4 Concerts

Chamber Music: REFLECTIONS
At a Glance
Minnesota Orchestra musicians come together in small ensembles to perform cherished classics and innovative new music on Sunday afternoons in the Target Atrium.
Did You Know?
- Reflection on the past can create a spark that leads to great works of art, including these pieces for chamber ensembles by Du Yun, Dmitri Shostakovich, Jean Françaix and Johannes Brahms.
- Tattooed in Snow, a work written in 2015 by New York-based composer Du Yun, explores the delicate art forms of sand and snow sculpture through the lens of a string quartet.
- Yun was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Classical Composition in 2019 and was recently selected by The Washington Post as one of the top 35 female composers.
- For his unique Trio for Violin, Horn and Piano, Brahms reflected on his own past and decided to write a piece that featured the three instruments that he himself knew how to play.
- Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet earned him the State Stalin Prize in 1941, an award that came with one of the largest cash prizes in chamber music history at the time.
Program and Artists
YUN
Tattooed in Snow / 15 min
- Hanna Landrum, violin
- Emily Switzer, violin
- Sam Bergman, viola
- Silver Ainomäe, cello
SHOSTAKOVICH
Quintet for Piano and Strings / 32 min
- Cecilia Belcher, violin
- Rebecca Corruccini, violin
- Megan Tam, viola
- Beth Rapier, cello
- Mary Jo Gothmann, piano
INTERMISSION / 20 min
FRANÇAIX
Divertissement for Bassoon and String Quintet / 15 min
- Fei Xie, bassoon
- Susie Park, violin
- Sarah Grimes, violin
- Rebecca Albers, viola
- Silver Ainomäe, cello
- Kristen Bruya, bass
BRAHMS
Trio for Violin, Horn and Piano / 35 min
- David Brubaker, violin
- Bruce Hudson, horn
- Susan Billmeyer, piano
Accessibility at Orchestra Hall

Chamber Music: CHARACTER
At a Glance
Minnesota Orchestra musicians come together in small ensembles to perform cherished classics and innovative new music on Sunday afternoons in the Auditorium.
Did You Know?
- The final concert of the 2020-21 Chamber Music series teems with character and concludes with Louis Spohr’s Nonet, especially written to showcase the individual characters of its nine featured instruments.
- Andrew Norman, a participant in the 2004 Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute, is a Grammy-nominated composer and a member of the faculty at the USC Thornton School of Music. Gran Turismo was inspired by the unlikely combination of Baroque string playing, Italian futurist art and a car-racing video game.
- Façade began as an at-home project combining the artistic talents of British poet Edith Sitwell—whose poems were considered abstract, exotic and dramatic—and the young composer William Walton, who found himself “adopted” into the Sitwell family while studying at Oxford University.
- A child prodigy, composer-pianist Jean Françaix began writing music at the age of ten and was mentored and championed from a very young age by two other French musical geniuses, Maurice Ravel and Nadia Boulanger.
Program and Artists
FRANÇAIX
Woodwind Quartet / 11 min
- Greg Milliren, flute
- Julie Gramolini Williams, oboe
- Gregory T. Williams, clarinet
- J. Christopher Marshall, bassoon
NORMAN
Gran Turismo for Eight Virtuoso Violinists / 9 min
- Susie Park, violin
- Felicity James, violin
- Natsuki Kumagai, violin
- Sarah Grimes, violin
- Ben Odhner, violin
- Hanna Landrum, violin
- Sophia Mockler, violin
- Emily Switzer, violin
WALTON
Suite from Façade / 17 min
- Roma Duncan, flute and piccolo
- Timothy Zavadil, clarinet and bass clarinet
- James Romain, alto saxophone
- Douglas C. Carlsen, trumpet
- Katja Linfield, cello
- Kevin Watkins, percussion
INTERMISSION / 20 min
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS
Phantasy Quintet / 15 min
- Sophia Mockler, violin
- Milana Elise Reiche, violin
- Rebecca Albers, viola
- Kenneth Freed, viola
- Pitnarry Shin, cello
SPOHR
Nonet for Strings and Winds in F major / 28 min
- Rui Du, violin
- Gareth Zehngut, viola
- Pitnarry Shin, cello
- Kristen Bruya, bass
- Adam Kuenzel, flute
- Julie Gramolini Williams, oboe
- Gabriel Campos Zamora, clarinet
- Fei Xie, bassoon
- Ellen Dinwiddie Smith, horn
Accessibility at Orchestra Hall