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Press Releases
An Evening of Chamber Music by Andrew List and Mohammed Fairouz
WEDNESDAY APRIL 6, 2011
AN EVENING OF CHAMBER MUSIC BY ANDREW LIST AND MOHAMMED FAIROUZ AT BOSTON’S OLD SOUTH CHURCH
PROGRAM TO INCLUDE THE BOSTON PREMIERE OF “UNWRITTEN” A WORK THE CHRONICLES THE DEATH OF SOCRATES BY MOHAMMED FAIROUZ AND THE WORLD PREMIERE OF “FROM THE TEMPLE OF DENDERA, TWELVE ETUDES FOR PIANO INSPIRED BY THE EGYPTIAN ZODIAC BY ANDREW LIST
A special evening of chamber music by composers Andrew List and Mohammed Fairouz will be performed by celebrated artists the Esterhazy Quartet, pianist George Sebastian Lopez and New York based New Music ensemble Lunatics at Large. The program will include new-composed works by both composers including two premiere performances.
The music of composer Andrew List is known for it powerfully bold gestures, clear rhythmic precision and deep felt emotion. Laurence Vitts recent Gramophone Magazine review of Lists’ Noa Noa A Gauguin Tableau reads: “Andrew List’s Noa Noa, inspired by a monumental tableau by Gauguin, is the most purely joyous and exuberant music on the program”.
Straddling Eastern and Western idioms, Mohammed Fairouz, one of the most frequently performed composers of his generation, has emerged as a force on the musical scene. Composer, conductor and educator Gunther Schuller writes of Fairouz: "It is a rare occasion, in my experience, to see in the works of a young composer like Fairouz such a secure technique (in form and structure, pacing of musical ideas and continuity, as well as orchestration), coupled with a vivid creative imagination.”
The complete program is as follows: Andrew List - String Quartet No. 4 From the Temple of Dendera, Twelve Etudes for Piano Inspired by the Egyptian Zodiac (WORLD PREMIERE)
Mohammed Fairouz - Airs (guitar) Ka-las (clarinet, viola) Three Fragments of Ibn Khafajah – (soprano, flute, guitar, violin, cello) Unwritten (soprano, flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, piano) commissioned by Lunatics at Large for the Sanctuary Project (BOSTON PREMIERE) Old South Church is located at 645 Boylston Street in Boston. Accessible to the MBTA Copley and Back Bay Stations Ticket price is $15. $5.for students and available at the door for more information please call (617) 605-2026
ANDREW LIST, composer www.AndrewList.com
Andrew List (Professor of Composition at Berklee College of Music, Boston, MA) composes music in many different genres, including orchestral works, string quartet, vocal, choral music, opera, music for children, solo works, and a variety of chamber ensembles. He is a graduate of New England Conservatory of Music, with B.A. and M.A. degrees in music composition. He received his doctorate in music composition from Boston University, where he studied with Bernard Rands, Samuel Headrick, and Nicholas Maw. Mr. List has also studied privately with Richard Danielpour.
Mr. List has received numerous commissions and performances from professional music ensembles and solo artists in the United States and Europe. These include The Boston Classical Orchestra (commission and recording of Concerto Cello and Orchestra “Earth Song” 2009) Zodiac Trio, Alea III, The Esterhazy Quartet, Interensemble (Padova Italy), The Kalistos Chamber Orchestra, North-South Consonance, The Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra, Duo Diorama, Winston Choi (pianist), Emmanuel Feldman (cellist) soprano Lisa Saffer. The Concordia String Trio and Sta-Mane Clarinet Quartet.
He was the first prizewinner of the Renegade Ensemble’s composition competition, The Portland Chamber Music Festival Composition Competition and a finalist in the Alea III International Composition Competition. In 2008 he was a finalist in the Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship. In 2005 the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, with Eva Szekely, violin soloist, recorded Mr. List’s Violin Concerto; and the CD was subsequently released on the Albany label. MONTAGE Music Society commissioned and recorded his new work Noa Noa, A Gauguin Tableau, which was released on MSR Classics.
