trio #1
Kevin Puts : Living Frescoes
Angel Lam : Fragrances of the Sea (California Premiere)
Gabriel Fauré : Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 120
Founding Members:
Derek Bermel, clarinet
Michael Boriskin, piano
Paul Lustig Dunkel flute
Nicholas Kitchen violin
Wilhelmina Smith cello
“Excellent musicians in vital performances… Copland would have been proud of all of them.”
-The Chicago Tribune
Music From Copland House is the acclaimed resident ensemble at Aaron Copland’s National Historic Landmark home in New York, now restored as a unique creative center for American music. Since its triumphant New York debut as the Opening Night of Merkin Hall’s 1999-2000 season, Music from Copland House (MCH) has come to occupy a special place on the U.S. musical scene as perhaps this country’s only wide-ranging American repertory ensemble.
Provocatively uniting past and present, American and non-American, it journeys across 150 years of our nation’s rich musical legacy, reaching back deep into the 19th century and forward to just-completed compositions.
The ensemble has been engaged by some of America’s foremost concert presenters, including Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, Monday Evening Concerts in Los Angeles, Columbia University’s Miller Theatre, and the Caramoor International, Cape Cod, Bard, and Ecstatic Music Festivals. MCH has collaborated with the European Broadcasting Union and National Public Radio on a special concert showcasing American works that has been extensively aired in over 20 European countries, and makes its Mexican debut in 2014-15.
MCH is the featured ensemble on Copland House’s popular main-stage concert series at the historic Merestead estate in nearby Mount Kisco, only an hour north of New York City. The ensemble has commissioned Chen Yi, Richard Danielpour, Tamar Muskal, Pierre Jalbert, Derek Bermel, and Sebastian Currier, whose Copland House work, Static, won the highly-coveted Grawemeyer Award in 2007, and has also premiered many compositions written especially for it by Du Yun, Samson Young, Henry Mollicone, and Leung Kei Cheuk (Gaybird). The ensemble followed its much-praised debut recording on Arabesque, the first complete cycle of Copland’s chamber music, with two releases on Koch International, respectively devoted to chamber music by Currier and John Musto. Inspired by Copland’s peerless, lifelong advocacy of American composers, MCH also offers children’s programs, master classes, lectures, residencies, and workshops, and other educational and community outreach activities.
MCH’s exceptional Founding Artists are widely admired for their instrumental command and musical insights in works both old and new: clarinetist-composer Derek Bermel, pianist and Copland House Artistic and Executive Director Michael Boriskin, flutist-conductor Paul Lustig Dunkel, violinist Nicholas Kitchen (of the Borromeo String Quartet), and cellist Wilhelmina Smith (of The Mannes Trio and Variations String Trio).
They are regularly joined by outstanding, award-winning Principal and Guest Artists, including violinists Curtis Macomber, Harumi Rhodes, and Jesse Mills; violists Danielle Farina and Kathryn Lockwood; cellists Alexis Pia Gerlach, Nicholas Canellakis, and James Wilson; flutist Linda Chesis; clarinetists Meighan Stoops, Carol McGonnell, and Alexander Fiterstein; pianists Michael Barrett, John Musto, and Blair McMillen; sopranos Amy Burton and Julia Bullock; baritones James Martin and Philip Cutlip; and many others.
Borromeo String Quartet with Richard Stoltzman
7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 19, 2019
Tickets: $44-$64
Musical selections:
Claude Debussy : String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10
Sebastian Currier : Lullaby and Etude (Central Coast Premiere)
Jean Francaix : Quintet for clarinet and String Quartet
“A remarkably accomplished string quartet, not simply for its high technical polish and refined tone, but more importantly for the searching musical insights it brings.”
-The Chicago Tribune
Each visionary performance of the award-winning Borromeo String Quartet strengthens and deepens its reputation as one of the most important ensembles of our time. Admired and sought after for both its fresh interpretations of the classical music canon and its championing of works by 20th and 21st century composers, the ensemble has been hailed for its “edge-of-the- seat performances,” by the Boston Globe, which called it “simply the best.”
Recently celebrating its 25th anniversary, the Borromeo continues to be a pioneer in its use of technology, and has the trailblazing distinction of being the first string quartet to utilize laptop computers on the concert stage. Reading music this way helps push artistic boundaries, allowing the artists to perform solely from four-part scores and composers’ manuscripts, a revealing and metamorphic experience which these dedicated musicians now teach to students around the world.
As the New York Times noted, “The digital tide washing over society is lapping at the shores of classical music. The Borromeo players have embraced it in their daily musical lives like no other major chamber music group.” Moreover, the Quartet often leads discussions enhanced by projections of handwritten manuscripts, investigating with the audience the creative process of the composer.
And in 2003 the Borromeo became the first classical ensemble to make its own live concert recordings and videos, distributing them for many years to audiences through its Living Archive, a music learning web portal for which a new version will soon be released.
Passionate educators, the Borromeos encourage audiences of all ages to explore and listen to both traditional and contemporary repertoire in new ways. The ensemble uses multi-media tools such as video projection to share the often surprising creative process behind some works, or to show graphically the elaborate architecture behind others. This produces delightfully refreshing viewpoints and has been a springboard for its acclaimed young people’s programs.
