All Things Double Bass
| 1. | Introduction | 00:00:46 |
| 2. | Dvořák: Serenade in D minor for Winds, Cello, and Double Bass, B. 77, Op. 44 | 00:27:55 |
| 3. | Meyer: Quintet for String Quartet and Bass | 00:29:48 |
On this program, we celebrate that most versatile of string instruments, the biggest and deepest member of the string family: the Double Bass. Composers have long liked to throw string basses into the mix when they write wind serenades, since such music was often performed outdoors, and the bass can be played standing up. In Antonín Dvořák’s delightful Serenade for Winds, the bass provides a rich foundation that the soloistic oboes and clarinets get to float on top of. He adds an extra twist, including a cellist as well, and when the two low strings and bassoon team up for some rambunctious basslines, it’s a thrilling celebration of luscious, rumbling sonorities. Edgar Meyer is one of the greatest living American bassists, an astonishingly varied musician who is equally comfortable playing jazz, bluegrass, or Classical chamber music. His Quintet for Bass and String Quartet from 1995 is full of stirring Americana and rhythmic vitality. He brings his wide range of playing styles to the table in this brilliant performance featuring him and The Dover Quartet.
PROGRAM
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Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904) |
Serenade in D minor for Winds, Cello, and Double Bass, B. 77, Op. 44 (1878) James Austin Smith, Stephen Taylor, oboe; Tommaso Lonquich, Anthony McGill, clarinet; Marc Goldberg, Peter Kolkay, bassoon; Thomas Sefcovic, contrabassoon; Radovan Vlatkovic, Eric Reed, Michelle Baker, horn; Mihai Marica, cello; Anthony Manzo, double bass |
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Edgar Meyer (1960–) |
Quintet for String Quartet and Bass (1995) Dover Quartet (Wu Joel Link, Bryan Lee, violin; Hezekiah Leung, viola; Camden Shaw, cello) Edgar Meyer, double bass |
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James Austin Smith
Stephen Taylor
Tommaso Lonquich
Anthony McGill
Marc Goldberg
Peter Kolkay
Radovan Vlatković
Eric Reed
Mihai Marica
Anthony Manzo
Performer, curator, and on-stage host James Austin Smith “proves that an oboist can have an adventurous solo career” (The New Yorker). Smith appears at leading national and international chamber music festivals, as Co-Principal Oboe of the conductor-less Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and as an artist of the International Contemporary Ensemble. As Artistic and Executive Director of Tertulia Chamber Music, Smith creates intimate evenings of music, food, and drink in New York and San Francisco, as well as an annual festival in a variety of global destinations. He serves as Artistic Advisor to Coast Live Music in the San Francisco Bay Area and mentors graduate-level musicians as a professor of oboe and chamber music at Stony Brook University and as a regular guest at London's Guildhall School. A Fulbright scholar and alum of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect and CMS’s Bowers Program, he holds degrees in music and political science from Northwestern and Yale University.
Stephen Taylor, one of the most sought-after oboists in the country, holds the Mrs. John D. Rockefeller III solo oboe chair at the Chamber Music Society. He is a solo oboist with the New York Woodwind Quintet, the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble (for which he has served as co-director of chamber music), the American Composers Orchestra, the New England Bach Festival Orchestra, and Speculum Musicae, and is co-principal oboist of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. His regular festival appearances include Spoleto, Aldeburgh, Caramoor, Bravo! Vail Valley, Music from Angel Fire, Norfolk, Santa Fe, Aspen, and Chamber Music Northwest. Among his more than 200 recordings is Elliott Carter's Oboe Quartet for which Mr. Taylor received a Grammy nomination. He has performed many of Carter's works, giving the world premieres of Carter’s A Mirror on Which to Dwell, Syringa, and Tempo e Tempi; and the US premieres of Trilogy for Oboe and Harp, Oboe Quartet, and A 6 Letter Letter. He is entered in Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities and has been awarded a performer's grant from the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University. Trained at The Juilliard School, he is a member of its faculty as well as of the Yale and Manhattan schools of music. Mr. Taylor plays rare Caldwell model Lorée oboes.
