The 2017 Concert Season
Each summer, the Festival brings renowned artist instructors, performers, soloists, and gifted pre-professional classical musicians from around the world to beautiful Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine for six weeks of intensive chamber music study, collaboration, and performance. Musicians present more than 200 concerts and public educational events each season.
The Monday Showcase series features concerts played by world-class resident and guest ensembles including the Borromeo, Jupiter, Parker, Rolston, and Ying Quartets, joined by faculty in special guest appearances. There will also be a unique performance featuring collaboration between the Jupiter and Ying Quartets.
Festival Wednesdays fill the intimate Studzinski Recital Hall with the Festival’s commitment to bring world-class performances of chamber music to Maine audiences. Festival faculty, guest artists, and Fellows collaborate to explore the vast chamber music repertoire and present patrons with inspiring interpretations.
Festival Fridays showcase some of the Festival’s most exciting offerings, from chamber music to concertos with orchestra. Can’t-miss selections include Mendelssohn’s lyrical and beloved Violin Concerto played by violin superstar Anne Akiko Meyers, Beethoven’s gorgeous Fifth Piano Concerto featuring the outstanding Joseph Kalichstein, and much more!
New this year, the Festival will present four Festival Friday concerts in Studzinski Recital Hall and two in Crooker Theater. Be sure to double-check the schedule to ensure you attend the correct venue. Fridays at Studzinski will fill up quickly; be sure to reserve your seats early!
Each of these series is often fully subscribed. Last season every Monday Showcase performance was SOLD OUT. The Festival anticipates even greater ticket sales this season. Guarantee your seats and save by subscribing now!
Monday June 26, 2017
The Ying Quartet opens the Festival season with a brilliantly-crafted program showcasing the diversity of Russian music, from Prokofiev’s folk-inflected String Quartet No. 2, composed at the outbreak of World War II, to “Souvenir de Florence,” Tchaikovsky’s musical postcard from his favorite vacation spot – with Stravinsky’s early neo-Classical gem along the way. Although composed within a range of fifty-two years, these works seem worlds apart, alluding to the immense historical and artistic upheavals that characterized the early twentieth century.
Ying Quartet
Robin Scott, Janet Ying, violin • Phillip Ying, viola • David Ying, cello
SERGEI PROKOFIEV
String Quartet No. 2 in F Major, Op. 92
IGOR STRAVINSKY
Concertino
PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY
String Sextet in D Minor, Op. 70 “Souvenir de Florence”
Dimitri Murrath, viola • Paul Katz, cello
Wednesday June 28, 2017
Tonight presents a rare opportunity to hear the recently discovered work of Dick Kattenburg. Tragically murdered at Auschwitz at the age of 24, Kattenburg was scarcely remembered until a decade ago, when his musical legacy, including his vibrant, jazzy Quartet, was discovered in a relative’s attic. Ani Schnarch interprets Schumann’s densely textured Violin Sonata, the first of two completed in 1851. Brahms, in turn, evokes his tormented love for Clara Schumann in his Piano Quartet in C Minor, quoting in the first movement the ‘Clara theme’ from Schumann’s Bunte Blätter.
DICK KATTENBURG
Quartet
Leo Sussman, flute • Kurt Sassmannshaus, violin • Keiko Ying, cello • Tao Lin, piano
ROBERT SCHUMANN
Violin Sonata No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 105
Ani Schnarch, violin • Peter Basquin, piano
JOHANNES BRAHMS
Piano Quartet No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 60
David Bowlin, violin • Phillip Ying, viola • Ahrim Kim, cello • Elinor Freer, piano
Friday June 30, 2017
Derek Bermel returns once again to the Festival’s faculty, composing and performing on tonight’s eclectic program. His Death with Interruptions takes inspiration from writer José Saramago, dramatising Death as a musical character. Bartók’s compact and evocative Contrasts, composed for jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman, combines dances and melodies from across Central Europe. The second half brings a perennial favorite in the form of Arensky’s elegiac Piano Trio No. 1, inspired by the work of his friend and compatriot Tchaikovsky, whose own Piano Trio, composed a decade earlier, will be performed later in the season, on Friday, July 7.