One such program is “Mathemusica,” which delves into the numerical relationships that under-pin the sounds of music and show how musical syntax mirrors natural forms. “Classic Video” uses one movement of a quartet as the platform from which to teach computer drawing, video editing, animation, musical form and production processes to create a meaningful joining of music and visual art.
The quartet has been ensemble-in-residence at the New England Conservatory and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum for 23 years; and has worked extensively as performers and educators with the Library of Congress (highlighting both its manuscripts and instrument collections); the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Taos School of Music.
The ensemble joined the Emerson Quartet as the 2014-15 Hittman Ensembles in Residence at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, and also recently were in residence at Colorado State University, Kansas University, and the San Francisco Conservatory.
Its expansive repertoire also includes the Shostakovich Cycle and those of Mendelssohn, Dvorak, Brahms, Schumann, Schoenberg, Janacek, Lera Auerbach, Tchaikovsky, and Gunther Schuller.
The Quartet has collaborated with some of this generation’s most important composers, including Gunther Schuller, John Cage, Gyorgy Ligeti, Steve Reich, Osvaldo Golijov, Jennifer Higdon, Steve Mackey, John Harbison, and Leon Kirchner, among many others; and has performed on major concert stages across the globe, including appearances at Carnegie Hall, the Berlin Philharmonie, Wigmore Hall, Suntory Hall, the Concertgebouw, Seoul Arts Center, Shanghai Oriental Arts Center, the Incontri in Terra di Siena Chamber Music Festival in Tuscany, the Prague Spring Festival and the Haydn Festival in Eisenstadt.
The current season includes performances of violinist Nicholas Kitchen’s new transcription of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier including appearances throughout North America and Asia; World Premieres of works by Sebastian Currier, Aaron Jay Kernis, and Russell Platt; provocative performances, illuminating discussions, and new discoveries surrounding signature string quartet cycles at Carnegie Hall, the Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth, Shriver Concerts, Hong Kong International Chamber Music Festival, Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, Bargemusic in Brooklyn, Harvard Musical Association, University at Buffalo, and Haverford and Gordon Colleges, to name only a few.
“Nothing less than masterful” (Cleveland.com), the Borromeo Quartet has received numerous awards throughout its illustrious career, including Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Career Grant and Martin E. Segal Award, and Chamber Music America’s Cleveland Quartet Award. It was also a recipient of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions and top prizes at the International String Quartet Competition in Evian, France.
Richard Stoltzman, clarinet
Stoltzman’s virtuosity, musicianship and sheer personal magnetism have made him one of today’s most sought-after concert artists. As soloist with over a hundred orchestras, a captivating recitalist, an innovative jazz artist, and a prolific recording artist, this two-time Grammy Award winner has defied categorization, dazzling critics and audiences alike throughout many musical genres.
Stoltzman’s unique way with the clarinet has earned him an international reputation as he has opened up possibilities for the instrument that no one could have predicted.
He gave the first clarinet recitals at both the Hollywood Bowl and Carnegie Hall, and became the first wind player to receive the Avery Fisher Prize. He has performed or recorded with such jazz and pop greats as Gary Burton, the Canadian Brass, Chick Corea, Judy Collins, Steve Gadd, Eddie Gomez, Keith Jarrett, the King’s Singers, Mike Manieri, George Shearing, Wayne Shorter, Mel Tormé, Spyro Gyra founder Jeremy Wall and Kazumi Watanabe.
His commitment to new music has resulted in numerous premieres, including acclaimed clarinet works written for him by Steve Reich, Toru Takemitsu, Stephen Hartke, Einojuhani Rautavaara and Yehudi Wyner. As a ten-year participant in the Marlboro Music Festival, Stoltzman gained extensive chamber music experience, and subsequently became a founding member of the noted ensemble TASHI, which made its debut in 1973.
Stoltzman’s discography numbers well over seventy recordings. His most recent release is “Resolve” released on the PARMA label in 2014 featuring works of Hindemith. He has won Grammy® Awards for his recordings of the Brahms Sonatas with Richard Goode, and Trios of Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms with Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax. In addition to his appearance in Michael Lawrence’s acclaimed documentary film, “Bach & friends,” he was featured in the International EMMY® Award-winning series “Concerto!” with Dudley Moore and Michael Tilson Thomas.
Richard Stoltzman resides in Massachusetts and is a passionate Boston Red Sox baseball fan. He is also a Cordon Bleu trained pastry chef.
Catalyst Quartet
7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 23, 2019
Tickets: $33-$52
Jessie Montgomery, violin
Karla Donehew-Perez, violin
Paul Laraia, viola
Karlos Rodriguez, cello
“Wildly colorful and exploding with life!”
– Washington Post
Hailed by the New York Times at the Carnegie Hall debut as “invariably energetic and finely burnished…playing with earthy vigor,” Catalyst Quartet is comprised of top laureates and alumni of the internationally acclaimed Sphinx competition. Known for “rhythmic energy, polyphonic clarity and tight ensemble-playing,” the ensemble has toured throughout the United States and abroad, including sold-out performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, at Chicago’s Harris Theater, Miami’s New World Center and Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall. The Quartet has also appeared as concerto soloists with the Bogotá Filharmónica, the Sphinx virtuosi and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.
