THE JOHANNES QUARTET WILL BE JOINED BY CELEBRATED PIANIST GARY GRAFFMAN ON THE HUDSON VALLEY CHAMBER MUSIC CIRCLE SERIES AT BARD COLLEGE
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.-The second of three Hudson Valley Chamber Music Circle (HVCMC) concerts will be held on Saturday, June 16, at Bard College. The program, presented by The Bard Center, begins at 8:00 p.m. in Olin Hall.
In their premiere Hudson Valley Chamber Music Circle performance, the Johannes Quartet will be joined by pianist Gary Graffman. They will perform Mendelssohn's A Minor Quartet, Opus 13; Debussy's G-Minor Quartet, Opus 10; and Korngold's Suite for left-hand piano, two violins, and cello, Opus 23.
The Johannes Quartet made its debut in 1998 and is comprised of four musicians who take time away from their busy careers to concentrate on string quartet literature. The quartet's members are Robert Chen, concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony; C. J. Chang and Peter Stumpf, associate principal viola and cello of the Philadelphia Orchestra; and Soovin Kim, the first American in 24 years to win the Paganini Violin Competition. The Quartet will make its Carnegie Hall debut next season.
For three decades Gary Graffman has been among the world's major pianists, winning the Levintritt Award in 1949 and performing with such conductors as Leonard Bernstein, Zubin Mehta, Eugene Ormandy, and George Szell. Since injuring his right hand in 1979, Graffman performs a repertoire of concertos for the left hand. Many of these concertos were commissioned in the early 1900s by Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm in World War I. Graffman has served as director of the Curtis Institute of Music since 1986.
The Hudson Valley Chamber Music Circle, which celebrated its 50th season last year, was founded by Helen Huntington Hull and two friends from Staatsburg, New York. They enlisted the help of Emil Hauser, a member of the Bard College faculty and original first violinist of the Budapest Quartet, to invite performing artists for concerts at the Mills and Vanderbilt Mansions. In 1979, the concert series began its association with Bard College. This season marks the debut of cellist Sharon Robinson and violinist Jaime Laredo as the HVCMC artistic directors.
The series will conclude with a performance on Saturday, June 23, by the Kalichstien-Laredo-Robinson Trio with Emerson Quartet violinist Philip Setzer and violist Lawrence Dutton. They will perform Beethoven's "Ghost" trio, Stanley Silverman's "In Celebration" trio, and Schubert's "Trout" quintet.
These performances are made possible, in part, through the generosity of the Homeland Foundation and The Leon Levy Foundation at Bard College. Individual tickets are $25; senior citizens $15; and students $5. For further information and reservations, call 845-340-0044.
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