Balakirev and Beethoven
| 1. | Introduction | 00:00:46 |
| 2. | Balakirev: Octet for Flute, Oboe, Horn, Violin, Viola, Cello, Bass, and Piano, Op. 3 | 00:16:45 |
| 3. | Beethoven: Quartet in C-sharp minor for Strings, Op. 131 | 00:40:58 |
PROGRAM
|
Mily Balakirev (1837–1910) |
Octet for Flute, Oboe, Horn, Violin, Viola, Cello, Bass, and Piano, Op. 3 (1855) Ransom Wilson, Flute; James Austin Smith, Oboe; David Jolley, Horn; Sean Lee, Violin; Mark Holloway, Viola; Inbal Segev, Cello; Xavier Foley, Double Bass; Michael Brown, Piano |
|
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) |
Quartet in C-sharp minor for Strings, Op. 131 (1826) Schumann Quartet (Erik Schumann, Violin I; Ken Schumann, Violin II; Liisa Randalu, Viola; Mark Schumann, 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}}
Ransom Wilson
James Austin Smith
Sean Lee
Inbal Segev
Michael Stephen Brown
Flutist and conductor Ransom Wilson has performed in concert with major orchestras the world over. As a flutist, he recently launched an ongoing series of solo recordings on the Nimbus label in the UK. As a conductor, he is starting his fourth season as music director of the Redlands Symphony in Southern California, and he is the Director of Orchestral Programs at Idyllwild Arts. He has led opera performances at the New York City Opera, and was for ten years an assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera. He has been a guest conductor of the London, Houston, KBS, Kraków, Denver, New Jersey, Hartford, and Berkeley symphonies; the Orchestra of St. Luke's; the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra; the Hallé Orchestra; and the chamber orchestras of St. Paul and Los Angeles. He has also appeared with the Glimmerglass Opera, Minnesota Opera, and the Opera of La Quincena Musical in Spain. As an educator, he regularly leads master classes at the Paris Conservatory, The Juilliard School, Moscow Conservatory, and Cambridge University. A graduate of The Juilliard School, he was an Atlantique Foundation scholar in Paris, where he studied privately with Jean-Pierre Rampal. His recording career, which includes three Grammy Award nominations, began in 1973 with Jean-Pierre Rampal and I Solisti Veneti. Since then he has recorded over 35 albums as flutist and/or conductor. Wilson is a professor at the Yale University School of Music, and has performed with the Chamber Music Society since 1991. He plays exclusively on a hand-made Haynes flute.
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, San Francisco, and beyond. 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. Smith’s April 2027 Carnegie Hall debut recital, Elemental, connects the oboe to ancient, global traditions of double reed playing, asserting its role in the human soundscape. 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.
With performances described by the New York Times as “breathtakingly beautiful,” violinist Sean Lee has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center for over a decade, following his participation in CMS’s Bowers Program. A recipient of Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Career Grant, Lee has performed as a soloist with orchestras including the San Francisco Symphony, Jerusalem Symphony, and Orchestra del Teatro Carlo Felice. Originally from Los Angeles, Lee studied with Robert Lipsett of the Colburn Conservatory and legendary violinist Ruggiero Ricci before studying at the Juilliard School with his longtime mentor, violinist Itzhak Perlman. Lee performs on violins made by Samuel Zygmuntowicz in 1995 and David Bague in 1999, and a bow made circa 1890 by Joseph Arthur Vigneron.
Inbal Segev has appeared with orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, and Pittsburgh Symphony, led by Marin Alsop, Stéphane Denève, Lorin Maazel, Cristian Macelaru, Zubin Mehta, and others. She has commissioned and premiered new concertos from Timo Andres, Anna Clyne, Avner Dorman, and Victoria Poleva. Recorded with Alsop and the London Philharmonic, her premiere recording of Clyne’s concerto topped the Amazon Classical Concertos chart, its opening movement receiving more than 13 million listens on Spotify. During the early pandemic lockdowns, she launched 20 for 2020, a commissioning, recording, and video project for 20 composers, including John Luther Adams, Viet Cuong, Angélica Negrón, and the cellist herself. A dedicated chamber musician, she co-founded the Amerigo Trio with Glenn Dicterow and Karen Dreyfus, and her acclaimed discography includes a collaboration with Juho Pohjonen. Her cello was made by Francesco Ruggieri in 1673.
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.” He has appeared as soloist with the Seattle Symphony, American Symphony Orchestra, The Orchestra Now, Phoenix Symphony, and Poland’s NFM Leopoldinum, and performs at major festivals worldwide. The recipient of the 2026 Andrew Wolf Award, Lincoln Center’s Emerging Artist Award, and an Avery Fisher Career Grant, he was recently in residence at MacDowell and Yaddo. Recent highlights include a recital at Alice Tully Hall with CMS and collaborations with longtime artistic partner Nicholas Canellakis, as well as Pinchas Zukerman, Kristin Lee, and Arnaud Sussmann. His first album devoted entirely to his own music, Twelve Blocks, was released in 2026 to critical acclaim. Current projects include The Carnival of Endangered Wonders and the score for Angeline Gragasin’s film Look But Don’t Touch. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, Brown lives in New York City with his two 19th-century Steinways, Octavia and Daria.