Silver Jubilee Chamber Ensemble performs Sunday, June 19th

The Silver Jubilee Chamber Ensemble will help Friends of Music mark its 25^th Anniversary Season with a special concert on Sunday, June 19^th at 3 PM at the Cyr Center in Stamford. Weather permitting, the performance will take place outdoors on the grounds of the Center under a large tent canopy to accommodate the expected larger-than-usual audience. The concert is free to the public and refreshments will be served after the performance. Bring Dad along as a great way to celebrate Father’s Day, as well!

The Ensemble includes 12 artists, 5 of whom will be featured as soloists. All hail from the New York City area and were recruited for this gala event through our mutual friend, cellist Wolfram Koessel. Mr. Koessel is on tour in Europe this summer, but we hope to hear him again soon.

Friends of Music hopes you will join us on this special occasion to enjoy talented young professionals with a much bigger sound and a very different program than we are usually able to present. We thank the A. Lindsay and Olive B. O’Connor Foundation for their matching grant to help fund this concert, and the generosity of the Robinson-Broadhurst Foundation which makes our entire season possible.

Grammy-nominated violinist Jesse Mills enjoys performing music of many genres, from classical to contemporary, as well as composed and improvised music of his own invention. Mr. Mills is the Concertmaster for the Silver Jubilee Chamber Ensemble.

In 2004 Mills made his professional concerto debut with the Ravinia Festival Orchestra conducted by Nicholas McGegan in a unique partnership with Salsa trombonist, Jimmy Bosch.  This project combined a classical performance of Vivaldi's Four Seasons, with Mills as violin soloist, and a Salsa band arrangement of the same piece, fronted by Bosch and Mills as improvising soloists.  A successful performance at Ravinia led to bookings with the Phoenix Symphony, the Colorado Symphony and the Green Bay Symphony. In past years Mills has performed as soloist with orchestras including the Juilliard Chamber Orchestra, the New Jersey Symphony, the Denver Philharmonic, the Teatro Argentino Orchestra in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the Aspen Music Festival's Sinfonia Orchestra as winner of the Festival's E. Nakamichi Violin Concerto Competition.

As a chamber musician Jesse Mills has performed throughout the U.S. and Canada, including concerts at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, the 92nd Street Y, the Metropolitan Museum, the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, Boston's Gardener Museum, Chicago’s Ravinia Festival, and the Marlboro Music Festival. He has also appeared at prestigious venues in Europe, such as the Barbican Centre of London, La Cité de la Musique in Paris, Amsterdam’s Royal Carré Theatre, Teatro Arcimboldi in Milan, and the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels. Mills is co-founder of Duo Prism, a violin-piano duo with Rieko Aizawa, which earned 1st Prize at the Zinetti International Competition in Italy in 2006. 

Mills is also known as a pioneer of contemporary works, a renowned improvisational artist, as well as a composer. He earned a Grammy nomination for his work on a CD of Arnold Schoenberg's music, released by NAXOS in 2005. He can also be heard on the Koch, Centaur, Tzadik, Max Jazz and Verve labels for various compositions of Webern, Schoenberg, Zorn, Wuorinen, and others. Soon to be released on the NAXOS label are recordings of Schoenberg’s String Quartets #3 and #4, as well as the Ode to Napoleon. As a member of the FLUX Quartet from 2001-2003, Mills performed music composed during the last 50 years (including the famous six-hour-long String Quartet No. 2 by Morton Feldman), in addition to frequent world premieres. As a composer and arranger, Mills has been commissioned by venues including Columbia University’s Miller Theater and the Chamber Music Northwest festival in Portland, Oregon.

Jesse Mills began violin studies at the age of three. He graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree from The Juilliard School in 2001.  He studied with Dorothy DeLay, Robert Mann and Itzhak Perlman. Mr. Mills lives in New York City, and he is on the faculty at Montclair State University in New Jersey.

Lance Suzuki has been described as an “unusually passionate flutist who captivates an audience” by the New York Concert Review. The Los Angeles Times has called his playing “musically poised” and “cool in sound” and The New York Times has deemed his collaborations “the evening’s most compelling offerings.” Upcoming highlights include a concert of all four Mozart Flute Quartets at the Long Island Mozart Festival and performances for Lincoln Center Out of Doors and New York's Mostly Mozart Festival.