Catalyst Quartet has held concert residencies at the University of Michigan, University of Washington, Rice University, Houston’s Society for the Performing Arts, Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, the Virginia Arts Festival and Pennsylvania State University. International residencies where they perform and teach master classes have included the In Harmony Project in England, the University of South Africa and the Teatro de Bellas Arts in Cali, Colombia.
Catalyst Quartet has been invited as guest artists at important music festivals, Mainly Mozart in San Diego, The Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Sitka Music Festival, Juneau Jazz and Classics, Strings Music Festival, the Grand Canyon Music Festival and the Vail International Dance Festival. In 2014 they opened the Festival del Sole in Napa with Joshua Bell and also participated in England’s Alderburgh Music Foundation’s String Quartet Residency with two performances in Jubilee Hall. Recent seasons have brought international touring in Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and Puerto Rico and expanded US tours in Virginia, Minnesota, Hawaii and California. Catalyst’s New York City presence has included concerts on the Lincoln Center’s Great Performer’s series, the Café Series at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, at New York’s City Center, at Columbia University’s Miller Theater, for Schneider Concerts at the New School and six concerts at Jazz at Lincoln Center with Grammy award-winning jazz vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, with whom they recently recorded an album.
Their other recordings include the Bach/Gould Project– Catalyst Quartet’s debut recording featuring the members’ own arrangement of J.S. Bach’s monumental Goldberg variations paired with Glenn Gould’s seminal string quartet, on the Azica label and Strum, featuring string works by CQ violinist and composer Jessie Montgomery. CQ has performed on numerous television and radio broadcasts for Detroit public television, American Public Media’s Performance Today and Chicago, Houston, Seattle and Vermont local stations. The ensemble was also featured in The Strad and Strings magazine.
Founded by the Sphinx organizations, the Catalyst Quartet combines a serious commitment to Diversity and education with a passion for contemporary works. In October 2016 the quartet completed the sixth national tour as principal players and featured ensemble with the Sphinx Virtuosi. Catalyst Quartet members serve as principal faculty at the Sphinx Performance Academy at the Cleveland Institute of Music and Roosevelt University.
Montrose Trio
7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 6, 2019
Tickets: $44-$64
Musical selections:
Franz Joseph Haydn : Piano Trio in E flat Major
Dmitri Shostakovich : Trio in E minor, Op. 67
Anton Arensky : Trio No. 1, Op. 32
Jon Kimura Parker, piano
Martin Beaver, violin
Clive Greensmith, cello
“Absolutely top-notch music-making, as fine as one could ever expect to hear.”
– Washington Post
Formed in 2013, the Montrose Trio is a collaboration stemming from a long and fruitful relationship between pianist Jon Kimura Parker and the Tokyo String Quartet. Mr. Parker was the quartet’s final guest pianist, and a backstage conversation with violinist Martin Beaver and cellist Clive Greensmith led to the Montrose Trio’s creation.
Named after Chateau Montrose, a storied Bordeaux wine long favored after concerts, with a nod to the Montrose Arts District of Houston and the street in Winnipeg where Mr. Beaver was raised, the Montrose Trio has quickly established a reputation for performances of the highest distinction. In 2015 the Washington Post raved about their “absolutely top-notch music-making, as fine as one could ever expect to hear…they are poised to become one of the top piano trios in the world.”
The Montrose Trio gave their debut performance for the Chamber Music Society of Detroit, with subsequent performances at Wolftrap, in Montreal, and at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Their 2015-16 season included concerts in Philadelphia, New York, Vancouver, Portland, Eugene, Baltimore, Jacksonville, Durham, Detroit, Buffalo, La Jolla, and at the Hong Kong Chamber Music Festival.
Pianist Jon Kimura Parker performs with major North American orchestras on a regular basis, including recent concerto performances with the orchestras of New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. This season he appears with the orchestras of Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Ottawa, Vancouver, Toronto, Colorado, and Washington, DC. He also appears in Off the Score, an experimental group with legendary Police drummer Stewart Copeland. He is Artistic Advisor of the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival and Professor of Piano at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in Houston.
Violinist Martin Beaver has appeared as soloist with the orchestras of San Francisco, Indianapolis, Montreal, Toronto, and in Belgium and Portugal. A top prizewinner at the international violin competitions of Indianapolis and Montreal, he studied with Danchenko, Gingold and Szeryng. Mr. Beaver was a founding member of the Toronto String Quartet and Triskelion, and was the first violinist of the Tokyo String Quartet for eleven years. He is currently on faculty at the Colburn School in LA.
Cellist Clive Greensmith has performed as soloist with the London Symphony, the Royal Philharmonic, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Mostly Mozart Orchestra, the Seoul Philharmonic, and the RAI orchestra in Rome. He has worked with distinguished musicians including András Schiff, Claude Frank and Steven Isserlis, and won prizes in the Premio Stradivari held in Cremona, Italy. Mr. Greensmith was the cellist in the Tokyo String Quartet for fourteen years and is currently on faculty at the Colburn School in LA.
Tickets for the 2018-2019 Season:
Van Kuijk Quartet: $33-$52
Music from Copland House: $33-$52
Borromeo String Quartet with Richard Stoltzman: $44-$64
Catalyst Quartet: $33-$52
Montrose Trio: $44-$64
Tickets for adult students and active military are $15. Tickets are available at ChamberMusicMontereyBay.org or (831) 625-2212. All tickets are subject to a $1-per-ticket processing fee. The Sunset Center Box Office opens at 6:30 p.m. on the day of the concert.