DEREK BERMEL
Death with Interruptions
Jennifer Gersten, violin • David Ying, cello • Min Joo Yi, piano
BÉLA BARTÓK
Contrasts, Sz. 111
Ayano Ninomiya, violin • Derek Bermel, clarinet • Pei-Shan Lee, piano
ANTON ARENSKY
Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 32
Sergiu Schwartz, violin • David Requiro, cello • Tao Lin, piano
Monday July 3, 2017
Rising stars in chamber music, the Rolston String Quartet won first prize at the 2016 Banff International Competition and will arrive at the Festival fresh off their first European tour. Formed in Canada in 2013, they bring the work of their compatriot composer R. Murray Schafer, whose research into natural soundscapes and the rhythmic patterns of waves inspired his String Quartet No. 2. In the second half they will be joined by internationally-renowned violist Dimitri Murrath for a transitional quintet in which Beethoven offers glimpses of his later style.
Rolston String Quartet
Luri Lee, Jeffrey Dyrda, violin • Hezekiah Leung, viola • Jonathan Lo, cello
ROBERT SCHUMANN
String Quartet in A Major, Op. 41, No. 3
R. MURRAY SCHAFER
String Quartet No. 2 “Waves”
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
String Quintet in C Major, Op. 29
Dimitri Murrath, viola
Wednesday July 5, 2017
Composers develop special affections for particular instruments. Chopin, best known for his virtuosic piano oeuvre, composed this rare bit of chamber music as an adolescent. Meanwhile, no composer has demonstrated greater love for the viola as a solo instrument than Paul Hindemith. Tonight, Dimitri Murrath interprets Hindemith’s first of many sonatas for the instrument, a romantically inflected work composed at the age of 24. Carl Maria von Weber, himself inspired by the charismatic virtuoso Heinrich Bärmann, favored the clarinet. Jon Manasse performs Weber’s concerto-like Clarinet Quintet, which blends the composer’s operatic style with instrumental brilliance.
FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN
Piano Trio in G Minor, Op. 8
David Bowlin, violin • Paul Katz, cello • Julian Martin, piano
PAUL HINDEMITH
Viola Sonata, Op. 11, No. 4
Dimitri Murrath, viola • Pei-Shan Lee, piano
CARL MARIA VON WEBER
Clarinet Quintet in B-Flat Major, Op. 34
Jon Manasse, clarinet • Robin Scott, Janet Ying, violin • Carol Rodland, viola • Amir Eldan, cello
Friday July 7, 2017
Breton composer Jean Cras led something of a double life: as a composer, particularly of chamber music and song, trained in Paris by Henri Duparc; and as an accomplished officer of the French navy, enabling him to travel the world extensively and imbibe diverse musical influences. These idioms are colorfully explored in his Quintette, especially in its hauntingly beautiful slow movement, and through the vivid plucked textures and swooping gestures of the finale. Finesse cedes to drama in the second part of tonight’s program, with Tchaikovsky’s epic, melodramatic Piano Trio, dedicated to “the memory of a great artist.”
JEAN CRAS
Quintette
June Han, harp • Youngha Kim, flute • Misha Vayman, violin • Carol Rodland, viola • David Requiro, cello
PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY
Piano Trio in A Minor, Op. 50
Ayano Ninomiya, violin • Amir Eldan, cello • Tao Lin, piano
Monday July 10, 2017
The Grammy Award-winning Parker Quartet makes their highly anticipated Bowdoin Festival debut. While remaining Blodgett Artists-in-Residence at Harvard University, they have spent the past season touring the United States and Europe, collaborating with classical and jazz artists and releasing a recording of Mendelssohn Quartets. Their program opens with the Third String Quartet of Shostakovich, one of the twentieth-century masters of the quartet genre. For the second half, their forces will be doubled for Schubert’s resplendent Octet, the composer’s grandest chamber music work.
