Saratoga Springs, NY
Beethoven’s Quintet for Piano and WindsSun, July 20, 2025, 3:00 pm
Spa Little Theatre, Saratoga Performing Arts Center
Two hours with intermission
This program explores the interplay between wind instruments and piano, beginning with Mendelssohn’s Concert Piece No. 1 in F minor for Clarinet, Bassoon, and Piano, Op. 113, a lyrical work showcasing dynamic exchanges between the instruments. Next is Schulhoff’s Divertissement for Oboe, Clarinet, and Bassoon, a lively piece by the Czech composer known for blending jazz, folk, and classical influences. Selections from Divertimento of Mozart Arias for Wind Quintet offers elegant melodies, while Dutilleux’s Sonatine for Flute and Piano combines delicate beauty with moments of intensity. The French composer, known for his sophisticated use of orchestral colors and textures, blends subtle harmonies and emotive soundscapes, showcasing his influence on 20th-century French music. The program concludes with Beethoven’s Quintet in E-flat Major for Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, Horn, and Piano, highlighting vibrant dialogue between the wind instruments and piano.
Program
Felix Mendelssohn
(1809–1847)Concert Piece No. 1 in F minor for Clarinet, Bassoon, and Piano, Op. 113
(1832)Erwin Schulhoff
(1894-1942)Divertissement for Oboe, Clarinet, and Bassoon
(1927)Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(1756–1791)Selections from Divertimento of Mozart Arias for Wind Quintet
(arr. Schottstädt & Manz)Henri Dutilleux
(1916-2013)Sonatine for Flute and Piano
(1943)Ludwig van Beethoven
(1770–1827)Quintet in E-flat major for Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, Horn, and Piano, Op. 16
(1796)
Sahun Sam Hong
Tara Helen O'Connor
James Austin Smith
Sebastian Manz
Marc Goldberg
Nathaniel Silberschlag
Pianist Sahun Sam Hong is a prizewinner of numerous international competitions, including the Vendome Prize at Verbier, International Beethoven Competition Vienna, and Naumburg International Piano Competition. He has been invited to perform at major chamber music festivals, and is a prolific arranger of chamber music and orchestral works. He is the Co-Artistic Director of ensemble132, a chamber music collective that presents his transcriptions on annual tours all around the world. Hong’s primary mentors have included John Owings, Leon Fleisher, and Yong Hi Moon. A member of CMS’s Bowers Program, Hong is currently based in New York City and serves on the faculty of CUNY Queens College. Hong is a Steinway Artist.
Tara Helen O’Connor, recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a two-time Grammy nominee, was the first wind player to participate in CMS’s Bowers Program. A regular performer at major music festivals around the country, she is also the Co-Artistic Director of the Music from Angel Fire Festival in New Mexico, the Artistic Director of the Essex Winter Series, a member of the woodwind quintet Windscape, and a founding member of the Naumburg Award–winning New Millennium Ensemble. She has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, EMI Classics, Koch International, CMS Studio Recordings, and Bridge Records, and can be heard on numerous film and television soundtracks. She has premiered hundreds of new works and has collaborated with the Orion, St. Lawrence, and Emerson String Quartets. A Wm. S. Haynes flute artist, O’Connor is on faculty at Yale School of Music. Additionally, she teaches at Bard College and the Manhattan School of Music.
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.
Clarinetist Sebastian Manz has performed as a soloist with major European orchestras such as the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, and the National Youth Orchestra of Germany. As a chamber musician, he has performed at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Beethovenhaus Bonn, Festspiele Mecklenburg Vorpommern, and MDR Musiksommer in Germany, collaborating with artists like Danae Dörken and the Danish String Quartet. At the ARD International Music Competition in 2008, he won first prize in the clarinet category, which had not been awarded for 40 years, and the coveted Audience Prize. He is Principal Clarinet of the SWR Symphony Orchestra in Stuttgart. His recording A Bernstein Story was awarded with the Opus Klassik award in 2020, and he recently released a recording of clarinet concertos by Carl Nielsen and Magnus Lindberg, as well as a recital recording of works by Brahms and Schumann with pianist Herbert Schuch. He is an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program.
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.
Nathaniel Silberschlag was appointed principal horn of the Cleveland Orchestra in May 2019 and took up the position in August prior to the start of the 2019–20 season. He previously served as assistant principal horn of the Washington National Opera/Kennedy Center Opera House orchestra, where he was the youngest member ever to win a position with the ensemble, at the age of 19. He made his debut in Italy at age 9, with news of the performance appearing on the front page of Italy’s newspaper La Stampa. As soloist, he has performed with the Juilliard Orchestra, Bulgarian Philharmonic, Romania State Symphony, New York’s Little Orchestra Society, and the Chesapeake Orchestra. He has also played concerts with a variety of ensembles, including the New York Philharmonic and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Silberschlag completed his bachelor’s degree from the Juilliard School in May 2019, where he was a student of Julie Landsman and recipient of the Kovner Fellowship.