Events & Tickets

Chamber Music
Chamber Music: The Lark Ascending
New World Center, Michael Tilson Thomas Performance Hall
With a “breathtaking conflation of grace and grit” (Cleveland Classical), violinist Jennifer Frautschi makes her anticipated NWS debut. Many listeners believe Ralph Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending is among the most beautiful pieces of music ever written. Inspired by a poem by George Meredith that describes a bird in flight, the work forms what the composer called a “pastoral romance for orchestra.” As a prolific composer who wrote for Harry Belafonte and Marvin Gaye, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson finds a rich source of inspiration in the spiritual “Calvary” for his First String Quartet. Low brass claim the spotlight in Kevin Day’s sizzling Ignition.
---
This concert is part of the Chamber Music Series. NWS Fellows and acclaimed guest artists collaborate at these intimate concerts, performing a wide range of repertoire for small ensembles and chamber orchestra. Subscriptions for this 6-concert series are $72 ($12/concert). Click here to explore the full subscription!
COMPOSE YOUR OWN SUBSCRIPTION PACKAGE!
Want to try a little of everything? Customize your own subscription of three or more concerts to exercise full creative freedom while enjoying all the flexibility and perks of being a New World Symphony subscriber. Click here to build your CYO subscription or call the Box Office at 305.673.3331 to compose your series today.
SUBSCRIBERS ENJOY THE BEST OF NWS!
As an NWS Subscriber, you receive amazing benefits to enjoy throughout the season, including the best seats for the lowest prices and access to our incredibly talented Fellows. Click here to learn more!
Program
Kevin Day
(b. 1996)
Approx. Duration: 4 minutes
Ignition for Low Brass Quartet
(2020)
Chase Waterbury, Guangwei Fan, trombone
Noah Roper, bass trombone; Andrew Abel, tuba
Hanns Eisler
(1898-1962)
Approx. Duration: 7 minutes
Divertimento for Wind Quintet, Op. 4
(1923)
Andante con moto
Theme and Variations
Emily Bieker, flute; Mark Debski, oboe
Benjamin Cruz, clarinet; Eleni Katz, bassoon
Henry Bond, horn
Ralph Vaughan Williams
(1872-1958)
Approx. Duration: 12 minutes
The Lark Ascending
(1914; revised 1920)
Jennifer Frautschi, solo violin
Emily Bieker, flute; Mark Debski, oboe
Jakob Lenhardt, clarinet; Maggie O’Leary, bassoon
Henry Bond, horn; Ben Cornavaca, percussion
Yankı Karataş, Shomya Mitra, Nash Ryder, violin I
Gabrielle Monachino, Beatrice Hsieh, Aryton Pisco, violin II
Toby Winarto, Mario Rivera, viola
Hana Cohon, Kamila Dotta, cello
Josephine Kim, bass
Intermission
Felix Mendelssohn
(1809-1847)
Approx. Duration: 30 minutes
Trio in C minor for Piano, Violin and Cello, Op. 66
(1845)
Allegro energico e con fuoco
Andante espressivo
Scherzo: Molto allegro quasi presto
Finale: Allegro appassionato
Noah Sonderling, piano; Carson Marshall, violin
Victor Huls, cello
Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson
(1932-2004)
Approx. Duration: 15 minutes
Quartet No. 1 for Strings, “Calvary”
(1956)
Allegro
Quarter note = 54
Rondo: Allegro vivace
Jennifer Frautschi, James Zabawa-Martinez, violin
Camila Berg, viola; Emily Yoshimoto, cello
Kevin Day
Ignition for Low Brass Quartet
(2020)
Approximate duration: 4 minutes
Award-winning American composer Kevin Day’s music sits at the intersection of jazz, minimalism, Latin music, fusion and contemporary classical idioms. Ignition was originally written for brass sextet in 2018. Two years later, Day’s quartet arrangement of the work was premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra Low Brass Section. This vibrant and intense piece features repeated passages of several distinct melodic motives, some smooth and lyrical, others fiery and disjunct. A driving rhythmic pulse permeates much of the piece.
Hanns Eisler
Divertimento for Wind Quintet, Op. 4
(1923)
Approximate duration: 7 minutes
Austrian composer Hanns Eisler’s musical career was intricately connected to 20th-century geopolitics. After frontline military service in World War I, he studied composition with Arnold Schoenberg from 1919–1923. During this time, he wrote atonal music and was one of Schoenberg’s first students to adopt the twelve-tone system of composition, wherein all 12 chromatic musical pitches are systematically organized without a tonal hierarchy.
