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“Superb!”

-- San Francisco Chronicle

The most sought-after trio in the world, the Grammy-nominated Eroica Trio thrills audiences with flawless technical virtuosity, irresistible enthusiasm and sensual elegance. Whether playing the great standards of the piano trio repertoire or daring contemporary works, the three young women who make up this celebrated ensemble electrify the concert stage with their performances of depth and precision. The Trio won the prestigious 1991 Naumburg Award, resulting in a highly successful Lincoln Center debut and has since toured the United States, Europe, and Asia. While maintaining their demanding concert schedule, the Eroica Trio has released seven critically lauded recordings for Angel/EMI Classics Records, garnering multiple Grammy®nominations.

The Eroica Trio performs the Beethoven Triple Concerto more frequently than any other trio in the world, having appeared with renowned symphonies such as Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, Mostly Mozart Orchestra, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Houston and Seattle. In addition, The Trio has performed the work abroad with Orquesta Sinfonica de Euskadi in Spain, Haydn Orchestra in Italy, Budapest Symphony in Germany, and on tour in the United States with the Prague Chamber Orchestra, culminating in a Lincoln Center performance. The Trio appeared on the German television program "Klassich!" performing the Beethoven Triple Concerto with the Munich Symphony, which was aired throughout Europe.

The Eroica Trio is on the vanguard of a new generation of artists who are changing the face of classical music. One of the first all-female chamber ensembles to reach the top echelon of its field, the Eroica Trio is helping to break an age-old gender barrier. As the Chicago Sun Times remarked, "Our image of the piano trio is largely formed by groups like the celebrated [original] Beaux Arts, three middle-aged gentlemen who apply their wisdom and artistry to their chosen repertory. That image is about to change." The Trio took its name from Beethoven's passionate Third Symphony. Italian for "heroic," eroica is a word that aptly reflects the ensemble's approach to music. As critics have noted, "It's been decades since this country has produced a chamber music organization with this much passion." (The San Francisco Examiner)

The Eroica Trio has appeared on numerous television programs, including ABC's The View, CNN's Showbiz Today, CBS and ABC News, the CBS Morning Show and Saturday Morning, A&E's Breakfast with the Arts, The Isaac Mizrahi Show, Pure Oxygen, Bloomberg TV and Fox's The Crier Report. In addition, the ladies will be featured in the international broadcast of The Artists' Way At Work, an in-depth exploration of artistic creativity. Eroica!, a special documentary about the Trio and its commissioning of a new triple concerto by Kevin Kaska, premiered on the PBS series Independent Lens in December 2003.

The group has been featured in such magazines as Elle, Glamour, Vanity Fair, Detour, Marie Claire, Gotham, Entrée, Bon Appétit, Time Out New York, Gramophone, Piano, Vivace, Auditorium, and Chamber Music. In addition, the ladies have graced the covers of magazines as diverse as Fanfare, Cigar, Strings, Tall, and Strad. Grand Marnier®created a new cocktail dubbed "The Eroica" which was unveiled for the release of the "Pasión" recording. Chateau Sainte Michelle, a vineyard in Seattle, also named one of their vintage Rieslings in honor of the Trio.

"The women of the Eroica Trio play nothing halfway. Hair flying, bodies heaving, bows shedding hairs left and right...the Eroica achieved gestures of orchestral power and sweep." - The Washington Post

"These people have it all: technique, temperament, interpretive savvy, good looks and a winning stage presence."  - Los Angeles Times

BEETHOVEN Piano Trio in C minor, Op. 1, No. 3

TOWER Piano Trio "For Daniel"

BRAMS Piano Trio in B major, Op. 8

the Eroica Trio website

A once-in-a-lifetime gathering of three musical stars who have never performed together before: Richard Stoltzman (the world's leading clarinetist), cellist Lynn Harrell (collaborator with Itzhak Perlman, Vladimir Ashenazy, etc.) and pianist Robert Levin (Harvard professor known for his brilliant Mozart playing). This remarkable trio, assembled specifically for our concerts, will perform a diverse program featuring Brahms' immortal Clarinet Trio. A sensational celebration of musical genius.

