Paul Katz News

America's longest running summer chamber music festival, Music Mountain, continues its exceptional 89th season! The impressive Amernet String Quartet performs Schubert, Richard Strauss, and Tchaikovsky on Sunday, August 12 (3pm). The weekend gets off to a dancing start on Saturday, August 11 (6:30pm) with The Galvanized Jazz Band playing the best of Dixieland, New Orleans jazz, and swing! Concerts are scheduled through September 23.

Music Mountain, America's longest running summer chamber music festival, continues its 89th season with the Avalon String Quartet performing a program of Beethoven, Mozart, Dohnanyi and Shostakovich on Sunday, August 5 (3pm). The weekend music begins on Saturday, August 4 (6:30pm) with first time guest Jimmy Greene Quartet - bringing his remarkable sound and vibrant jazz to Music Mountain! Concerts are scheduled through September 23.

Music Mountain, America's longest running summer chamber music festival, continues its outstanding 89th season with two returning favorites! Grammy Award winning Harlem String Quartet performs Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms on Sunday, July 29 (3pm). Swingtime Big Band is back on Saturday, July 28 (6:30pm) to thrill audiences with authentic recreations of the timeless music of the swing era! Concerts are scheduled through September 23.

Chamber music aficionados will want to mark their calendars for the start of Music Mountain's 89th Season! America's longest running summer chamber music festival kicks off on June 10th with an extremely rare summer event – the Complete Beethoven String Quartet Cycle! The Chamber Music Series will also feature Music Mountain premieres and welcome first time guests and returning favorites! Concerts are scheduled through September 23rd.   

On Saturday, May 12, 2018 at 2pm the Chiara String Quartet (Rebecca Fischer and Hyeyung Julie Yoon, violins; Jonah Sirota, viola; Gregory Beaver, cello) will give its final major performance presented by MetLiveArts in Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1000 5th Avenue). This culminating concert, celebrating 18 years together, is centered around the New York premiere of Philip Glass' Piano Quintet “Annunciation,” with pianist Paul Barnes.  The Chiara String Quartet opens the program with Nico Muhly's Diacritical Marks, written for them in 2011, and concludes with Beethoven's String Quartet in A minor, Op.132—one of the composer's most poignant final works.

The National Philharmonic celebrates the genius of Johannes Brahms at Strathmore with a performance by Grammy and Sphinx Competition award winner, American violinist Melissa White, in "Spirited Brahms." White will perform Brahms' Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77 under the baton of Philharmonic Music Director and Conductor Piotr Gajewski.  Also on the program is Brahms Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 98, which is stored in its original condition in the U.S. Library of Congress.

The National Philharmonic celebrates the genius of Johannes Brahms at Strathmore with a performance by Grammy and Sphinx Competition award winner, American violinist Melissa White, in "Spirited Brahms." White will perform Brahms' Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77 under the baton of Philharmonic Music Director and Conductor Piotr Gajewski.  Also on the program is Brahms Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 98, which is stored in its original condition in the U.S. Library of Congress. White is a founding member of the highly acclaimed New York-based Harlem Quartet and a first-prize laureate in the Sphinx Competition, which encourages, develops, and recognizes classical music talent in the Black and Latino communities. She performed on the CD Hot House, that won Grammy Awards in 2013 as well as performing for the Obama's in the White House. The concert will take place Saturday, March 17, at 8 p.m. and Sunday, March 18, at 3 p.m., at Strathmore's Concert Hall. Audiences will enjoy a members-only encore question-and-answer, and a kids "Meet the Instruments" session that will take place in the orchestra lobby on Sunday from 2-2:30 p.m., allowing young concertgoers a chance to interact with Philharmonic musicians and explore orchestral instruments from different families (string, wood, brass, and percussion).Ticket prices are $23-$76 and are free for young people age 7-17. Strathmore is located at 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit www.nationalphilharmonic.org or call 301.581.5100.

The Danish String Quartet members describe themselves as 'modern Vikings-perhaps a touch more harmless than our ancestors … simply your friendly neighborhood string quartet with above average amounts of beard.' They have taken the musical world by storm, earning the Carl Nielsen Prize, Denmark's most prestigious cultural award, and reviews applauding them for 'one ravishing performance after another … weaving magic over the full house' (San Francisco Classical Voice).