Special Ticket Pricing:
Kids Up Front & Free!
Children (grades 3-12) are invited to sit in the center front three rows for an “up close and personal” concert experience. Kids and their music teachers are free, while their adult chaperones are only $15. Seats can also be reserved online.
Active Military
Active duty military personnel can get reduced-price tickets at just $15 each. Valid photo ID required, will-call only. Seats may be reserved online.
Students
Students ages 17-30 can get reduced-price tickets for $15. Valid photo ID required, will-call only, day of concert.
Wheelchair Seating
Wheelchair-accessible seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis for $25. Seats may be reserved online.
About Chamber Music Monterey Bay
Founded in 1966, Chamber Music Monterey Bay has its roots in an organization begun by Watrous and Dene Denny — two pioneers of early California history who brought music performances to the Monterey Peninsula in the mid-1920s who co-founded the Carmel Bach Festival and the Carmel Music Society, which often featured new works by local composers.
Today, Chamber Music Monterey Bay, which was an offshoot of the Carmel Music Society, exists to preserve the tradition of live classical chamber music performance and to explore creatively the evolution of the art form.
CMMB presents five concerts in a nine-month annual season that runs from October-May, featuring world-renowned artists performing at the Sunset Cultural Center — a world-class 718-seat destination venue in beautiful Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.
CMMB features exciting and innovative programming — from the best-loved masterworks, to lesser-known gems and brand new compositions. This is what distinguishes CMMB from other local presenters. The ensembles CMMB brings to the area love to present unusual, provocative programs to their listeners. And CMMB’s audiences — appreciated by the guest musicians for their uniquely engaged attentiveness — love to hear them.
Concert venue:
Sunset Center Carmel
San Carlos & 9th Streets
Carmel-by-the-Sea, California
Office:
Chamber Music Monterey Bay
3785 Via Nona Marie, Suite 307
Carmel, CA 93923 USA
(831) 625-2212
Email:
info@chambermusicmontereybay.org
Postal Address:
PO Box 221458
Carmel, CA 93922 USA
Contact:
Marci Bracco Cain
Chatterbox PR
Salinas, CA 93901
(831) 747-7455
http://www.chambermusicmontereybay.org
Carmel, CA, August 02, 2018 — Tickets for another exemplary five-concert Chamber Music Monterey Bay season for 2018-2019 are on sale now, with bonus tickets to the opening concert with the up-and-coming French ensemble Van Kuijk Quartet available for new and renewing subscribers.
New season subscribers will be able to get five concerts for the price of four, while both new and returning subscribers will receive two additional tickets to Van Kuijk Quartet’s Oct. 6, 2018 season-opening concert at the Sunset Center in Carmel, in addition to the season tickets they purchase.
The 2018-2019 season continues Nov. 3, 2018 with keepers of the Aaron Copland flame, Music from Copland House; followed by the multiple award-winning Borromeo String Quartet with acclaimed clarinetist Richard Stoltzman on Jan. 19, 2019; with the Catalyst Quartet, comprised of top laureates and alumni of the internationally acclaimed Sphinx competition, on Feb. 23, 2019: and the Montrose Trio, a collaboration of pianist Jon Kimura Parker and the Tokyo String Quartet, concluding the season on April 6, 2019.
Andy Sudol, who became executive director of CMMB in December 2017, is looking forward to an exciting 2018-2019 season, and gaining new subscribers for the 52-year-old organization.
“There are a lot of classical music presenters in the area, Carmel Music Society, Bach Festival, the Symphony, Ensemble Monterey and so forth, but I think we occupy a unique niche,” he said. “We present a balance of contemporary composers and traditional composers. In fact, I think we present more living composers than any other local organization. When you attend one of our concerts you’ll definitely hear new compositions or pieces you haven’t heard before.”
Sudol also hopes to build on CMMB’s educational outreach program, which already offers musician visits to local schools, Kids Up Front & Free!, in which children grades 3-12 are invited to sit in the center-front three rows for an “up-close-and-personal” concert experience, master classes for student musicians and special ticket pricing for students ages 17-30.
CMMB’s concerts have been earning exceptional reviews for decades, including this one from a concert earlier this year.
“Chamber Music Monterey Bay (CMMB) has a long tradition of presenting the crème de la crème of chamber ensembles and also of commissioning significant new works by contemporary composers,” wrote music review Lyn Bronson in Peninsula Reviews, a website he edits, about a CMMB concert earlier this year. “CMMB once again hit it out of the ballpark. The Claremont Trio was at the top of its form, and the commissioned work, ‘Four Folk Songs for piano trio’ by Gabriela Lena Frank, was a hit with the audience.”
Each concert in the season will be preceded by a lecture by Kai Christiansen, noted San Francisco musicologist and founder of earsense.org, an online chamber music exploratorium. Learn about the concert’s composers and their works and gain deeper insights into the music you’re about to hear.
The lecture starts at 6:45 p.m. in the Sunset Center concert hall, and is free of charge.
The 2018-2019 CMMB Season:
Van Kuijk Quartet
7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 6, 2018
Sunset Center, Carmel
Tickets, $33-$52, go on sale Sept. 5.