Mr. List has been fortunate to enjoy a number of residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, The Atlantic Center for the Arts, The Aspen Music Festival, La Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris and The Visby Centre for Composers in Sweden. In 2001 he was awarded a distinguished artist-in-residence grant, sponsored by Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, and the city of Amsterdam. During his eight-month residency in Amsterdam he presented four concerts of his music and that of other American composers. He was also invited to present a concert at the American Embassy in The Hague, and gave lectures and workshops at major music conservatories in the area. He is the first American and the first composer to be awarded this prestigious residency.
MOHAMMED FAIROUZ, composer www.mohammedfairouz.com
The music of Mohammed Fairouz straddles multiple worlds from the Sanskrit invocations of the Bagavad Gita, to the Latin Mass and Arabic music, minimalism, indie rock, romantic tonality, jazz, thorny modernism, musical theater, the avant-garde and other idioms. By his early teens, Fairouz had traveled across five continents and avidly immersed himself in the musical life of his surroundings, learning to play the didgeridoo in Australia, the oud in Lebanon and attending seminars at the Acadmie Nationale de la Musique in Paris. His early musical training was in composition and piano with teachers at the Royal Academy of Music and Royal College of Music in London. Throughout his childhood and teens, Fairouz had developed and nurtured a passion for improvisation which culminated in a series of improvisatory concerts that he delivered throughout the Middle East during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Among his formative musical experiences that had a lasting effect on him, one of the most pronounced was a series of master classes with Sir Thomas Allen which impacted Fairouz’s outlook on the voice and vocal music. He later presented Allen with his setting of a poem by Oscar Wilde. That was the first song in Fairouz’s love affair with the voice that has, to date, produced an opera, eight song cycles and tens of art songs. Fairouz’s substantial body of work in every genre including opera, song cycles for Soprano, Mezzo Soprano, Tenor and Baritone; symphonic and choral works, piano music and electronic music in addition to chamber music for winds, percussion, strings and numerous other instrumental and vocal combinations, has been extensively performed throughout the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Australia in venues such as New York’s Carnegie Hall, Boston’s Symphony Hall and the New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall. His music has been featured at the Bienalle di Venezia, the Kennedy Center's Festival of Contemporary Music, the New England Conservatory's Composers’s Series, Massachusetts College of Art and Design’s Eventsworks Festival, the Boston Conservatory’s New Music Week and other festivals. Among the performers of his work are the Borromeo String Quartet who have championed his Lamentation and Satire and are recording it for the GM label, the Mimesis Ensemble, the Ibis Camerata, the Second Instrumental Unit, Counter)induction, the New England Conservatory Contemporary Ensemble, Freisinger Chamber Orchestra, the conductors Gunther Schuller, John Page, David Hoose, Malcolm Peyton, Yoichi Udagawa and others. His music is the subject of multiple essays including David Gutkin’s Putting on Airs and Joan Pamies’probing exploration of the Bonsai Journal and Airs in his portrait of outstanding young composers currently working in America which is published in the prominent Spanish musical journal Sonograma.
Fairouz’s song cycle, Bonsai Journal is a feature piece on the Ibis Camerata’s CD "Boston Diary" Albany Records. His song cycles and art songs have been performed hundreds of times, being featured on recital programs across the United States. As a cultural ambassador, Fairouz is currently working with Musicians for Harmony to fulfill a commission for a large chamber work promoting dialogue between Arabic and Jewish musical traditions and cultural trends. A similar project, being conceptualized by Joshua Jacobson and the Zamir Chorale of Boston involves the commission of a large scale oratorio setting the poetry of modern Arab poets such as Mahmoud Darwish and Fadwa Tuqan with Yehuda Amichai and other Israeli counterparts as well as drawing on the sacred and secular texts of the Jewish, Christian and Islamic Middle East to weave together a narrative drama that seeks to illuminate the counterpoint between the poetics, musics, languages and peoples in the region.
