2020-2021 Season

Kristin Lee, Violin; Arnaud Sussmann, Violin; Cindy Phelps, Viola; Melissa Reardon, Viola; Brook Speltz, Cello; Edward Arron, Cello

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PROGRAM

• Richard Strauss – Sextet from Capriccio, Op. 85

• Arnold Schoenberg – Verklärte Nach, Op. 4

Program Notes

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ARTIST BIOS

• KRISTIN LEE

  A recipient of the 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant, as well as a top prizewinner of the 2012 Walter W. Naumburg Competition and the Astral Artists’ 2010 National Auditions, Kristin Lee is a violinist of remarkable versatility and impeccable technique who enjoys a vibrant career as a soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, and educator. “Her technique is flawless, and she has a sense of melodic shaping that reflects an artistic maturity,” writes the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and The Strad reports, “She seems entirely comfortable with stylistic diversity, which is one criterion that separates the run-of-the-mill instrumentalists from true artists.”

  Kristin Lee has appeared as soloist with leading orchestras including The Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, New Mexico Symphony, West Virginia Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Tacoma Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Nordic Chamber Orchestra of Sweden, Ural Philharmonic of Russia, Korean Broadcasting Symphony, Guiyang Symphony Orchestra of China, Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional of Dominican Republic, and many others. She has performed on the world’s finest concert stages, including Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, the Kennedy Center, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Steinway Hall’s Salon de Virtuosi, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Ravinia Festival, Philadelphia’s World Cafe Live, (Le) Poisson Rouge in New York, the Louvre Museum in Paris, Washington, D.C.’s Phillips Collection, and Korea’s Kumho Art Gallery.

  An accomplished chamber musician, Kristin Lee is a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, performing at Lincoln Center in New York and on tour with CMS throughout each season, as well as a principal artist of Camerata Pacifica in Santa Barbara, sitting as The Bernard Gondos Chair. She is also concertmaster of the Nu Deco Ensemble in Miami, Florida, and is a member of Steve Coleman’s Natal Eclipse, a hybrid chamber-jazz ensemble that explores the very foundations of group improvisation and spontaneous composition. Lee has also appeared in chamber music programs at Music@Menlo, La Jolla Festival, Medellín Festicámara of Colombia, the El Sistema Chamber Music festival of Venezuela, the Sarasota Music Festival, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern of Germany, the Hong Kong Chamber Music Festival and the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, among many others. In addition, she is the co-founder and artistic director of Emerald City Music, a chamber music series that presents authentically unique concert experiences and bridges the divide between the highest caliber classical music and the many diverse communities of the Puget Sound region of Washington State.

  Recent and upcoming highlights include performances presented by the San Francisco Symphony with Itzhak Perlman, Amarillo Symphony, Chamber Music Sedona, a tour with the Silk Road Ensemble, Music@Menlo, Parlance Chamber Concerts, Moab Music Festival, Town Hall Seattle, Lyra Music Festival, Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, Olympic Music Festival, North Carolina New Music Initiative, and the Leicester International Music Festival, as well as performances with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Camerata Pacifica.

  Lee’s performances have been broadcast on PBS’s “Live from Lincoln Center,” the Kennedy Center Honors, WFMT Chicago’s “Rising Stars” series, WRTI in Philadelphia, and on WQXR in New York. She also appeared on Perlman in Shanghai, a nationally broadcast PBS documentary that chronicled a historic cross‑cultural exchange between the Perlman Music Program and Shanghai Conservatory. She made the world premiere recording of Vivian Fung’s Violin Concerto, written for her, which won a Juno Award and is available on Naxos.

  Lee’s many honors include awards from the 2015 Trondheim Chamber Music Competition, 2011 Trio di Trieste Premio International Competition, the SYLFF Fellowship, Dorothy DeLay Scholarship, the Aspen Music Festival’s Violin Competition, the New Jersey Young Artists’ Competition, and the Salon de Virtuosi Scholarship Foundation. She is also the unprecedented First Prize winner of three concerto competitions at The Juilliard School – in the Pre-College Division in 1997 and 1999, and in the College Division in 2007.