Musical selections:
Franz Schubert : String Quartet No. 10, (D 87) in E-flat Major
György Ligeti : String Quartet No 1 (Métamorphoses nocturnes)
Maurice Ravel : String Quartet in F Major
Nicolas Van Kuijk, violin
Sylvain Favre-Bulle, violin
Emmanuel François, viola
François Robin, cello
“Extensive color palette, precise blending, and the sense of fun that makes these serious performances so vivid.”
– The Guardian
Currently BBC New Generation Artists, the Van Kuijk Quartet’s international accolades boast First, Best Beethoven and Best Haydn Prizes at the 2015 Wigmore Hall International String Quartet competition, First Prize and an Audience Award at the Trondheim International Chamber Music Competition, as well as becoming laureates of the Aix-en-Provence Festival Academy. Further to this, they join the ECHO Rising Stars roster for the 2017/2018 season.
Since their formation in 2012, the ensemble is already an established presence in major international venues, performing at the Wigmore Hall in London, Auditorium du Louvre and Salle Gaveau in Paris, Tonhalle in Zurich, Musikverein in Vienna, Berliner Philharmonie, Tivoli Concert Series in Denmark, Sage Gateshead, and at festivals in Cheltenham, Heidelberg, Lockenhaus, Davos, Verbier, Aix-en-Provence, Montpellier/Radio France, Evian, Auvers-sur-Oise, Stavanger (Norway), Concentus Moraviae (Czech Republic), Haydn/Esterházy in Fertod (Hungary), Eilat (Israel) and Canberra (Australia).
This season saw the quartet make their debut in Hong Kong, Australia & Taiwan. They are also due to return to North America this autumn for appearances at The Frick Collection in New York, The Phillips Collection in Washington DC, and Salle Bourgie in Montreal.
The Quartet records exclusively for Alpha Classics. Their debut recording, “Mozart,” was released to outstanding critical acclaim in Autumn 2016, and is followed by a disc of French music in late 2017.
The Van Kuijk Quartet is in residence at Proquartet, Paris, where they study with members of the Alban Berg, Artemis and Hagen quartets. Having taken their first steps as students of the Ysaye Quartet, the young musicians have worked with Günter Pichler at the Escuela Superior de Mùsica Reina Sofia in Madrid; supported generously by the International Institute of Chamber Music of Madrid.
The quartet also participates in international academies; at the McGill International String Quartet Academy in Montreal, with Michael Tree of the Guarneri Quartet and André Roy; at the Weikersheim International Chamber Music Course with the Vogler Quartet and Heime Müller, formerly of the Artemis Quartet, as well as the renowned academies in both Verbier and Aix-en-Provence.
Mécénat Musical Société Générale is the Van Kuijk’s main sponsor.
Music from Copland House
7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 3, 2018:
Tickets: $33-$52
Dmitri Shostakovich : Piano Trio #1
Kevin Puts : Living Frescoes
Angel Lam : Fragrances of the Sea (California Premiere)
Gabriel Fauré : Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 120
Founding Members:
Derek Bermel, clarinet
Michael Boriskin, piano
Paul Lustig Dunkel flute
Nicholas Kitchen violin
Wilhelmina Smith cello
“Excellent musicians in vital performances… Copland would have been proud of all of them.”
-The Chicago Tribune
Music From Copland House is the acclaimed resident ensemble at Aaron Copland’s National Historic Landmark home in New York, now restored as a unique creative center for American music. Since its triumphant New York debut as the Opening Night of Merkin Hall’s 1999-2000 season, Music from Copland House (MCH) has come to occupy a special place on the U.S. musical scene as perhaps this country’s only wide-ranging American repertory ensemble.
Provocatively uniting past and present, American and non-American, it journeys across 150 years of our nation’s rich musical legacy, reaching back deep into the 19th century and forward to just-completed compositions.
The ensemble has been engaged by some of America’s foremost concert presenters, including Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, Monday Evening Concerts in Los Angeles, Columbia University’s Miller Theatre, and the Caramoor International, Cape Cod, Bard, and Ecstatic Music Festivals. MCH has collaborated with the European Broadcasting Union and National Public Radio on a special concert showcasing American works that has been extensively aired in over 20 European countries, and makes its Mexican debut in 2014-15.
MCH is the featured ensemble on Copland House’s popular main-stage concert series at the historic Merestead estate in nearby Mount Kisco, only an hour north of New York City. The ensemble has commissioned Chen Yi, Richard Danielpour, Tamar Muskal, Pierre Jalbert, Derek Bermel, and Sebastian Currier, whose Copland House work, Static, won the highly-coveted Grawemeyer Award in 2007, and has also premiered many compositions written especially for it by Du Yun, Samson Young, Henry Mollicone, and Leung Kei Cheuk (Gaybird). The ensemble followed its much-praised debut recording on Arabesque, the first complete cycle of Copland’s chamber music, with two releases on Koch International, respectively devoted to chamber music by Currier and John Musto. Inspired by Copland’s peerless, lifelong advocacy of American composers, MCH also offers children’s programs, master classes, lectures, residencies, and workshops, and other educational and community outreach activities.
