Airs of Romanticism
| 1. | Introduction | 00:00:53 |
| 2. | Debussy: Clair de lune from Fêtes galantes for Voice and Piano | 00:06:49 |
| 3. | Poulenc: Sonata for Flute and Piano | 00:13:39 |
| 4. | Saint-Saëns: Sonata for Oboe and Piano, Op. 166 | 00:12:11 |
| 5. | Brahms: Sonata in F minor for Clarinet and Piano, Op. 120, No. 1 | 00:24:56 |
PROGRAM
|
Claude Debussy (1862–1918) |
Clair de lune from for Voice and Piano (1904) Tony Arnold, Soprano; Juho Pohjonen, Piano |
|
Francis Poulenc (1899–1966) |
Sonata for Flute and Piano (1957) Demarre McGill, Flute; Evren Ozel, Piano |
|
Camille Saint-Saens (1835–1921) |
Sonata for Oboe and Piano, Op. 166 (1921) Juri Vallentin, Oboe; Evren Ozel, Piano |
|
Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) |
Sonata in F minor for Clarinet and Piano, Op. 120, No. 1 (1894) Alexander Fiterstein, Clarinet; Wu Qian, Piano |
| 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}}
Demarre McGill
Alexander Fiterstein
Juri Vallentin
Evren Ozel
Juho Pohjonen
Wu Qian
Flutist Demarre McGill has gained international recognition as a soloist, recitalist, chamber, and orchestral musician. Winner of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Sphinx Medal of Excellence, he has appeared as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the San Francisco, Seattle, Pittsburgh, Dallas, Grant Park, San Diego, Chicago, and Baltimore Symphony Orchestras. Now principal flute of the Seattle Symphony, he previously served as principal flute of the Dallas Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Florida Orchestra, and Santa Fe Opera Orchestra. He has also served as acting principal flute of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. McGill is an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program and has participated in the Santa Fe, Marlboro, Seattle, and Stellenbosch chamber music festivals, among others.
Alexander Fiterstein is recognized as one of today’s most exceptional clarinetists. He has been praised by the New York Times for possessing a “beautiful liquid clarity,” and the Washington Post wrote, “Fiterstein treats his instrument as his own personal voice, dazzling in its spectrum of colors, agility, and range. Every sound he makes is finely measured without inhibiting expressiveness.”
A recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant and a first prize winner of the Carl Nielsen International Clarinet Competition, he performs with orchestras and chamber groups throughout the world. He appeared as a soloist with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Kansas City Symphony, Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra, China National Symphony Orchestra, Czech Chamber Orchestra, Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Israel Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Lincoln Center, Tokyo Philharmonic, and Vienna Chamber Orchestra. A dedicated performer of chamber music, he frequently collaborates with distinguished artists and regularly performs with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
Among the highly regarded artists he has performed with are Daniel Barenboim, Emanuel Ax, Mitsuko Uchida, Richard Goode, Pinchas Zukerman and Steven Isserlis. Fiterstein has made several recordings for Naxos, Bridge, and Orchid Classics. He graduated from the Juilliard School and is now Chair of Winds and Professor of Clarinet at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University.
German oboist Juri Vallentin has gained international attention as a prize winner of major competitions such as the International Tchaikovsky Competition as first oboist, the German Music Competition, and the International Oboe Competition of Japan. He has performed as soloist with the MDR Symphony Orchestra, the Mariinsky Orchestra, the Lower Saxony State Orchestra, the Brandenburg State Orchestra, and the Munich Chamber Orchestra, among others. His albums Rush, featuring Italian concertos, Ebenbild, which combines music and literature, and Bridges, with music from five centuries, as well as numerous radio productions for BR, SWR, and Deutschlandfunk, document his artistic work. He co-founded the wind quintet BREEZE in 2021. Born in Mainz, he studied in Nuremberg and at the Conservatoire de Paris, where he graduated with highest honors. Vallentin is Professor of Oboe at the Karlsruhe University of Music and a member of CMS’s Bowers Program.
American pianist Evren Ozel, praised for his compelling artistry and technical mastery, is the Bronze Medalist of the 2025 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, where he also received the Mozart Concerto Prize. He has appeared with the Cleveland Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, and Fort Worth Symphony under conductors including Marin Alsop and Carlos Miguel Prieto. A recipient of a 2023 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Ozel released his debut album of Mozart concertos with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and Howard Griffiths on Alpha Classics in 2025. Ozel is a 2024–27 Bowers Program Artist at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and performs widely in recital, chamber music, and international festivals. A graduate of the New England Conservatory, he studied with Wha Kyung Byun and has worked with Mitsuko Uchida, Sir András Schiff, and others. He is managed by Concert Artists Guild and makes his home in Boston.
Pianist Juho Pohjonen is in demand internationally as an orchestral soloist, recitalist, and chamber performer. An ardent exponent of Scandinavian music, he has a growing discography offering music by Finnish compatriots such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Kaija Saariaho, and Jean Sibelius. Recent engagements include the Taiwan, BBC, and Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestras; the Cleveland and Minnesota orchestras; and the symphonies of San Francisco, Atlanta, New Jersey, and Colorado. Pohjonen is an alum of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Bowers Program and enjoys an ongoing relationship with the organization. Pohjonen earned a master’s degree from Meri Louhos and Hui-Ying Liu-Tawaststjerna at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. He was selected by Sir András Schiff as the winner of the 2009 Klavier Festival Ruhr Scholarship. In 2019, Pohjonen launched MyPianist, an AI-based app that provides interactive piano accompaniment.
Winner of a 2016 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award, as well as classical music’s bright young star award for 2007 by The Independent, pianist Wu Qian has maintained a busy international career for over a decade. She has appeared as soloist in many international venues including the Wigmore, Royal Festival, and Bridgewater halls in the UK, City Hall in Hong Kong, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. As a soloist she has appeared with the Konzerthaus Orchester in Berlin, the Brussels Philharmonic, the London Mozart Players, I Virtuosi Italiani, the European Union Chamber Orchestra, and the Munich Symphoniker. She won first prize in the Trio di Trieste Duo Competition and the Kommerzbank Piano Trio competition in Frankfurt, and has received numerous other awards. Appearances this season include performances in the UK, Germany, USA, Korea, Australia, Spain, and The Netherlands and collaborations with Alexander Sitkovetsky, Leticia Moreno, Cho-Liang Lin, Clive Greensmith, and Wu Han. Her debut recording of Schumann, Liszt, and Alexander Prior was met with universal critical acclaim. She is a founding member of the Sitkovetsky Piano Trio with which, in addition to performing in major concert halls and series around the world, she has released two recordings on the BIS label and also a disc of Brahms and Schubert on the Wigmore Live Label. Wu Qian an alum of The Bowers Program.