Fairouz has extensively set the works of Arab poets including Mahmoud Darwish in his Tahwidah, written to fulfill a commission from Alwan for the Arts, a Manhattan-based Arab arts organization as well as lines from the Hebrew Kaddish in his Elegy for David Diamond. Among the awards that Fairouz has received for his work are the Tourjee alumni award, the Malcolm Morse Memorial Award, the NEC Honors Award, the New England Conservatory Contemporary Ensemble Prize and awards from the Merit Funds of the New England and Boston Conservatories. In 2008, he was honored with a national citation from the embassy of the United Arab Emirates in Washington D.C. for outstanding achievement in artistry and scholarship.
As an educator, Fairouz has been invited to lecture across the country at institutions such as Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia, University of Western Michigan and Boston Conservatory’s Liberal Arts Department speaking on topics that range from post-colonial critical theory to Mahler's Sixth Symphony to Al-Kindi and the Arab golden’s contribution to European music of the renaissance. Fairouz’s teachers in composition have included John Heiss, Malcolm Peyton, Gunther Schuller and Halim El-Dabh. Recordings on the Albany and GM labels.
ESTERHAZY QUARTET http://music.missouri.edu/ensembles/esterhazy.html
Esterhazy Quartet Eva Szekely and Susan Jensen, violinists Leslie Perna, violist and Darry Dolezal, cellist
Throughout its distinguished career the Esterhazy Quartet has delighted audiences on three continents, including performances at the Haydn Festspiele in Austria, the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada and the Beethoven Society in Santiago de Chile. Critics have praised the Esterhazy Quartet for its intelligence, refinement, and warmth of sound, described as a “velvety palette of tonal colors” (La Nacion, Buenos Aires). The Esterhazy Quartet has appeared at several important music festivals in the United States and abroad, including the Western Arts Festival, the Texas Music Festival, the Classical Music Seminar in Eisenstadt, Austria, and the International Chamber Music Festival of Pará in Belém, Brazil. National Public Radio has frequently featured the Esterhazy Quartet on its broadcasts, including the highly acclaimed “Hear America First” and “Quartessence” series. During the Quartet’s last tour to the Boston area they performed live on WGBH’s “Classical Performances.” Since its inception more than three decades ago the Esterhazy Quartet has served as Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Missouri-Columbia. As a musical ambassador for the University, the Quartet performs concerts around the world and seeks to promote the advancement of the string quartet art form through master classes and workshops with young performers, and collaborations with respected modern composers.
The Esterhazy Quartet is well-respected for its discerning interpretations of the standard classical string quartet repertoire: “The Esterhazy Quartet interpreted the Haydn works in the sensitive and warm manner in which the composer would have wished his music to be heard.” Daily Journal, Caracas “Their Mozart has delicacy, equilibrium, control and an attractive play of sonorities….In Beethoven’s Opus 135 [the Esterhazy Quartet] excelled in its euphony, delicateness and emotional power.” El Mercurio, Santiago de Chile The Esterhazy Quartet is also widely recognized for its commitment to performing and promoting the music of our time, especially modern music of the Americas. The Quartet maintains one of the largest collections of Latin American string quartets in the United States, and is responsible for the commission and world premiere of several new American string quartets.
The Esterhazy Quartet recently completed two world premiere recordings: Chamber Concerto for English Horn and String Quartet by Houston composer Michael Horvit, soon to be released on Albany Records, and the sixth string quartet of New York composer James Willey for CRI. Previous recordings by the Esterhazy Quartet, released on the Spectrum and CRI labels, have garnered much critical acclaim, such as this review in France’s Repertoire des disque compacts: “The music is full of rhythmic inventiveness, humor and sophistication. The performers are involved and sensitive. A memorable recording.”