Divertimentos are traditionally light and entertaining compositions. Eisler’s was written in 1923 and is considered to be a commentary on Schoenberg’s style. It opens with a brief, quirky Andante movement that is energetic and transparent. The second movement begins with a lyrical theme followed by six variations. The horn has a distinctive solo near the end of the piece.
Eisler went on to write more consonant music in the style of socialist realism. His work was banned by the Nazi regime in 1933, and the exiled Eisler emigrated to the United States to compose film music. During the Cold War, however, Eisler was placed on the Hollywood blacklist and accused by the House Committee on Un-American Activities of being the “Karl Marx of music.” After his 1948 deportation to East Germany, Eisler composed the national anthem of the German Democratic Republic and wrote film scores.
Ralph Vaughan Williams
The Lark Ascending
(1914; revised 1920)
Approximate duration: 12 minutes
Ralph Vaughan Williams is often regarded as one of the most important 20th-century English composers. In particular, he played a critical role in developing a distinctly English style of classical composition by utilizing English folk songs and literature. This is especially evident in The Lark Ascending, which was inspired by George Meredith’s 1881 poem of the same name. Vaughan Williams inscribed the following lines from the poem into the musical score:
He rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound,
Of many links without a break,
In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake.
For singing till his heaven fills,
‘Tis love of earth that he instils,
And ever winging up and up,
Our valley is his golden cup,
And he the wine which overflows
To lift us with him as he goes.
Till lost on his aerial rings
In light, and then the fancy sings.
Vaughan Williams first composed The Lark Ascending for violin and piano in 1914. The piece was dedicated to violin virtuosa Marie Hall, who also debuted Vaughan Williams’s orchestrated version of the work in 1921. Throughout The Lark Ascending, the violin portrays the bird, and the orchestra serenely depicts the pastoral landscape below. Expressive, rhythmically free solo violin passages occur often, and the violin climbs into the highest range of the instrument at the end of the piece. Vaughan Williams’ wife recalled that he “had made the violin become both the bird’s song and its flight, being, rather than illustrating the poem from which the title was taken.”
Felix Mendelssohn
Trio in C minor for Piano, Violin and Cello, Op. 66
(1845)
Approximate duration: 30 minutes
Felix Mendelssohn’s compositions are often considered to be more conservative than many of his Romantic contemporaries. Indeed, Mendelssohn was tremendously influenced by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven, and he was also enamored with Johann Sebastian Bach’s counterpoint. He wrote his Second Piano Trio in 1845, and it was the last chamber work Mendelssohn lived to see published. Mendelssohn gifted a completed score of the Trio to his sister, the virtuosic pianist and composer Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, for her birthday in 1846.
The stormy opening theme of the first movement is clearly contrasted with a more lyrical second theme, which is initially stated by the violin. Rich harmonies that go to unusual places occur frequently in the movement, and there is a constant struggle between intensity and repose. Mendelssohn’s Baroque counterpoint skills shine in the final section of this movement—the strings play the first theme in augmentation (longer note values) while the piano simultaneously plays the original theme.
Reminiscent of a lullaby, the rocking second movement provides relief after the opening movement’s drama. Scherzos are musical jokes, and the third movement of the Trio is no exception. Described by Mendelssohn as “a trifle nasty to play,” this demanding movement features imitative passages that are traded rapidly between the players. Mendelssohn quotes excerpts from the 16th-century Lutheran hymn “Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ” (Praise to You, Jesus Christ) in the passionate fourth movement. Near the conclusion, the chorale tune is restated in C major, suggesting a triumphant resolution to the tumultuous angst of the work.
Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson
Quartet No. 1 for Strings, “Calvary”
(1956)
Approximate duration: 15 minutes
American composer Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson earned degrees in composition from the Manhattan School of Music in the 1950s, a time when many academic composers dismissed the tastes of the general public. Perkinson took a different approach, developing a multi-faceted career in classical, jazz, dance, pop, film and television music.
Named after the influential Black British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875–1912), Perkinson left his faculty position at Brooklyn College to pursue opportunities with a wider public reach. He was, for example, a co-founder and director of the Symphony of the New World and worked as the music director for the American Theater Lab.
The String Quartet No. 1 was written in 1956 and premiered at Carnegie Hall as part of a memorial tribute to the renowned Black American composer and baritone Harry T. Burleigh. The only surviving review of that performance was favorable: “Mr. Perkinson is an artist who has something to say. Although his idiom is unmistakably contemporary, it is not the warmed-over atonality of the Viennese school. Jazz idioms are used fluently and without self-consciousness. The Quartet has great rhythmic vitality, an aspect in which contemporary music is often deficient.”
