Mozart, Schumann, & Spohr
Thu, Nov 20, 2025, 6:30 pm & 9:00 pm
Daniel and Joanna S. Rose Studio at CMS
1 hour, no intermission
Explore both classics and rarities of the chamber music repertoire.
Program
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(1756–1791)Adagio and Allegro (Fantasia) in F minor for Wind Quintet, K. 594
(arr. Purvis)Robert Schumann
(1810–1856)Three Romances for Oboe and Piano, Op. 94
(1849)Louis Spohr
(1784–1859)Quintet for Flute, Clarinet, Bassoon, Horn, and Piano, Op. 52
(1820)Evren Ozel
Tara Helen O'Connor
James Austin Smith
David Shifrin
Jake Thonis
Eric Reed
American pianist Evren Ozel has established himself as a musician of “refined restraint” (Third Coast Review), combining fluent virtuosity with probing, thoughtful interpretations. Having performed extensively in the United States and abroad, Ozel is the recipient of a 2023 Avery Fisher Career Grant, 2022 Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant, and is currently represented by Concert Artists Guild as an Ambassador Prize Winner of their 2021 Victor Elmaleh Competition.
Since his debut with the Minnesota Orchestra at age 11, Ozel has been a featured soloist with the Cleveland Orchestra, Jacksonville Symphony, and The Orchestra Now at Bard College, with conductors Jahja Ling, Ruth Reinhardt, Courtney Lewis, and Leon Botstein. In March of 2025, his first album of Mozart Concertos with the ORF Radio Symphony of Vienna and conductor Howard Griffiths will be released on Alpha Classics.
Ozel’s 2024–25 season highlights include solo recitals for La Jolla Music Society, Capital Region Classical, and Cal Performances. Previously, he has performed recitals for Harvard Musical Association, Schubert Club, Chopin Society of Minnesota, and The Gilmore. Carrying a vast and varied recital repertoire, his 2023–24 season included a program ranging from Bach and Rameau to Ligeti, as well as a program of Beethoven’s last three Piano Sonatas. As a laureate of the 2024 Cleveland International Piano Competition, Ozel will appear in recitals internationally in the coming years at Salle Cortot in Paris, Brandenburgische Sommerkonzerte in Germany, and Vilnius Piano Festival in Lithuania.
An esteemed chamber musician, Ozel performs alongside artists like David Finckel and Wu Han, Stella Chen, Zlatomir Fung, Paul Huang, and Peter Wiley. He spent four summers at the Marlboro Festival, and is currently a 2024–27 Bowers Program Artist for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. His 2024–25 season includes a tour with Musicians from Marlboro, as well as CMS concerts at Alice Tully Hall.
Ozel resides in Boston, where he is currently part of New England Conservatory’s prestigious and highly-exclusive Institute for Concert Artists, under the tutelage of Wha Kyung Byun. Other important mentors include Jonathan Biss, Imogen Cooper, Richard Goode, Sir András Schiff, and Mitsuko Uchida.
Tara Helen O'Connor, who Artmag has said "so embodies perfection on the flute that you'll forget she is human," is an Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, a two-time Grammy Award nominee, and, as a member of the New Millennium Ensemble, a recipient of the Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award. A Wm.S. Haynes artist, she was the first flutist selected to participate in the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's Bowers Program and is currently a season artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and a member of the Windscape woodwind quintet.
O'Connor serves as Visiting Associate Professor, Adjunct, of Flute at the Yale School of Music, and is Artistic Director of the Music from Angel Fire Festival. A champion of contemporary music, Ms. O'Connor has premiered hundreds of works and has appeared on numerous recordings and film and television soundtracks including Barbie, Respect, The Joker, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Only Murders in the Building, and Schmigadoon! to name only a few.
An avid chamber musician, O'Connor regularly appears include the Bravo! Vail festival, Chamber Music Northwest, Music@Menlo, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Festival of the Bluegrass, Spoleto Festival USA, the Banff Centre, Rockport Music, Bay Chamber Concerts, Manchester Music Festival, the Great Mountains Music Festival, Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival and Music From Angel Fire.
