Montgomery, Widmann, and Tan Dun
Tue, May 13, 2025, 7:30 pm
Alice Tully Hall
2 hours, including intermission
As a tribute to Beethoven’s uncanny connection to the music of our time, we offer works of bracing individuality written by five living composers from around the globe. Indeed, Jörg Widmann’s Eighth Quartet, performed by the Juilliard String Quartet, has direct links to Beethoven’s quartet legacy.
Program
Jessie Montgomery
(b. 1981)Duo for Violin and Cello
(2015)Evgeny Kissin
(b. 1971)Trio for Piano, Violin, and Cello
(2022)Brett Dean
(b. 1961)Quartet No. 2 for Strings and Soprano, “And once I played Ophelia”
(2013)Jörg Widmann
(b. 1973)String Quartet No. 8, “Study on Beethoven III”
(2019–20)Tan Dun
(b. 1957)Concerto for String Quartet and Pipa
(1999)
Tony Arnold
Gloria Chien
Kristin Lee
Tien-Hsin Cindy Wu
Paul Neubauer
Tony Arnold is internationally acclaimed as a leading proponent of contemporary music in concert and recording, a “convincing, mesmerizing soprano” (Los Angeles Times) who “has a broader gift for conveying the poetry and nuance behind outwardly daunting contemporary scores” (Boston Globe). Her unique blend of vocal virtuosity and communicative warmth, combined with wide-ranging skills in education and leadership, was recognized with the 2015 Brandeis Creative Arts Award, given in appreciation of “excellence in the arts and the lives and works of distinguished, active American artists.” Her extensive chamber music repertory includes major works written for her by Georges Aperghis, Eric Chasalow, George Crumb, Nathan Davis, Brett Dean, Jason Eckardt, Gabriela Lena Frank, Fredrick Gifford, David Gompper, Jesse Jones, Josh Levine, David Liptak, Philippe Manoury, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, Christopher Theofanidis, Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, and John Zorn. She is a member of the intrepid International Contemporary Ensemble and enjoys regular guest appearances with leading ensembles and presenters worldwide. With more than 30 discs to her credit, she has recorded a broad segment of the modern vocal repertory with esteemed chamber music colleagues. She received a 2006 Grammy nomination for her recording of George Crumb’s Ancient Voices of Children (Bridge Records). She is a first-prize laureate of the Gaudeamus International and the Louise D. McMahon competitions. A graduate of Oberlin College and Northwestern University, Arnold was twice a fellow of the Aspen Music Festival as both conductor and singer. She currently teaches at the Peabody Conservatory and the Tanglewood Music Center.
Taiwanese-born pianist Gloria Chien has a diverse musical life as a performer, concert presenter, and educator. She made her orchestral debut at the age of 16 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Thomas Dausgaard, and performed again with the BSO under Keith Lockhart. Recently she has performed as a recitalist and chamber musician at Alice Tully Hall, the Library of Congress, the Phillips Collection, the Kissingen Sommer festival, the Dresden Chamber Music Festival, and the National Concert Hall in Taiwan. A former member of The Bowers Program, she performs frequently with CMS. In 2009 she launched String Theory, a chamber music series at the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, which has become one of Tennessee’s premier classical music presenters. The following year she was appointed Director of the Chamber Music Institute at Music@Menlo by Artistic Directors David Finckel and Wu Han, a position she held for the next decade. In 2017, she joined her husband, violinist Soovin Kim, as Co-Artistic Director of the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival in Burlington, Vermont. The duo became Artistic Directors at Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, OR, in 2020, and were named the recipients of the 2021 Award for Extraordinary Service to Chamber Music from CMS, recognizing their efforts during the pandemic. Ms. Chien received her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from New England Conservatory of Music as a student of Russell Sherman and Wha-Kyung Byun. She is an artist-in-residence at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee, and is a Steinway Artist.
A recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant as well as a top-prize winner of the International Naumburg Violin Competition and the Astral Artists’ National Auditions, Kristin Lee is a violinist of remarkable versatility and impeccable technique who enjoys a vibrant career as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. Lee has appeared as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, Hawai’i Symphony, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and many others. She is also the co-founder and Artistic Director of Emerald City Music in Seattle. Lee released her critically acclaimed debut solo album, American Sketches, on First Hand Records in November 2024. In 2026, she will collaborate with Grammy-nominated ensemble Sandbox Percussion, featuring a new commission by Vivian Fung. Lee’s violin was crafted in Naples in 1759 by Gennaro Gagliano and is generously loaned to her by Paul and Linda Gridley. She is an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program.
Praised by the Seattle Times as “Simply marvelous” and Taiwan’s Liberty Times for “astonishingly capturing the spirit of the music,” violinist Tien-Hsin Cindy Wu enjoys a versatile career as a soloist, chamber musician, and educator throughout North America, Europe and Asia. Ms. Wu has collaborated in concerts with renowned artists such as Yefim Bronfman, Lynn Harrell, Leila Josefowicz, Cho-Liang Lin, Midori, Thomas Quasthoff, Yuja Wang, and members of the Alban Berg, Emerson, Guarneri, Miró, and Tokyo string quartets at prominent venues such as the Kennedy Center, Library of Congress, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and festivals such as Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, La Jolla Summerfest, Marlboro Music Festival, and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. She has also collaborated as a guest violist with the Dover, Orion, and Shanghai quartets. Ms. Wu is a recipient of many awards including the Milka Violin Artist Prize from the Curtis Institute of Music, and third prize at the International Violin Competition of David Oistrakh. She has taught at the Thornton School of Music of the University of Southern California, and is currently the Artistic Partner of the Da Camera Society in Los Angeles. Cindy plays on a 2015 Stanley Kiernoziak viola.
Violist Paul Neubauer, hailed by the New York Times as a “master musician,” will release two new albums in 2025 on First Hand Records, featuring the final works of two great composers: an all-Bartók album including the revised version of the Viola Concerto, and a Shostakovich recording that includes the monumental Viola Sonata. Appointed principal violist of the New York Philharmonic at the age of 21, Neubauer has appeared as soloist with the New York, Los Angeles, and Helsinki Philharmonics; the Chicago, National, St. Louis, Detroit, Dallas, San Francisco, and Bournemouth Symphonies; and the Santa Cecilia, English Chamber, and Beethovenhalle Orchestras. He has premiered viola concertos by Bartók (revised version), Friedman, Glière, Jacob, Kernis, Lazarof, Müller-Siemens, Ott, Penderecki, Picker, Suter, and Tower. A two-time Grammy nominee, Neubauer is artistic director of the Mostly Music series in New Jersey and serves on the faculties of the Juilliard School and Mannes College.