2022-2023 Season

Concert One

Music From Leipzig: Works by Bach and Schumann

Music by Bach and Schumann

Saturday, October 15 2022, 7:30 pm
Sunday, October 16 2022, 3:00 pm

THE NISENE ENSEMBLE:
Kristin Garbeff, Concert Director and Cello
Cynthia Baehr-Williams, Violin
Ben Bregman, Viola
Kumi Uyeda, Piano

Leipzig, Germany has been the center for Western art music for over 800 years! This concert features music composed in Leipzig by two composers who spent much of their life there, Johann Sebastian Bach and Robert Schumann. The program opens with Bach’s Goldberg Variations beautifully arranged for string trio, followed by Bach’s later solo keyboard work, Partita No. 1 in B-flat Major, BWV 825. Robert Schumann’s intimate Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 47, the last work written in 1842, his “Year of Chamber Music,” closes the program.

Concert Two

Women’s Words and Music

Music by Chris Pratorius-Gomez, Clara Schumann, Rebecca Clarke, Margaret Bonds, Caroline Shaw, and William Bolcom

Saturday, October 22 2022, 7:30 pm
Sunday, October 23 2022, 3:00 pm

Emily Sinclair, Concert Director and Soprano
Polly Malan, Viola
Josiah Stocker, Piano

This concert highlights women composers and poets of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, using the deeply resonant and rare combination of soprano, viola, and piano. The first half premieres a new piece by Chris Pratorius-Gomez based on a text by Mary Oliver, followed by several of Clara Schumann’s lieder and Rebecca Clarke’s Viola Sonata. The second half begins with a recently discovered cycle by Margaret Bonds. it also features Caroline Shaw’s beautiful In manus tuas for solo viola and concludes with William Bolcom’s epic work exploring life and death using the poetry of Maya Angelou, Emily Dickinson, and Jane Kenyon.

Concert Three

The Place Where You Never Grow Old

Music by Johannes Brahms, Camille Saint-Saëns, Jean Françaix and Rebecca Clarke

Saturday, December 3 2022, 7:30 pm
Sunday, December 4 2022, 3:00 pm

Bruce Foster, Concert Director and Clarinet
Chad Kaltinger, Viola
Miles Graber, Piano

The music that composers write later in life is often the most profoundly beautiful and heartfelt of all. Brahms had effectively retired from composing when he went on a late
binge of compositions for the clarinet and viola inspired by the artistry of a dear friend. Saint-Saëns, surrounded by a musical world of modernism, pens a very Proustian look back at a musical style from his youth. Françaix was 80 when he wrote his rollicking and virtuosic trio bringing up the adage “Music is the place where we never grow old.” The Clarke is just an astonishing piece for clarinet and viola, and we couldn’t resist!

Concert Four

Slavic Glory

Music by Frédéric Chopin, Efrem Zimbalist, Fritz Kreisler, and Antonín Dvořák

Saturday, January 14 2023, 7:30 pm
Sunday, January 15 2023, 3:00 pm

Roy Malan, Concert Director and Violin
Polly Malan, Viola
Christine Lee, Cello
James Winn, Piano

This concert celebrates a few of the many great Slavic composers. The program starts with Ballade No. 2 for solo piano by Chopin, one of the best-known Polish composers. This is followed by a sonata for violin and piano composed by the Russian violinist and composer Efrem Zimbalist. Next is a Slavonic Fantasie by Fritz Kreisler based on themes by the beloved Czech composer Antonín Dvořák. The program concludes with one of Dvořák’s piano quartets. This is a concert not to be missed!

Concert Five

AMERICANA: A Century of Song

Please join us for an evening of classical American song featuring underrepresented composers, living composers and all-time favorites.

Saturday, March 4 2023, 7:30 pm
Sunday, March 5 2023, 3:00 pm

Solmaaz Adeli, concert director and mezzo-soprano
Danielle Naler, piano
Micah Naler, violin

• American Lullaby by Gladys Rich (1893 – 1972)
• Ashokan Farewell by Jay Ungar (b. 1946)
• Shenandoah, American, 19th C.
• Bethena – A Concert Waltz by Scott Joplin (1868 – 1917)
• The Circus Band by Charles Ives (1874 – 1954)
• Spring and Fall by Benjamin Dorfan
• Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child, American, 19th C.
• Theme from New World Symphony by Antonín Dvořák (1841 – 1904)

Intermission

• Fly Me to the Moon by Bart Howard (1915 – 2004)
• Live Without a Thought of Dying by Diana Rowan (b. 1971)
• Credo by Juhi Bansal (b. 1983)
• Adon Olam by Joshua Fishbein (b. 1984)
• Theme from “American Symphony” by Antonín Dvořák (1841 – 1904)
• Piccola Serenata by Leonard Bernstein (1918 – 1990)
• Que Sera, Sera by Jay Livingston (1915 – 2001) music, and Ray Evans (1915 – 2007) lyrics

Concert Six