Parker Quartet
Daniel Chong, Ying Xue, violin • Jessica Bodner, viola • Kee-Hyun Kim, cello
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH
String Quartet No. 3 in F Major, Op. 73
FRANZ SCHUBERT
Octet in F Major, D. 803
Bixby Kennedy, clarinet • Atao Liu, bassoon • William Loveless, horn • Kurt Muroki, bass
Wednesday July 12, 2017
The Festival is thrilled to welcome composer Jennifer Higdon for the 2017 season. Her Piano Trio and Light Refracted (to be performed on Friday, July 14th) explore relationships between music, color, and light. With movements titled “Pale Yellow” and “Fiery Red,” Higdon explores the energies and dynamicity of individual colors, much in the manner of a painter. The program continues with Janáček’s whimsical reflection on youth, Mládí, written for the occasion of his 70th birthday, followed by Brahms’s own poignant reflection on age, with the String Quintet, Op. 111, initially conceived as his final composition before retirement.
JENNIFER HIGDON
Piano Trio
Linda Lee, violin • David Ying, cello • Amalia Rinehart, piano
LEOŠ JANÁČEK
Mladi (Youth)
Leo Sussman, flute • James Austin Smith, oboe • Bixby Kennedy, clarinet • David Valbuena, bass clarinet • Atao Liu, bassoon • William Loveless, horn
JOHANNES BRAHMS
String Quintet No. 2 in G Major, Op. 111
Ayano Ninomiya, David Bowlin, violin • Dimitri Murrath, Carol Rodland, viola • Amir Eldan, cello
Friday July 14, 2017
The Festival is privileged to have Anne Akiko Meyers, one of the world’s leading violin soloists, at the Festival this year. In addition to performances with great orchestras around the globe, her career achievements count thirty-five albums (including the 2014 Billboard Classical top seller), world premieres of compositions by Corigliano, Higdon, and Rautavaara, among many others, and television features including The Tonight Show. Her performances of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra were met with rave reviews. Also on tonight’s program, Jennifer Higdon’s luminous chamber work, and Mozart’s showpiece for oboe, performed by Festival artist James Austin Smith.
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
Oboe Quartet in F Major, K. 370
James Austin Smith, oboe • Kurt Sassmannshaus, violin • SoHui Yun, viola • Ahrim Kim, cello
JENNIFER HIGDON
Light Refracted
Bixby Kennedy, clarinet • David Bowlin, violin • Kunjing Dai, viola • Keiko Ying, cello • Peter Basquin, piano
FELIX MENDELSSOHN
Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64
Anne Akiko Meyers, violin • Angel Gil-Ordóñez, conductor • Festival Orchestra
Monday July 17, 2017
Musicians from two of the Festival’s resident quartets join forces for an evening of lush Viennese masterpieces. Mozart’s String Quintet, scored for two violas, exposes a dense texture of inner voices and some of Mozart’s most dark, impassioned chamber music writing. On the second half, Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), is performed in its original scoring for sextet, which highlights the work’s unceasing harmonic tension, alternatingly sumptuous and breathless.
Jupiter String Quartet
Nelson Lee, Megan Freivogel, violin • Liz Freivogel, viola • Daniel McDonough, cello
Ying Quartet
Robin Scott, Janet Ying, violin • Phillip Ying, viola • David Ying, cello
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
String Quintet No. 3 in G Minor, K. 516
Ying Quartet • Liz Freivogel, viola
ARNOLD SCHÖNBERG
Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), Op. 4
Jupiter String Quartet • Phillip Ying, viola • David Ying, cello
Wednesday July 19, 2017
The night begins with a sense of humor: Carl Nielsen’s Serenata in vano (Serenade in Vain) depicts a suitor’s attempt to seduce a loved one outside a balcony. When she fails to materialize, the musicians conclude with a jovial march homeward. To round out the evening’s program, Brahms and Schubert are paired together. Legendary pedagogue and Festival faculty artist Almita Vamos performs Brahms’s final Violin Sonata. The concert continues with Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet, one of the composer’s most lyrical and exuberant chamber works.
