Name: Sophie Shao and Friends
Start: 2026-12-03T19:30:00-05:00
End: 2026-12-03T21:15:00-05:00
Location: Mahaney Arts Center, Olin C. Robison Concert Hall

Thursday, December 3, 2026
7:30–9:15 PM ET

Mahaney Arts Center, Olin C. Robison Concert Hall
72 Porter Field Road
Middlebury, VT 05753

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$30/20/10/5
Open to the Public

Map of Mahaney Arts Center, Olin C. Robison Concert Hall

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collage image of the artists holding their instruments

No season is complete without our perennial favorite, cellist Sophie Shao, and her talented collaborators. This year, Shao has expanded her circle of award-winning friends to six, who will delight our community with the lush sounds of the beloved sextets of Dvorák and Brahms. They’ll also play Arensky’s quartet for violin, viola, and two cellos—a deeply expressive, late-Romantic homage to his friend Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Rounding out the sextet are violinists Jennifer Frautschi and Kyu-Young Kim, Cara Pogossian and Burchard Tang on viola, and cellist Nina Lee.

Tickets: $30 general public | $20 Middlebury ID holders/PASS Members | $10 youth (under 21) | $5 Middlebury students. Reserved seating. Tickets on sale in September: http://go.middlebury.edu/tickets

Approximate running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes, including 1 intermission

Learn more about this concert’s music in a free pre-concert lecture by Professor Emeritus of Music Larry Hamberlin, at 6:15 PM in MAC room 125.

About the Artists:

A two-time GRAMMY nominee and Avery Fisher career grant recipient, violinist Jennifer Frautschi has appeared as a soloist with innumerable orchestras including the Cincinnati Symphony, Chicago Symphony, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Frautschi is an in-demand chamber musician and recording artist as well, recording several discs for Naxos. Frautschi attended the Colburn School, Harvard, the New England Conservatory, and the Juilliard School. She currently teaches in the graduate program at Stony Brook University. Learn more: https://www.jenniferfrautschi.com/

Violinist Kyu-Young Kim has forged a distinctive path as a visionary arts leader. Before his 2024 appointment as Artistic Director of the Schubert Club, Kim served simultaneously as the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra’s Artistic Director and Principal Violin from 2016–2024, a dual leadership role that was unique among major American orchestras. Kim also has had a rich and varied life as a chamber musician, orchestral leader, and educator. He was a founding member of the Daedalus Quartet, with whom he won the Grand Prize at the 2001 Banff International String Quartet Competition, and a former member of the Pacifica String Quartet, winners of the prestigious Naumburg Chamber Music Award. He has served as guest concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Minnesota Orchestra, as guest principal second violin of the Houston Symphony, and is an Emeritus Member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Kim is on the violin faculty of the University of Minnesota School of Music and has done guest master classes in violin and chamber music throughout the U.S. and Canada, including recent residencies at the Curtis Institute of Music. Learn more: https://schubert.org/about/board-and-staff/

Armenian-American violist Cara Pogossian is an avid chamber musician having performed at numerous summer festivals, including the Marlboro Festival, Yellow Barn, Ravinia Steans Music Institute, Tippet Rise, and Taos School of Music. Pogossian is the principal violist of the Portland Symphony Orchestra and has appeared as a guest musician with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. She was the AGBU (Armenian General Benevolent Union) Scholarship recipient, the 2022 winner of the Borromeo String Quartet Guest Artist Award, the 2024 recipient of the St. Botolph Club Foundation Emerging Artist Award, and was named the winner of the 2023–2024 New England Conservatory of Music’s Lower Strings Concerto Competition. Pogossian completed her graduate studies with Kim Kashkashian at the New England Conservatory and previously studied with Hsin-Yun Huang and Misha Amory at the Curtis Institute of Music. Learn more: https://carapogossian.com

A native of Maryland,violist Burchard Tang joined The Philadelphia Orchestra in September 1999. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in May 1999 from the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with the Philadelphia Orchestra’s principal violas, including Joseph dePasquale (retired) and Choong-Jin Chang (current). Tang has served as principal viola with the Curtis Symphony and the New York String Seminar, and he has performed with the Brandenburg Ensemble. He was the 1993 winner of the Philadelphia Orchestra Albert M. Greenfield Student Competition, the Temple University Preparatory Division Concerto Competition, and earned second prize in the Senior Division of the 1996 Fischoff Competition. As a chamber musician, he has performed at festivals across the country including Marlboro, Seattle, Lake Champlain, Angel Fire, Caramoor, Kingston, and Ravinia. Tang plays on a viola made for him in 2022 by Samuel Zygmuntovicz. Learn more: https://philorch.ensembleartsphilly.org/meet-your-orchestra/burchard-tang?view=instrument

Cellist Sophie Shao, winner of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant and top prizes at the Rostropovich and Tchaikovsky competitions, is a versatile and passionate artist praised by publications such as The New York Times and The Washington Post. She is both a coveted chamber music collaborator and an acclaimed soloist with appearances at the Houston and American Symphony Orchestras, Taiwan and Ukraine’s National Symphony Orchestras, and the BBC Concert Orchestra in London. She holds a BA in religious studies and an MM from Yale University, and serves on the faculty of the University of Connecticut. “eloquent, powerful”—The New York Times. Learn more: http://sophieshao.com

An active chamber musician, cellist Nina Lee has collaborated with many acclaimed artists and performed throughout the United States. She performs regularly at the Yale School of Music as a member of the School of Music’s ensemble-in-residence, the Brentano String Quartet, which presents creative programs of works from across history and standards of the classical canon. She also coaches graduate-level chamber music ensembles at the School of Music. In the summers, Lee performs and teaches at Norfolk Chamber Music Festival/Yale Summer School of Music. Previously, she taught at Princeton University and Columbia University. An advocate of music education, Lee has served as a returning guest faculty member at the St. Lawrence String Quartet Seminar at Stanford University and at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music’s Summer Chamber Music Workshop. In 2012, she made a cameo appearance in A Late Quartet, a film which featured the Brentano String Quartet on its soundtrack. Lee’s principal teachers have been Joel Krosnick, David Soyer, and Anne Fagerburg-Jacob. She has received degrees and certificates from the Curtis Institute of Music and The Juilliard School. Learn more: https://music.yale.edu/people/nina-lee

Program:

Sophie Shao and Friends

Jennifer Frautschi and Kyu-Young Kim, Violins

Cara Pogossian and Burchard Tang, Violas

Nina Lee and Sophie Shao, Cellos

ARENSKY String Quartet No. 2, Op. 35 (for violin, viola, and two cellos)

Moderato

Variations sur un thême de P. Tschaikowsky. Moderato

Finale. Andante sostenuto — Allegro moderato

DVORÁK String Sextet in A Major, Op. 48

Allegro moderato

Dumka (Elergie). Poco allegretto