The program will also include a the World Premiere of a new work written especially for this ensemble by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Yehudi Wyner.  Mr. Wyner received a Grammy nomination for the 2009 recording of his piano concerto composed for Robert Levin.

RICHARD STOLTZMAN

Richard Stoltzman 's virtuosity, musicianship and sheer personal magnetism have made him one of today's most sought-after concert artists. As soloist with more than a hundred orchestras, as a captivating recitalist and chamber music performer, as an innovative jazz artist, and as a prolific recording artist, two-time Grammy Award winner Stoltzman defies categorization, dazzling critics and audiences alike throughout many musical genres.

LYNN HARRELL

Dwelling in the highest echelon of today's musical artists, this multiple Grammy Award-winning cellist performs regularly with the leading orchestras of Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, London, Munich, and Berlin, with such conductors as James Levine, Sir Neville Marriner, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, Sir Simon Rattle, and Michael Tilson Thomas. He collaborates with such artists as Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman (with whom he performed live at the Grammy Awards), Vladimir Ashkenazy, Anne-Sophie Mutter, and André Previn.

ROBERT LEVIN

A recognized Mozart scholar and world-renowned pianist, Robert Levin's performances throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia have included work with the orchestras of Berlin, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Montreal and Vienna. On forte piano he has appeared with the Academy of Ancient Music, the London Classical Players and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, with Christopher Hogwood, Nicholas McGegan, Sir Roger Norrington and Sir John Eliot Gardiner. He is presently Dwight P. Robinson, Jr. Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University.

BRAHMS Trio for Clarinet, Cello and Piano in A minor, Op. 114

BACH Suite for Unaccompanied Cello No. 3 in C Major

WYNER Trio [world premiere]

Other works to be announced

Concert Sponsored by the Diablo Regional Arts Association

With her performance of Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 at the 11 th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2001, Olga Kern won the Gold Medal and became the first woman to achieve this distinction in over 30 years. Olga's second triumph came in New York City on May 4, 2004, with a highly acclaimed New York City recital debut at Carnegie's Zankel Hall. Eleven days later, on May 12, 2004, in an unprecedented turn of events Olga Kern gave a recital in Isaac Stern Auditorium at the invitation of Carnegie Hall.

With her vivid stage presence, passionately confident musicianship and extraordinary technique, the striking young Russian pianist Olga Kern has continued to captivate fans and critics alike. Across the United States, in each season, she is in demand for re-engagements and new appearances, and is quickly being recognized world-wide.

After a critically acclaimed 35 city tour of the US in spring 2007 with the National Philharmonic Orchestra and Vladimir Spivakov, Ms. Kern opened the 2007-2008 season as guest soloist with the Colorado Symphony, performed with the Nashville Symphony and made her debut with the Vancouver Symphony. In May of 2008 Olga Kern toured North America with Maestro Vladimir Spivakov and the world renowned Moscow Virtuosi, presenting concerts in Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, Washington DC, and Toronto. In the 2008-2009 Season, Olga will make her debut with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra with Leonard Slatkin and present recitals including in Washington DC, Portland, OR, La Jolla, CA and Fort Worth, TX.

Olga Kern made her London debut with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in November 2006 playing Shostakovich Piano Concerto No. 1 with Leonard Slatkin conducting. She returned to London in August of 2008 for her Proms Debut playing Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Leonard Slatkin conducting. Recent European appearances have included a tour of Austria and Switzerland with the Warsaw Philharmonic and Maestro Antoni Wit and a tour of Germany with the Czech Philharmonic and Maestro Zdenek Maçal. Upcoming engagements in Europe will include performances with the orchestras of Copenhagen and Lyon, and recitals in Milan, Hamburg and Luxemburg. Ms. Kern made her South American debut with the Orquestra de São Paulo in March 2008. She recently made her Canadian debut with the National Arts Centre Orchestra and conductor Pinchus Zukerman in summer 2007, and she made her debut with the Taipei Symphony in June of 2006. She will make her debut with the Seoul Philharmonic in October of 2008.