CARL NIELSEN
Serenata in vano
David Valbuena, clarinet • Atao Liu, bassoon • William Loveless, horn • So Sugiyama, cello • Kurt Muroki, bass
JOHANNES BRAHMS
Violin Sonata No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 108
Almita Vamos, violin • Eugenia Monacelli, piano
FRANZ SCHUBERT
Piano Quintet A Major, D. 667 “Trout”
Robin Scott, violin • Kunjing Dai, viola • Jeffrey Zeigler, cello • Kurt Muroki, bass • Pei-Shan Lee, piano
Friday July 21, 2017
“Every culture has its images of paradise,” writes Maine composer Robert Sirota, “all of which include the sights and sounds of birds.” It is from birdsong that Sirota drew inspiration for his 2008 work, performed tonight with faculty artist Linda Chesis. Birds of Paradise is bookended by Ravel’s sensitive tribute to Classical form, and, on the second half, by Schubert’s first grand Piano Trio, among the formidable flood of compositions penned by the composer in his final year.
MAURICE RAVEL
Sonatine
Douglas Humpherys, piano
ROBERT SIROTA
Birds of Paradise
Linda Chesis, flute • David Valbuena, clarinet • Peter Basquin, piano
FRANZ SCHUBERT
Piano Trio No. 1 in B-Flat Major, D. 898
Janet Sung, violin • Steven Doane, cello • Yong Hi Moon, piano
Monday July 24, 2017
The Festival is delighted to welcome back the Jupiter String Quartet this season for their own concert program. Artists-in-residence at the University of Illinois, the Jupiter String Quartet maintains a busy touring schedule across the globe, and has performed complete Beethoven cycles at Aspen and at MIT. Tonight they share their interpretations of early and late Beethoven, and will be joined by pianist Elinor Freer for this season’s freshest composition: Pierre Jalbert’s Piano Quintet, just premiered by the Quartet in March 2017.
Jupiter String Quartet
Nelson Lee, Megan Freivogel, violin • Liz Freivogel, viola • Daniel McDonough, cello
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
String Quartet No. 2 in G Major, Op. 18
PIERRE JALBERT
Piano Quintet
Elinor Freer, piano
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
String Quartet No. 12 in E-Flat Major, Op. 127
Wednesday July 26, 2017
This week the Festival welcomes Andrew Norman, named Musical America’s 2017 Composer of the Year. Norman’s work frequently demands unconventional techniques of performers, drawing inspiration from narrative forms, temporal distortions, and architecture. Indeed, in Frank’s House, Norman contemplates the residence of architect Frank Gehry, transporting the audience to Santa Monica, California. The evening also features Schumann’s Piano Quartet, composed in 1842, his breakthrough year of chamber music.
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
String Trio in C Minor, Op. 9, No. 3
Renée Jolles, violin • Ivo-Jan van der Werff, viola • Denise Djokic, cello
ANDREW NORMAN
Frank’s House
Amalia Rinehart, Min Joo Yi, piano • Luke Rinderknecht, TBA, percussion
ROBERT SCHUMANN
Piano Quartet in E-Flat Major, Op. 47
Robin Scott, violin • Ivo-Jan van der Werff, viola • Rosemary Elliott, cello • Elinor Freer, piano
Friday July 28, 2017
It’s not a misprint – tonight, percussionist Luke Rinderknecht will play the flower pots alongside cellist Jeffrey Zeigler in Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw’s work, Boris Kerner, named for a transportation engineer who developed an influential theoretical model for vehicular traffic. Shaw’s composition is aptly juxtaposed with Andrew Norman’s Gran Turismo, inspired in part by traffic flows of another sort: high-speed race cars in video games. On the second half, faculty artist Mikhail Kopelman leads a performance of Brahms’s rich second String Sextet.
SERGEI PROKOFIEV
Five Melodies, Op. 35
Sergiu Schwartz, violin • Tao Lin, piano
CAROLINE SHAW
Boris Kerner
Jeffrey Zeigler, cello • Luke Rinderknecht, flower pots
ANDREW NORMAN
Gran Turismo
Renée Jolles, Robin Scott, Janet Sung, Nelson Lee, Megan Freivogel, Misha Vayman, Jennifer Gersten, Linda Lee, violin
JOHANNES BRAHMS
String Sextet No. 2 in G Major, Op. 36
Mikhail Kopelman, Janet Sung, violin • Liz Freivogel, Phillip Ying, viola • Keiko Ying, Ahrim Kim, cello
Monday July 31, 2017
Now in their twenty-fifth year as an ensemble, the Borromeo String Quartet continues to set the standard for quartet performance and innovation. Their exciting program opens with Mendelssohn’s String Quartet, Op. 13, a tightly constructed and exquisitely heartfelt work which belies the composer’s young age (18) at its time of composition. Ligeti’s first String Quartet, subtitled Métamorphoses Nocturnes, demonstrates its indebtedness to Bartók, and reflects the composer’s early style before he fled Hungary in 1956. For Schumann’s rousing Piano Quintet, the Quartet are joined by Pei-Shan Lee, who will play the same part composed for Clara Schumann but performed by Felix Mendelssohn at the work’s premiere in 1842.
