Boston Symphony Chamber Players – Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Henri Dutilleux’s Birth
Event on 2016-01-01 15:00:00
This renowned ensemble combines the talents of the BSO's principal players to explore the full spectrum of chamber music repertoire. Concerts take place on four Sunday afternoons at New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall. View biography in full page >
Malcolm Lowe joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra as concertmaster in 1984, becoming the tenth concertmaster in the orchestra's history and only its third since 1920. As concertmaster, he also performs with the Boston Symphony Chamber Players. Mr. Lowe is equally at home as an orchestral player, chamber musician, solo recitalist, and teacher. He appears frequently as a soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall and Tanglewood and he has returned many times to his native Canada for guest appearances as a soloist with the Toronto and Montreal Symphony Orchestras and the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa.
Mr. Lowe is a faculty member at the Tanglewood Music Center, New England Conservatory, and Boston University. Prior to his Boston appointment, he was concertmaster of the Quebec Symphony Orchestra. The recipient of many awards, he was one of the top laureate winners in the 1979 Montreal International Violin Competition. Born to musical parents – his father was a violinist and his mother a vocalist – on a farm in Hamiota, Manitoba, Mr. Lowe moved with his family to Regina, Saskatchewan at the age of nine. There he studied at the Regina Conservatory of Music with Howard Leyton-Brown, former concertmaster of the London Philharmonic. He later studied with Ivan Galamian at the Meadowmount School of Music and at the Curtis Institute of Music. Mr. Lowe also studied violin with Sally Thomas and Jaime Laredo and was greatly influenced by Josef Gingold, Felix Galimir, Alexander Schneider, and Jascha Brodsky.
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Haldan Martinson made his solo debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1990 and made his national television debut in 1988 performing on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show. Mr. Martinson has soloed with many other orchestras, including the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony Orchestra, the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra and the Yale Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Martinson is the recipient of numerous prizes, scholarships, and awards including the Spotlight Award of the Los Angeles Music Center. He has participated in the chamber music festivals of Ravinia, Taos, Santa Fe, and La Jolla. From 1996 to 1998 he was a member of the Metamorphosen Chamber Ensemble.
Mr. Martinson graduated with a B.A. in Music from Yale College (1994), where he was awarded the Louis Sudler Prize, one of the most prestigious awards granted by the university. He was concertmaster of the Yale Symphony Orchestra from 1991 to 1994. Mr. Martinson received a Master of Music degree from New England Conservatory (1997). His former teachers have included Robert Lipsett, Endré Granat, David Nadien, Aaron Rosand, and James Buswell.
Mr. Martinson is also a prize-winning composer whose works for string ensemble have been featured frequently in concert. One of Mr. Martinson's works, Dance of the Trolls for string orchestra, was commissioned by the Crossroads Chamber Orchestra in 1988 and has since been performed throughout Southern California.
As principal second violin of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Mr. Martinson is also a member of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players. He joined the orchestra as a section violinist in November 1998 and was appointed to his current position in the summer of 2000. From 1998-2002 he was a member of the critically acclaimed Hawthorne String Quartet.
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Steven Ansell joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra as principal viola in September 1996, occupying the Charles S. Dana chair, having already appeared with the BSO in Symphony Hall as guest principal viola. A native of Seattle, he also remains a member of the acclaimed Muir String Quartet, which he co-founded in 1979, and with which he has toured extensively throughout the world. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Michael Tree and Karen Tuttle, Mr. Ansell was named professor of viola at the University of Houston at twenty-one and became assistant principal viola of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under André Previn at twenty-three. As a recording artist he has received two Grand Prix du Disque awards and a Gramophone magazine award for Best Chamber Music Recording of the Year. He has appeared on PBS's "In Performance at the White House," has participated in the Tanglewood, Marlboro, Schleswig-Holstein, Newport, Blossom, Spoleto, and Snowbird music festivals, and premiered Ezra Laderman's Concerto for Viola and Orchestra with the Berkshires Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Ansell teaches at the Boston University College of Fine Arts. As principal viola of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, he is also a member of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players. His solo appearances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra have included performances of Mozart's Sinfonia concertante for violin and viola, Bruch's Concerto for Viola, Clarinet and Orchestra, Strauss's Don Quixote (which he will play again with James Levine and the orchestra in February), and Berlioz's Harold in Italy, which he has previously performed with the BSO under the direction of both Emmanuel Krivine and James Levine, his performances of the Berlioz with Levine in October 2008 and at Tanglewood in July 2009 being his most recent solo appearances with the BSO.
