Pleasantville Chamber Music Society

Sunday, November 16, 2014  •  3:00 pm
Pleasantville Presbyterian Church
400 Bedford Road, Pleasantville, NY 10570

Admission is Free

Curtis Macomber, Violin
Calvin Wiersma, Violin
John Dexter, Viola
Christopher Finckel, Cello

Acclaimed as one of America's leading ensembles, the Manhattan String Quartet is celebrating its 41st season. Hailed by the Boston Globe as “a national treasure,” the Quartet has appeared throughout the United States, Europe, Japan, Canada, Mexico and South America. 

Well known for their performances of 20th-century classics, the Quartet has established an international reputation as the pre-eminent interpreter of the string quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich. In 2005, they presented the cycle to sold-out houses in Nagoya and Tokyo, Japan. The ensemble’s transversal of the Shostakovich cycle was the only chamber music recording to make TIME’s “Best of 1991” classical music list.

The Quartet appears regularly in the musical capitals of Europe including Paris, Prague, Budapest, Leipzig and Vienna. Since 1981, the Quartet has hosted annual teaching and performing conferences in the United States and Europe for young professional quartets.

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Their program will include:

String Quartet Op. 74 #3 in G minor by Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
This quartet, written in 1793, was composed in Vienna after Haydn's  return from London and is dedicated to his patron Count Anton Georg Apponyi.

Lyric Suite by Alban Berg (1885-1935)
Berg’s Lyric Suite was also composed in Vienna, but what a different world it was after WWI. Written in 1926, Berg’s suite in six movements is based on Schoenberg’s 12-tone technique, but it nonetheless maintains many of the lyric qualities of his later Violin Concerto, composed in 1935.

String Quartet Op. 83 in E minor by Edward Elgar (1857-1934)
Composed in England toward the end of WWI in 1918--only eight years earlier than Berg’s Lyric Suite--Elgar’s quartet looks back at the romantic sounds of the previous century. After its premier in 1919, The Manchester Guardian wrote, "This quartet, with its tremendous climaxes, curious refinements of dance-rhythms, and its perfect symmetry, and the quintet, more lyrical and passionate, are as perfect examples of chamber music as the great oratorios were of their type.”.

Sunday, January 25, 2015  •  3:00 p.m.
Pleasantville Presbyterian Church
400 Bedford Road, Pleasantville, NY 10570

Admission is Free

Sunday, January 25, 2015  •  3:00 p.m.

Rachel Evans, Violin and Guest Director
Jason Priset, Theorbo + Baroque Guitar
Benjamin Wolff, Cello
Hsuan-Wen Chen, Harpsichord
Christine Antenbring, Guest Mezzo Soprano 

Rachel has described the program as Sprezzatura, an Italian word originating from Balassare Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier and defined by Castiglione as “a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it . . . an easy facility in accomplishing difficult actions which hides the conscious effort that went into them.”  The music they will present is influenced by the special balance of Italian exuberance and beauty in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The program will include solo and duo masterpieces by Cima, Piccinini, Domenico Gabrielli, J.S. Bach, Froberger, Handel, Telemann, Sanz, and Corelli.

Rachel Evans, (BM, MM Juilliard), has performed across the globe with ensembles whose repertoire spans medieval to contemporary. This being her fourth season with BOOM, she plays in many orchestras ensembles in the New York area. She was a principal player and recitalist at the Carmel Bach Festival for many years and has appeared in ensembles at the Boston, Berkeley, and Utrecht Early Music Festivals, the Victoria Festival in Australia, and the Charles Ives and Leopold Mozart Festivals in Germany. She gives private and group lessons in Beacon, Garrison, Cold Spring, and Croton.

Jason Priset is an active soloist and chamber player on a variety of instruments including modern and early guitars, lute, and theorbo. Dr. Priset has performed and toured with the Big Apple Baroque,  Brandywine Baroque, Early Music New York, New York Continuo Collective, Piffaro: The Rennaissance Band,the Riverside Symphony, the Soul’s Delight, and the Stony Brook Baroque Players.

Benjamin Wolff performs on the modern and baroque cello.  In addition to his performing and teaching career, he is the creator of a concert program which introduces audiences to the scientist Galileo’s elegant problem-solving methodology, and the 17th century Italian music which inspired his breakthrough insight.

Hsuan-Wen Chen, pianist and harpsichordist, received her Bachelor of Music degree and Master of Music degree in Piano from the Cleveland Institute of Music. She also holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in harpsichord performance from Stony Brook University. Ms. Chen has been the Assistant Director for the International Baroque Institute at Longy, Baroque Academy at Amherst Early Music Festival, Baroque Opera Workshop at Queens College, and is currently serving on faculty at Montclair State University. She is the artistic director of The Soul’s Delight, a period instrument chamber ensemble that explores music of the 17th  and 18th century.

Christine Antenbring has performed in the United States, Canada, and Europe at festivals and series including the New York Festival of Song, the Caramoor Festival, Bowdoin Summer Music Festival and the Ravinia Festival.  A champion of Icelandic Art Song, she recently performed an all Icelandic program in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Sunday, February 15, 2015 • 3:00 p.m.
Pleasantville Presbyterian Church
400 Bedford Road, Pleasantville, NY 10570

Admission is Free

Fiona Simon, Violin
Sebu Sinirian, Violin
Lisa Suslowicz, Viola
David Bakamjian, Cello

The Simon String Quartet is a special group of four seasoned performers whose passion for chamber music infuses their collaboration with energy and dynamism. Led by Fiona Simon, a member of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, its members each combine careers in chamber music and orchestras, and as soloists and teachers

Although currently based in New York, where they individually perform with some of the most distinguished ensembles in the area, their performing careers have taken them to many different parts of the world. 

The Simon Quartet has been the ensemble-in-residence at the Summer String-In at Monmouth University in New Jersey for the past seven years and in prior years at the Summer Conference for String Education and Chamber Music at Rowan College in New Jersey.

Sunday, March 29, 2015  •  3:00 p.m.
Pleasantville Presbyterian Church
400 Bedford Road, Pleasantville, NY 10570

Admission is Free

Sunday, March 29, 2015  •  3:00 p.m.

Pavel Vinnitsky, Clarinet

Stephen Ballou, Cello
Linda Hall, Piano

Pavel Vinnitsky is leading a versatile performing career as a soloist, chamber and orchestral musician. He is  currently an associate clarinetist with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in New York City and  appears regularly as a guest clarinetist with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony and the Orchestra of St. Luke's. In addition, Mr. Vinnitsky holds positions of principal clarinet with the Stamford Symphony Orchestra in Connecticut. In demand as chamber musician, Pavel is a member of ClariAnna Duo and appears frequently with the Wind Soloists of New York, the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble and  the International Contemporary Ensemble. Mr. Vinnitsky is on the clarinet faculty at NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.

Cellist Stephen Ballou has been working as an Associate with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra since 1987. As an active free-lance musician, he has performed extensively in chamber music and orchestral ensembles, as well as a soloist. For twenty-one summers, he performed solo recitals and taught master classes for American String Teachers Association and NJ String Education conferences. Before settling in New York, Steve lived in Geneva, Switzerland, where he studied with Pierre Fournier on a grant award from the Beebe Fund for Musicians and subsequently held a position with Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. A graduate of Hampshire College, he studied earlier at the Curtis Institute and New England Conservatory. His concerts, along with widely varied repertoire, have included recitals encompassing the complete cello/piano works of Beethoven and a program traversing the Six Suites of Bach.