Miss Kern's festival appearances are many. In June of 2008, she presented the Inaugural Concert of the Southeastern Piano Festival in Columbia, South Carolina. She is welcomed back annually to the Interlochen Festival and frequently to both the Bravo! Vail Festival and to the Ravinia Festival with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and James Conlon, after having made her debut there in 2002 with Christoph Eschenbach. She made her Hollywood Bowl debut in 2005 and returned to the Festival Casals in Puerto Rico in 2007, where she performed to a sold out venue. She has been a recent guest artist at several international music festivals, including the Klavier Ruhr and Kissinger Sommer festivals in Germany, the Radio-France Montpellier and Casadesus festivals in France, the Ohrid Festival in Macedonia, and the Busoni Festival in Italy.

In June of 2002 Olga Kern made an extensive tour of South Africa where she returned to tour again in February of 2005, performing all four Rachmaninoff piano concertos and Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini , with her brother, Vladimir Kern, conducting, three times over a span of six days, an unprecedented feat undertaken especially for the South African audience. She is now Artistic Director of the Cape Town Festival in South Africa and will return there annually.

Ms. Kern has performed in many of the world's most important venues, including the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Symphony Hall in Osaka, Salzburger Festspielhaus, La Scala in Milan, Tonhalle in Zurich, and the Châtelet in Paris; she has appeared as soloist with the Bolshoi Theater, the Moscow Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Symphony, Russian National, China Symphony, Belgrade Philharmonic, La Scala Philharmonic, Torino Symphony, and Cape Town Symphony Orchestras. She has also performed with the Kirov Orchestra under the direction of Valery Gergiev at the Kennedy Center.

Ms. Kern was born into a family of musicians with direct links to Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff and began studying piano at the age of five. Winner of the first Rachmaninoff International Piano Competition when she was seventeen, she is a laureate of eleven international competitions and has toured throughout her native Russia, Europe, and the United States, as well as in Japan, South Africa, and South Korea. The recipient of an honorary scholarship from the President of Russia in 1996, she is a member of Russia's International Academy of Arts. She began her formal training with acclaimed teacher Evgeny Timakin at the Moscow Central School and continued with Professor Sergei Dorensky at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where she was also a postgraduate student. She also studied with Boris Petrushansky at the acclaimed Accademia Pianistica Incontri col Maestro in Imola, Italy.

Ms. Kern records exclusively for Harmonia Mundi. Her most recent recording of Brahms Variations was released in September of 2007. Her discography includes recordings of Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and Christopher Seaman (2003), a Rachmaninoff recording of Corelli Variations and other transcriptions (2004), a recital disk with works by Rachmaninoff and Balakirev (2005) and Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Warsaw Philharmonic and Antoni Wit (2006). She was also featured in the award-winning documentary about the 2001 Cliburn Competition, Playing on the Edge.

“Kern's musicality radiates off the stage and saturates the hall, and it is joyously, intensely alive. Call it star quality .” — Washington Post

CHOPIN Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23

CHOPIN Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 35

RACHMANINOV Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 36

BALAKIREV Islamey

Concert Sponsored by Denise and Ed Del Beccaro

A sound you've never heard before! It's taken us years to book this extraordinary reed quintet from Amsterdam, which has been called “a classical ensemble with a pop mentality.” These free-spirited virtuosos, whose ability on their instruments ranks with the world's best, have pioneered a unique path; not only have they invented their own ensemble (oboe, clarinet, saxophone, bassoon, bass clarinet) but they transcribe their own wide-ranging repertoire, commission new works, and always thrill their audiences.  Their sound is characterized by an elegance rarely heard in a wind ensemble.