GEORGE SEBASTIAN LOPEZ, pianist
George Sebastian Lopez, pianist, has been featured across the globe as recitalist, soloist with orchestra, and collaborator. Mr. Lopez received critical acclaim for his interpretation of Bach’s Goldberg Variations at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and performed the complete cycle of Beethoven Piano Concertos in his last two concert seasons. He was invited by The International Holland Music Sessions, now one of the top performing arenas for up-and-coming musicians in Europe, to go on a world tour where he performed in Paris, London, Cologne, New York’s Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, and in Los Angeles where he was hailed by the Los Angeles Times for his “. . . musical perspective, continuity, and kaleidoscopic colors.” He also performed Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue to a capacity crowd with the NH Music Festival Orchestra. Last June he gave recitals in Switzerland and Holland and in October 2008 played Chopin’s First Piano Concerto. He premiered a piano concerto written for him by Romeo Melloni, an Italian composer from Milan, which he recorded with the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra in Prague with Maestro Paul Polivnick. He will be going on a West Coast tour in March 2011, performing solo and chamber music concerts as well as masterclasses in Seattle and Portland. Mr. Lopez performed at Brown University with renowned American composer David Amram for a weeklong residency and his chamber music collaborations have included the Emerson String Quartet, the Rainier Quartet, the Incanto Ensemble of Germany, and the Aurea Ensemble of Providence, along with members of some of the top orchestras in the country with whom he plays regularly at the New Hampshire Music Festival. He was invited by the Montclaire String Quartet to open their concert season with Brahms Piano Quintet in F Minor at the Clay Center for the Arts in Charleston, West Virginia, where he is a frequent guest artist. He has performed in recital with cellist Emmanuel Feldman in Boston’s Jordan Hall, giving a world premiere performance of Jan Swafford’s In Time of War for cello and piano. he is a founding member of the newly-formed Omega Trio with Mr. Feldman and violinist Eva Gruesser.
Mr. Lopez has been an advocate for music education for many years and is a popular lecturer on the arts in New England. He has given lectures for the European Piano Teachers Association in Amsterdam. He maintains active studios in New Hampshire at Phillips Exeter Academy and Bowdoin College, having graduated several students to major conservatories in the U.S. including Juilliard Prep, Oberlin College, Manhattan School of Music, Mannes College, and the University of Southern California.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Belize to Mayan parents, George Lopez started playing the piano at the fairly late age of 11. Upon returning to the U.S., he won his first orchestral competition at 14 in Texas and two years later was awarded a full scholarship to The Hartt School of Music. After graduating with honors, he went to Paris on a Franco- American study grant and was given a unanimous First Prize for the Diplôme supérieur. He completed his Masters Degree cum laude in Amsterdam.
In addition to the New Hampshire Symphony, Mr. Lopez has appeared with the Granite State Symphony Orchestra, the Midcoast Symphony Orchestra of Maine, the Fort Smith Symphony in Arkansas, and has performed Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland. He is currently Artist-in-Residence at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, ME, where he lives with his wife and two children.
LUNATICS AT LARGE www.lunaticsensemble.com
Called “young, energetic and finely polished” by Allan Kozinn of the New York Times, Lunatics at Large is a large mixed ensemble combining voice, strings, winds and piano, and was formed in 2007 to explore the timbral possibilities of chamber music repertoire from the beginning of the 20th century until now. In thematic concerts, the group juxtaposes standard repertoire and chamber pieces from established composers of the 20th century with more recent works. Lunatics at Large thus encourages listeners to hear connections between works and appreciate very recent compositions in the perspective of the evolution of classical music over the last 110 years. Lunatics at Large is committed to working closely with living composers and to commissioning new pieces for its expanded Pierrot instrumentation. The group also embraces collaborative projects with artists from other art forms and is organizing several interdisciplinary performances involving poets, living composers and visual artists in upcoming seasons. Lunatics at Large group members include Katharine Dain soprano, Jonathan Engle flute, Ben Ringer clarinet, Arthur Moeller violin, Jen Herman viola, Andrea Lee cello and Evi Jundt piano.