Mr. Suzuki has appeared as a chamber musician and soloist in venues such as the Marlboro Music Festival, NPR’s Performance Today, Weill, Zankel and Merkin Halls, and the Metropolitan Museum’s Temple of Dendur in Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Flutes with Paula Robison. He performs as principal flutist with groups such as the Metropolis Ensemble, Mark Morris Dance Group Ensemble, and the New England Symphonic Ensemble in Carnegie Hall. He has also premiered new works with the Argento and East Coast Contemporary Ensembles, and in Carnegie Hall workshops led by Dawn Upshaw in collaboration with composers John Harbison, Osvaldo Golijov, and Donnacha Dennehy.

Born and raised in the state of Hawaii, Lance Suzuki began studying the flute at age nine. Since then, he has been the recipient of numerous honors and grants in his home state and abroad. He holds degrees from the Manhattan School of Music, and from the University of Southern California where he was named “Outstanding Graduate” in his class by the faculty. He has studied with Linda Chesis, Michael Parloff, Nadine Asin, Gary Woodward, Jean Harling, and in master classes with Paula Robison.

Oboist Arthur Sato has performed with an array of ensembles including Orchestra of St. Lukes, San Diego Symphony, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, West Point Band, Malaysian Philharmonic, New York Symphonic Ensemble, American Ballet Theater, Princeton Symphony, Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, and the Knights Chamber Orchestra.  In October 2009, Arthur made his NYC solo debut with the Brooklyn Philharmonic.  He has collaborated with recording artists Herbie Hancock, Alicia Keys, Josh Groban, Lenny Kravitz, Shania Twain, Sufjan Stevens, and has appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America, NPR’s Performance Today, and PBS’s Live from Lincoln Center.  As a member of The Academy@ Carnegie Hall, Arthur has electrified the stages of Carnegie Hall with Ensemble ACJW. According to the Carnegie Hall Web site (and as recently profiled on NPR), “The Academy is a competitive two-year fellowship program designed to prepare the world’s finest young professional musicians for careers that combine musical excellence with teaching, community outreach, advocacy, and leadership.” A graduate of Indiana University and The Juilliard School, Mr. Sato is on faculty at the Brooklyn-Queens Conservatory and enjoys fine cuisine, fine beer, politics, and hip-hop. 

Atlanta, Georgia native David Byrd-Marrow received his earliest tutelage from his father, who also played the French horn. Once in high school, David began studying with Richard Deane of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. After studying with Mr. Deane all through high school and participating in the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra, the Atlanta Wind Youth Symphony Orchestra and the Georgia All-State orchestra, where he was selected for the top position in the state, David went on to study at The Juilliard School in New York City. 

At Juilliard, while working on his Bachelor's degree, Mr. Byrd-Marrow studied with the late Jerome Ashby of the New York Philharmonic. For his Master's degree, David went on to study with William Purvis at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He was then selected for fellowship into The Academy - a program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and the Weill Music Institute in partnership with the New York City Department of Education. During his time there, David played numerous concerts in all three of Carnegie's grand stages, and was able to study with several great hornists.

In 2008, David was invited to become Solo hornist for the International Contemporary Ensemble, and has also played with groups such as Carnegie Hall’s “Zankel Band,” The Orchestra of St. Luke’s, The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, The Tokyo Symphony, The New York City and Atlanta Operas and The New York Philharmonic.

Trumpeter Sycil Mathai is part of various directions of contemporary and experimental chamber music in New York City.  Resigning from his post with the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra now affords him the chance of playing with diverse groups such as the Extension Ensemble, Orchestra of St.Lukes, Sequitir, Bach Players of Holy Trinity, Sospeso, Iris Chamber Orchestra, Ne(x)tworks, artists Carter Burwell, Butch Morris, and the dance companies of Merce Cunningham, Mark Morris, and Nai-Ni Chen.  He has recorded for RCA, PBS, Summit Brass, Albany Records, New World, and Sirius Satellite Radio.  Sycil is a graduate of The Juilliard School as a student of Mark Gould, and of The Music School at Texas Christian University as a student of Steve Weger.

Violinist Anna Elashvili, hailed as “riveting” by The New York Times, has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician in major halls around the world.  She has collaborated with renowned artists such as Lynn Harrell, Dawn Upshaw, and Peter Serkin and performed solo with Maxim Vengerov. 