Having played over 600 concerts in 20 countries, Dutch reed quintet Calefax is well known for its virtuoso performances, innovative programming and engaging concerts. The quintet performs standing up, and always introduces itself and the program to the audience. Most importantly, the five musicians arrange, recompose and interpret music from eight centuries to suit their unique line-up: from early music, renaissance, baroque, and romantic works to jazz, or world premières.

So forget what you know about a traditional "wind" quintet, Calefax is a "reed" quintet and totally unique! They have been described in the press as “ five extremely gifted Dutch gents who almost made the wind quintet seem the best musical format on the planet.''

Calefax is recognized internationally for the quality of its ensemble playing, and has appeared widely throughout Europe, both in new music forums and in early music festivals. Calefax has been awarded the Philip Morris Art Prize (1997) and the Kersjes van de Groenekan Prize (2001), and the VSCD Classical Music Award 2005, for the best chamber music performance on Dutch venues in the 2004-2005 season. In recent years Calefax also collaborated with artists such as the Zapp String Quartet and soloists such as pianist Ivo Janssen and Cora Burggraaf (mezzo-soprano) as well as jazz singers.

The German recording label MDG issues Calefax's ever-growing discography, with consistently enthusiastic reactions from the international music press. Their latest CD, released in January 2009, is their arrangements of Nancarrow's Studies for Player Piano, already now described by the Dutch press as “very likely the CD of the year 2009.” Other CDs released by the group include J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations , Suites by Duke Ellington and Suites by Jean-Philippe Rameau described as “five souls playing as one.” Calefax has recently explored many new territories outside their native Netherlands: Sweden, Norway, Estonia, Italy, Russia, many festivals in the UK, and even has traveled as far as China and the USA.

MOZART Serenade in C minor, K. 406

DEBUSSY Children's Corner

NANCARROW Studies for Player Piano

RAMEAU Le Rappel des Oiseaux

RAVEL Le Tombeau de Couperin

the Calefax website

TOKYO STRING QUARTET

Saturday, May 15, 2010 at 2:30 pm

The Tokyo String Quartet has captivated audiences and critics alike since it was founded almost 40 years ago. Regarded as one of the supreme chamber ensembles of the world, the Tokyo Quartet--Martin Beaver and Kikuei Ikeda (violins), Kazuhide Isomura (viola) and Clive Greensmith (cello)--has collaborated with a remarkable array of artists and composers, built a comprehensive catalogue of critically acclaimed recordings and established a distinguished teaching record. Performing over a hundred concerts worldwide each season, the Tokyo String Quartet has a devoted international following that includes the major capitals of the world and extends to all four corners, from Australia to Estonia to Scandinavia and the Far East.

Officially formed in 1969 at the Juilliard School of Music, the quartet traces its origins to the Toho School of Music in Tokyo, where the founding members were profoundly influenced by Professor Hideo Saito. Soon after its formation, the quartet won First Prize at the Coleman Competition, the Munich Competition and the Young Concert Artists International Auditions. An exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon firmly established it as one of the world's leading quartets, and it has since released more than 40 landmark recordings. The ensemble now records on the Harmonia Mundi label.

The members of the Tokyo String Quartet have served on the faculty of the Yale School of Music as quartet-in-residence since 1976. Deeply committed to coaching young string quartets, they devote much of the summer to teaching and performing at the prestigious Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. They also conduct master classes in North America, Europe and the Far East throughout the year.

The ensemble performs on the "Paganini Quartet", a group of renowned Stradivarius instruments named for legendary virtuoso Niccolò Paganini, who acquired and played them during the 19th century. The instruments have been on loan to the ensemble from the Nippon Music Foundation since 1995, when they were purchased from the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

HAYDN Quartet in B-flat Major Op. 76, No. 4 ("Sunrise)
MOZART Quartet in E-flat Major, K. 428
BEETHOVEN String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 74 (“Harp”)

the Tokyo Quartet website

Concert Sponsored by Janet and Sol Weingarten

brings some of the world's finest musicians to your doorstep!