AN EVENING OF CHAMBER MUSIC BY ANDREW LIST AND MOHAMMED FAIROUZ AT BOSTON’S OLD SOUTH CHURCH
PROGRAM TO INCLUDE THE BOSTON PREMIERE OF “UNWRITTEN” A WORK THE CHRONICLES THE DEATH OF SOCRATES BY MOHAMMED FAIROUZ AND THE WORLD PREMIERE OF “FROM THE TEMPLE OF DENDERA, TWELVE ETUDES FOR PIANO INSPIRED BY THE EGYPTIAN ZODIAC BY ANDREW LIST
A special evening of chamber music by composers Andrew List and Mohammed Fairouz will be performed by celebrated artists the Esterhazy Quartet, pianist George Sebastian Lopez and New York based New Music ensemble Lunatics at Large. The program will include new-composed works by both composers including two premiere performances.
The music of composer Andrew List is known for it powerfully bold gestures, clear rhythmic precision and deep felt emotion. Laurence Vitts recent Gramophone Magazine review of Lists’ Noa Noa A Gauguin Tableau reads: “Andrew List’s Noa Noa, inspired by a monumental tableau by Gauguin, is the most purely joyous and exuberant music on the program”.
Straddling Eastern and Western idioms, Mohammed Fairouz, one of the most frequently performed composers of his generation, has emerged as a force on the musical scene. Composer, conductor and educator Gunther Schuller writes of Fairouz: "It is a rare occasion, in my experience, to see in the works of a young composer like Fairouz such a secure technique (in form and structure, pacing of musical ideas and continuity, as well as orchestration), coupled with a vivid creative imagination.”
The complete program is as follows: Andrew List - String Quartet No. 4 From the Temple of Dendera, Twelve Etudes for Piano Inspired by the Egyptian Zodiac (WORLD PREMIERE)
Mohammed Fairouz - Airs (guitar) Ka-las (clarinet, viola) Three Fragments of Ibn Khafajah – (soprano, flute, guitar, violin, cello) Unwritten (soprano, flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, piano) commissioned by Lunatics at Large for the Sanctuary Project (BOSTON PREMIERE) Old South Church is located at 645 Boylston Street in Boston. Accessible to the MBTA Copley and Back Bay Stations Ticket price is $15. $5.for students and available at the door for more information please call (617) 605-2026
ANDREW LIST, composer www.AndrewList.com
Andrew List (Professor of Composition at Berklee College of Music, Boston, MA) composes music in many different genres, including orchestral works, string quartet, vocal, choral music, opera, music for children, solo works, and a variety of chamber ensembles. He is a graduate of New England Conservatory of Music, with B.A. and M.A. degrees in music composition. He received his doctorate in music composition from Boston University, where he studied with Bernard Rands, Samuel Headrick, and Nicholas Maw. Mr. List has also studied privately with Richard Danielpour.
Mr. List has received numerous commissions and performances from professional music ensembles and solo artists in the United States and Europe. These include The Boston Classical Orchestra (commission and recording of Concerto Cello and Orchestra “Earth Song” 2009) Zodiac Trio, Alea III, The Esterhazy Quartet, Interensemble (Padova Italy), The Kalistos Chamber Orchestra, North-South Consonance, The Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra, Duo Diorama, Winston Choi (pianist), Emmanuel Feldman (cellist) soprano Lisa Saffer. The Concordia String Trio and Sta-Mane Clarinet Quartet.
He was the first prizewinner of the Renegade Ensemble’s composition competition, The Portland Chamber Music Festival Composition Competition and a finalist in the Alea III International Composition Competition. In 2008 he was a finalist in the Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship. In 2005 the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, with Eva Szekely, violin soloist, recorded Mr. List’s Violin Concerto; and the CD was subsequently released on the Albany label. MONTAGE Music Society commissioned and recorded his new work Noa Noa, A Gauguin Tableau, which was released on MSR Classics.
