2012-13 Accordo Concert Season Announced

Accordo, established in 2009, is a Minnesota-based chamber group. Its fourth season (2012-13) will be presented by The Schubert Club, Northrop Concerts and Lectures, and Kate Nordstrum Projects at the National Historic Landmark Christ Church Lutheran, one of the Twin Cities' great architectural treasures designed by the esteemed architect Eliel Saarinen and his son Eero Saarinen.

Accordo includes a string octet composed of Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and Minnesota Orchestra principal players Rebecca Albers, Ruggero Allifranchini, Steven Copes, Erin Keefe, Kyu-Young Kim, Maiya Papach, Anthony Ross, and Ronald Thomas.

Accordo: Season 4 programs

Mon, Oct 15, 2012, 7:30 pm

Haydn: String Quartet in G Major, Opus 77 No. 1
Bartók: Duos for Two Violins
Dohnányi: Serenade for String Trio in C Major, Opus 10
Mozart: Viola Quintet in C Major, K. 515

Mon, Dec 3, 2012, 7:30 pm

Janácek: Sonata for Violin & Piano
Ravel: String Quartet in F major
Debussy: Selected Preludes for Solo Piano
Fauré: Piano Quartet in c minor, Opus 15

Benjamin Hochman, piano

Mon, Feb 4, 2013, 7:30 pm

Bach/Mozart: Prelude & Fugue for String Trio, K. 404a
Hindemith: String Quartet No. 4, Opus 22
Brahms: String Sextet in B flat, Opus 18

Mon, May 6, 2013, 7:30 pm

Sibelius: String Quartet in d minor, Opus 56, 'Voces Intimae'
Kodály: Duo for Violin & Cello, Opus 7
Dvorák: Viola Quintet in E flat Major, Opus 97

Event details
Concerts: Mondays at 7:30pm 
Venue: Christ Church Lutheran, 3244 34th Avenue, Minneapolis, MN 55406-3493 
Tickets: $24 adult, $22 senior/U of M Alumni, $12 student
Four Concert Subscription: $80
ON SALE JULY 23, 2012

Box office: 
Online: www.schubert.org/accordo
By phone: 651-292-3268
In person: Schubert Club Office, 302 Landmark Center, 75 W 5th Street, Saint Paul, MN 55102 
Mon - Fri, 8:30 am - 4:30 pm
Day of concert: Christ Church Lutheran, 3244 34th Avenue, Minneapolis, MN 55406-3493
Mon, 6:30 - 7:30 pm. Pending availability.

Post concert, musicians and patrons gather in the Luther Lounge after each Accordo concert for complimentary drinks and small bites.

Biographies

ACCORDO MEMBERS:
Rebecca Albers is among the Minnesota Orchestra's newest members, having joined the ensemble in 2010 as assistant principAl Viola. She also continues to tour with the Albers Trio, a string ensemble she and two sisters formed. She previously toured with fiddler Mark O'Connor's Appalachia Waltz Trio and was a member of the East Coast Chamber Orchestra and Phoenix Quartet. As a substitute musician, she has performed with such ensembles as the Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. For her European recital debut in 2008, she performed a program at Paris' Auditorium du Louvre.

Albers, a faculty member at the North American Viola Institute in Orford, Quebec, has also joined the faculty of the Perlman Music Program in New York, and serves on the executive board of the American Viola Society. She was formerly on the faculty of the University of Michigan. She has participated in festivals including the Marlboro Music Festival, Perlman Music Program and, at Prussia Cove in the United Kingdom, the International Musicians Seminar and Open Chamber Music.

As a child in Longmont, Colorado, Albers began piano and violin studies at the age of two, picking up the viola at nine for an ensemble her mother, a Suzuki teacher, was putting together. While a student at the Juilliard School, where she worked with Heidi Castleman and Hsin-Yun Huang, she won the school's viola competition, resulting in her performance of Adler's Viola Concerto with the Juilliard Orchestra at Lincoln Center.

Ruggero Allifranchini is the associate concertmaster of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. He was born into a musical household in Milan, Italy and raised on a diverse musical diet, ranging from Beethoven to John Coltrane. He studied at the New School in Philadelphia with Jascha Brodsky and later at the Curtis Institute of Music, with Szymon Goldberg and, for chamber music, Felix Galimir. Allifranchini was the recipient of the Diploma d'Onore from the Chigiana Academy in Siena, Italy. In 1989, he co-founded the Borromeo String Quartet, with which he played exclusively for eleven years. As a chamber musician of diverse repertoire and styles, Allifranchini is a frequent guest artist of the Chamber Music Societies of Boston and Lincoln Center, as well as chamber music festivals in Seattle, Vancouver and El Paso, among many others. He is the violinist of the trio Nobilis, with pianist and former SPCO Artistic Partner Stephen Prutsman, and cellist Suren Bagratuni. Nobilis has performed chamber music and solos with orchestras in Europe, South America, and South Africa, as well as in North America. Allifranchini plays on the "Fetzer" violin made by Antonio Stradivari in 1694, which is on loan to him from the Stradivari Society of Chicago.

A native of Los Angeles, violinist Steven Copes leads a diverse and enthusiastic musical life as soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral leader. He joined the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra as concertmaster in 1998 and has led the orchestra from the chair in several highly acclaimed, eclectic programs, and performed concertos by Berg, Brahms, Hindemith, Kirchner, Lutoslawski, Mozart, Prokofiev, and Weill. A zealous advocate of the music of today, he gave the world premiere of George Tsontakis' Grammy-nominated Violin Concerto No. 2(2003), which won the 2005 Grawemeyer award, and has been recorded for KOCH Records. Copes was co-founder of the Alpenglow Chamber Music Festival in Colorado and is a member of Accordo, a new chamber group in the Twin Cities. He has also performed at festivals and concert series such as Boston Chamber Music Society, Bridgehampton, Caramoor, Chamber Music Northwest, La Jolla Summerfest, Mainly Mozart, Mozaic, Norfolk, Seattle Chamber Music Society, Skaneateles, and the Styriarte Festival in Graz, among others. A frequent guest concertmaster, Copes has toured extensively in Europe and Asia with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and has performed in the same capacity with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the London Philharmonic, the Pittsburgh Symphony, and the Baltimore Symphony. He holds degrees from The Curtis Institute and Juilliard. 

www.stevencopes.com

Test and expand your Broadway knowledge with our new game - The Broadway Match-Up! How well do you know your Broadway casting trivia?	Play the Daily Game, explore current shows, and delve into past decades like the 2000s, 80s, and the Golden Age. Challenge your friends and see where you rank!
How well do you know your Tony Awards history? Take our never-ending quiz of nominations and winner history and challenge your friends.	Can you beat your friends? Play today’s daily Broadway word game, featuring a new theatrically inspired word or phrase every day!