Events

Rolf Schulte, violin; James Winn, piano

Schumann, Fantasiestücke Op. 73; Brahms, Sonata Op. 100, Intermezzi Op. 76 No. 3 & Capriccio Op. 77 No. 2; Schubert, Rondo D. 895

German-born Rolf Schulte, whom The New Yorker has called “one of the most distinguished violinists of our day,” started playing the violin at age five under his father’s tutelage. He later studied with Kurt Schäffer at the Robert Schumann Institute in Düsseldorf, attended Yehudi Menuhin’s summer course in Gstaad, Switzerland, and studied with Franco Gulli at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena before moving to the United States to study with Ivan Galamian at The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. At age 16, he made his orchestral debut with the Philharmonia Hungarica in Cologne, playing Mendelssohn’s Concerto. Under the auspices of Young Concert Artists he gave his New York debut at Town Hall to great acclaim.

He has since performed with the Berlin Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Frankfurt Museums-Orchester, Stuttgart Staatsorchester, Bamberg Symphony, Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice in Venice (in Stravinsky’s Concerto under Robert Craft), RTE Irish National Symphony in Dublin, and the Radio Orchestras of Berlin (RSO), Cologne (WDR), and Stuttgart (SDR) under conductors Christoph von Dohnányi, György Lehel, Tamas Vásary, Max Rudolf, Dennis R. Davies, Daniel Nazareth, Alexander Lazarov, Guido Ajmone-Marsan, Hiroshi Wakasugi and many others. In 1990 he performed Roger Sessions’ Violin Concerto with the Radio Orchestra of the USSR in Moscow under the direction of Lukas Foss and presented American music in recital.

After many years of collaborating with the leading composers of his time, such as Elliott Carter (whose Fantasy he premiered at Harvard), György Kurtág (whoseKafka-Fragments he gave the American première of at Tanglewood), Milton Babbitt (whose The Joy of More Sextets and Little Goes a Long Way he premiered at the Library of Congress and Harvard), Donald Martino (whose Violin Concerto and Romanza he premiered), Mario Davidovsky (whose Synchronisms No.9 he premiered at MIT), Aaron Copland and John Cage, Rolf Schulte happily now returns to the repertoire of his early adulthood, applying the lessons learned from intensive work with living composers, to the music of Schumann, Beethoven, Schubert, Mozart, Brahms, Bartók, Janáček, Stravinsky, Debussy, Ravel, Webern, Schönberg, Berg, etc.

Mr. Schulte has appeared multiple times with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and their Columbia MD Festival of the Arts, as well as the 1990 Kuhmo Music Festival in Finland. His numerous recital performances include the cycle of ten Beethoven sonatas at Harvard, Dartmouth, and Middlebury Colleges, and the complete violin works of Igor Stravinsky at the 92nd St. Y and Berliner Festwochen, among other places. From 1999-2001 Rolf Schulte held a residency at Harvard University during which he presented new works by Carter, Donald Martino and Milton Babbitt. More recently, he performed two recitals in Tokyo and one at the Arnold Schönberg Center in Vienna.

His long and distinguished discography includes recordings of Arnold Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto with the London Philharmonia (Naxos), Robert Schumann’s Works for Violin and Piano (Centaur Records), and several pieces of Elliott Carter:  Violin Concerto (with the Odense Symphony), Four Lauds and Duo (all on Bridge Records), Schönberg Phantasy, op. 47 and String Trio op.45 (Naxos, nominated for a 2010 Grammy award), Violin Concerto No.1 by Paul Ruders (Bridge) and the Concerti of Roger Sessions and Donald Martino (available on iTunes). The most recent release is The Violin in Stravinsky’s Life on Aldilà Records.

Mr. Schulte performs on a 1780 violin by Lorenzo Storioni, Cremona.