Mr. List has been fortunate to enjoy a number of residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, The Atlantic Center for the Arts, The Aspen Music Festival, La Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris and The Visby Centre for Composers in Sweden. In 2001 he was awarded a distinguished artist-in-residence grant, sponsored by Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, and the city of Amsterdam. During his eight-month residency in Amsterdam he presented four concerts of his music and that of other American composers. He was also invited to present a concert at the American Embassy in The Hague, and gave lectures and workshops at major music conservatories in the area. He is the first American and the first composer to be awarded this prestigious residency.
MOHAMMED FAIROUZ, composer www.mohammedfairouz.com
The music of Mohammed Fairouz straddles multiple worlds from the Sanskrit invocations of the Bagavad Gita, to the Latin Mass and Arabic music, minimalism, indie rock, romantic tonality, jazz, thorny modernism, musical theater, the avant-garde and other idioms. By his early teens, Fairouz had traveled across five continents and avidly immersed himself in the musical life of his surroundings, learning to play the didgeridoo in Australia, the oud in Lebanon and attending seminars at the Acadmie Nationale de la Musique in Paris. His early musical training was in composition and piano with teachers at the Royal Academy of Music and Royal College of Music in London. Throughout his childhood and teens, Fairouz had developed and nurtured a passion for improvisation which culminated in a series of improvisatory concerts that he delivered throughout the Middle East during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Among his formative musical experiences that had a lasting effect on him, one of the most pronounced was a series of master classes with Sir Thomas Allen which impacted Fairouz’s outlook on the voice and vocal music. He later presented Allen with his setting of a poem by Oscar Wilde. That was the first song in Fairouz’s love affair with the voice that has, to date, produced an opera, eight song cycles and tens of art songs. Fairouz’s substantial body of work in every genre including opera, song cycles for Soprano, Mezzo Soprano, Tenor and Baritone; symphonic and choral works, piano music and electronic music in addition to chamber music for winds, percussion, strings and numerous other instrumental and vocal combinations, has been extensively performed throughout the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Australia in venues such as New York’s Carnegie Hall, Boston’s Symphony Hall and the New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall. His music has been featured at the Bienalle di Venezia, the Kennedy Center's Festival of Contemporary Music, the New England Conservatory's Composers’s Series, Massachusetts College of Art and Design’s Eventsworks Festival, the Boston Conservatory’s New Music Week and other festivals. Among the performers of his work are the Borromeo String Quartet who have championed his Lamentation and Satire and are recording it for the GM label, the Mimesis Ensemble, the Ibis Camerata, the Second Instrumental Unit, Counter)induction, the New England Conservatory Contemporary Ensemble, Freisinger Chamber Orchestra, the conductors Gunther Schuller, John Page, David Hoose, Malcolm Peyton, Yoichi Udagawa and others. His music is the subject of multiple essays including David Gutkin’s Putting on Airs and Joan Pamies’probing exploration of the Bonsai Journal and Airs in his portrait of outstanding young composers currently working in America which is published in the prominent Spanish musical journal Sonograma.
Fairouz’s song cycle, Bonsai Journal is a feature piece on the Ibis Camerata’s CD "Boston Diary" Albany Records. His song cycles and art songs have been performed hundreds of times, being featured on recital programs across the United States. As a cultural ambassador, Fairouz is currently working with Musicians for Harmony to fulfill a commission for a large chamber work promoting dialogue between Arabic and Jewish musical traditions and cultural trends. A similar project, being conceptualized by Joshua Jacobson and the Zamir Chorale of Boston involves the commission of a large scale oratorio setting the poetry of modern Arab poets such as Mahmoud Darwish and Fadwa Tuqan with Yehuda Amichai and other Israeli counterparts as well as drawing on the sacred and secular texts of the Jewish, Christian and Islamic Middle East to weave together a narrative drama that seeks to illuminate the counterpoint between the poetics, musics, languages and peoples in the region.
