Haydn's Surprise
Haydn Quartet in B-flat major for Strings, Hob. III:78, Op. 76, No. 4, “Sunrise" (1797)
Haydn Arianna a Naxos, Cantata for Voice, String Quintet, and Harpsichord, Hob. XXVIb:2 (ARR. JAFFE) (1790)
Haydn Concerto in C major for Violin and Strings, Hob. VIIa:1 (1761–65)
Haydn Symphony in G major for Piano, Flute, Two Violins, Viola, and Cello, Hob. I:94, “Surprise” (1791)
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Stephanie Blythe
Michael Stephen Brown
Wu Han
Aaron Boyd
Daniel Phillips
Pinchas Zukerman
Paul Neubauer
David Finckel
Nina Bernat
Viano Quartet
Tara Helen O'Connor
A renowned opera singer and recitalist, mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe is one of the most highly respected and critically acclaimed artists of her generation. Her repertoire ranges from Handel to Wagner, German lieder to contemporary and classic American song. Ms. Blythe has performed on many of the world's great stages, such as Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, Paris National Opera and San Francisco, Chicago Lyric and Seattle Operas. Ms. Blythe was named Musical America's Vocalist of the Year in 2009, received an Opera News Award in 2007 and won the Tucker Award in 1999.
Ms. Blythe has sung in many of the renowned opera houses in the US and Europe including the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Seattle Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, and the Opera National de Paris. Her many roles include the title roles in Carmen, Samson et Dalila, Orfeo ed Euridice, La Grande Duchesse, Tancredi, Mignon, and Giulio Cesare; Frugola, Principessa, and Zita in Il Trittico, Fricka in both Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, Waltraute in Götterdämmerung, Azucena in Il Trovatore, Ulrica in Un Ballo in Maschera, Baba the Turk in The Rake's Progress, Ježibaba in Rusalka, Jocasta in Oedipus Rex, Mere Marie in Dialogues des Carmélites; Mistress Quickly in Falstaff, and Ino/Juno in Semele. She also created the role of Gertrude Stein in Ricky Ian Gordon's 27 at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.
Ms. Blythe has also appeared with many of the world's finest orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Opera Orchestra of New York, Minnesota Orchestra, Halle Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Ensemble Orchestre de Paris, and the Concertgerbouworkest. She has also appeared at the Tanglewood, Cincinnati May, and Ravinia festivals, and at the BBC Proms. The many conductors with whom she has worked include Harry Bicket, James Conlon, Charles Dutoit, Mark Elder, Christoph Eschenbach, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Alan Gilbert, James Levine, Fabio Luisi, Nicola Luisotti, Sir Charles Mackerras, John Nelson, Antonio Pappano, Mstislav Rostropovitch, Robert Spano, Patrick Summers, and Michael Tilson Thomas.
A frequent recitalist, Ms. Blythe has been presented in recital with her collaborative partner, Warren Jones, in New York by Carnegie Hall in Stern Auditorium and Zankel Hall, Lincoln Center in both its Great Performers Series at Alice Tully Hall and its American Songbook Series at the Allen Room, Town Hall, the 92nd Street Y, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has also been presenter by the Vocal Arts Society and at the Supreme Court in Washington, DC; the Cleveland Art Song Festival, the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Shriver Hall in Baltimore, and San Francisco Performances.
A champion of American song, Ms. Blythe has premiered several song cycles written for her including Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson by the late James Legg, Covered Wagon Woman by Alan Smith which was commissioned by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and recorded with the ensemble (CMS Studio Recordings); and Vignettes: Ellis Island, also by Alan Smith and featured in a special television program entitled Vignettes: An Evening with Stephanie Blythe and Warren Jones.
Ms Blythe starred in the Metropolitan Opera’s live HD broadcasts of Orfeo ed Euridice, Il Trittico, Rodelinda, Falstaff, and the complete Ring Cycle. She also appeared in PBS's Live from Lincoln Center broadcasts of the New York Philharmonic's performance of Carousel and her acclaimed show, We'll Meet Again: The Songs of Kate Smith. Her recordings include her solo crossover album with pianist, Craig Terry, as long as there are songs (Innova), and works by Mahler, Brahms, Wagner, Handel and Bach (Virgin Classics).
