Oceanophony
Sat, May 8, 2027, 2:00 pm
Alice Tully Hall
1 hour, no intermission
Introduce your children to the fundamentals of classical music in a warm and inviting atmosphere.
Plunge into an underwater world shaped by music, poetry, and striking ocean imagery. Meet fun sea creatures from a playful pufferfish to a giant octopus, all brought to life in Bruce Adolphe's narration and music (featuring a chamber ensemble with piano, strings, winds, and percussion).
For all who are curious, they can try out instruments at our Instrument Petting Zoo from 1:00–1:50 PM in the lobby. Children will also have the opportunity to talk to the artists by asking questions at the end of the show.
All patrons, including small children sitting in laps, must have a ticket to enter. All performances are appropriate for ages 6+ as long as guests are not disruptive to other patrons' enjoyment of the performance.
Program
Bruce Adolphe
(b. 1955)Oceanophony for Chamber Ensemble
(2002)
Bruce Adolphe
Llewellyn Sánchez-Werner
Kristin Lee
Estelle Choi
Nina Bernat
Sooyun Kim
David Shifrin
Marc Goldberg
Victor Caccese
Resident lecturer and director of family concerts for CMS since 1992, Bruce Adolphe is a composer of international renown, much of whose output addresses science, history, and the struggle for human rights.
Resident lecturer and director of family concerts for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 1992, Bruce Adolphe is a composer of international renown, much of whose output addresses science, history, and the struggle for human rights. His works are frequently performed by major artists, including Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Fabio Luisi, Joshua Bell, Daniel Hope, Angel Blue, the Brentano String Quartet, the Washington National Opera, the Metropolitan Opera Guild, the Human Rights Orchestra of Europe, and over 60 orchestras worldwide. Among his most performed works are the violin concerto I Will Not Remain Silent, the violin/piano duo Einstein’s Light, and Tyrannosaurus Sue: A Cretaceous Concerto.
“A gifted virtuoso” (San Francisco Chronicle) with “mesmerizing artistry and extraordinary ability to communicate” (The Post-Standard) and “masterful technique and a veritable deluge of sonorities” (La Presse Montreal), 28-year-old Llewellyn SánchezWerner was selected First Prize Winner of the 2022 Concert Artists Guild International Competition. Named a Gilmore Young Artist, an honor awarded to the most promising American pianists of the new generation, his multi-faceted artistry has been featured in the New York Times, CBS, PBS, NPR, CNN International, Mexico News Daily, the Wall Street Journal, and WDR-Arte.
Llewellyn’s recent international performances include The Royal Concertgebouw in the Netherlands, CultureSummit in Abu Dhabi, the Louvre and Grenoble Museums in France, Smetana Hall in the Czech Republic, State Philharmonic Hall in Slovakia, Ashford Castle in Ireland, and Verbier Festival in Switzerland. Since making his concerto debut at age 6, he has performed under the batons of conductors including Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Peter Oundjian, Karina Canellakis, Michael Morgan, Tito Muñoz, Boris Brott, Anna Rakitina, Andreas Delfs, David Lockington, William Noll, Burns Taft, and Karim Wasfi.
Llewellyn performed at the Kennedy Center and the White House for President Obama and President Biden, for President Peña Nieto of Mexico, Prime Minister Peres of Israel, and President Kagame of Rwanda. Committed to public service, he received the Atlantic Council Young Global Citizen Award recognizing his dedication to social action through music in such countries as Iraq, Rwanda, France, Canada, and the United States. General Petraeus commended his “courageous humanitarian contributions through the arts…strengthening the ties that unite our nations.”
Principal teachers have included Eduardus Halim, Ilya Itin, Boris Berman, Yoheved Kaplinsky, composition with Lowell Liebermann, and improvisation with Noam Sivan. Llewellyn holds Master and Bachelor of Music degrees from Juilliard, where he was awarded the Kovner Fellowship, and an Artist Diploma from the Yale School of Music, where he was awarded the Charles S. Miller Prize. Llewellyn is a Steinhardt PhD Fellow and Adjunct Professor at New York University.
Llewellyn is exclusively represented by Epstein Fox Performances.
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.
Cellist Estelle Choi has been praised by the Los Angeles Times for “giving the impression that music and the room are a single living being.” She is a founding member of the Calidore String Quartet, which made international headlines when they won the Grand Prize of the 2016 M-Prize International Chamber Music Competition. The Calidore is an Avery Fisher Career Grant winner, BBC 3 New Generation Artist, recipient of the Lincoln Center Emerging Artist award and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship, and alums of CMS’s Bowers Program. She serves on the faculty of the University of Delaware School of Music as Associate Professor of Violin and co-directs the UD Graduate Fellowship Quartet Program and Calidore String Quartet Seminar. She studied with John Kadz and went on to work with Aldo Parisot at the Yale School of Music and Ronald Leonard at the Colburn Conservatory.
