4 Concerts
Chamber Music on Peavey Plaza: Week 3
At a Glance
Featuring members of the Minnesota Orchestra, this invitation-only chamber music performance will be held outside on the newly-refurbished Peavey Plaza.
With programs designed by the Minnesota Orchestra musicians, every concert throughout the month of August will feature a piece of music written by a Black composer. The repertoire will be announced from the stage and will include music by composers such as Ludwig van Beethoven, Benjamin Britten, Valerie Coleman, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Paquito D’Rivera, Jean Françaix, Devonté Hynes, Wolfgang Amadè Mozart, Daniel Bernard Roumain, William Grant Still, Igor Stravinsky, Jerod Tate, Heitor Villa-Lobos and George Walker, among many others.
Health and Safety Protocols
We are planning this experience with careful attention to health and safety.
Learn more about our health and safety protocols.
Sponsored by:
Season support by:
Official airline of the Minnesota Orchestra
Chamber Music on Peavey Plaza: Week 4
At a Glance
Featuring members of the Minnesota Orchestra, this invitation-only chamber music performance will be held outside on the newly-refurbished Peavey Plaza.
With programs designed by the Minnesota Orchestra musicians, every concert throughout the month of August will feature a piece of music written by a Black composer. The repertoire will be announced from the stage and will include music by composers such as Ludwig van Beethoven, Benjamin Britten, Valerie Coleman, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Paquito D’Rivera, Jean Françaix, Devonté Hynes, Wolfgang Amadè Mozart, Daniel Bernard Roumain, William Grant Still, Igor Stravinsky, Jerod Tate, Heitor Villa-Lobos and George Walker, among many others.
Health and Safety Protocols
We are planning this experience with careful attention to health and safety.
Learn more about our health and safety protocols.
Sponsored by:
Season support by:
Official airline of the Minnesota Orchestra
Chamber Music: INSPIRATIONS
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?
- Composers often write their best music while traveling abroad, influenced by new surroundings, as was the case for both Dvořák and Hindemith. Listen and be inspired as a new Chamber Music season begins.
- Mozart and Dvořák’s quintets are both written for a “viola quintet,” or a standard string quartet with the addition of one viola. Mozart was the first composer to establish this instrumentation; he himself was a violist!
- Dvořák wrote his String Quintet in E-flat major while living in Spillville, Iowa, in 1893. It is often referred to as his American Quintet and was composed around the same time as his very popular American String Quartet.
- Throughout his career, Hindemith composed a sonata for nearly every instrument in the orchestra. The Double Bass Sonata was one of the final ones in his collection, composed while he was on vacation in New Mexico. It was followed only by one other—his Sonata for Tuba and Piano.
Program and Artists
HINDEMITH
Sonata for Bass and Piano / 13 min
- Kathryn Nettleman, bass
- Susan Billmeyer, piano
MOZART
String Quintet in C major / 30 min
- Rui Du, violin
- Céline Leathead, violin
- Sabina Thatcher, viola
- Kenneth Freed, viola
- Beth Rapier, cello
INTERMISSION / 20 min
SCHUBERT
String Trio in B-flat major / 9 min
- Catherine Schubilske, violin
- Thomas Turner, viola
- Katja Linfield, cello
DVOŘÁK
String Quintet in E minor / 34 min
- Sarah Grimes, violin
- Ben Odhner, violin
- Jenni Seo, viola
- Sam Bergman, viola
- Erik Wheeler, cello
Accessibility at Orchestra Hall
Chamber Music: ARCHITECTURE
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?
- A sparkling and exuberant string quintet by Mendelssohn, an emotional string quartet by Benjamin Britten and Brahms’ rhapsodic Sextet make up this winter concert highlighting brilliant musical architecture.
- Mendelssohn composed his First String Quintet at the age of 17. A few years later, he returned to this piece and rewrote the third movement, replacing the original Minuetto with an Intermezzo dedicated to the memory of his first violin teacher, Eduard Rietz.
- Benjamin Britten’s First String Quartet received great acclaim soon after it was completed. Musicologists and critics commented on his unmatched ability to create character and emotion through complex harmonies, and found moments in this quartet comparable to music by the likes of Beethoven, Bartók, Haydn and Stravinsky.
- One theme featured in Brahms’ Sextet was crafted using the letters of a young woman’s first name, Agathe (a soprano with whom he was briefly engaged), which could be recognized within the musical notes A, G, A, H (in German musical terms: B-flat) and E.
Program and Artists
MENDELSSOHN
String Quintet in A major / 30 min
- Peter McGuire, violin
- Felicity James, violin
- Sabina Thatcher, viola
- Richard Marshall, viola
- Beth Rapier, cello
BRITTEN
String Quartet No. 1 / 26 min
- Susie Park, violin
- Sarah Grimes, violin
- Rebecca Albers, viola
- Katja Linfield, cello
INTERMISSION / 20 min
BRAHMS
String Sextet in G major / 34 min
- Rui Du, violin
- Céline Leathead, violin
- Jenni Seo, viola
- Sifei Cheng, viola
- Anthony Ross, cello
- Silver Ainomäe, cello
Accessibility at Orchestra Hall
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