Visit bostonsymphonychamberplayers.org for more information about the Boston Symphony Chamber Players. View biography in full page >
Born in Philadelphia, Boston Symphony Orchestra principal cello Jules Eskin came to the BSO in 1964 after three years as principal cello with the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell. His father, an amateur cellist, gave him his first lessons, and at the age of 16 he joined the Dallas Symphony Orchestra under Antal Dorati. Mr. Eskin studied with Janos Starker in Dallas and later with Gregor Piatigorsky and Leonard Rose at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. In 1947 and 1948, he was a fellowship student at the Tanglewood Music Center. In 1954 Mr. Eskin was awarded first prize in the prestigious Walter Naumburg Competition; he gave his New York Town Hall debut recital that same year. This led to an extended concert tour in Europe.
Mr. Eskin has participated in the Marlboro Music Festival and played with the Casals Festival Orchestra in Puerto Rico. His chamber music collaborations have included appearances with Isaac Stern and Friends and the Guarneri String Quartet and piano trio performances with Arnold Steinhardt and Lydia Artymiw. As a founding member of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, Mr. Eskin has performed throughout the world and has recorded numerous chamber works for the RCA, Deutsche Grammophon, Northeastern, and Nonesuch labels. He has been soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Richard Strauss's Don Quixote, Ernest Bloch's Schelomo, Johannes Brahms's Double Concerto, and the cello concerts of Antonin Dvořák, Fran Joseph Haydn, Camille Saint-Saëns, and Robert Schumann. Mr. Eskin is featured on a Deutsche Grammophon album of music by Gabriel Fauré with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Visit bostonsymphonychamberplayers.org for more information about the Boston Symphony Chamber Players. View biography in full page >
BSO principal bass Edwin Barker has concertized in North America, Europe, and the Far East. He has performed and recorded with the BSO, the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, and the contemporary music ensemble Collage, and is a frequent guest performer with the Boston Chamber Music Society. Mr. Barker gave the world premieres of James Yannatos' Concerto for Contrabass and Chamber Orchestra (which was written especially for him) and of Theodore Antoniou's Concertino for Contrabass and Chamber Orchestra; he was the featured soloist in the New England premiere of Gunther Schuller's Concerto for Double Bass and Chamber Orchestra. Mr. Barker graduated with honors in 1976 from the New England Conservatory, where he studied double bass with Henry Portnoi. That same year, at age twenty-two, while a member of the Chicago Symphony, he was appointed principal double bass of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. His other double bass teachers included Peter Mercurio, Richard Stephan, Angelo LaMariana, and David Perleman. Mr. Barker inaugurated the BSO's 100th Anniversary Season with performances of Koussevitzky's Bass Concerto; other solo engagements have included appearances at Seiji Ozawa Hall, Carnegie Recital Hall, and major universities and conferences throughout the world, as well as concerto performances with the Boston Classical Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Boston and Europe. In July 1995 he was chosen by the late Sir Georg Solti to lead the bass section of the United Nations' "Musicians of the World," an orchestra made up of prominent musicians from the world's finest orchestras. Mr. Barker is an associate professor at the Boston University College of Fine Arts, where he teaches double bass, orchestral techniques, and chamber music. His other major teaching affiliations include the BSO's Tanglewood Music Center, where he is Chairman of Instrumental and Orchestral Studies, and the National Orchestral Institute at the University of Maryland. His solo CDs include "Three Sonatas for Double Bass"; James Yannatos' Variations for Solo Contrabass, and the recently released "Concerti for Double Bass," which includes concertos by Gunther Schuller and Theodore Antoniou.
Visit bostonsymphonychamberplayers.org for more information about the Boston Symphony Chamber Players. View biography in full page >
BSO principal flutist Elizabeth Rowe joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 2004 and holds the Walter Piston Principal Flute Chair. Prior to joining the BSO, Ms. Rowe held titled positions with the orchestras of Fort Wayne, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., and was a member of the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, Florida. Regularly featured in front of the orchestra, Ms. Rowe's solo appearances with the BSO include the American premiere performances of Elliott Carter's Flute Concerto under the direction of James Levine, the Ligeti Concerto for Flute and Oboe with Christoph von Dohnanyi conducting, Gabriela Lena Frank's Illapa, Tone Poem for Flute and Orchestra under the direction of Miguel Harth-Bedoya, and Mozart's G major Flute Concerto, K.313, under the direction of André Previn.