Double bassist Nina Bernat is a recipient of the 2023 Avery Fisher Career Grant and a member of CMS’s Bowers Program. First prizes include the Barbash J.S. Bach String Competition, the Juilliard Double Bass Competition, and the 2019 International Society of Bassists Solo Competition. She has performed as a soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra and as guest principal with the Israel Philharmonic and Oslo Philharmonic. Bernat has quickly established herself as a sought-after pedagogue, giving masterclasses around the country while also serving on the faculty of Stony Brook University. She has given debut recitals at venues such as Weill Recital Hall and Merkin Hall. Bernat performs on a beautiful and sonorous early-18th-century bass, attributed to Guadagnini and handed down to her from her father.
Since her concerto debut with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, flutist Sooyun Kim has enjoyed a flourishing career performing with orchestras, including the Bavarian Radio Symphony, Munich Philharmonic, Munich Chamber Orchestra, and Boston Pops. She has appeared in recital in Budapest’s Liszt Hall, Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center, and the Louvre Museum in Paris. She is a winner of the Georg Solti Foundation Career Grant and ARD International Flute Competition. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, she studied at the New England Conservatory under the tutelage of Paula Robison. She is recently appointed Assistant Professor of Flute at University Cincinnati College-Conservatory and teaches summer courses at Orford Musique. Kim plays on a rare 18-karat gold flute made especially for her by Verne Q. Powell Flutes and has recorded for labels including ArtistLed, Naxos, Toccata Classics, and BR-Klassik. Her album Confluence was released to great acclaim in 2025 on the Musica Solis label.
A Yale University faculty member since 1987, clarinetist David Shifrin is artistic director of Yale’s Chamber Music Society and the Yale in New York concert series. 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 Concertos concerts. He was the artistic director of Chamber Music Northwest from 1981 to 2020. Winner of the Avery Fisher Career Grant (1987) and the Avery Fisher Prize (2000), he has held principal clarinet positions in numerous orchestras including the Cleveland Orchestra and the American Symphony under Leopold Stokowski. As soloist, Shifrin has performed recitals at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and the Library of Congress. Notable concerto performances include the Philadelphia and Minnesota orchestras; the Dallas, Seattle, Houston, Milwaukee, and Denver symphonies; as well as orchestras in China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy. Shifrin performs on clarinets made by Morrie Backun in Vancouver, Canada, and Légère synthetic reeds.
A member of the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble and New York Woodwind Quintet, Marc Goldberg is principal bassoonist of the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, American Ballet Theater, the Saito Kinen Orchestra, and the NYC Opera. Previously the associate principal bassoonist of the New York Philharmonic, he has also been a frequent guest of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, touring with these ensembles across four continents and joining them on numerous recordings. A long-time season artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, he has been a guest of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, the Brentano Quartet, Music@Menlo, Musicians from Marlboro, and Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Band. Goldberg is on the faculty of the Juilliard School Pre-College Division, Mannes College, New England Conservatory, the Hartt School, and the Bard College Conservatory of Music.
Victor Caccese is a founding member of the Brooklyn-based percussion quartet Sandbox Percussion and a Grammmy-nominated percussionist. As a member of Sandbox, he has performed over 200 concerts worldwide and taught at institutions such as University of Missouri-Kansas City, the New School College of the Performing Arts, the Peabody Conservatory, the Curtis Institute, Yale School of Music, Michigan State University, Vanderbilt University, University of Kansas, and University of Massachusetts Amherst. Victor has collaborated with composers such as Amy Beth Kirsten, Andy Akiho, David Crowell, James Wood, John Luther Adams, and Thomas Kotcheff. This past summer Victor taught and performed at the eighth annual Sandbox Percussion Seminar, a chamber music festival accepting students from around the world to study and perform some of today’s leading contemporary percussion pieces. Also a composer and arranger, Victor has written a number of pieces for percussion. His works have been performed by Sandbox Percussion more than 50 times throughout the United States. While music is at the core of his professional life, Victor has also worked as a photographer and videographer. As head of media and content development for Sandbox Percussion, he has developed and maintained a YouTube presence consisting of performance videos, workshop documentaries, and travel vlogs. Victor holds degrees from the Peabody Conservatory and the Yale School of Music. He is also a member of The Percussion Collective, a stunning ensemble founded by performer and pedagogue Robert van Sice. Victor serves on faculty at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory as a percussion instructor and ensemble-in-residence with Sandbox Percussion. He also is on faculty at the New School College of the Performing Arts, and has served as visiting artist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst with Sandbox Percussion.