Late 18th Century Classics
| 1. | Introduction | 00:00:53 |
| 2. | Mozart: Quartet for Flute and Strings in G major, K. 285a | 00:12:25 |
| 3. | Haydn: Quartet in B-flat major for Strings, Hob. III:78, Op. 76, No. 4, "Sunrise" | 00:22:24 |
| 4. | Mozart: Selections from Don Giovanni for Two Oboes, Two Clarinets, Two Bassoons, and Two Horns | 00:22:46 |
| 5. | Closing | 00:00:30 |
Written during a time of immense change in Mozart’s life following his departure from the Salzburg court and the loss of his mother, his Quartet for Flute and Strings was composed as a commission for amateur flutist, Ferdinand de Jean, and combines his wit, improvisation methods of the time, and the Classical-era structure. Mozart continued to hone his work with wind instruments and by 1787, found himself in Prague surrounded with immense talent. While his original Don Giovanni opera did feature a large wind section, this transcription by oboist Johann Georg Triebensee published three years after the work’s premiere, brings the winds to the forefront. Composed toward the later years of the 18th century and of Haydn’s own life, his “Sunrise” quartet, named for the arching opening theme, sees a composer turning away from large symphonic works and wind instrumentation to create one of his most limpid and sensual melodic inventions.
PROGRAM
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) |
Selections from Don Giovanni for Two Oboes, Two Clarinets, Two Bassoons, and Two Horns (1787) James Austin Smith, Stephen Taylor, oboe; Romie de Guise-Langlois, Tommaso Lonquich, clarinet; Marc Goldberg, Peter Kolkay, bassoon; David Jolley, Eric Reed, horn |
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) |
Quartet for Flute and Strings in G major, K. 285a (1777–78) Ransom Wilson, flute; Stella Chen, violin; Matthew Lipman, viola; Nicholas Canellakis, cello |
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Franz Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) |
Quartet in B-flat major for Strings, Hob. III:78, Op. 76, No. 4, "Sunrise" (1797) Schumann Quartet (Erik Schumann, Ken Schumann, violin; Liisa Randalu, viola; Mark Schumann, cello) |
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Ransom Wilson
Stella Chen
Matthew Lipman
Nicholas Canellakis
The Schumann Quartett
James Austin Smith
Stephen Taylor
Romie de Guise-Langlois
Tommaso Lonquich
Marc Goldberg
Peter Kolkay
Eric Reed
Flutist and conductor Ransom Wilson has performed in concert with major orchestras the world over. As a flutist, he recently launched an ongoing series of solo recordings on the Nimbus label in the UK. As a conductor, he is starting his fourth season as music director of the Redlands Symphony in Southern California, and he is the Director of Orchestral Programs at Idyllwild Arts. He has led opera performances at the New York City Opera, and was for ten years an assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera. He has been a guest conductor of the London, Houston, KBS, Kraków, Denver, New Jersey, Hartford, and Berkeley symphonies; the Orchestra of St. Luke's; the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra; the Hallé Orchestra; and the chamber orchestras of St. Paul and Los Angeles. He has also appeared with the Glimmerglass Opera, Minnesota Opera, and the Opera of La Quincena Musical in Spain. As an educator, he regularly leads master classes at the Paris Conservatory, The Juilliard School, Moscow Conservatory, and Cambridge University. A graduate of The Juilliard School, he was an Atlantique Foundation scholar in Paris, where he studied privately with Jean-Pierre Rampal. His recording career, which includes three Grammy Award nominations, began in 1973 with Jean-Pierre Rampal and I Solisti Veneti. Since then he has recorded over 35 albums as flutist and/or conductor. Wilson is a professor at the Yale University School of Music, and has performed with the Chamber Music Society since 1991. He plays exclusively on a hand-made Haynes flute.
Praised for her “silken grace” and “brilliant command” (The Strad), American violinist Stella Chen captured international attention as the winner of the 2019 Queen Elisabeth International Violin Competition, followed by the 2020 Avery Fisher Career Grant. Her debut album, Stella x Schubert, was released in 2023 on Apple Music’s Platoon label to critical acclaim, garnering her the title of Young Artist of the Year at the Gramophone Awards. Stella has performed across North America, Europe, and Asia, appearing as soloist with orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Brussels Philharmonic, and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. A recently appointed faculty member of the Juilliard School, she holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and a doctorate from Juilliard, and is an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program. Chen performs on the 1720 “General Kyd” Stradivarius, generously loaned by Dr. Ryuji Ueno and Rare Violins In Consortium, Artists and Benefactors Collaborative.
