Two great American composers and one composer greatly inspired by America are on the bill for the second program. First, Souvenirs written by a homesick Samuel Barber gives us a portrait of New York night life. Path-breaking Boston-based composer Amy Beach’s Piano Quintet puts an American spin on Romantic music. And Czech composer Antonín Dvořák draws on American musical culture in his lush “American” String Quintet, which he wrote on a visit to Spillville, Iowa.
Program
Samuel Barber
(1910–1981)Souvenirs for Piano, Four Hands, Op. 28
(1951-52)Amy Beach
(1867–1944)Quintet in F-sharp minor for Piano, Two Violins, Viola, and Cello, Op. 67
(1907)Antonín Dvořák
(1841–1904)Quintet in E-flat major for Two Violins, Two Violas, and Cello, Op. 97, “American”
(1893)
Gloria Chien
Sahun Sam Hong
Chad Hoopes
Richard Lin
Matthew Lipman
Lawrence Dutton
David Finckel
Pianist Gloria Chien has a diverse musical life as a performer, concert presenter, and educator. She made her orchestral debut at age 16 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Thomas Dausgaard. In 2009 she launched String Theory, a chamber music series in Chattanooga, and the following year was appointed Director of the Chamber Music Institute at Music@Menlo. 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 2020, and were named the recipients of the 2021 Award for Extraordinary Service to Chamber Music from CMS. Ms. Chien received her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from New England Conservatory, where she was named the Advisor for the prestigious Institute for Concert Artists in 2024. She is an artist-in-residence at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee; a Steinway Artist; and an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program.
Renowned for his “imaginative, intoxicating . . . high-voltage” playing (Sindelfinger Zeitung) and “wide range of rich colors” (San Diego Story), Korean-American pianist Sahun Sam Hong commands the world’s most prestigious stages with his distinctly magnetic tone and effortless vitality. He is a prize winner of numerous international competitions, including the Naumburg Competition, Vendome Prize, Beethoven Competition Vienna, and the American Pianists Awards. In addition to performing, Hong is a prolific arranger and orchestrator recognized for his innovative transcriptions that are featured in the touring programs of Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Mount Vernon Virtuosi, and ensemble132, which he co-directs. His primary mentors have included John Owings, Leon Fleisher, and Yong Hi Moon. A member of CMS’s Bowers Program and a Steinway Artist, Hong is currently based in New York City and serves on the faculty of CUNY Queens College.
American violinist Chad Hoopes is a consistent and versatile performer with the world’s leading orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, l’Orchestre de Paris, l’Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, and the Minnesota and National Arts Centre orchestras, as well the San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Houston, and National symphonies. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, he performs regularly on tour and at Alice Tully Hall with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He has been a guest of the Moritzburg Festival, Rheingau Musik Festival, and Aspen Music Festival, and has been featured on recordings including the recent Moritzburg Festival Dvořák album with cellist Jan Vogler, released by Sony Classical, and with the MDR Leipzig and conductor Kristjan Järvi performing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto on the Naïve label. He has performed in recital at the Ravinia Festival, the Tonhalle Zürich, and the Louvre, as well as on Lincoln Center’s Great Performers series. He is a 2017 recipient of Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Career Grant and appeared as the cover feature on the November 2021 edition of The Strad. Hoopes attended the Cleveland Institute of Music before studying with Ana Chumachenco at the Kronberg Academy. He plays the 1991 Samuel Zygmuntowicz, ex Isaac Stern violin.
Taiwanese-American violinist Richard Lin continues to gain international prominence since his Gold Medal prize at the 2018 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. He has collaborated with numerous orchestras and performed at celebrated concert venues throughout Asia, Europe, and the United States. He is a laureate of the Sendai, Joseph Joachim, Singapore, and Michael Hill International Violin competitions and is on faculty at the National Taipei University of Education. In spring 2025, he released a new album with pianist Thomas Hoppe on the Azica label featuring his Carnegie Hall program with works by Vitali, Richard Strauss, John Corigliano, and Frolov. Born in Phoenix, Arizona, and raised in Taiwan, Lin graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School, where he studied with Aaron Rosand and Lewis Kaplan, respectively. He is an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program.
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.
Lawrence Dutton was the violist of the nine-time Grammy-winning Emerson String Quartet, which in 2023 performed its final concert after a storied 47-year career. He has also performed as guest artist with the Beaux Arts and Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trios and the Juilliard and Guarneri String Quartets. With the late Isaac Stern he collaborated on the International Chamber Music Encounters at Carnegie Hall and in Jerusalem. He began violin studies with Margaret Pardee and viola studies with Francis Tursi at the Eastman School. He holds degrees from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Lillian Fuchs. Currently, Dutton is Distinguished Professor of Viola and Chamber Music at Stony Brook University; Distinguished Artist at the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia; and Artistic Director of the Hoch Chamber Music Series in Bronxville, New York. He exclusively uses Thomastik Spirocore strings, and his viola is a Samuel Zygmuntowicz (Brooklyn, 2025).
Co-Artistic Director of CMS since 2004, cellist David Finckel’s dynamic musical career has included performances on the world’s stages in the roles of recitalist, chamber artist, and orchestral soloist. The first American student of Mstislav Rostropovich, he joined the Emerson String Quartet in 1979, and during 34 seasons garnered nine Grammy Awards and the Avery Fisher Prize. His quartet performances and recordings include quartet cycles of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Dvorák, Brahms, Bartók, and Shostakovich, as well as collaborative masterpieces and commissioned works. In 1997, he and pianist Wu Han founded ArtistLed, the first internet-based, artist-controlled classical recording label. ArtistLed’s catalog of more than 20 releases includes the standard literature for cello and piano, plus works composed for the duo by George Tsontakis, Gabriela Lena Frank, Bruce Adolphe, Lera Auerbach, Edwin Finckel, Augusta Read Thomas, and Pierre Jalbert. In 2022, Music@Menlo, an innovative summer chamber music festival in Silicon Valley founded and directed by David and Wu Han, celebrated its 20th season. As a young student, David was winner of the Philadelphia Orchestra’s junior and senior divisions, resulting in two performances with the orchestra. Having taught extensively with the late Isaac Stern in America, Israel, and Japan, he is currently a professor at both the Juilliard School and Stony Brook University, and oversees both CMS’s Bowers Program and Music@Menlo’s Chamber Music Institute. David’s 100 online Cello Talks, lessons on cello technique, are viewed by an international audience of musicians. Along with Wu Han, he was the recipient of Musical America’s 2012 Musicians of the Year Award.