Družecký, Loeffler, & Widor
This event has passedThu, Mar 19, 2026, 6:30 pm & 9:00 pm
Daniel and Joanna S. Rose Studio at CMS
1 hour, no intermission
Spanning the Classical era through the early 20th century, this program highlights distinctive instrumental voices beyond the standard canon. Družecký’s G-minor Quartet places the oboe at the center of a rarely heard chamber setting. Loeffler’s "La Cornemuse" blends French-inflected lyricism and pastoral color in an unusual trio texture, while Widor’s Piano Quintet in D minor reveals the Romantic intensity of a composer better known for his organ works.
Program
Jirí Družecký
(1745-1819)Quartet in G minor for Oboe, Violin, Viola, and Cello
Charles Martin Loeffler
(1861-1935)“La Cornemuse” from Two Rhapsodies for Oboe, Viola, and Piano
Charles-Marie Widor
(1844-1937)Quintet in D minor for Piano, Two Violins, Viola, and Cello, Op. 7
(1868)
Michael Stephen Brown
Ani Kavafian
Julian Rhee
Matthew Lipman
Mihai Marica
Juri Vallentin
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.
Violinist Ani Kavafian enjoys a prolific career as a soloist, chamber musician, and professor. She has performed with many of America’s leading orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and San Francisco Symphony. In the 2019-20 season, she continued her longtime association as an artist of the Chamber Music Society with appearances in New York and on tour. Last summer she participated in several music festivals, including the Heifetz International Institute and the Sarasota Chamber Music, Bridgehampton, Meadowmount, Norfolk, and Angel Fire festivals. She and her sister, violinist and violist Ida Kavafian, have performed with the symphonies of Detroit, Colorado, Tucson, San Antonio, and Cincinnati, and have recorded the music of Mozart and Sarasate on the Nonesuch label. She is a Full Professor at Yale University and has appeared at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall numerous times with colleagues and students from Yale. She has received an Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Young Concert Artists International Auditions award and has appeared at the White House on three occasions. Her recordings can be heard on the Nonesuch, RCA, Columbia, Arabesque, and Delos labels. Born in Istanbul of Armenian heritage, Kavafian studied violin in the US with Ara Zerounian and Mischa Mischakoff. She received her master’s degree from The Juilliard School under Ivan Galamian. She plays the 1736 Muir McKenzie Stradivarius violin.
Winner of the 2024 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Korean-American violinist Julian Rhee rose to international prominence following his prize-winning performances at the 2024 Queen Elisabeth International Violin Competition and Silver Medal at the 11th Quadrennial International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. He has appeared with orchestras including the Stuttgarter Kammerorchester, Pacific Symphony, Oregon Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, Belgian National Orchestra, Antwerp Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, and San Diego Symphony. Highlights of the 2026–2027 season include debuts with the Gürzenich-Orchester and Andrés Orozco-Estrada, La Orquesta Clásica Santa Cecilia and Daniel Raiskin, and returns to the Richmond and Milwaukee Symphony Orchestras. He is a member of CMS’s Bowers Program and has performed at festivals including Marlboro, Rockport, Bridgehampton, Music@Menlo, and North Shore Chamber Music Festivals. Rhee is the recipient of the 1699 “Lady Tennant” Antonio Stradivari violin and a Jean Pierre Marie Persoit bow on extended loan through the Mary B. Galvin Foundation and the Stradivari Society.
American violist Matthew Lipman, recognized by the New York Times for his “rich tone and elegant phrasing,” has made recent appearances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, American Symphony Orchestra, Munich Symphony Orchestra, and Minnesota Orchestra; and at Carnegie Hall, Vienna Musikverein, Berlin Philharmonie, and the Zürich Tonhalle. He made his recording debut with Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and has since recorded on Sony and Deutsche Grammophon. Lipman has premiered works by Clarice Assad, Andreia Pinto Correia, Joel Thompson, and John Williams, and made his film debut in A. Rimbaud, playing the role of Paul Verlaine. He is an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program and the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant. Lipman is on faculty at Stony Brook University and is a visiting professor at Juilliard.
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.
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.