Borromeo Quartet
Nicholas Kitchen, Kristopher Tong, violin • Mai Motobuchi, viola • Yeesun Kim, cello
FELIX MENDELSSOHN
String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor, Op. 13
GYÖRGI LIGETI
String Quartet No. 1 “Métamorphoses Nocturnes”
ROBERT SCHUMANN
Piano Quintet in E-Flat Major, Op. 44
Pei-Shan Lee, piano
Wednesday August 2, 2017
Tonight’s program opens with the work of composer, pianist, pedagogue, and scholar Louise Farrenc, a towering musical figure of 19th-century Paris. In addition to her many accomplishments, she fought for equal pay with her male colleagues as the only woman professor at the Paris Conservatoire. Her beautiful Piano Quintet takes up the sonorous instrumentation of Schubert’s Trout Quintet, performed last week. The second half of the program brings to light another forgotten gem, the romantically-inclined Sextet by turn-of-the-century British composer Frank Bridge.
LOUISE FARRENC
Piano Quintet No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 30
Renée Jolles, violin • Liz Freivogel, viola • Denise Djokic, cello • Kurt Muroki, bass • Amalia Rinehart, piano
MAURICE RAVEL
La Valse for two pianos
Pei-Shan Lee, Elinor Freer, piano
FRANK BRIDGE
String Sextet in E-Flat Major, H. 107
Mikhail Kopelman, Renée Jolles, violin • Ivo-Jan van der Werff, SoHui Yun, viola • Steven Doane, Rosemary Elliott, cello
Friday August 4, 2017
The season closes with a splendid flourish, filling the stage with musicians. Bach’s exhilarating Brandenburg Concerto blends orchestral richness, chamber music intimacy, and soloistic flair into a work that is as fun to play as it is to watch. June Han returns to the stage to share English composer Arnold Bax’s Quintet, and the great Joseph Kalichstein directs and interprets Beethoven’s final magisterial piano concerto, a work he first performed in 1970 and has been performing around the world ever since.
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH
Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major, BWV 1048
Linda Lee, Jennifer Gersten, Misha Vayman, violin • SoHui Yun, Kunjing Dai, Phillip Ying, viola • So Sugiyama, Roberto Arundale, David Ying, cello • Tao Lin, harpsichord
ARNOLD BAX
Quintet for Harp and Strings
June Han, harp • Nelson Lee, Megan Freivogel, violin • Ivo-Jan van der Werff, viola • Ahrim Kim, cello
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-Flat Major, Op. 73 “Emperor”
Joseph Kalichstein, piano and conductor • Festival Orchestra
FREE EVENTS
YOUNG ARTIST SERIES – Concerts by the extraordinary musicians who come to the Festival from music schools in more than twenty-five countries. Studzinski Recital Hall, Bowdoin College.
FESTIVAL INSIGHTS – Lectures, masterclasses, performances, and more. Free admission.
COMMUNITY CONCERTS – Off-site performances featuring a variety of classical repertoire.
GAMPER FESTIVAL OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC – The Charles E. Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music represents a sustained commitment to nurturing and promoting the music of our time. July 27, 29, 30, 7:30 PM. Studzinski Recital Hall, Bowdoin College.
STUDIO CLASSES – A gathering of an instructor and their students for an opportunity to play on stage for their peers.
SCHOLARSHIP GALA – With your support, the Festival can continue to train gifted young musicians and present superb classical music to Maine communities and beyond. June 27, 6:00 PM, Bowdoin College. Reservations Required.