Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven
Sun, Jan 26, 2025, 5:00 pm
Alice Tully Hall
2 hours, including intermission
Chamber music for strings by Haydn and Mozart, skillfully crafted at the height of their compositional achievements, is complemented by a Beethoven piano trio. In its elegance and refinement, this trio pays tribute to the Classical style of these great composers.
Program
Joseph Haydn
(1732–1809)Quartet in F major for Strings, Hob. III:82, Op. 77, No. 2
(1799)Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(1756–1791)Quintet in E-flat major for Two Violins, Two Violas, and Cello, K. 614
(1791)Ludwig van Beethoven
(1770–1827)Trio in E-flat major for Piano, Violin, and Cello, Op. 70, No. 2
(1808)
Gilles Vonsattel
Arnaud Sussmann
Paul Watkins
Viano Quartet
Swiss-born American pianist Gilles Vonsattel is celebrated for his versatility and originality. He has been honored with an Avery Fisher Career Grant, the 2016 Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award, and top prizes in the Naumburg and Geneva competitions, and has performed alongside world-renowned orchestras like the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, San Francisco Symphony, Munich Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg. He has performed recitals and chamber music at venues including Ravinia, Tokyo’s Musashino Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Lucerne Festival, Bravo! Vail, Chamber Music Northwest, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and Music@Menlo. An advocate of contemporary music, he has premiered compositions in the United States and Europe, collaborating closely with composers Jörg Widmann, Heinz Holliger, Anthony Cheung, and George Benjamin. Recent milestones in his career encompass a performance of Carlos Chávez’s Piano Concerto at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium with The Orchestra Now, a debut at Mostly Mozart, and a critically acclaimed recording of Richard Strauss and Kurt Leimer’s music with the Bern Symphony Orchestra and Mario Venzago for Schweizer Fonogramm. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, he earned his bachelor’s degree in political science and economics from Columbia University and a master’s degree from the Juilliard School. Vonsattel is Professor of Piano at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and is on the faculty at Bard College Conservatory of Music.
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.” A thrilling musician capturing the attention of classical critics and audiences around the world, he has recently appeared as a soloist with the Vancouver Symphony and the New World Symphony. As a chamber musician, he has performed at the Tel Aviv Museum in Israel, London’s Wigmore Hall, Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, the Dresden Music Festival in Germany, and the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC. He has been presented in recital in Omaha on the Tuesday Musical Club series, in New Orleans by the Friends of Music, and at the Louvre Museum in Paris. He has also given concerts at the OK Mozart, Moritzburg, Caramoor, Music@Menlo, La Jolla SummerFest, Mainly Mozart, Seattle Chamber Music, Chamber Music Northwest, and Moab Music festivals. He has performed with many of today’s leading artists including Itzhak Perlman, Menahem Pressler, Gary Hoffman, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Wu Han, David Finckel, and Jan Vogler. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, Sussmann is Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach and Co-Director of Music@Menlo’s International Program, and teaches at Stony Brook University. In September 2022, Sussmann was named Founding Artistic Director of the Boscobel Chamber Music Festival.
Acclaimed for his inspirational performances and eloquent musicianship, Paul Watkins enjoys a remarkably varied and distinguished career as soloist, chamber musician, and conductor. He is 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 under eminent conductors including Bernard Haitink, Paavo Berglund, Leonard Slatkin, Sakari Oramo, Gianandrea Noseda, Sir Mark Elder, Sir Andrew Davis, Sir Charles Mackerras, Andris Nelsons, Edo de Waart, Hannu Lintu and Vasily Petrenko. A dedicated chamber musician, Paul was a member of the Nash Ensemble from 1997 until 2013, when he joined the Emerson String Quartet. With the Quartet he has travelled extensively, performing at major international festivals including Tanglewood, Aspen, Ravinia, Edinburgh, Berlin, and Evian, and has collaborated with artists such as Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, Evgeny Kissin, Renée Fleming, and Barbara Hannigan. He is a regular guest artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
He took first prize in the 2002 Leeds Conducting Competition, and has held the positions of Music Director of the English Chamber Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of the Ulster Orchestra. In recent seasons he made his conducting debuts with the Minnesota Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, and Omaha Symphony. His extensive discography as a cellist includes more than 70 recordings, including 18 solo albums for Chandos. His first recording as a conductor, of the Britten and Berg violin concertos with Daniel Hope, received a Grammy nomination.
Paul’s future plans include solo performances and recordings with, among others, Alessio Bax, Anthony Marwood, Lawrence Power, Leila Josefowicz, Edward Gardner, and Sir Andrew Davis. He is also in demand as a visiting teacher and has residencies this season at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Butler School of Music at the University of Texas at Austin.
Praised for their “virtuosity, visceral expression, and rare unity of intention” (Boston Globe), the Viano Quartet are one of the most sought-after young ensembles today and current members of CMS’s Bowers Program. Since soaring to international acclaim as winners of the 13th Banff International String Quartet Competition, they have performed at major venues across the globe.
During the 2024–25 season, the quartet makes its debut in Alice Tully Hall, followed by appearances at series including Wolf Trap, Tuesday Evening Concert Series, Northwestern University, Four Arts, MoCA Westport, Chamber Music Yellow Springs, and the chamber music societies of Dallas, Salt Lake City, and Carmel. In November, the quartet makes its debut in David Geffen Hall with Sir Stephen Hough for the world premiere of his new piano quintet. The quartet can be heard in Canada this season with debuts at the Cecilian Chamber Series as well as the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto and Isabel Bader PAC in Kingston in a program with guitarist Miloš Karadaglic. As the inaugural June Goldsmith Quartet-in-Residence for the Music in the Morning series through the 2024–25 season, the quartet will return to Vancouver this March for concerts and community engagement initiatives.
In addition to their busy touring schedule, the quartet are also dedicated advocates of music education, and have worked with students at Music@Menlo, SUNY Buffalo, the Colburn Academy, Duke University, University of British Columbia, Northern Michigan University, Utah State University, University of Denver, and Virginia Commonwealth University. This season they will be returning to University of Victoria for several weeks of residency. The quartet has previously held graduate quartet residencies at Curtis and Colburn and were also the Peak Fellowship Quartet-in-Residence at Meadows School of the Arts at SMU.
The Viano Quartet has collaborated with world-class musicians including Emanuel Ax, Inon Barnatan, Fleur Barron, James Ehnes, Mahan Esfahani, Marc-André Hamelin, Bridget Kibbey, Paul Neubauer, David Shifrin, and Elisso Virsaladze. 2023 marked the release of the quartet’s first album, Portraits, on the Curtis label, featuring pieces by Schubert, Florence Price, Tchaikovsky, and Ginastera.
Before their career-defining achievement at the Banff International String Quartet Competition, they also received major prizes at the Wigmore Hall, Osaka, Fischoff, ENKOR, and Yellow Springs Chamber Music competitions. Each member of the quartet is grateful to the interminable support from their distinguished mentors at the Curtis Institute and Colburn Conservatory, including members of the Dover, Guarneri, and Tokyo string quartets.
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