  Born in Seoul, Lee began studying the violin at the age of five, and within one year won First Prize at the prestigious Korea Times Violin Competition. In 1995, she moved to the United States and continued her musical studies under Sonja Foster. Two years later, she became a student of Catherine Cho and Dorothy DeLay in The Juilliard School’s Pre-College Division. In January 2000, she was chosen to study with Itzhak Perlman after he heard her perform Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with Juilliard’s Pre-College Symphony Orchestra. Lee holds a Master’s degree from The Juilliard School, where she studied with Itzhak Perlman and Donald Weilerstein, and served as an assistant teacher for Perlman’s studio as a Starling Fellow. She has served on the faculties of the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, the LG Chamber Music School in Seoul, Korea, El Sistema’s chamber music festival in Caracas, Venezuela, and the Music@Menlo Chamber Music Festival.

  For more information, visit www.violinistkristinlee.com.

• ARNAUD SUSSMANN

  Winner of a 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Arnaud Sussmann has distinguished himself with his unique sound, bravura and profound musicianship. Minnesota’s Pioneer Press writes, “Sussmann has an old-school sound reminiscent of what you’ll hear on vintage recordings by Jascha Heifetz or Fritz Kreisler, a rare combination of sweet and smooth that can hypnotize a listener. His clear tone [is] a thing of awe-inspiring beauty, his phrasing spellbinding.”

  A thrilling young musician capturing the attention of classical critics and audiences around the world, Arnaud Sussmann has appeared with the American Symphony Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, New World Symphony, Pacific Symphony, Paris Chamber Orchestra, Jerusalem Symphony and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Further solo appearances have included a tour of Israel and concerts at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Dresden Music Festival in Germany and at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. Mr. Sussmann has been presented in recital in Omaha on the Tuesday Musical Club series, New Orleans by the Friends of Music, Tel Aviv at the Museum of Art and at the Louvre Museum in Paris. He has also given concerts at the OK Mozart, Chamber Music Northwest and Moritzburg festivals and appears regularly at the Caramoor, Music@Menlo, La Jolla SummerFest, Seattle Chamber Music, Moab Music and Saratoga Springs Chamber Music festivals.

  Recent concerto appearances include performances with Maestro Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra at the White Nights Festival in St Petersburg, the Santa Rosa Symphony, the Albany Symphony, the Jacksonville Symphony and the Grand Rapids Symphony. This past season, chamber music performances included tours with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center to Korea’s LG Arts Center, Shanghai’s Oriental Center and Hong Kong’s Music Academy.

  Arnaud Sussmann has performed with many of today’s leading artists including Itzhak Perlman, Menahem Pressler, Gary Hoffman, Shmuel Ashkenazi, Wu Han, David Finckel, Jan Vogler and members of the Emerson String Quartet. He has worked with conductors such as Cristian Macelaru, Marcelo Lehninger, Rune Bergmann and Leon Botstein. A dedicated chamber musician, he has been a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 2006 and has regularly appeared with them i New York and on tour, including a recent concert at London’s Wigmore Hall.

  A frequent recording artist, Arnaud Sussmann has released albums on Deutsche Grammophon’s DG Concert Series, Naxos, Albany Records and CMS Studio Recordings labels. His solo debut disc, featuring three Brahms Violin Sonatas with pianist Orion Weiss, was released in December 2014 on the Telos Music Label. He has been featured on multiple PBS’ Live from Lincoln Center broadcasts alongside Itzhak Perlman and the Perlman Music Program and with musicians of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

  Born in Strasbourg, France and based now in New York City, Arnaud Sussmann trained at the Conservatoire de Paris and the Juilliard School with Boris Garlitsky and Itzhak Perlman. Winner of several international competitions, including the Andrea Postacchini of Italy and Vatelot/Rampal of France, he was named a Starling Fellow in 2006, an honor which allowed him to be Mr. Perlman’s teaching assistant for two years. Mr. Sussmann now teaches at Stony Brook University on Long Island and was recently named Co-Artistic Director of Music@Menlo’s International Chamber Music Program. He is also the new Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach in Florida.