O'Connor has appeared on A&E's Breakfast with the Arts and PBS' Live from Lincoln Center. She has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, EMI Classics, Koch International, CMS Studio Recordings with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Bridge Records. She also serves on the faculty at Bard College Conservatory of Music, and the Contemporary Performance Program at Manhattan School of Music.
She lives with her husband, violinist Daniel Phillips and their two miniature dachshunds, Chloé and Ava on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
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 and San Francisco, as well as an annual festival in a variety of global destinations. 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 and as a regular guest at London’s Guildhall School. 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.
A Yale University faculty member since 1987, clarinetist David Shifrin is artistic director of Yale’s Chamber Music Society, the Yale in New York concert series, and the Phoenix Chamber Music Festival. He has performed with CMS since 1982 and served as its artistic director from 1992 to 2004, inaugurating CMS’s Bowers Program and the annual Brandenburg Concerto concerts. He was the artistic director of Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon, from 1981 to 2020. Winner of both the Avery Fisher Career Grant (1987) and the Avery Fisher Prize (2000), he is also the recipient of a Solo Recitalist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. A top prize-winner in the Munich and Geneva competitions, he has held principal clarinet positions in numerous orchestras including the Cleveland Orchestra and the American Symphony under Leopold Stokowski. His recordings have received three Grammy nominations and his performance of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra was named Record of the Year by Stereo Review. His most recent recordings are the Beethoven, Bruch, and Brahms clarinet trios with David Finckel and Wu Han on the ArtistLed label, a recording for Delos of works by Carl Nielsen, and an album of Poulenc’s music for clarinet. His 2012 Delos recording of Ellen Taaffe Zwillch’s Clarinet Concerto was chosen as culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant by the National Recording Preservation Act by the Library of Congress in 2023. Shifrin performs on clarinets made by Morrie Backun in Vancouver, Canada, and Légère synthetic reeds.
Jake Thonis is the acting Principal Bassoon of the Florida Orchestra for the 2024–25 season, previously serving as acting Associate Principal starting in 2022. He made his solo debut with the Boston Symphony in 2013 as the winner of its concerto competition, and has gone on to perform as guest Principal Bassoon with the Charleston, Chicago, and Houston Symphonies. He has also performed with the Hawaii Symphony and the Louisiana Philharmonic, and was previously a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago. An avid chamber musician, he was an artist-participant at the Marlboro Music Festival from 2020 to 2022. He made his debut this summer at Music@Menlo and Tippet Rise Art Center, and looks forward to returning to Music@Menlo next summer. He will make his Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center debut in 2025. He has also participated in the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society as part of the Gamut Bach Ensemble. Thonis began his studies with Janet Underhill in his hometown of Wellesley, Massachusetts, going on to study with Richard Beene, Benjamin Kamins, and Daniel Matsukawa at the Colburn School, Rice University, and the Curtis Institute of Music, respectively.
Eric Reed is a member of the American Brass Quintet and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and serves on the horn and chamber music faculties of the Juilliard School and New York University. In addition to his work with the ABQ, Eric performs regularly with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. He is a former member of the Canadian Brass and Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect, as well as the New Jersey, Oregon, New World, and Harrisburg symphonies. Eric has performed with the Metropolitan Opera, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, and International Contemporary Ensemble, and as Guest Principal Horn with the New Jersey Symphony, American Symphony Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, and American Ballet Theater. He is a member of Ensemble Échappé, a sinfonietta dedicated to music of the 21st century. Recent world premieres include works by John Zorn, Nina C. Young, Eric Ewazen, William Bolcom, Donald York, Philip Lasser, Kenneth Fuchs, and Timo Andres. Recent festival appearances include Bridgehampton, North Shore, Cape Cod, and Steamboat Springs. Reed holds degrees from Rice University and the Juilliard School.