Her musical theater credits include her appearance with the San Francisco Opera as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd and with the New York Philharmonic as well as the Houston Grand Opera as Nettie Fowler in Carousel. She has performed her acclaimed American Song singalong program, Sing,
America! with presenters such as The Tanglewood Music Festival and Carnegie Hall. On occasion, she moonlights as her alter-ego, dramatic tenor, Blythely Oratonio, and has been presented as such in opera/cabaret shows with Philadelphia Opera, The Bearded Ladies Cabaret, Resonant Bodies, and had a Lincoln Center debut in January 2020 on their American Songbook Series in the Appel Room.
Ms. Blythe was named Musical America’s Vocalist of the Year for 2009. Her other awards include the 2007 Opera News Award and the 1999 Richard Tucker Award. She is the Artistic Director of the Fall Island Vocal Arts Seminar at the Crane School of Music, and was appointed Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard College in the fall of 2019.
Michael Stephen Brown has been described as “one of the leading figures in the current renaissance of performer-composers” (New York Times). Winner of a 2018 Emerging Artist Award from Lincoln Center and a 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant, he is an artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program. He makes regular appearances with orchestras such as the National Philharmonic and the Seattle, Phoenix, North Carolina, and Albany symphonies, and recently has made European recital debuts at the Beethoven-Haus Bonn and the Chopin Museum in Mallorca. He has received commissions from many organizations and some of today’s leading artists, and recently toured his own Piano Concerto around the US and Poland with several orchestras. He performs regularly with his longtime duo partner, cellist Nicholas Canellakis, and has appeared at festivals worldwide. A prolific recording artist, he has three albums in the works, including Mendelssohn+, featuring world premieres of music by one of Mendelssohn’s muses, Delphine von Schauroth. He was the composer- and artist-in-residence at the New Haven Symphony, and winner of the Concert Artists Guild and Copland House Awards. He holds degrees in piano and composition from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Jerome Lowenthal, Robert McDonald, and Samuel Adler. Additional mentors include András Schiff and Richard Goode. An Artist Ambassador for Creatives Care, Brown lives in New York City with his two 19th-century Steinway D pianos, Octavia and Daria.
Pianist Wu Han, recipient of Musical America’s Musician of the Year Award, enjoys a multi-faceted musical life that encompasses artistic direction, performing, and recording at the highest levels. Co-Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 2004 as well as Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Silicon Valley’s innovative chamber music festival Music@Menlo since 2002, she also serves as Artistic Advisor for Wolf Trap’s Chamber Music at the Barns series and Palm Beach’s Society of the Four Arts, and as Artistic Director for La Musica in Sarasota, Florida. Her recent concert activities have taken her from New York’s Lincoln Center stages to the most important concert halls in the United States, Europe, and Asia. In addition to countless performances of virtually the entire chamber repertoire, her concerto performances include appearances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony, and the Aspen Festival Orchestra. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of ArtistLed, classical music’s first artist-directed, internet-based recording label, which has released her performances of the staples of the cello-piano duo repertoire with cellist David Finckel. Her more than 80 releases on ArtistLed, CMS Live, and Music@Menlo LIVE include masterworks of the chamber repertoire with numerous distinguished musicians. Wu Han’s educational activities include overseeing CMS’s Bowers Program and the Chamber Music Institute at Music@Menlo. A recipient of the prestigious Andrew Wolf Award, she was mentored by some of the greatest pianists of our time, including Lilian Kallir, Rudolf Serkin, and Menahem Pressler. Married to cellist David Finckel since 1985, Wu Han divides her time between concert touring and residences in New York City and Westchester County.