Perkinson’s String Quartet is based on the spiritual “Calvary;” fragments of the melody occur throughout all three movements of the work, although they are often developed and subtly disguised. Elements of traditional Classical string quartets are seamlessly merged with French impressionism, jazz harmonies and atonality, resulting in a work that fuses together many of the styles that defined Perkinson’s rich musical career.
– © Dr. Paula Maust
Dr. Paula Maust is an Assistant Professor of Music Theory at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University and the creator of Expanding the Music Theory Canon, an extensive online collection of music theory examples by historical women and/or people of color. A book based on the website is forthcoming from SUNY Press, and she has also published articles in Women & Music and The Journal of the International Alliance for Women in Music. As a harpsichordist and organist, Paula conducts baroque opera from the keyboard, most recently directing a program of opera scenes by early modern women at Peabody.
Kevin Day
(b. 1996)
Approx. Duration: 4 minutes
Ignition for Low Brass Quartet (2020)
Noah Roper, bass trombone; Andrew Abel, tuba
Hanns Eisler
(1898-1962)
Approx. Duration: 7 minutes
Divertimento for Wind Quintet, Op. 4 (1923)
Andante con moto
Theme and Variations
Emily Bieker, flute; Mark Debski, oboe
Benjamin Cruz, clarinet; Eleni Katz, bassoon
Henry Bond, horn
Ralph Vaughan Williams
(1872-1958)
Approx. Duration: 12 minutes
The Lark Ascending (1914; revised 1920)
Jennifer Frautschi, solo violin
Emily Bieker, flute; Mark Debski, oboe
Jakob Lenhardt, clarinet; Maggie O’Leary, bassoon
Henry Bond, horn; Ben Cornavaca, percussion
Yankı Karataş, Shomya Mitra, Nash Ryder, violin I
Gabrielle Monachino, Beatrice Hsieh, Aryton Pisco, violin II
Toby Winarto, Mario Rivera, viola
Hana Cohon, Kamila Dotta, cello
Josephine Kim, bass
Intermission
Felix Mendelssohn
(1809-1847)
Approx. Duration: 30 minutes
Trio in C minor for Piano, Violin and Cello, Op. 66 (1845)
Allegro energico e con fuoco
Andante espressivo
Scherzo: Molto allegro quasi presto
Finale: Allegro appassionato
Noah Sonderling, piano; Carson Marshall, violin
Victor Huls, cello
Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson
(1932-2004)
Approx. Duration: 15 minutes
Quartet No. 1 for Strings, “Calvary” (1956)
Allegro
Quarter note = 54
Rondo: Allegro vivace
Jennifer Frautschi, James Zabawa-Martinez, violin
Camila Berg, viola; Emily Yoshimoto, cello
Kevin Day
Ignition for Low Brass Quartet (2020)
Duración aproximada: 4 minutos
La música del premiado compositor estadounidense Kevin Day se encuentra en la intersección del jazz, el minimalismo, la música latina, la fusión y los modismos clásicos contemporáneos. Ignition fue escrita originalmente para sexteto de metales en 2018. Dos años después, la sección de metales graves de la Sinfónica de Boston estrenó el arreglo para cuarteto de Day. Esta pieza vibrante e intensa nos presenta pasajes repetidos de varios motivos melódicos distintos, algunos líricos y calmados, otros apasionados y disjuntos. Un pulso rítmico constante impregna gran parte de la pieza.
Hanns Eisler
Divertimento for Wind Quintet, Op. 4 (1923)
Duración aproximada: 7 minutos
La carrera del compositor austríaco Hanns Eisler estuvo estrechamente conectada con la geopolítica del siglo XX. Después de su servicio militar en primera línea durante la Primera Guerra Mundial, estudió composición con Arnold Schoenberg de 1919 a 1923. Durante estos años, el escribió música atonal y fue uno de los primeros alumnos de Schoenberg en adoptar el sistema composicional de doce tonos, donde los 12 tonos musicales cromáticos se organizan sistemáticamente sin una jerarquía tonal.
Los divertimentos son piezas tradicionalmente ligeras y entretenidas. El de Eisler fue escrito en 1923 y se considera un comentario sobre el estilo de Schoenberg. La obra comienza con un breve y peculiar Andante que es energético y transparente. El segundo movimiento abre con un tema lírico seguido por seis variaciones. La trompa tiene un distintivo solo cerca del final de la pieza.
