Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

We welcome the nation’s premiere chamber music organization to our stage: The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (CMS). As one of the most popular chamber music configurations, the piano quartet bears rich fruit as it contains a Venn diagram of the players for string and piano trios. This program, “Masters of the Piano Quartet,” hails from the Romantic era, with Schumann contributing the first great piano quartet of the 19th century, Brahms stoking the fire to create new heights of passion, and the young Gustav Mahler dipping his toe into the chamber music genre only once with this surprisingly powerful, single-movement work. The concert is anchored by CMS’s longest-serving artistic directors and deep Middlebury friends, cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han, partnered with violinist Arnaud Sussman and violist Matthew Lipman.

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:
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (CMS) is one of eleven constituents of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the largest performing arts complex in the world. The Chamber Music Society has its home in Alice Tully Hall, the finest hall in the world for chamber music. Through its performance, education, and recording/broadcast activities, it draws more people to chamber music than any other organization of its kind. Learn more about CMS: https://www.chambermusicsociety.org/

Winner of a 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grant, violinist Arnaud Sussmann has recently appeared as soloist with the Vancouver Symphony and the New World Symphony. As a chamber musician, he has performed at the Tel Aviv Museum, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Dresden Music Festival, and the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC. He has also given concerts at the Moritzburg, Caramoor, Music@Menlo, La Jolla SummerFest, Mainly Mozart, Seattle Chamber Music, Chamber Music Northwest, and Moab Music festivals. An alumnus of CMS’s Bowers Program, Sussmann is Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach and Co-Director of Music@Menlo’s International Program, and teaches at Stony Brook. Learn more about Arnaud Sussmann: http://arnaudsussmann.com/

American violist Matthew Lipman has made recent appearances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, American Symphony Orchestra, Munich Symphony Orchestra, and Minnesota Orchestra. He has performed recitals at Carnegie Hall and the Zürich Tonhalle, and has recorded on the Sony, Deutsche Grammophon, Cedille, and Avie labels. An alumnus of CMS’s Bowers Program, he performs regularly on tour and at Alice Tully Hall with CMS. An Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient and major prize winner at the Primrose and Tertis International Viola Competitions, Lipman is on faculty at Stony Brook University. He performs on a 2021 Samuel Zygmuntowicz viola. Learn more about Matthew Lipman: https://www.matthew-lipman.com/

Co-Artistic Director of CMS since 2004, cellist David Finckel has performed on the world’s stages in the roles of recitalist, chamber artist, and orchestral soloist. The first American student of Mstislav Rostropovich, he joined the Emerson String Quartet in 1979, and during 34 seasons garnered nine Grammy Awards and the Avery Fisher Prize. In 1997, he and pianist Wu Han founded ArtistLed, the first internet-based, artist-controlled classical recording label. Music@Menlo, a summer chamber music festival in Silicon Valley founded and directed by David and Wu Han, celebrated its 20th season in 2022. He is a professor at both the Juilliard School and Stony Brook University, and oversees both CMS’s Bowers Program and Music@Menlo’s Chamber Music Institute. Along with Wu Han, he received Musical America’s 2012 Musicians of the Year Award. Learn more about David Finckel: https://davidfinckelandwuhan.com/

Pianist Wu Han, recipient of Musical America’s Musician of the Year Award, enjoys a multi-faceted musical life that encompasses artistic direction, performing, and recording. Co-Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 2004, as well as Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Silicon Valley’s Music@Menlo since 2002, she also serves as Artistic Advisor for Wolf Trap’s Chamber Music at the Barns series and Palm Beach’s Society of the Four Arts, and as Artistic Director for La Musica in Sarasota, Florida. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of ArtistLed, classical music’s first artist-directed, internet-based recording label. A recipient of the Andrew Wolf Award, she was mentored by some of the greatest pianists of our time, including Lilian Kallir, Rudolf Serkin, and Menahem Pressler. Married to cellist David Finckel since 1985, Wu Han divides her time between concert touring and residences in New York City and Westchester County. Learn more about Wu Han: https://davidfinckelandwuhan.com/

Program:
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
Arnaud Sussmann, Violin
Matthew Lipman, Viola
David Finckel, Cello
Wu Han, Piano

Masters of the Piano Quartet

MAHLER Quartet in A Minor for Piano, Violin, Viola, and Cello (1876)
Nicht zu schnell

BRAHMS Quartet No. 3 in C Minor for Piano, Violin, Viola, and Cello, Op. 60 (1855–56, rev. 1874)
Allegro non troppo
Scherzo: Allegro
Andante
Finale: Allegro comodo

Intermission

SCHUMANN Quartet in E-flat Major for Piano, Violin, Viola, and Cello, Op. 47 (1842)
Sostenuto assai—Allegro ma non troppo
Scherzo: Molto vivace
Andante cantabile
Finale: Vivace

Sponsored by the Performing Arts Series, the Paul Nelson Performance Endowment, and the Rothrock Family Residency Fund.

Learn more about the artists:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chambermusicsociety
Instagram: https://instagram.com/chambermusicsociety
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/chambermusicsociety
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7D5qegbCcQwEnPuRVOlB62
Watch a video: https://youtu.be/sD2jmK-b0N4?si=0XWFxfAWOCKupi94

Performance subject to change.