Violinist Aaron Boyd enjoys a versatile career as soloist, chamber musician, orchestral leader, recording artist, lecturer, and teacher. Since making his New York recital debut in 1998, he has concertized throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. Formerly a member of the Escher String Quartet, he was a recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Martin E. Segal prize from Lincoln Center, and was also awarded a Proclamation by the City of Pittsburgh for his musical accomplishments. A passionate advocate for new music, he has been involved in numerous commissions and premieres, and has worked directly with such legendary composers as Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, and Charles Wuorinen. He is also founder of the Zukofsky Quartet (quartet-in-residence at Bargemusic); the only ensemble to have played all of Milton Babbitt's notoriously difficult string quartets. As a recording artist, he can be heard on the BIS, Music@Menlo Live, Naxos, Tzadik, North/South and Innova labels. He has been broadcast in concert by NPR, WQXR, and WQED, and was profiled by Arizona Public Television. Born in Pittsburgh, Mr. Boyd began his studies with Samuel LaRocca and Eugene Phillips and graduated from The Juilliard School where he studied with Sally Thomas and coached extensively with Paul Zukofsky and cellist Harvey Shapiro. He now serves as Director of Chamber Music and Professor of Practice in Violin at the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University and lives in Dallas with his wife Yuko, daughter Ayu, and son Yuki.
Violinist Daniel Phillips enjoys a versatile career as a chamber musician, solo artist, and teacher. A graduate of Juilliard, his major teachers were his father Eugene Phillips, Ivan Galamian, Sally Thomas, Nathan Milstein, Sandor Végh, and George Neikrug. Since winning the 1976 Young Concert Artists Competition, he has performed as a soloist with many orchestras, including the Pittsburgh, Houston, New Jersey, Phoenix, San Antonio, and Yakima symphonies. He appears regularly at the Spoleto USA Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, Chesapeake Music Festival, the International Musicians Seminar in England, Marlboro Music Festival, and Music from Angel Fire, where he is co-artistic director. He has served on the faculty of the Heifetz Institute and the St. Lawrence String Quartet Seminar at Stanford. He was a member of the renowned Bach Aria Group and has toured and recorded in a string quartet for Sony with Gidon Kremer, Kim Kashkashian, and Yo-Yo Ma. A judge in the 2022 Leipzig Bach Competition and 2018 Seoul International Violin Competition, Phillips is a professor at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College and on the faculties of the Mannes College of Music, Bard College Conservatory, and the Juilliard School. He lives with his wife, flutist Tara Helen O'Connor, and their two dachshunds on Manhattan's Upper West Side.
With a celebrated career encompassing five decades, Pinchas Zukerman reigns as one of today's most sought after and versatile musicians—violin and viola soloist, conductor, and chamber musician. He is renowned as a virtuoso, admired for the expressive lyricism of his playing, singular beauty of tone, and impeccable musicianship, which can be heard throughout his discography of over 100 albums for which he gained two Grammy awards and 21 nominations.
This season’s highlights include performances with orchestra and in chamber music recitals, including those with the very distinguished Zukerman Trio, in Spain, Denmark, Sweden and France, and, in his Wolf Trap debut with cellist Amanda Forsyth and pianist Michael Stephen Brown. Orchestral performances abroad include the Adelaide Symphony, Orchestre de Lyon (in France and on tour in Spain), the Bamberg Symphony with Lahav Shani, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (in Rome and Salzburg), the Israel Philharmonic, L’Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto in Italy and the English Chamber Orchestra at Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. After a highly successful tour in Spain last season as a soloist with the Polish Sinfonia Varsovia, Zukerman rejoins the orchestra this season in Poland to conduct.
Recent highlights include performances with Dallas Symphony Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, Mannheimer Philharmoniker, Adelaide Symphony, Orchestre National de Lyon and the Valencia, Sinfonia Varsovia, Castille y Leon orchestras of Spain, Israel Philharmonic, and Barcelona Symphony Orchestra. Chamber music concerts took place in Japan, Italy, France, Germany, and the United States. He and cellist Amanda Forsyth collaborated with friends and colleagues the Jerusalem String Quartet in sextet programs offered in both Israel and the US. He and Amanda Forsyth also appeared with the English Chamber Orchestra, Prague Symphony Orchestra, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Reading and New Bedford Symphonies. And with the Zukerman Trio, he visited the Ravinia, Aspen, and Amelia Island Chamber Music Festivals, as well as Parlance Chamber Concerts in New Jersey and Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.