Italian clarinetist Tommaso Lonquich enjoys a distinguished international career, having performed on the most prestigious stages of four continents. Praised by reviewers for his “passion, sumptuous tone, magical finesse, and dazzling virtuosity,” he is Solo Clarinetist with Ensemble MidtVest, the acclaimed chamber ensemble based in Denmark. As a chamber musician, he has partnered with Christian Tetzlaff, Pekka Kuusisto, Carolin Widmann, Ani and Ida Kavafian, Nicolas Dautricourt, David Shifrin, David Finckel, Nicolas Altstaedt, Wu Han, Gilbert Kalish, Anneleen Lenaerts, Yura Lee, Gilles Vonsattel, and the Danish and Vertavo string quartets. As a guest principal in several orchestras, he has collaborated with conductors including Zubin Mehta, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Fabio Luisi, and Leonard Slatkin. As a soloist, he has appeared with the Radio Television Orchestra of Slovenia, Orchestra Canova, and the Orchestra del Teatro Olimpico of Vicenza, among others. He is Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Schackenborg Musikfest, a summer festival set in a royal castle in Denmark. He has conceived several collaborative performances with dancers, actors, and visual artists and has been particularly active in improvisation, leading workshops at the Juilliard School. He has given master classes at the Manhattan School of Music, the Royal Danish Academy, and the Royal Welsh College of Music. Lonquich can be heard on more than twenty albums and is an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program. Alongside his artistic career, he is a practicing psychoanalyst and co-founder of the International Center for Lacanian Psychoanalysis in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Clarinetist Anthony McGill, Principal Clarinet of the New York Philharmonic, is one of classical music’s most celebrated performers and advocates. Hailed by the New York Times for his “brilliance, penetrating sound and rich character,” McGill was named Musical America’s 2024 Instrumentalist of the Year and received the 2020 Avery Fisher Prize. As a soloist, McGill performs with major orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony, and Chicago Symphony. He is a sought-after chamber musician and recording artist, collaborating with the Pacifica Quartet and pianist Gloria Chien on acclaimed albums like American Stories and Here With You. An advocate for equity in classical music, McGill founded the #TakeTwoKnees movement and collaborates with the Equal Justice Initiative. He directs Juilliard’s Music Advancement Program and teaches at Curtis. A Curtis graduate himself, McGill serves on several arts organization boards and is a Backun Artist.
A member of the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble and New York Woodwind Quintet, Marc Goldberg is principal bassoonist of the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, American Ballet Theater, the Saito Kinen Orchestra, and the NYC Opera. Previously the associate principal bassoonist of the New York Philharmonic, he has also been a frequent guest of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, touring with these ensembles across four continents and joining them on numerous recordings. A long-time season artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, he has been a guest of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, the Brentano Quartet, Music@Menlo, Musicians from Marlboro, and Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Band. Goldberg is on the faculty of the Juilliard School Pre-College Division, Mannes College, New England Conservatory, the Hartt School, and the Bard College Conservatory of Music.
Called “stunningly virtuosic” by the New York Times and “superb” by the Washington Post, Peter Kolkay is the only bassoonist to be awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant. In addition to performing with CMS, he regularly appears as a chamber musician at the Sarasota, Music@Menlo, and Bridgehampton summer festivals. Kolkay has commissioned and premiered solo works by Joan Tower, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Elliott Carter, and Tania León, among many others, and his most recent recordings include an album of music for bassoon and strings with the Calidore String Quartet, and the Christopher Rouse concerto with the Albany Symphony. He is Professor of Bassoon at the Vanderbilt University Blair School of Music and has given master classes throughout the US, Mexico, and South Korea. Kolkay is an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, and holds degrees from Lawrence University, the Eastman School of Music, and Yale University. He is a native of Naperville, Illinois.
Radovan Vlatković has performed extensively around the globe and popularized the horn as a recording artist and teacher. He is the winner of numerous competitions, including the Premio Ancona in 1979 and the ARD Competition in 1983. He has premiered works by Elliott Carter, Sofia Gubaidulina, Heinz Holliger, and several Croatian composers; he premiered Penderecki's horn concerto, Winterreise, in Bremen in 2008 with the composer as conductor. As a chamber musician, he has performed at Gidon Kremer's Lockenhaus, Svyatoslav Richter's December Evenings in Moscow, and András Schiff's Mondsee, as well as the Marlboro Festival, Prussia Cove, and the Casals Festival. He has appeared as soloist with many orchestras, such as the Bavarian Symphony Orchestra, Stuttgart Radio Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, Mozarteum Orchestra, Santa Cecilia Orchestra Rome, Melbourne Orchestra, the NHK Orchestra in Tokyo, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. The recipient of several German Record Critics’ Awards, he has recorded Mozart and Strauss concertos with the English Chamber Orchestra and Jeffrey Tate for EMI, two-horn concertos by Leopold Mozart and Johann Friedrich Fasch with Hermann Baumann and Academy of Saint Martin in the Fields, and the Britten Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings with the Oriol Ensemble in Berlin. Vlatkovic is on the faculty of the Mozarteum Salzburg, Hochschule Zürich, and holds the Canón horn chair at the Queen Sofia School in Madrid. He recently became an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music.