Noted for her insightful teaching, Ms. Rowe attracts flute students from around the country to her lessons and master classes. She currently serves on the faculties of the New England Conservatory and the Tanglewood Music Center and is a regular guest artist at the National Orchestral Institute of Music and the New World Symphony. She has previously taught at both the Peabody Conservatory of Music and the University of Maryland. A member of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, she can be heard in a wide variety of chamber works throughout the season at NEC's Jordan Hall and in several recordings.
Elizabeth Rowe grew up in Eugene, Oregon. She received her bachelor of music degree from the University of Southern California, where she was a Trustee Scholar and a student of Jim Walker, former principal flute of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Ms. Rowe recently returned to Los Angeles to join Mr. Walker as a guest teacher at his week-long intensive course, "Beyond the Masterclass." Ms. Rowe's connection to the Boston Symphony dates back to the summer of 1996, when she was a Tanglewood Music Center Fellow and performed as principal flute under the direction of Seiji Ozawa in the TMC's fiftieth-anniversary production of Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes. View biography in full page >
John Ferrillo joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra as principal oboe at the start of the 2001 Tanglewood season, having appeared with the orchestra several times as a guest performer in previous seasons. From 1986 to 2001 he was principal oboe of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. Mr. Ferrillo grew up in Bedford, Massachusetts, and played in the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra. He is a graduate of the Curtis Institute, where he studied with John deLancie and received his diploma and Artist's certificate. He also studied with John Mack at the Blossom Festival and has participated in the Marlboro, Craftsbury, and Monadnock festivals. Prior to his appointment at the Metropolitan Opera, Mr. Ferrillo was second oboe of the San Francisco Symphony, and was a faculty member at Illinois State University and West Virginia State University. A former faculty member of the Mannes School of Music and Juilliard School of Music in New York City, he has taught and performed at the Aspen and Waterloo festivals and currently serves on the faculty of the New England Conservatory, Boston University, and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute.
Visit bostonsymphonychamberplayers.org for more information about the Boston Symphony Chamber Players. View biography in full page >
William R. Hudgins was appointed principal clarinetist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra by Seiji Ozawa in 1994, occupying the Ann S.M. Banks chair, having joined the orchestra two years earlier. He has been heard as a soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra on numerous occasions, including performances of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, with which he made his BSO debut as concerto soloist in 1995, Copland's Clarinet Concerto, Bruch's Double Concerto for Clarinet and Viola, and Frank Martin's Concerto for Seven Winds, Timpani, Percussion, and String Orchestra. As a member of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, he can be heard on their latest CD, "Plain Song, Fantastic Dances," in music of Gandolfi, Foss, and Golijov, as well as on their compact disc "Mozart Chamber Music for Winds and Strings" in Mozart's Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, K.581, and on a Grammy-nominated Arabesque recording of Hindemith's Quartet for Clarinet, Violin, Cello, and Piano. Recent performances outside of the Boston Symphony Orchestra include orchestral performances and recordings with the Saito Kinen Orchestra in Matsumoto, Japan, and the Mito Chamber Orchestra in Mito, Japan, both under the direction of Seiji Ozawa. Mr. Hudgins performed in the December 2010 Susan G. Komen "Concert for the Cure" breast cancer benefit concert under the direction of Sir Simon Rattle. Appearances at the Rockport Chamber Music Festival include performances of Wagner and Copland in the inaugural concert at the Shalin Liu Performance Center in June 2010. He is scheduled to perform the Copland Clarinet Concerto with Boston's Discovery Ensemble at Sanders Theatre in November 2011.
Before joining the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Mr. Hudgins served as principal clarinetist and soloist with the Orquesta Sinfonica Municipal in Caracas, Venezuela, and the Charleston Symphony Orchestra in South Carolina. He was heard for six seasons as a member of both the Spoleto Festival Orchestra in Charleston, South Carolina, and the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy. He also participated as a Fellow of the Tanglewood Music Center, where he won the C.D. Jackson Award for outstanding performance. Mr. Hudgins received his bachelor's degree from the Boston University School for the Arts, studying primarily with former BSO principal clarinetist Harold Wright. His teachers also included members of the Indianapolis and Cincinnati symphony orchestras and Jules Serpentini, formerly of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Visit bostonsymphonychamberplayers.org for more information about the Boston Symphony Chamber Players. View biography in full page >
Richard Svoboda has been the principal bassoonist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and a member of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players since 1989; as the BSO's principal bassoon he occupies the Edward A. Taft Chair, endowed in perpetuity. Mr. Svoboda is currently on the faculties of the New England Conservatory of Music, the Tanglewood Music Center, and the Sarasota Music Festival, and has given master classes throughout the world. Prior to his BSO appointment, he performed for ten seasons as principal bassoonist of the Jacksonville Symphony.