In 2006 Ms. Elashvili was nominated to be a fellow at The Academy at Carnegie Hall, a program for which she is now a fellowship mentor and an active alumna.  As a part of the Academy family, she performs concerts internationally and brings classical music to New York City’s public schools.  Ms. Elashvili is currently the first violinist of the Bryant Park Quartet, violinist in the Brooklyn Philharmonic and Carnegie’s Zankel Band.  Ms. Elashvili is on violin faculty at the Third Street Music School Settlement in Manhattan and in residence at Stony Brook University’s Community Music Program with the Bryant Park Quartet.  She has appeared as Concertmaster with the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Phoenix Symphony, the Verbier Festival Orchestra, String Orchestra of New York City (SONYC), and the Colorado Music Festival Chamber Orchestra. 

As the former member of the Fountain Ensemble and current violinist of the Bryant Park Quartet, she is a prizewinner of several international competitions.  Anna Elashvili received her Bachelors and Masters Degree by 2001 from The Juilliard School as a student of Masao Kawasaki and Joel Smirnoff.   In her hometown of Baltimore, she studied with Violaine Melançon of the Peabody Trio and Klara Berkovich.

Kyu-Young Kim is one of the most versatile and accomplished violinists of his generation.  Hailed by John von Rhein of the Chicago Tribune for his “flawless musical and technical command,” Kim is an active soloist and chamber musician.  He has recently toured throughout North America, Europe and Asia, performing in such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, the Seoul Arts Center, the Palais des Beaux Arts (Brussels), and the Beethoven-Haus (Bonn).  As a founding member of the Daedalus Quartet, winners of the Grand Prize at the 2001 Banff International String Quartet Competition, he performed in many of the major halls of Europe, including the Musikverein (Vienna), the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), the Philharmonie (Cologne), the Cité de la Musique (Paris), the Mozarteum (Salzburg), the Festpielhaus (Baden-Baden), and the Megaron (Athens), and was a member of Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Two Program.  He has appeared as soloist with the Korea Broadcasting System (KBS) Symphony Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, of which he served as Associate Concertmaster for five years, the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra of Poland, and the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra. As a recitalist, he has performed throughout the U.S. and in Korea, Japan, Germany, and New Zealand.  He has also served as guest Concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, and is the newest member of both the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the New York City Ballet Orchestra. 

Mr. Kim is a recipient of the 2007 Martin E. Segal Award from Lincoln Center in recognition of outstanding young artists from the Lincoln Center community.  He is also a winner of a McKnight Fellowship as a member of the Soyulla Duo with his wife, cellist Pitnarry Shin.  As a former member of the Pacifica String Quartet, Mr. Kim won the prestigious Naumburg Chamber Music Award in 1998 and served as an artist-in-residence for National Public Radio’s “Performance Today.”  Mr. Kim’s other chamber music activities have included collaborations with pianist Gary Graffman and the Juilliard String Quartet, and performances with the Chicago Contemporary Players, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, the DaCapo Chamber Players, and the New Juilliard Ensemble. He has toured on four continents with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and has performed with the Sejong Soloists.

Widely recognized for his teaching and musical outreach activities, Kim has served on the faculties of Columbia University, the University of Chicago, the Music Institute of Chicago and the Interlochen Summer Festival, among others, and has given outreach concerts to young audiences throughout the United States.  Mr. Kim has received degrees from the Curtis Institute, the Juilliard School, and the Cleveland Institute of Music, and has studied with Donald Weilerstein, Robert Mann, Jaime Laredo, Yumi Scott and Shirley Givens.

Sarah Zun is a highly sought after violinist based in the New York City metropolitan area. She is a member of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro William Boughton, and regularly appears with the Harrisburg Symphony, Greenwich Symphony (CT), New York Chamber Virtuosi and the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas. While her main interest is in orchestral performance, Sarah has also had the privilege of playing chamber music in many venues throughout New York City, including Alice Tully Hall and Le Poisson Rouge. 

Sarah received her degree in violin performance from The Juilliard School where she studied with Dorothy Delay, Naoko Tanaka and Won-Bin Yim. She has toured extensively at the international level with the Verbier Festival Orchestra based in Verbier, Switzerland. She has also had the privilege of attending, with full fellowships and scholarships, the Aspen Music Festival, Tanglewood Music Center, and the Sommermusikakademie in Leipzig, Germany. Most recently she participated in a tour to Japan with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, with whom she performed La Boheme, Don Carlo and Lucia di Lammermoor.

Katie Thomas is a young violinist with an emerging professional career. She has performed in halls and venues across America as well as Europe and the Caribbean.  She earned a Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music under the tutelage of Lucie Robert. Ms. Thomas was awarded the School of Music Merit Scholarship and The Hugo Kortschak Award for outstanding achievement in chamber music.