A continuación, Eisler pasó a escribir música más consonante al estilo del realismo socialista. Su trabajo fue prohibido por el régimen nazi en 1933, y el exiliado Eisler emigró a los Estados Unidos para componer música para cine. Sin embargo, durante la Guerra Fría, Eisler fue incluido en la lista negra de Hollywood y acusado por el Comité de Actividades Antiamericanas de la Cámara de Representantes de ser el “Karl Marx de la música.” Después de ser deportado a Alemania Oriental en 1948, Eisler compuso el himno nacional de la República Democrática Alemana y escribió bandas sonoras para películas.
Ralph Vaughan Williams
The Lark Ascending (1914; revised 1920)
Duración aproximada: 12 minutos
Ralph Vaughan Williams es considerado frecuentemente como uno de los compositores ingleses más importantes del siglo XX. En particular, jugó un papel fundamental en el desarrollo de un estilo composicional clásico inglés muy distintivo, utilizando canciones y literatura popular inglesa.
Esto se pone de manifiesto en The Lark Ascending (La alondra ascendente), la cual se inspiró en el poema del mismo nombre escrito por George Meredith en 1881. Vaughan Williams inscribió los siguientes versos del poema en la partitura:
Asciende y comienza a dar vueltas,
Deja caer la plateada cadena de sonido,
De muchos eslabones sin pausa,
En gorgeos, silbidos, murmullos y trinos.
Cantando hasta llenar el cielo,
Ese amor a la Tierra que ella inspira,
Siempre batiendo alas en lo alto,
Nuestro valle es su copa dorada,
Y ella el vino que la derrama
Para elevarnos con ella en su vuelo.
Hasta perderse en sus anillos aéreos,
En la luz, donde canta la fantasía.
Vaughan Williams compuso por primera vez The Lark Ascending para violín y piano en 1914. La pieza estuvo dedicada a la virtuosa violinista Marie Hall, quien también debutó la versión orquestal de Vaughan Williams en 1921. A través de la obra, el violín representa al pájaro, y la orquesta representa serenamente el paisaje pastoral. Expresivos pasajes de violín ocurren a menudo, rítmicamente libres, y el violín alcanza lo más alto de su rango al final de la pieza. La esposa de Vaughan William recuerda que: “él hizo que el violín se convirtiera tanto en el canto del pájaro como en su vuelo, siendo, más que ilustrando, el poema de donde proviene el título”.
Felix Mendelssohn
Trio in C minor for Piano, Violin and Cello, Op. 66 (1845)
Duración aproximada: 30 minutos
Las composiciones de Félix Mendelssohn se consideran a menudo más conservadoras que muchos de sus contemporáneos románticos. En efecto, Mendelssohn recibió gran influencia de Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart y Ludwig van Beethoven, y amaba el contrapunto de Johann Sebastian Bach. Mendelssohn escribió su segundo trío para piano en 1845, y fue la última de sus obras de cámara que vio publicada en vida. Mendelssohn le regaló a su hermana, la virtuosa pianista Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, la partitura completa del trío por su cumpleaños en 1846.
El tormentoso tema que abre el primer movimiento contrasta claramente con un segundo tema más lírico, inicialmente presentado por el violín. Ricas armonías que se comportan de manera inusual ocurren frecuentemente en el movimiento, y hay una lucha constante entre la intensidad y el reposo. Las habilidades de Mendelssohn en el contrapunto barroco brillan en la sección final de este movimiento, las cuerdas tocan el primer tema en aumentación (notas de valores más largos) mientras que el piano interpreta simultáneamente el tema original.
Evocando una canción de cuna, el vaivén del segundo movimiento nos brinda alivio después del drama del primero. Los scherzos son bromas musicales, y el tercer movimiento no es la excepción. Descrito por Mendelssohn como “una bagatela terrible de interpretar”, este exigente movimiento nos muestra pasajes imitativos que se intercambian rápidamente entre los músicos. En el apasionado cuarto movimiento, Mendelssohn cita pasajes del himno luterano del siglo 16 “Gelobet seis du, Jesu Christ” (Alabado seas, Jesucristo). Cerca del final, la melodía del coral se repite en Do mayor, sugiriendo una resolución triunfante a la tumultuosa angustia de la obra.
Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson
Quartet No. 1 for Strings, “Calvary” (1956)
Duración aproximada: 15 minutos
El compositor estadounidense Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson obtuvo títulos en composición de la Manhattan School of Music en los 1950, una época en que muchos compositores académicos desestimaban los gustos del público. Perkinson adoptó un enfoque diferente, desarrollando una carrera multifacética en la música clásica, el jazz, la danza, el pop, la música para cine y televisión.