Mr. Svoboda is an active chamber music collaborator, orchestral soloist, and recitalist. Among his solo appearances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra have been performances of John Williams's bassoon concerto Five Sacred Trees with the composer conducting and Weber's Concerto for Bassoon under the baton of Seiji Ozawa. In November 2013 he is soloist in the world premiere of Marc Neikrug's BSO-commissioned Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra with R afael Frühbeck de Burgos on the podium. In 2007 he premiered Michael Gandolfi's Concerto for Bassoon, and in 2011, along with his daughter, clarinetist Erin Svoboda, he premiered Gandolfi's Concerto for Clarinet and Bassoon, both times collaborating with Yoichi Udagawa and the Melrose Symphony Orchestra.
Richard Svoboda has to his credit over thirty recordings with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston Symphony Chamber Players, as well as the soundtracks to Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan. His recording of Michael Gandolfi's Concerto for Bassoon with Gil Rose and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project was a May 2013 release, and two CDs of solo bassoon repertoire are in various stages of completion. "Le Phénix, 18th-Century French Music for Bassoon," including music of Boismortier, Corrette, and Devienne, was released in November 2013, and a CD of early 20th-century European music is in the editing stage.
Mr. Svoboda is married and is the extremely proud father of four daughters. He and his family reside in Melrose. For further information, please visit RichardSvoboda.com. View biography in full page >
James Sommerville is Principal Horn of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a position he has held since 1998. He is also Music Director of the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra. The winner of the highest prizes at the Munich, Toulon, and CBC competitions, Mr. Sommerville has pursued a solo career that has spanned 25 years, and has brought critically acclaimed appearances with major orchestras throughout North America and Europe. His disc of the Mozart Horn Concertos with the CBC Vancouver Orchestra won the JUNO Award for Best Classical Recording in Canada. Other award-winning CBC recordings include the Britten Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings and Britten's Canticle. Mr. Sommerville has recorded chamber music for the Deutsche Gramophon, Telarc, CBC, Summit, and Marquis labels. He is a member of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, with whom he tours and records regularly.
Mr. Sommerville has been a member of the Toronto and Montreal Symphony Orchestras, the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra, Symphony Nova Scotia, and was acting solo horn of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. He has toured and recorded extensively as an orchestral player. He is heard regularly on the CBC network, and has recorded all the standard solo horn repertoire for broadcast.
As a guest artist and faculty member, Mr. Sommerville has performed at many chamber music festivals, throughout Canada, the USA, Europe and Japan. Recent solo performances of note include the world premiere of Christos Hatzis' Winter Solstice, in Yellowknife, NWT; the North American premiere of Ligeti's Hamburg Concerto with the BSO; and the John Williams Horn Concerto. In recent seasons, Mr. Sommerville has appeared as a soloist in London (with the Academy of St. Martin's in the Fields), and in Costa Rica, Holland, Quebec, Ottawa, and Italy. In 2007, he performed the world premiere of Elliot Carter's Horn Concerto, commissioned for him by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Sommerville also tours as a member of Osvaldo Golijov's Andalucian Dogs. In April, 2010, he stepped in on 48 hours' notice to perform Mozart's Horn Concerto #2 with Bernard Haitink and the Boston Symphony.
As a conductor, Mr. Sommerville has appeared with many professional orchestras and ensembles, throughout Canada and the USA. He has led the Hamilton Philharmonic to great critical acclaim in his three years there as Music Director. Recent engagements include appearances with Symphony Nova Scotia and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra; 2011 and 2012 will bring performances leading the Edmonton, London (Ontario) and Québec Symphony Orchestras.
Visit bostonsymphonychamberplayers.org for more information about the Boston Symphony Chamber Players.
at The New England Conservatory of Music
290 Huntington Avenue
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