A devoted teacher and champion of young musicians, he has served as chair of the Pinchas Zukerman Performance Program at the Manhattan School of Music for over 25 years, and has taught at prominent institutions throughout the United Kingdom, Israel, China, and Canada, among others. This season, he continues his role as the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s Artistic & Principal Education Partner, collaborating with DSO in partnership with Southern Methodist University’s Meadows School of the Arts, to provide intensive coaching and tutoring sessions for its music students.
As a mentor he has inspired generations of young musicians who have achieved prominence in performing, teaching, and leading roles with music festivals around the globe. Mr. Zukerman has received honorary doctorates from Brown University, Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and the University of Calgary, as well as the National Medal of Arts from President Ronald Reagan. He is a recipient of the Isaac Stern Award for Artistic Excellence in Classical Music.
Violist Paul Neubauer has been called a “master musician” by the New York Times. He recently made his Chicago Symphony subscription debut with conductor Riccardo Muti. He also gave the US premiere of the newly discovered Impromptu for viola and piano by Shostakovich with pianist Wu Han. In addition, his recording of the Aaron Kernis Viola Concerto with the Royal Northern Sinfonia was released on Signum Records, and his recording of the complete viola/piano music by Ernest Bloch with pianist Margo Garrett was released on Delos. Appointed principal violist of the New York Philharmonic at age 21, he has appeared as soloist with over 100 orchestras including the New York, Los Angeles, and Helsinki philharmonics; National, St. Louis, Detroit, Dallas, San Francisco, and Bournemouth symphonies; and Santa Cecilia, English Chamber, and Beethovenhalle orchestras. He has premiered viola concertos by Bartók (revised version of the Viola Concerto), Friedman, Glière, Jacob, Kernis, Lazarof, Müller-Siemens, Ott, Penderecki, Picker, Suter, and Tower, and has been featured on CBS's Sunday Morning and A Prairie Home Companion as well as in Strad, Strings, and People magazines. A two-time Grammy nominee, he has recorded on numerous labels including Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, RCA Red Seal, and Sony Classical, and is a member of SPA, a trio with soprano Susanna Phillips and pianist Anne-Marie McDermott. Neubauer is the artistic director of the Mostly Music series in New Jersey and is on the faculty of the Juilliard School and Mannes College.
Co-Artistic Director of CMS since 2004, cellist David Finckel’s dynamic musical career has included performances on the world’s stages in the roles of recitalist, chamber artist, and orchestral soloist. The first American student of Mstislav Rostropovich, he joined the Emerson String Quartet in 1979, and during 34 seasons garnered nine Grammy Awards and the Avery Fisher Prize. His quartet performances and recordings include quartet cycles of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Dvorák, Brahms, Bartók, and Shostakovich, as well as collaborative masterpieces and commissioned works. In 1997, he and pianist Wu Han founded ArtistLed, the first internet-based, artist-controlled classical recording label. ArtistLed’s catalog of more than 20 releases includes the standard literature for cello and piano, plus works composed for the duo by George Tsontakis, Gabriela Lena Frank, Bruce Adolphe, Lera Auerbach, Edwin Finckel, Augusta Read Thomas, and Pierre Jalbert. In 2022, Music@Menlo, an innovative summer chamber music festival in Silicon Valley founded and directed by David and Wu Han, celebrated its 20th season. As a young student, David was winner of the Philadelphia Orchestra’s junior and senior divisions, resulting in two performances with the orchestra. Having taught extensively with the late Isaac Stern in America, Israel, and Japan, he is currently a professor at both the Juilliard School and Stony Brook University, and oversees both CMS’s Bowers Program and Music@Menlo’s Chamber Music Institute. David’s 100 online Cello Talks, lessons on cello technique, are viewed by an international audience of musicians. Along with Wu Han, he was the recipient of Musical America’s 2012 Musicians of the Year Award.