Ms. Thomas was a past finalist in the Immanuel and Helen Olshan Texas Music Festival Concerto Competition, and she played as both Concertmaster and principal second violinist in the Festival Orchestra in Houston.  She was chosen to be a member of the Youth Orchestra of the Americas which shared the stage with Joshua Bell and Julian Rachlin under the baton of Valery Gergiev and Carlos Minguel Prieto in Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall. Ms. Thomas also participated in music making at the Château de Fontainebleau, in Fontainebleau, France with Phillippe Entremont and at the Academie Internationale de Musique de Montpellier in Montpellier, France with Ruggiero Ricci.

She earned great praise from concert reviewer Zan Stewart for her leadership as concert master of her school’s Jazz Philharmonic for the season 2009-2010 – “the 18-piece orchestra… played impeccably under the leadership of concertmaster Katherine Thomas.” Another reviewer, Manly Romero, stated “Just left of downstage center, one musician, Concertmaster Katherine Thomas, focusing the sound of the orchestra, fighting the tide, and delivering solo phrase after solo phrase with thoughtful integrity enough for a Brahms Concerto…Magnetically drawn to follow Ms Thomas’ example, the strings presented unusual warmth and calm. Friday night, Ms. Thomas was in control, and her leadership transformed the performance.”

Originally from Bloomington, Illinois, Philip Kramp is a violist increasingly sought after in the United States.  A 2009 graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, his primary teachers were Joseph dePasquale and Michael Tree, and his chamber music instructors were Steve Tenenbom, Pam Frank and Peter Wiley. Currently Philip is pursuing graduate studies at the New England Conservatory where he is a student of Roger Tapping.  While at Curtis, Phil was principal viola of the Curtis Orchestra during the 2007-2008 Season. In addition to his studies, Phil performs with many professional ensembles across the country.  While at Curtis Mr. Kramp was a member of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia from 2007-2009 under the artistic direction of Ignat Solzhenitsyn.  Currently, Philip is a regular substitute with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic.  He also performs regularly with the Mark Morris Dance Group in venues across the country.  Philip has also performed at many well known chamber music festivals, such as Marlboro, Ravinia, Yellow Barn, Kneisel Hall, Sarasota, Music From Angel Fire, and many others.  In the fall of 2010, Philip was chosen to be a Rising Star at the Caramoor Center for the Arts where he spent a week working closely with mentors Ralph Kirshbaum, Pam Frank and Atar Arad.  Phil will be touring with Musicians from Marlboro in the spring of 2011 and 2012, and will also appear on a Ravinia tour in the spring of 2012.  Philip Kramp has collaborated with many of the world’s greatest musicians, including Ida Kavafian, Pam Frank, Miriam Fried, Gil Kalish, Soovin Kim, and members of the Guarneri and Juilliard String Quartets.

Pitnarry Shin has been a member of the Minnesota Orchestra for five seasons and has served as guest co-principal cellist of the London Symphony Orchestra as well as principal cellist of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. She also appeared as solo cellist with Ensemble Intercontemporain Acadamie under Pierre Boulez. As a founding member of the Soyulla Ensemble she was awarded both the McKnight Fellowship and the Sony Career Grant from Salon De Virtuosi. Ms. Shin received her Bachelor of Music degree from Curtis Institute of Music and her Master of Music from the Yale School of Music. She also received a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Germany.

Double bass player Logan Coale is a native of Portland, Oregon.  After moving to New York City he has become an integral part of the young classical new music scene. He is a member of contemporary chamber music group NOW Ensemble, and is also a member of the Knights Chamber Orchestra.  Mr. Coale performs regularly with the Long Count, Alarm Will Sound, the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME), the Wordless Music Orchestra, Queen’s Band Baroque Music Ensemble, Metropolis Ensemble, the American Composer’s Orchestra, Miami's Seraphic Fire and Firebird Chamber Orchestra, and the Mark Morris Dance Group.  He has also played with the San Antonio Symphony and New Haven Symphony, and played with the Sarasota Opera Orchestra for three seasons.  As a teacher Mr. Coale is on faculty at Mannes College’s preparatory division and the Kinhaven Music School in Weston, Vermont. Mr. Coale can be heard on Sony Classical and Ancalagon Records with The Knights, Decca with Nico Muhly, XL Recordings and Parlophone Records with Jonsi Birgisson of Sigur Ros, and on New Amsterdam Records with NOW Ensemble and Television Landscape.  His major teachers include Todd Seeber, Tim Pitts, and Edwin Barker.