Fairouz has extensively set the works of Arab poets including Mahmoud Darwish in his Tahwidah, written to fulfill a commission from Alwan for the Arts, a Manhattan-based Arab arts organization as well as lines from the Hebrew Kaddish in his Elegy for David Diamond. Among the awards that Fairouz has received for his work are the Tourjee alumni award, the Malcolm Morse Memorial Award, the NEC Honors Award, the New England Conservatory Contemporary Ensemble Prize and awards from the Merit Funds of the New England and Boston Conservatories. In 2008, he was honored with a national citation from the embassy of the United Arab Emirates in Washington D.C. for outstanding achievement in artistry and scholarship.
As an educator, Fairouz has been invited to lecture across the country at institutions such as Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia, University of Western Michigan and Boston Conservatory’s Liberal Arts Department speaking on topics that range from post-colonial critical theory to Mahler's Sixth Symphony to Al-Kindi and the Arab golden’s contribution to European music of the renaissance. Fairouz’s teachers in composition have included John Heiss, Malcolm Peyton, Gunther Schuller and Halim El-Dabh. Recordings on the Albany and GM labels.
ESTERHAZY QUARTET http://music.missouri.edu/ensembles/esterhazy.html
Esterhazy Quartet Eva Szekely and Susan Jensen, violinists Leslie Perna, violist and Darry Dolezal, cellist
Throughout its distinguished career the Esterhazy Quartet has delighted audiences on three continents, including performances at the Haydn Festspiele in Austria, the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada and the Beethoven Society in Santiago de Chile. Critics have praised the Esterhazy Quartet for its intelligence, refinement, and warmth of sound, described as a “velvety palette of tonal colors” (La Nacion, Buenos Aires). The Esterhazy Quartet has appeared at several important music festivals in the United States and abroad, including the Western Arts Festival, the Texas Music Festival, the Classical Music Seminar in Eisenstadt, Austria, and the International Chamber Music Festival of Pará in Belém, Brazil. National Public Radio has frequently featured the Esterhazy Quartet on its broadcasts, including the highly acclaimed “Hear America First” and “Quartessence” series. During the Quartet’s last tour to the Boston area they performed live on WGBH’s “Classical Performances.” Since its inception more than three decades ago the Esterhazy Quartet has served as Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Missouri-Columbia. As a musical ambassador for the University, the Quartet performs concerts around the world and seeks to promote the advancement of the string quartet art form through master classes and workshops with young performers, and collaborations with respected modern composers.
The Esterhazy Quartet is well-respected for its discerning interpretations of the standard classical string quartet repertoire: “The Esterhazy Quartet interpreted the Haydn works in the sensitive and warm manner in which the composer would have wished his music to be heard.” Daily Journal, Caracas “Their Mozart has delicacy, equilibrium, control and an attractive play of sonorities….In Beethoven’s Opus 135 [the Esterhazy Quartet] excelled in its euphony, delicateness and emotional power.” El Mercurio, Santiago de Chile The Esterhazy Quartet is also widely recognized for its commitment to performing and promoting the music of our time, especially modern music of the Americas. The Quartet maintains one of the largest collections of Latin American string quartets in the United States, and is responsible for the commission and world premiere of several new American string quartets.
The Esterhazy Quartet recently completed two world premiere recordings: Chamber Concerto for English Horn and String Quartet by Houston composer Michael Horvit, soon to be released on Albany Records, and the sixth string quartet of New York composer James Willey for CRI. Previous recordings by the Esterhazy Quartet, released on the Spectrum and CRI labels, have garnered much critical acclaim, such as this review in France’s Repertoire des disque compacts: “The music is full of rhythmic inventiveness, humor and sophistication. The performers are involved and sensitive. A memorable recording.”