Double bassist Nina Bernat, acclaimed for her interpretive maturity, expressive depth, and technical clarity, emerges onto the world stage as a recipient of a 2023 Avery Fisher Career Grant. Recent first prizes include the Barbash J.S. Bach String Competition, the Minnesota Orchestra Young Artist Competition, the Juilliard Double Bass Competition, and the 2019 International Society of Bassists Solo Competition. She was invited in 2019 to perform as guest principal bassist with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, serving under the batons of András Schiff and Osmo Vänskä. Among her chamber performances are appearances with the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, Bridgehampton Chamber Music Series, and Mostly Music. This summer, she heads to Vermont for her second season at both the 2023 Marlboro Music Festival and the Lake Champlain Music Festival. She also returns to the 2023 Grace Note Farm Summer Music Festival in Rhode Island for her third season, as both performer and co-organizer. Her 2023–24 season includes a concerto debut with the Minnesota Orchestra and performances as guest principal of the Oslo Philharmonic. In 2024, she begins her tenure as a member of CMS’s Bowers Program. Bernat performs on a beautiful and sonorous early-18th-century bass, attributed to Guadagnini and handed down to her from her father.
Praised for their “virtuosity, visceral expression, and rare unity of intention” (Boston Globe), the Viano Quartet are one of the most sought-after performing young ensembles today and will join CMS’s Bowers Program from 2024 to 2027. Since winning first prize at the 2019 Banff International String Quartet Competition, they have traveled across the globe, captivating audiences in New York, London, Berlin, Vancouver, Paris, Beijing, Toronto, Lucerne, Los Angeles, and many other cities.
The quartet was named the inaugural June Goldsmith Quartet-in-Residence for the Music in the Morning series in Vancouver until 2025, where their focus will be to commission new works and lead extensive community engagement initiatives. The quartet has also held residencies at the Curtis Institute, Colburn Conservatory, Northern Michigan University, and Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University.
Summer 2023 brings re-invitations to Chamber Music Northwest, the Bravo!Vail Festival and BISQFest, along with appearances at the Intimacy of Creativity Festival in Hong Kong, Ottawa Chamberfest, Minnesota Beethoven Festival, and others. During the 2023–24 season the quartet can be heard in Canada and around the US.
Tara Helen O'Connor, who Artmag has said "so embodies perfection on the flute that you'll forget she is human," is an Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, a two-time Grammy Award nominee, and, as a member of the New Millennium Ensemble, a recipient of the Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award. A Wm.S. Haynes artist, she was the first flutist selected to participate in the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's Bowers Program and is currently a season artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and a member of the Windscape woodwind quintet.
O'Connor serves as Visiting Associate Professor, Adjunct, of Flute at the Yale School of Music, and is Artistic Director of the Music from Angel Fire Festival. A champion of contemporary music, Ms. O'Connor has premiered hundreds of works and has appeared on numerous recordings and film and television soundtracks including Barbie, Respect, The Joker, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Only Murders in the Building, and Schmigadoon! to name only a few.
An avid chamber musician, O'Connor regularly appears include the Bravo! Vail festival, Chamber Music Northwest, Music@Menlo, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Festival of the Bluegrass, Spoleto Festival USA, the Banff Centre, Rockport Music, Bay Chamber Concerts, Manchester Music Festival, the Great Mountains Music Festival, Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival and Music From Angel Fire.
O'Connor has appeared on A&E's Breakfast with the Arts and PBS' Live from Lincoln Center. She has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, EMI Classics, Koch International, CMS Studio Recordings with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Bridge Records. She also serves on the faculty at Bard College Conservatory of Music, and the Contemporary Performance Program at Manhattan School of Music.
She lives with her husband, violinist Daniel Phillips and their two miniature dachshunds, Chloé and Ava on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.