• CINDY PHELPS, VIOLA

  Cynthia Phelps is the New York Philharmonic’s Principal Viola, The Mr. and Mrs. Frederick P. Rose Chair. Highlights of her solo appearances with the Orchestra have included the New York Premiere–Philharmonic Co- Commission of Julia Adolphe’s Unearth, Release, in 2016; performances on the 2006 Tour of Italy, sponsored by Generali; Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante in 2010 and 2014; and Sofia Gubaidulina’s Two Paths, which the Orchestra commissioned for her and Philharmonic Associate Principal Viola Rebecca Young and which they premiered in 1999 and reprised both on tour and in New York, most recently in 2011. Other solo engagements have included the Minnesota Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, Orquesta Sinfónica de Bilbao, and Hong Kong Philharmonic.

  Ms. Phelps is a member of the New York Philharmonic String Quartet, established in the 2016–17 season, and performs with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Jupiter Chamber Players, and the Santa Fe, La Jolla, Seattle, Chamber Music Northwest, and Bridgehampton festivals. She has appeared with the Guarneri, Tokyo, Orion, American, Brentano, and Prague Quartets, and the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio. She has given recitals in the major music capitals of Europe and the U.S. She is also a founding member of the chamber group Les Amies, a flute-harp-viola group with Philharmonic Principal Harp Nancy Allen and flutist Carol Wincenc.

  Ms. Phelps is a first-prize winner of both the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition and the Washington International String Competition, and is a recipient of the Pro Musicis International award. Under the auspices of this philanthropic organization, she has appeared as soloist in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Rome, and Paris, as well as in prisons, hospitals, and drug rehabilitation centers worldwide. Her recording Air, for flute, viola, and harp on Arabesque, was nominated for a Grammy Award. Her television and radio credits include Live From Lincoln Center on PBS; St. Paul Sunday Morning on NPR; Radio France; Italy’s RAI; and WGBH in Boston. Ms. Phelps has served on the faculties at The Juilliard School and the Manhattan School of Music. She is married to cellist Ronald Thomas.

• MELISSA REARDON

  Grammy-nominated violist Melissa Reardon is an
  internationally renowned performer whose solo and
  chamber playing spans all musical genres. Melissa is
  the Artistic Director of the Portland Chamber Music
  Festival in Portland, ME, Artist in Residence at Bard
  College and Conservatory and a founding member and
  the Executive Director of the East Coast Chamber
  Orchestra (ECCO). As a member of the Ensō String
  Quartet from 2006 until its final season in 2018, Melissa
  toured both nationally and internationally, with highlight
  performances in Sydney, Melbourne, Rio de Janeiro, New
  York’s Carnegie Hall, and Washington, DC’s Kennedy
  Center to name a few. Lauded by Classical Voice for her
  “elegant” and “virtuosic” performances, the
  Massachusetts-born musician won first prize at the
  Washington International Competition, and is the only
  violist to win top prizes in consecutive HAMS International
  viola competitions. A sought-after collaborative musician
  and teacher, Melissa has appeared in numerous festivals
  across the United States and around the world, and has
  toured with Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, and with
  Musicians from Marlboro. She held the post of Associate
  Professor of Viola at East Carolina University from 2007
  -2013, and earned degrees from the Curtis Institute of
  Music and the New England Conservatory. Melissa is
  married to the cellist Raman Ramakrishnan and they live
  in NYC with their seven-year-old son Linus.

  “I am honored and thrilled to join the PCMF team,” said
  Reardon. “I have such admiration for Jenny Elowitch’s artistic
  leadership and hope to emulate her ability to connect with
  musicians and with Portland’s vibrant community. It is no small
  feat to grow a festival for twenty-five years and I hope that the
  festival will continue to flourish under my leadership for years to
  come.” She added, “I am so excited to spend more time in this
  beautiful city, which I first came to know and love when I served
  as Assistant Principal Viola of the Portland Symphony Orchestra
  in the early 2000s, and to continue bringing world-class chamber
  music to Maine.”