GEORGE SEBASTIAN LOPEZ, pianist
George Sebastian Lopez, pianist, has been featured across the globe as recitalist, soloist with orchestra, and collaborator. Mr. Lopez received critical acclaim for his interpretation of Bach’s Goldberg Variations at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and performed the complete cycle of Beethoven Piano Concertos in his last two concert seasons. He was invited by The International Holland Music Sessions, now one of the top performing arenas for up-and-coming musicians in Europe, to go on a world tour where he performed in Paris, London, Cologne, New York’s Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, and in Los Angeles where he was hailed by the Los Angeles Times for his “. . . musical perspective, continuity, and kaleidoscopic colors.” He also performed Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue to a capacity crowd with the NH Music Festival Orchestra. Last June he gave recitals in Switzerland and Holland and in October 2008 played Chopin’s First Piano Concerto. He premiered a piano concerto written for him by Romeo Melloni, an Italian composer from Milan, which he recorded with the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra in Prague with Maestro Paul Polivnick. He will be going on a West Coast tour in March 2011, performing solo and chamber music concerts as well as masterclasses in Seattle and Portland. Mr. Lopez performed at Brown University with renowned American composer David Amram for a weeklong residency and his chamber music collaborations have included the Emerson String Quartet, the Rainier Quartet, the Incanto Ensemble of Germany, and the Aurea Ensemble of Providence, along with members of some of the top orchestras in the country with whom he plays regularly at the New Hampshire Music Festival. He was invited by the Montclaire String Quartet to open their concert season with Brahms Piano Quintet in F Minor at the Clay Center for the Arts in Charleston, West Virginia, where he is a frequent guest artist. He has performed in recital with cellist Emmanuel Feldman in Boston’s Jordan Hall, giving a world premiere performance of Jan Swafford’s In Time of War for cello and piano. he is a founding member of the newly-formed Omega Trio with Mr. Feldman and violinist Eva Gruesser.
Mr. Lopez has been an advocate for music education for many years and is a popular lecturer on the arts in New England. He has given lectures for the European Piano Teachers Association in Amsterdam. He maintains active studios in New Hampshire at Phillips Exeter Academy and Bowdoin College, having graduated several students to major conservatories in the U.S. including Juilliard Prep, Oberlin College, Manhattan School of Music, Mannes College, and the University of Southern California.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Belize to Mayan parents, George Lopez started playing the piano at the fairly late age of 11. Upon returning to the U.S., he won his first orchestral competition at 14 in Texas and two years later was awarded a full scholarship to The Hartt School of Music. After graduating with honors, he went to Paris on a Franco- American study grant and was given a unanimous First Prize for the Diplôme supérieur. He completed his Masters Degree cum laude in Amsterdam.
In addition to the New Hampshire Symphony, Mr. Lopez has appeared with the Granite State Symphony Orchestra, the Midcoast Symphony Orchestra of Maine, the Fort Smith Symphony in Arkansas, and has performed Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland. He is currently Artist-in-Residence at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, ME, where he lives with his wife and two children.
LUNATICS AT LARGE www.lunaticsensemble.com
Called “young, energetic and finely polished” by Allan Kozinn of the New York Times, Lunatics at Large is a large mixed ensemble combining voice, strings, winds and piano, and was formed in 2007 to explore the timbral possibilities of chamber music repertoire from the beginning of the 20th century until now. In thematic concerts, the group juxtaposes standard repertoire and chamber pieces from established composers of the 20th century with more recent works. Lunatics at Large thus encourages listeners to hear connections between works and appreciate very recent compositions in the perspective of the evolution of classical music over the last 110 years. Lunatics at Large is committed to working closely with living composers and to commissioning new pieces for its expanded Pierrot instrumentation. The group also embraces collaborative projects with artists from other art forms and is organizing several interdisciplinary performances involving poets, living composers and visual artists in upcoming seasons. Lunatics at Large group members include Katharine Dain soprano, Jonathan Engle flute, Ben Ringer clarinet, Arthur Moeller violin, Jen Herman viola, Andrea Lee cello and Evi Jundt piano.
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