MCH’s exceptional Founding Artists are widely admired for their instrumental command and musical insights in works both old and new: clarinetist-composer Derek Bermel, pianist and Copland House Artistic and Executive Director Michael Boriskin, flutist-conductor Paul Lustig Dunkel, violinist Nicholas Kitchen (of the Borromeo String Quartet), and cellist Wilhelmina Smith (of The Mannes Trio and Variations String Trio).
They are regularly joined by outstanding, award-winning Principal and Guest Artists, including violinists Curtis Macomber, Harumi Rhodes, and Jesse Mills; violists Danielle Farina and Kathryn Lockwood; cellists Alexis Pia Gerlach, Nicholas Canellakis, and James Wilson; flutist Linda Chesis; clarinetists Meighan Stoops, Carol McGonnell, and Alexander Fiterstein; pianists Michael Barrett, John Musto, and Blair McMillen; sopranos Amy Burton and Julia Bullock; baritones James Martin and Philip Cutlip; and many others.
Borromeo String Quartet with Richard Stoltzman
7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 19, 2019
Tickets: $44-$64
Musical selections:
Claude Debussy : String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10
Sebastian Currier : Lullaby and Etude (Central Coast Premiere)
Jean Francaix : Quintet for clarinet and String Quartet
“A remarkably accomplished string quartet, not simply for its high technical polish and refined tone, but more importantly for the searching musical insights it brings.”
-The Chicago Tribune
Each visionary performance of the award-winning Borromeo String Quartet strengthens and deepens its reputation as one of the most important ensembles of our time. Admired and sought after for both its fresh interpretations of the classical music canon and its championing of works by 20th and 21st century composers, the ensemble has been hailed for its “edge-of-the- seat performances,” by the Boston Globe, which called it “simply the best.”
Recently celebrating its 25th anniversary, the Borromeo continues to be a pioneer in its use of technology, and has the trailblazing distinction of being the first string quartet to utilize laptop computers on the concert stage. Reading music this way helps push artistic boundaries, allowing the artists to perform solely from four-part scores and composers’ manuscripts, a revealing and metamorphic experience which these dedicated musicians now teach to students around the world.
As the New York Times noted, “The digital tide washing over society is lapping at the shores of classical music. The Borromeo players have embraced it in their daily musical lives like no other major chamber music group.” Moreover, the Quartet often leads discussions enhanced by projections of handwritten manuscripts, investigating with the audience the creative process of the composer.
And in 2003 the Borromeo became the first classical ensemble to make its own live concert recordings and videos, distributing them for many years to audiences through its Living Archive, a music learning web portal for which a new version will soon be released.
Passionate educators, the Borromeos encourage audiences of all ages to explore and listen to both traditional and contemporary repertoire in new ways. The ensemble uses multi-media tools such as video projection to share the often surprising creative process behind some works, or to show graphically the elaborate architecture behind others. This produces delightfully refreshing viewpoints and has been a springboard for its acclaimed young people’s programs.
One such program is “Mathemusica,” which delves into the numerical relationships that under-pin the sounds of music and show how musical syntax mirrors natural forms. “Classic Video” uses one movement of a quartet as the platform from which to teach computer drawing, video editing, animation, musical form and production processes to create a meaningful joining of music and visual art.
The quartet has been ensemble-in-residence at the New England Conservatory and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum for 23 years; and has worked extensively as performers and educators with the Library of Congress (highlighting both its manuscripts and instrument collections); the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Taos School of Music.
The ensemble joined the Emerson Quartet as the 2014-15 Hittman Ensembles in Residence at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, and also recently were in residence at Colorado State University, Kansas University, and the San Francisco Conservatory.
Its expansive repertoire also includes the Shostakovich Cycle and those of Mendelssohn, Dvorak, Brahms, Schumann, Schoenberg, Janacek, Lera Auerbach, Tchaikovsky, and Gunther Schuller.
The Quartet has collaborated with some of this generation’s most important composers, including Gunther Schuller, John Cage, Gyorgy Ligeti, Steve Reich, Osvaldo Golijov, Jennifer Higdon, Steve Mackey, John Harbison, and Leon Kirchner, among many others; and has performed on major concert stages across the globe, including appearances at Carnegie Hall, the Berlin Philharmonie, Wigmore Hall, Suntory Hall, the Concertgebouw, Seoul Arts Center, Shanghai Oriental Arts Center, the Incontri in Terra di Siena Chamber Music Festival in Tuscany, the Prague Spring Festival and the Haydn Festival in Eisenstadt.
The current season includes performances of violinist Nicholas Kitchen’s new transcription of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier including appearances throughout North America and Asia; World Premieres of works by Sebastian Currier, Aaron Jay Kernis, and Russell Platt; provocative performances, illuminating discussions, and new discoveries surrounding signature string quartet cycles at Carnegie Hall, the Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth, Shriver Concerts, Hong Kong International Chamber Music Festival, Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, Bargemusic in Brooklyn, Harvard Musical Association, University at Buffalo, and Haverford and Gordon Colleges, to name only a few.
“Nothing less than masterful” (Cleveland.com), the Borromeo Quartet has received numerous awards throughout its illustrious career, including Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Career Grant and Martin E. Segal Award, and Chamber Music America’s Cleveland Quartet Award. It was also a recipient of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions and top prizes at the International String Quartet Competition in Evian, France.