• BROOK SPELTZ

  Cellist and Los Angeles native Brook Speltz has
  performed as a soloist, chamber musician, and recitalist
  throughout the United States, Canada, Latin America,
  Europe, and Asia. Since winning First Prize in the Ima
  Hogg Competition, he has performed as a soloist with the
  Houston Symphony, Colorado Music Festival Orchestra,
  and International Contemporary Ensemble, among others,
  and is a regular performer at England’s IMS Prussia Cove
  and on tour with Musicians from Marlboro. As an avid and
  soughtafter chamber musician, Speltz has collaborated in
  chamber music recitals throughout the country with such
  distinguished artists as Itzhak Perlman and Richard
  Goode, and as a result, he was nominated for the
  inaugural Warner Music Prize, a newly established prize
  presented by Warner Music and Carnegie Hall. Based in
  New York City, Speltz tours and performs with ensembles
  such as Shuffle Concert and East Coast Chamber
  Orchestra and on the Omega Ensemble Series.
  Performance highlights of his upcoming season include
  two Carnegie Hall recitals with Richard Goode, a tour in
  Israel with Shuffle Concert, the Musicians from Marlboro
  East Coast tour, and a premiere of Chris Rogerson’s Cello
  Concerto in Buffalo, New York. Brook Speltz studied at
  the Curtis Institute of Music with Peter Wiley and at the
  Juilliard School with Joel Krosnick, after his formative
  years of study with Eleonore Schoenfeld in Los Angeles.
  He performs on a 1756 J. C. Gigli on loan from his father,
  a cellist and his first inspiration in a family of professional
  musicians.

• EDWARD ARRON

  Cellist Edward Arron has garnered recognition worldwide for his elegant musicianship,
  impassioned performances, and creative programming. A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Mr.
  Arron made his New York recital debut in 2000 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
  Since that time, he has appeared in recital, as a soloist with major orchestras, and as a
  chamber musician throughout North America, Europe and Asia.

  The 2020-21 season marks Mr. Arron’s 12th season as the artistic director and host of the
  acclaimed Musical Masterworks concert series in Old Lyme, Connecticut. He is also the
  co-artistic director with his wife, pianist Jeewon Park, of the Performing Artists in
  Residence series at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Mr. Arron
  tours and records as a member of the renowned Ehnes Quartet, and he appears regularly
  at the Caramoor International Music Festival, where he has been a resident performer and
  curator of chamber music concerts for over a quarter of a century. In 2013, he completed
  a ten-year residency as the artistic director of the Metropolitan Museum Artists in
  Concert, a chamber music series created in 2003 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the
  Museum’s prestigious Concerts and Lectures series.

  Mr. Arron has performed numerous times at Carnegie’s Weill and Zankel Halls, Lincoln
  Center’s Alice Tully and Avery Fisher Halls, New York’s Town Hall, and the 92nd Street
  Y, and is a frequent performer at Bargemusic. Festival appearances include Ravinia,
  Salzburg, Mostly Mozart, Bravo! Vail, Tanglewood, Bridgehampton, Spoleto USA,
  Santa Fe, Seattle Chamber Music, Kuhmo, PyeongChang, Evian, Charlottesville,
  Bowdoin, Telluride Musicfest, Seoul Spring, Lake Champlain Chamber Music,
  Chesapeake Chamber Music, La Jolla Summerfest, and Bard Music Festival. He has
  participated in Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project as well as Isaac Stern’s Jerusalem
  Chamber Music Encounters. Mr. Arron’s performances are frequently broadcast on
  NPR’s Performance Today.

  Edward Arron began playing the cello at age seven in Cincinnati and continued his
  studies in New York with Peter Wiley. He is a graduate of the Juilliard School, where he
  was a student of Harvey Shapiro. In 2016, Mr. Arron joined the faculty at University of
  Massachusetts Amherst, after having served on the faculty of New York University from
  2009 to 2016.