American violist Matthew Lipman, recognized by the New York Times for his “rich tone and elegant phrasing,” has made recent appearances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, American Symphony Orchestra, Munich Symphony Orchestra, and Minnesota Orchestra; and at Carnegie Hall, Vienna Musikverein, Berlin Philharmonie, and the Zürich Tonhalle. He made his recording debut with Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and has since recorded on Sony and Deutsche Grammophon. Lipman has premiered works by Clarice Assad, Andreia Pinto Correia, Joel Thompson, and John Williams, and made his film debut in A. Rimbaud, playing the role of Paul Verlaine. He is an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program and the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant. Lipman is on faculty at Stony Brook University and is a visiting professor at Juilliard.
Nicholas Canellakis has become one of the most sought-after and innovative cellists of his generation, praised in the New Yorker as a “superb young soloist.” Recent highlights include solo debuts with the Virginia, Albany, Bangor, and Delaware symphony orchestras; concerto appearances with the Erie Philharmonic, the New Haven Symphony, and the American Symphony Orchestra; Europe and Asia tours with CMS; and recitals throughout the US with his longtime duo collaborator, pianist-composer Michael Stephen Brown. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, he is a regular guest artist at many of the world’s leading music festivals. Canellakis is the Artistic Director of Chamber Music Sedona in Arizona and is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music (where he was recently appointed to the cello faculty) and New England Conservatory.
The Schumann Quartett has been acclaimed as “personal and profound” (BBC Music Magazine) and “one of the most exciting string quartets of the present day” (Fono Forum). Highlights of the 2026–2027 season include appearances in renowned venues such as Wigmore Hall London, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Musikverein Vienna, Bozar Brussels, and the Laeiszhalle Hamburg. The quartet will also perform at the Tsinandali Festival with Lisa Batiashvili, the Cartagena Music Festival in Colombia, and the Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival in Warsaw. Their US tour in fall 2026 includes performances with CMS and at Stude Concert Hall in Houston, Texas, among others. Upcoming collaborators include artists such as Andreas Ottensamer, Kit Armstrong, Anna-Lucia Richter, Sabine Meyer, Katharina Konradi, Sharon Kam, and Alexey Stadler.
The quartet’s third album, Intermezzo (2018), featuring works by Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, and Aribert Reimann—and recorded in collaboration with soprano Anna-Lucia Richter—was praised nationally and internationally, and received the 2019 Opus Klassik Award in the category of Chamber Music Recording. In 2020, the ensemble expanded its discography with Fragment, a powerful exploration of the work of one of the great masters of the string quartet: Franz Schubert. To mark the 100th anniversary of radio broadcasting, the quartet undertook a unique project: in autumn 2023, they released an album entirely dedicated to the music of the year 1923. Created in collaboration with Bayerischer Rundfunk, the much-praised recording features works by Alban Berg, Leoš Janáček, Paul Hindemith, and Aaron Copland.
The three brothers, Mark, Erik and Ken Schumann, have been playing together since early childhood. They are joined by violist Matthew McDowell, who completes the quartet. The quartet’s formative influences include teachers such as Eberhard Feltz and the Alban Berg Quartet, and partners such as Menahem Pressler. From 2016 to 2019, the quartet took part in CMS’s Bowers Program.
Erik Schumann plays a violin by Domenico Montagnana, Venice, c. 1733, generously on loan from a private collection. Ken Schumann plays an Italian violin from the mid-18th century, kindly made available to him privately. Matthew McDowell’s viola was made for him by Frédéric Chaudière in 2025. Mark Schumann plays a cello by Giovanni and Francesco Grancino from 1680, generously loaned to him by Merito String Instruments Trust, Vienna.
Performer, curator, and on-stage host James Austin Smith “proves that an oboist can have an adventurous solo career” (The New Yorker). Smith appears at leading national and international chamber music festivals, as Co-Principal Oboe of the conductor-less Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and as an artist of the International Contemporary Ensemble. As Artistic and Executive Director of Tertulia Chamber Music, Smith creates intimate evenings of music, food, and drink in New York, San Francisco, and beyond. He serves as Artistic Advisor to Coast Live Music in the San Francisco Bay Area and mentors graduate-level musicians as a professor of oboe and chamber music at Stony Brook University. Smith’s April 2027 Carnegie Hall debut recital, Elemental, connects the oboe to ancient, global traditions of double reed playing, asserting its role in the human soundscape. A Fulbright scholar and alum of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect and CMS’s Bowers Program, he holds degrees in music and political science from Northwestern and Yale University.