Richard Stoltzman, clarinet
Stoltzman’s virtuosity, musicianship and sheer personal magnetism have made him one of today’s most sought-after concert artists. As soloist with over a hundred orchestras, a captivating recitalist, an innovative jazz artist, and a prolific recording artist, this two-time Grammy Award winner has defied categorization, dazzling critics and audiences alike throughout many musical genres.
Stoltzman’s unique way with the clarinet has earned him an international reputation as he has opened up possibilities for the instrument that no one could have predicted.
He gave the first clarinet recitals at both the Hollywood Bowl and Carnegie Hall, and became the first wind player to receive the Avery Fisher Prize. He has performed or recorded with such jazz and pop greats as Gary Burton, the Canadian Brass, Chick Corea, Judy Collins, Steve Gadd, Eddie Gomez, Keith Jarrett, the King’s Singers, Mike Manieri, George Shearing, Wayne Shorter, Mel Tormé, Spyro Gyra founder Jeremy Wall and Kazumi Watanabe.
His commitment to new music has resulted in numerous premieres, including acclaimed clarinet works written for him by Steve Reich, Toru Takemitsu, Stephen Hartke, Einojuhani Rautavaara and Yehudi Wyner. As a ten-year participant in the Marlboro Music Festival, Stoltzman gained extensive chamber music experience, and subsequently became a founding member of the noted ensemble TASHI, which made its debut in 1973.
Stoltzman’s discography numbers well over seventy recordings. His most recent release is “Resolve” released on the PARMA label in 2014 featuring works of Hindemith. He has won Grammy® Awards for his recordings of the Brahms Sonatas with Richard Goode, and Trios of Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms with Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax. In addition to his appearance in Michael Lawrence’s acclaimed documentary film, “Bach & friends,” he was featured in the International EMMY® Award-winning series “Concerto!” with Dudley Moore and Michael Tilson Thomas.
Richard Stoltzman resides in Massachusetts and is a passionate Boston Red Sox baseball fan. He is also a Cordon Bleu trained pastry chef.
Catalyst Quartet
7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 23, 2019
Tickets: $33-$52
Jessie Montgomery, violin
Karla Donehew-Perez, violin
Paul Laraia, viola
Karlos Rodriguez, cello
“Wildly colorful and exploding with life!”
– Washington Post
Hailed by the New York Times at the Carnegie Hall debut as “invariably energetic and finely burnished…playing with earthy vigor,” Catalyst Quartet is comprised of top laureates and alumni of the internationally acclaimed Sphinx competition. Known for “rhythmic energy, polyphonic clarity and tight ensemble-playing,” the ensemble has toured throughout the United States and abroad, including sold-out performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, at Chicago’s Harris Theater, Miami’s New World Center and Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall. The Quartet has also appeared as concerto soloists with the Bogotá Filharmónica, the Sphinx virtuosi and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.
Catalyst Quartet has held concert residencies at the University of Michigan, University of Washington, Rice University, Houston’s Society for the Performing Arts, Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, the Virginia Arts Festival and Pennsylvania State University. International residencies where they perform and teach master classes have included the In Harmony Project in England, the University of South Africa and the Teatro de Bellas Arts in Cali, Colombia.
Catalyst Quartet has been invited as guest artists at important music festivals, Mainly Mozart in San Diego, The Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Sitka Music Festival, Juneau Jazz and Classics, Strings Music Festival, the Grand Canyon Music Festival and the Vail International Dance Festival. In 2014 they opened the Festival del Sole in Napa with Joshua Bell and also participated in England’s Alderburgh Music Foundation’s String Quartet Residency with two performances in Jubilee Hall. Recent seasons have brought international touring in Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and Puerto Rico and expanded US tours in Virginia, Minnesota, Hawaii and California. Catalyst’s New York City presence has included concerts on the Lincoln Center’s Great Performer’s series, the Café Series at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, at New York’s City Center, at Columbia University’s Miller Theater, for Schneider Concerts at the New School and six concerts at Jazz at Lincoln Center with Grammy award-winning jazz vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, with whom they recently recorded an album.
Their other recordings include the Bach/Gould Project– Catalyst Quartet’s debut recording featuring the members’ own arrangement of J.S. Bach’s monumental Goldberg variations paired with Glenn Gould’s seminal string quartet, on the Azica label and Strum, featuring string works by CQ violinist and composer Jessie Montgomery. CQ has performed on numerous television and radio broadcasts for Detroit public television, American Public Media’s Performance Today and Chicago, Houston, Seattle and Vermont local stations. The ensemble was also featured in The Strad and Strings magazine.
Founded by the Sphinx organizations, the Catalyst Quartet combines a serious commitment to Diversity and education with a passion for contemporary works. In October 2016 the quartet completed the sixth national tour as principal players and featured ensemble with the Sphinx Virtuosi. Catalyst Quartet members serve as principal faculty at the Sphinx Performance Academy at the Cleveland Institute of Music and Roosevelt University.
Montrose Trio
7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 6, 2019
Tickets: $44-$64
Musical selections:
Franz Joseph Haydn : Piano Trio in E flat Major
Dmitri Shostakovich : Trio in E minor, Op. 67
Anton Arensky : Trio No. 1, Op. 32
Jon Kimura Parker, piano
Martin Beaver, violin
Clive Greensmith, cello
“Absolutely top-notch music-making, as fine as one could ever expect to hear.”
