33. Inspiration of Beethoven
| 1. | Introduction | 00:00:42 |
| 2. | Beethoven: Quartet in G major for Strings, Op. 18, No. 2 | 00:25:12 |
| 3. | Mendelssohn: Quartet in F minor for Piano, Violin, Viola, and Cello, Op. 2 | 00:32:34 |
| 4. | Closing | 00:00:30 |
Program
Beethoven Quartet in G major for Strings, Op. 18, No. 2
Danish String Quartet (Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen, Frederik Oland, violin; Asbjørn Norgaard, viola; Fredrik Sjolin, cello)
Mendelssohn Quartet in F minor for Piano, Violin, Viola, and Cello, Op. 2
Michael Stephen Brown, piano; Ani Kavafian, violin; Mark Holloway, viola; Paul Watkins, cello
| Title | Date |
|---|---|
| Streaming live | {{ViewModel.StreamingOn.date}}, {{ViewModel.StreamingOn.time}} |
| Off-sale on | {{ViewModel.OffSaleDate.date}}, {{ViewModel.OffSaleDate.time}} |
| Available on-demand until | {{ViewModel.AvailableUntil.date}}, {{ViewModel.AvailableUntil.time}} |
{{ViewModel.BuySubscription.prompt}}
Michael Stephen Brown
Ani Kavafian
Paul Watkins
Michael Stephen Brown is a composer and pianist hailed by the New York Times as “one of the leading figures in the current renaissance of performer-composers.” The 2026 Andrew Wolf Award Winner and a recent fellow at both MacDowell and Yaddo, he is also a recipient of Lincoln Center’s Emerging Artist Award and an Avery Fisher Career Grant. Brown performs internationally and receives commissions from orchestras, soloists, and festivals around the world. Recent highlights include a recital at Alice Tully Hall for CMS, and collaborations with cellist Nicholas Canellakis and violinists Pinchas Zukerman, Kristin Lee, and Arnaud Sussmann. He is currently composing The Carnival of Endangered Wonders, a CMS-led project co-presented by a consortium of US presenters. His first album devoted entirely to his music, Twelve Blocks, will be released in February 2026. Brown is also composing the score for Angeline Gragasin’s upcoming film Look But Don’t Touch and lives in New York City with his two 19th-century Steinways, Octavia and Daria.
Violinist Ani Kavafian enjoys a prolific career as a soloist, chamber musician, and professor. She has performed with many of America’s leading orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and San Francisco Symphony. In the 2019-20 season, she continued her longtime association as an artist of the Chamber Music Society with appearances in New York and on tour. Last summer she participated in several music festivals, including the Heifetz International Institute and the Sarasota Chamber Music, Bridgehampton, Meadowmount, Norfolk, and Angel Fire festivals. She and her sister, violinist and violist Ida Kavafian, have performed with the symphonies of Detroit, Colorado, Tucson, San Antonio, and Cincinnati, and have recorded the music of Mozart and Sarasate on the Nonesuch label. She is a Full Professor at Yale University and has appeared at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall numerous times with colleagues and students from Yale. She has received an Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Young Concert Artists International Auditions award and has appeared at the White House on three occasions. Her recordings can be heard on the Nonesuch, RCA, Columbia, Arabesque, and Delos labels. Born in Istanbul of Armenian heritage, Kavafian studied violin in the US with Ara Zerounian and Mischa Mischakoff. She received her master’s degree from The Juilliard School under Ivan Galamian. She plays the 1736 Muir McKenzie Stradivarius violin.
Paul Watkins enjoys a varied and distinguished career as soloist, chamber musician, and conductor. The cellist of the Emerson String Quartet from 2013 until its disbanding in 2023, he is also the Artistic Director of the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, and in 2019 he was appointed Professor of Cello at the Yale School of Music. He has performed as concerto soloist with prestigious orchestras throughout the world. A dedicated chamber musician, he was a member of the Nash Ensemble from 1997 until 2013 and is a regular guest artist at CMS. Watkins has held the positions of Music Director of the English Chamber Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of the Ulster Orchestra. His extensive discography as a cellist includes more than 70 recordings, and his first recording as a conductor, of the Britten and Berg violin concertos with Daniel Hope, received a Grammy nomination.