Eric Reed is the horn player of the American Brass Quintet, and co-principal horn of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Also a member of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Eric is a former member of the Canadian Brass, Ensemble Connect, and the New Jersey, Oregon, New World, and Harrisburg symphonies. He serves on the faculty of the Juilliard School, New York University, and Mannes School of Music. Eric is a member of Brassology, a genre-bending brass octet formed in 2023, and Ensemble Échappé, a sinfonietta dedicated to music of the 21st century. Recent world premieres include chamber works by Tyshawn Sorey, Jennifer Higdon, John Zorn, Nina C. Young, Anthony Barfield, William Bolcom, David Biedenbender, Philip Lasser, Kenneth Fuchs and Timo Andres. Recent festival appearances include Aspen, Bridgehampton, Bard, Emerald City, North Shore, Crescent City, Cape Cod, Steamboat Springs, and Mostly Mozart. Eric resides in the Bronx with his wife, violinist Sarah Zun, and their sons Oliver and Elliot.
Romanian-born cellist Mihai Marica is a first-prize winner of the Dr. Luis Sigall International Competition in Viña del Mar, Chile, as well as the Irving M. Klein International Competition, and is a recipient of Charlotte White’s Salon de Virtuosi Fellowship Grant. He has performed with orchestras such as the Symphony Orchestra of Chile, Xalapa Symphony in Mexico, the Hermitage State Orchestra of St. Petersburg in Russia, the Jardins Musicaux Festival Orchestra in Switzerland, the Louisville Orchestra, and the Santa Cruz Symphony in the US. He has also appeared in recital performances in Austria, Hungary, Germany, Spain, Holland, South Korea, Japan, Chile, the United States, and Canada. A dedicated chamber musician, he has performed at the Chamber Music Northwest, Norfolk, and Aspen music festivals where he has collaborated with such artists as Ani Kavafian, Ida Kavafian, David Shifrin, André Watts, and Edgar Meyer. He is a founding member of the award-winning Amphion String Quartet. A recent collaboration with dancer Lil Buck brought forth new pieces for solo cello written by Yevgeniy Sharlat and Patrick Castillo. He recently joined the acclaimed Apollo Trio. Marica studied with Gabriela Todor in his native Romania and with Aldo Parisot at the Yale School of Music, where he was awarded master's and artist diploma degrees. He is an alum of CMS's Bowers Program.
Anthony Manzo’s vibrantly interactive and highly communicative music-making has made him a ubiquitous figure in the upper echelons of classical music, performing at noted venues including Lincoln Center, Boston’s Symphony Hall, and the Spoleto Festival in Charleston. He appears regularly with the Chamber Music Society, both in New York and across the country. He serves as the solo bassist of San Francisco’s New Century Chamber Orchestra and as a guest with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and A Far Cry. He is a regular guest with the National Symphony Orchestra, the Smithsonian Chamber Society, and the Baltimore Symphony when he happens to be near his home in Washington, DC. Formerly the solo bassist of the Munich Chamber Orchestra in Germany, he has also been guest principal with Camerata Salzburg in Austria, where collaborations have included a summer residency at the Salzburg Festival and two tours as soloist alongside bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff, performing Mozart’s “Per questa bella mano.” He is an active performer on period instruments, with groups including the Handel & Haydn Society of Boston (where his playing was lauded as “endowed with beautiful and unexpected plaintiveness” by the Boston Musical Intelligencer), Philharmonia Baroque in San Francisco, and Opera Lafayette in Washington, DC. He is on the double bass and chamber music faculty of the University of Maryland. Manzo performs on a double bass made around 1890 by Jérôme Thibouville-Lamy in Paris (which now has a removable neck for travel!).