– Washington Post
Formed in 2013, the Montrose Trio is a collaboration stemming from a long and fruitful relationship between pianist Jon Kimura Parker and the Tokyo String Quartet. Mr. Parker was the quartet’s final guest pianist, and a backstage conversation with violinist Martin Beaver and cellist Clive Greensmith led to the Montrose Trio’s creation.
Named after Chateau Montrose, a storied Bordeaux wine long favored after concerts, with a nod to the Montrose Arts District of Houston and the street in Winnipeg where Mr. Beaver was raised, the Montrose Trio has quickly established a reputation for performances of the highest distinction. In 2015 the Washington Post raved about their “absolutely top-notch music-making, as fine as one could ever expect to hear…they are poised to become one of the top piano trios in the world.”
The Montrose Trio gave their debut performance for the Chamber Music Society of Detroit, with subsequent performances at Wolftrap, in Montreal, and at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Their 2015-16 season included concerts in Philadelphia, New York, Vancouver, Portland, Eugene, Baltimore, Jacksonville, Durham, Detroit, Buffalo, La Jolla, and at the Hong Kong Chamber Music Festival.
Pianist Jon Kimura Parker performs with major North American orchestras on a regular basis, including recent concerto performances with the orchestras of New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. This season he appears with the orchestras of Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Ottawa, Vancouver, Toronto, Colorado, and Washington, DC. He also appears in Off the Score, an experimental group with legendary Police drummer Stewart Copeland. He is Artistic Advisor of the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival and Professor of Piano at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in Houston.
Violinist Martin Beaver has appeared as soloist with the orchestras of San Francisco, Indianapolis, Montreal, Toronto, and in Belgium and Portugal. A top prizewinner at the international violin competitions of Indianapolis and Montreal, he studied with Danchenko, Gingold and Szeryng. Mr. Beaver was a founding member of the Toronto String Quartet and Triskelion, and was the first violinist of the Tokyo String Quartet for eleven years. He is currently on faculty at the Colburn School in LA.
Cellist Clive Greensmith has performed as soloist with the London Symphony, the Royal Philharmonic, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Mostly Mozart Orchestra, the Seoul Philharmonic, and the RAI orchestra in Rome. He has worked with distinguished musicians including András Schiff, Claude Frank and Steven Isserlis, and won prizes in the Premio Stradivari held in Cremona, Italy. Mr. Greensmith was the cellist in the Tokyo String Quartet for fourteen years and is currently on faculty at the Colburn School in LA.
Tickets for the 2018-2019 Season:
Van Kuijk Quartet: $33-$52
Music from Copland House: $33-$52
Borromeo String Quartet with Richard Stoltzman: $44-$64
Catalyst Quartet: $33-$52
Montrose Trio: $44-$64
Tickets for adult students and active military are $15. Tickets are available at ChamberMusicMontereyBay.org or (831) 625-2212. All tickets are subject to a $1-per-ticket processing fee. The Sunset Center Box Office opens at 6:30 p.m. on the day of the concert.
Special Ticket Pricing:
Kids Up Front & Free!
Children (grades 3-12) are invited to sit in the center front three rows for an “up close and personal” concert experience. Kids and their music teachers are free, while their adult chaperones are only $15. Seats can also be reserved online.
Active Military
Active duty military personnel can get reduced-price tickets at just $15 each. Valid photo ID required, will-call only. Seats may be reserved online.
Students
Students ages 17-30 can get reduced-price tickets for $15. Valid photo ID required, will-call only, day of concert.
Wheelchair Seating
Wheelchair-accessible seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis for $25. Seats may be reserved online.
About Chamber Music Monterey Bay
Founded in 1966, Chamber Music Monterey Bay has its roots in an organization begun by Watrous and Dene Denny — two pioneers of early California history who brought music performances to the Monterey Peninsula in the mid-1920s who co-founded the Carmel Bach Festival and the Carmel Music Society, which often featured new works by local composers.
Today, Chamber Music Monterey Bay, which was an offshoot of the Carmel Music Society, exists to preserve the tradition of live classical chamber music performance and to explore creatively the evolution of the art form.
CMMB presents five concerts in a nine-month annual season that runs from October-May, featuring world-renowned artists performing at the Sunset Cultural Center — a world-class 718-seat destination venue in beautiful Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.
CMMB features exciting and innovative programming — from the best-loved masterworks, to lesser-known gems and brand new compositions. This is what distinguishes CMMB from other local presenters. The ensembles CMMB brings to the area love to present unusual, provocative programs to their listeners. And CMMB’s audiences — appreciated by the guest musicians for their uniquely engaged attentiveness — love to hear them.
Concert venue:
Sunset Center Carmel
San Carlos & 9th Streets
Carmel-by-the-Sea, California
Office:
Chamber Music Monterey Bay
3785 Via Nona Marie, Suite 307
Carmel, CA 93923 USA
(831) 625-2212
Email:
info@chambermusicmontereybay.org
Postal Address:
PO Box 221458
Carmel, CA 93922 USA
Contact:
Marci Bracco Cain
Chatterbox PR
Salinas, CA 93901
(831) 747-7455
http://www.chambermusicmontereybay.org
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