Stephen Taylor is solo oboist with the New York Woodwind Quintet, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, the American Composers Orchestra, and the New England Bach Festival Orchestra, and is co-principal oboist of Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Among his more than 300 recordings are Bach arias with Kathleen Battle and Itzhak Perlman, and Elliott Carter’s Oboe Quartet, for which he received a Grammy nomination. He has performed and recorded many of Carter’s works, giving several world and US premieres. He was awarded a performer’s grant from the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University and has collaborated with the Vermeer, Shanghai, Orion, American, and Artis-Vienna String Quartets, among others. Taylor is on the faculties of the Manhattan, Juilliard and Yale schools of music. He plays rare James Caldwell model Lorée oboes, and spends as much time as possible with his old wooden boats in Maine.
Romie de Guise-Langlois has performed as soloist with the Houston Symphony, Ensemble Connect, the Burlington Chamber Orchestra, and the Guanajuato Symphony Orchestra, as well as at Festival Mozaic, Music@Menlo, and the Banff Center for the Arts. She was awarded first prize in the Houston Symphony Ima Hogg competition, the Yale University Woolsey Hall Competition, the McGill University Classical Concerto Competition, and the Canadian Music Competition. She has performed as principal clarinetist for the Orpheus and Saint Paul chamber orchestras, NOVUS NY, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the New Haven and Stamford symphony orchestras, and The Knights Chamber Orchestra. A native of Montreal, de Guise-Langlois holds degrees from McGill University and the Yale School of Music. She is a member of the Boston Chamber Music Society and an alum of Ensemble Connect and CMS’s Bowers Program. Associate Professor of Clarinet at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, she previously served on the faculty of Montclair State University.
Italian clarinetist Tommaso Lonquich enjoys a distinguished international career. He is Solo Clarinetist with Ensemble MidtVest, and as a chamber musician has partnered with Christian Tetzlaff, Pekka Kuusisto, Carolin Widmann, Ani and Ida Kavafian, Nicolas Dautricourt, David Shifrin, David Finckel, Nicolas Altstaedt, Wu Han, Gilbert Kalish, Anneleen Lenaerts, Yura Lee, Gilles Vonsattel, and the Danish and Vertavo string quartets. As a guest principal in several orchestras, he has collaborated with conductors including Zubin Mehta, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Fabio Luisi, and Leonard Slatkin. As a soloist, he has appeared with the Radio Television Orchestra of Slovenia, Orchestra Canova, and the Orchestra del Teatro Olimpico of Vicenza, among others. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, Lonquich is Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Schackenborg Musikfest, and can be heard on more than twenty albums.
A member of the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble and New York Woodwind Quintet, Marc Goldberg is principal bassoonist of the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, American Ballet Theater, the Saito Kinen Orchestra, and the NYC Opera. Previously the associate principal bassoonist of the New York Philharmonic, he has also been a frequent guest of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, touring with these ensembles across four continents and joining them on numerous recordings. A long-time season artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, he has been a guest of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, the Brentano Quartet, Music@Menlo, Musicians from Marlboro, and Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Band. Goldberg is on the faculty of the Juilliard School Pre-College Division, Mannes College, New England Conservatory, the Hartt School, and the Bard College Conservatory of Music.
Called “stunningly virtuosic” by the New York Times and “superb” by the Washington Post, Peter Kolkay is the only bassoonist to be awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant. In addition to performing with CMS, he regularly appears as a chamber musician at the Sarasota, Music@Menlo, and Bridgehampton summer festivals. Kolkay has commissioned and premiered solo works by Joan Tower, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Elliott Carter, and Tania León, among many others, and his most recent recordings include an album of music for bassoon and strings with the Calidore String Quartet, and the Christopher Rouse concerto with the Albany Symphony. He is Professor of Bassoon at the Vanderbilt University Blair School of Music and has given master classes throughout the US, Mexico, and South Korea. Kolkay is an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, and holds degrees from Lawrence University, the Eastman School of Music, and Yale University. He is a native of Naperville, Illinois.
Eric Reed is the horn player of the American Brass Quintet, and co-principal horn of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Also a member of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Eric is a former member of the Canadian Brass, Ensemble Connect, and the New Jersey, Oregon, New World, and Harrisburg symphonies. He serves on the faculty of the Juilliard School, New York University, and Mannes School of Music. Eric is a member of Brassology, a genre-bending brass octet formed in 2023, and Ensemble Échappé, a sinfonietta dedicated to music of the 21st century. Recent world premieres include chamber works by Tyshawn Sorey, Jennifer Higdon, John Zorn, Nina C. Young, Anthony Barfield, William Bolcom, David Biedenbender, Philip Lasser, Kenneth Fuchs and Timo Andres. Recent festival appearances include Aspen, Bridgehampton, Bard, Emerald City, North Shore, Crescent City, Cape Cod, Steamboat Springs, and Mostly Mozart. Eric resides in the Bronx with his wife, violinist Sarah Zun, and their sons Oliver and Elliot.