Nombrado en honor al influyente compositor afro-británico Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912), Perkinson dejó su puesto de profesor en el Brooklyn College para buscar oportunidades de mayor alcance a la audiencia. Él fue, por ejemplo, cofundador y director de la Symphony of the New World (Sinfónica del Nuevo Mundo) y trabajó como director musical para el American Theather Lab (Laboratorio Teatral de Estados Unidos).
El Cuarteto de cuerdas No.1 se escribió en 1956 y fue estrenado en Carnegie Hall como parte de un tributo al renombrado compositor y barítono afroamericano Harry T. Burleigh. La única crítica del concierto que sobrevivió fue favorable: “Mr. Perkinson es un artista que tiene algo que decir. Aunque su lenguaje es sin dudas contemporáneo, no es la atonalidad recalentada de la escuela vienesa. Los modismos del jazz se utilizan con fluidez y sin limitaciones. El Cuarteto tiene una gran vitalidad rítmica, aspecto en el que la música contemporánea suele ser deficiente.”
El Cuarteto de cuerdas de Perkinson está basado en el “Calvario” espiritual; fragmentos de la melodía aparecen a través de los tres movimientos de la obra, aunque a menudo se presentan en desarrollo y sutilmente camuflados. Los elementos del cuarteto de cuerdas clásico tradicional están fusionados a la perfección con el impresionismo francés, la atonalidad y las armonías del jazz, resultando en una pieza que une muchos de los estilos que definieron la rica obra musical de Perkinson.
– © Dr. Paula Maust
Dr. Paula Maust es Profesora Asistente de Teoría Musical en el Instituto Peabody de la Universidad John Hopkins y creadora del sitio web Expanding the Music Theory Canon, una extensa colección de ejemplos de teoría musical escritos por mujeres históricas y/o personas de color. Un libro basado en el sitio web será publicado próximamente por SUNY Press, y también ha publicado artículos en Women & Music y The Journal of the International Alliance for Women in Music. Como clavecinista y organista dirige ópera barroca desde el teclado, y más recientemente dirigió un programa de escenas de ópera de mujeres modernas en Peabody.
Translation by Maria Paulina García
Jennifer Frautschi, violin

Two-time Grammy Award nominee and Avery Fisher career grant recipient violinist Jennifer Frautschi has appeared as soloist with innumerable orchestras including the Cincinnati Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Milwaukee Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. As a chamber musician she has performed with the Boston Chamber Music Society and Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and appeared at Chamber Music Northwest, La Jolla Summerfest, Music@Menlo, Tippet Rise Art Center, Toronto Summer Music and the Bridgehampton, Charlottesville, Lake Champlain, Moab, Ojai, Santa Fe, Seattle, and Spoleto music festivals.
Ms. Frautschi’s extensive discography includes several discs for Naxos: the Stravinsky Violin Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London, conducted by the legendary Robert Craft, and two Grammy Award-nominated recordings with the Fred Sherry Quartet, of Schoenberg’s Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra , and the Schoenberg Third String Quartet. Her most recent releases are with pianist John Blacklow on Albany Records: the first devoted to the three sonatas of Robert Schumann; the second, American Duos, an exploration of recent additions to the violin and piano repertoire by contemporary American composers Barbara White, Steven Mackey, Elena Ruehr, Dan Coleman and Stephen Hartke. She also recorded three widely praised CDs for Artek: an orchestral recording of the Prokofiev concertos with Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony; the violin music of Ravel and Stravinsky; and 20th-century works for solo violin. Other recordings include a disc of Romantic Horn Trios, with hornist Eric Ruske and pianist Stephen Prutsman, and the Stravinsky Duo Concertante with pianist Jeremy Denk.
Born in Pasadena, California, Ms. Frautschi attended the Colburn School, Harvard, the New England Conservatory and The Juilliard School. She performs on a 1722 Antonio Stradivarius violin known as the “ex-Cadiz,” on generous loan from a private American foundation with support from Rare Violins In Consortium. She currently teaches in the graduate program at Stony Brook University.
Musicians of the New World Symphony

A laboratory for the way music is taught, presented and experienced, the New World Symphony consists of 87 young musicians who are granted fellowships lasting up to three years. The fellowship program offers in-depth exposure to traditional and modern repertoire, professional development training and personalized experiences working with leading guest conductors, soloists and visiting faculty.
NWS Fellows take advantage of the innovative performance facilities and state-of-the art practice and ensemble rooms of the Frank Gehry-designed New World Center, the campus of the New World Symphony and home of the Knight New Media Center.
In the hopes of joining NWS, nearly 1,000 recent music school and conservatory graduates compete for available fellowships each year. The Fellows are selected for this highly competitive, prestigious opportunity based on their musical achievement and promise, as well as their passion for the future of classical music.