24. French Ingenuity
| 1. | Introduction | 00:00:46 |
| 2. | Franck: Sonata in A major for Violin and Piano | 00:28:42 |
| 3. | Saint-Saëns: Le carnaval des animaux for Ensemble | 00:29:01 |
| 4. | Closing | 00:00:30 |
Program
Franck Sonata in A major for Violin and Piano
Benjamin Beilman, violin; Alessio Bax, piano
Saint-Saëns Le carnaval des animaux for Ensemble
Michael Stephen Brown, piano; Lucille Chung, piano; Tara Helen O'Connor, flute; Jose Franch-Ballester, clarinet; Daniel Ching, William Fedkenheuer, violin; John Largess, viola; Joshua Gindele, cello; Scott Pingel, double bass; Ayano Kataoka, Ian Rosenbaum, percussion
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Benjamin Beilman
Alessio Bax
Michael Stephen Brown
Tara Helen O'Connor
Jose Franch-Ballester
Ian Rosenbaum
Benjamin Beilman’s 2025–26 season highlights include appearances with the Minnesota Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic, Antwerp Symphony, Solistes Européens Luxembourg, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, and Nashville Symphony. He will also curate, stage, and lead two chamber music programs at Sun Valley Music Festival, and continue his ongoing recital partnership with pianist Steven Osborne. In the summer, he embarks on a month-long tour of Australasia, including appearances with the Sydney Symphony, Tasmanian Symphony, West Australian Symphony, and Auckland Philharmonia. He studied at the Curtis Institute of Music with Ida Kavafian and Pamela Frank, and with Christian Tetzlaff at the Kronberg Academy. He has received many prestigious accolades including a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and a London Music Masters Award. He has also recorded works by Stravinsky, Janácek, and Schubert for Warner Classics, and is an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program. Beilman performs with the ex-Balakovic F. X. Tourte bow (c. 1820), and plays the “Ysaÿe” Guarneri del Gesù from 1740, generously on loan from the Nippon Music Foundation.
Alessio Bax won first prize at both the Leeds and Hamamatsu International Piano Competitions, and has appeared with nearly 200 orchestras, including the New York, London, and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras; the Boston, Baltimore, Dallas, Cincinnati, Seattle, Sydney, BBC Scottish, and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestras; the Cleveland and Minnesota Orchestras; and the Tokyo and NHK Symphonies in Japan. He is the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award, and the Lincoln Center Award for Emerging Artists. At age 14, Bax graduated with top honors from the conservatory of Bari, Italy. He is a former member of CMS’s Bowers Program and is on the faculty at New England Conservatory. For ten years, Bax has been Artistic Director of the Incontri in Terra di Siena Festival, and is the Artistic Director of the London Festival of Chamber Music at Smith Square Hall in London. He also serves as Co-Artistic Director of the Joaquín Achúcarro Foundation for emerging pianists.
Michael Stephen Brown is a composer and pianist hailed by the New York Times as “one of the leading figures in the current renaissance of performer-composers.” He has appeared as soloist with the Seattle Symphony, American Symphony Orchestra, The Orchestra Now, Phoenix Symphony, and Poland’s NFM Leopoldinum, and performs at major festivals worldwide. The recipient of the 2026 Andrew Wolf Award, Lincoln Center’s Emerging Artist Award, and an Avery Fisher Career Grant, he was recently in residence at MacDowell and Yaddo. Recent highlights include a recital at Alice Tully Hall with CMS and collaborations with longtime artistic partner Nicholas Canellakis, as well as Pinchas Zukerman, Kristin Lee, and Arnaud Sussmann. His first album devoted entirely to his own music, Twelve Blocks, was released in 2026 to critical acclaim. Current projects include The Carnival of Endangered Wonders and the score for Angeline Gragasin’s film Look But Don’t Touch. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, Brown lives in New York City with his two 19th-century Steinways, Octavia and Daria.
Tara Helen O’Connor, recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a two-time Grammy nominee, was the first wind player to participate in CMS’s Bowers Program. A regular performer at major music festivals around the country, she is also the Co-Artistic Director of the Music from Angel Fire Festival in New Mexico, the Artistic Director of the Essex Winter Series, a member of the woodwind quintet Windscape, and a founding member of the Naumburg Award–winning New Millennium Ensemble. She has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, EMI Classics, Koch International, CMS Studio Recordings, and Bridge Records, and can be heard on numerous film and television soundtracks. She has premiered hundreds of new works and has collaborated with the Orion, St. Lawrence, and Emerson String Quartets. A Wm. S. Haynes flute artist, O’Connor is on faculty at Yale School of Music. Additionally, she teaches at Bard College and the Manhattan School of Music.
Clarinetist Jose Franch-Ballester is a captivating performer of “poetic eloquence” (The New York Sun) and “technical wizardry” (The New York Times). He plays regularly at the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, the Saratoga Chamber Music Festival, the Skaneateles Festival, Camerata Pacifica, and Music from Angel Fire. He has also appeared at the Usedomer Musikfestival in Germany, the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, the Cartagena Festival Internacional de Música in Colombia, and the Young Concert Artists Festival in Tokyo, Japan. As a soloist, he has appeared with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Santa Barbara Orchestra, and numerous Spanish orchestras. Winner of the 2004 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, he was presented in debut recitals in New York and in Washington, DC at the Kennedy Center. In 2008, he won a coveted Avery Fisher Career Grant. He was awarded the Cannes Midem Prize, which aims to introduce artists to the classical recording industry. With the Chamber Music Society, he has recorded Bartók’s Contrasts on the Deutsche Grammophon label. Born in Moncofa, Spain into a family of clarinetists and Zarzuela singers, Mr. Franch-Ballester graduated from the Joaquin Rodrigo Music Conservatory. He earned a bachelor’s degree from The Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Donald Montanaro and Pamela Frank. He is a former member of CMS’s Bowers Program.
Praised for his “spectacular performances” (Wall Street Journal), and his “unfailing virtuosity” (Chicago Tribune), percussionist Ian Rosenbaum has developed a musical breadth far beyond his years. As a passionate advocate for contemporary music, Mr. Rosenbaum has premiered dozens of new chamber and solo works, and his recordings have been nominated for eight Grammy awards. In 2012, Mr. Rosenbaum joined the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two) as only the second percussionist selected in the program’s history. Mr. Rosenbaum is a founding member of Sandbox Percussion, and is on faculty at the Peabody Institute, the Mannes School of Music, and the University of Missouri-Kansas City.