The 95th season of the New York Philharmonic Young People's Concerts (YPCs) will continue today, January 6, 2018, at 2:00 p.m. with 'Classical Echoes,' the second program in this season's series, Inspirations and Tributes - each program exploring how composers influence and pay tribute to each other.

The San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) today announces the appointment of cellist Amos Yang to its collegiate cello faculty, joining faculty members Jennifer Culp and Jean-Michel Fonteneau. Yang, currently assistant principal cello at the San Francisco Symphony, will accept students to his cello studio at SFCM starting in Fall 2018. He currently coaches string players in the Conservatory Orchestra, teaches an orchestral repertoire class, and works with young cellists in SFCM's Pre-College.

The 95th season of the New York Philharmonic Young People's Concerts (YPCs) will continue on Saturday, January 6, 2018, at 2:00 p.m. with 'Classical Echoes,' the second program in this season's series, Inspirations and Tributes - each program exploring how composers influence and pay tribute to each other.

On Sunday October 8, 2017 at 4pm, the Chiara String Quartet (Rebecca Fischer and Hyeyung Julie Yoon, violins; Jonah Sirota, viola; Gregory Beaver, cello) will perform on the Cooperstown Summer Music Festival's Fall Concert at Christ Church Episcopal Church in Cooperstown, NY (46 River Street). The Chiara Quartet will perform Mendelssohn's String Quartet in A minor, Op. 13, Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110, and Britten's Three Divertimenti from memory and will be joined by flutist and festival artistic director Linda Chesis for Ginastera's Impresiones de la Puna.

Celebrity chamber music ensemble Ying Quartet stays in residency on Cape Cod in August, making its debut appearance during Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival's (CCCMF) 38th season with three diverse concert programs.  The final two performances feature the Festival's two artistic directors as instrumental guests.  The Ying Quartet performs on Monday, August 21 at 7:30 pm at the Church of the Holy Spirit, 204 Monument Road, Orleans.  The Art of Song is held on Wednesday, August 23, 7:30 pm is held at Chatham Congregational Church, 650 Main Street.  The season comes to a brilliant close with The Brahms Quintets on Friday, August 25, 7:30 pm at Wellfleet Congregational Church, 200 Main Street.

Eminent maestro Vladimir Spivakov and the acclaimed Moscow Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra will perform at Lisner Auditorium at George Washington University on Saturday, June 3 at 7:30 PM as a part of their seven-city North American tour. Joining them are the brilliant soprano and Metropolitan Opera star Hibla Gerzmava - last heard at the Met in 2016 as Desdemona in Verdi's Otello, and who recently made her La Scala Opera debut in the title role in Donizetti's Anna Bolena - and 14-year-old Israeli prodigy, cellist Danielle Akta. 

Eminent maestro Vladimir Spivakov and the acclaimed Moscow Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra, who recently sold out a concert at the Barbican Center in London, return to Carnegie Hall onWednesday, June 7 at 8 PM as a part of their seven-city North American tour.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents the Chiara String Quartet in an encore performance on Thursday, May 11, 2017 at 7pm in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium (1000 Fifth Ave) following their lauded 2015-2016 season MetLiveArts residency. The concert will include the New York premiere of Rome Prize-winner Pierre Jalbert's Canticle String Quartet No. 6 and Brahms' Clarinet Quintet with clarinetist Todd Palmer.

Peak Performances will present the All Terrain String Festival: Bolcom 4x4, a three-day festival in which four of the world's foremost string quartets will perform the work of prolific Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer William Bolcom, along with music by a wide variety of other composers, from Mozart to Dizzy Gillespie.

Cellist Peter Seidenberg performs a program of Beethoven, Tuur and Rachmaninoff with pianist Helene Jeanney on Hoff-Barthelson Music School's HB Artist Recital Series on Sunday, March 5, 2017, at 5:00 pm at the Greenville Community Church, 270 Ardsley Road, Scarsdale.

The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia (COP) announces a special music panel event "Composing Music in the 21st Century: Music Panel Discussion: How modern composers navigate the ever-changing economy of music."