James Winn, made his professional debut with the Denver Symphony Orchestra at age thirteen, and has been performing widely in North America, Europe and Asia ever since. With his duo-piano partner, Cameron Grant, he was a recipient of the top prize in the two-piano category of the 1980 A.A.R.D. International Competition in Munich. Winn has been a solo pianist with the New York City Ballet, a member of the New York New Music Ensemble and of Hexagon, as well as a frequent guest with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Speculum, the Group for Contemporary Music and Bargemusic. Known as a specialist in new music, he has been involved in numerous world premieres and premiere recordings by many renowned composers, among them more than a dozen Pulitzer Prize winners. He is the pianist of the Argenta Trio, and also performs regularly in recital with internationally acclaimed New York-based violinist Rolf Schulte. Dr. Winn’s own compositions have been performed internationally. In 2009, he received the Governor of the State of Nevada’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. Winn recently retired from the University of Navada Reno, where he served as piano and composition professor. He is the principal keyboard of the Reno Philharmonic Orchestra and Reno Chamber Orchestra, having held those positions since 1997.

Trio Fadolín – Sabina Torosjan, violin; Valeriya Sholokhova, cello; Ljova, fadolín

Mozart, Ganz Kleine Nachtmusik; Mykola Kolessa, In the Mountains; Borys Lyatoshnsky, Suite on Ukrainian Folk Themes; Ljova, The Afterglow and Central Asian Dances

Trio Fadolín is a new ensemble with a unique sonority — featuring Sabina Torosjan on violin, Valeriya Sholokhova on cello, and Ljova, performing on the fadolín – a new instrument that encompasses the range of the violin, viola, and most of the cello, finding its footing in an acoustic chamber music setting for the first time.    In our inaugural season, Trio Fadolín has been presented by Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We formed during the COVID-19 pandemic — our first performances were in the summer of 2021 on a makeshift at the Javits Convention Center mass vaccination site, operated by the US Army and sponsored by Sing for Hope. As our opportunities to play together grew, our repertoire evolved steadily — it now includes works by Ukrainian composers Vasyl Barvinsky, Mykola Kolessa, and Miroslav Skoryk, Spanish-American composer Andrea Casarrubios, Estonian-American composer Lembit Beecher, folk music from Armenia, Denmark, Sweden and Romania, in addition to original works by our fadolínist, Ljova. All three of us are graduates of The Juilliard School.

Trio Fadolín is the recipient of the Ensemble Forward grant from Chamber Music America and the New York Community Trust, as part of which we will spend some time this year working on a new project with the Syrian clarinettist and composer Kinan Azmeh. This spring we were the inaugural ensemble-in-residence at Interlochen Public Radio, where we recorded material for our forthcoming debut album. We’ve also completed our first East Coast tour with stops in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York.

Our focus is multifaceted — on the one hand, we are exploring the unique sonority of the acoustic fadolín  (six-string violin, with low C and F strings) within a trio context, using it — for the first time in history — as an integral instrument in an acoustic chamber music setting.

On the other hand, we also share a deep personal connection — all three of us grew up in the former Soviet Union and arrived in New York as teens.  Sabina was born in Estonia of Armenian-Jewish heritage; Valeriya was born in Ukraine of Ukrainian, Jewish, and Russian heritage; Ljova was born in Moscow, Russia, of Ukrainian-Jewish, German-Jewish, Polish and Romanian heritage.  We share a common bond of immigration, Eastern European literature, humor, animation and music.

We are here to tell the complicated story, to tell the stories of immigrant composers, to collaborate with immigrant artists, to showcase places where cultures intersect.

Dalí Quartet – Ari Isaacman-Beck & Carlos Rubio, violins; Adriana Linares, viola; Jesús Morales, cello

Piazzolla, Tango Ballet and Four, for Tango; Beethoven, String Quartet No. 8, Op. 59 No. 2

“… beautifully prepared program … the Latin American program alternately glimmered and blazed.”-The Philadelphia Inquirer

The Dalí Quartet is acclaimed for bringing Latin American quartet repertoire to an equal standing alongside the Classical and Romantic canon. Tours of its Classical Roots, Latin Soul programming have reached enthusiastic audiences across the U.S., Canada and South America. Its fresh approach has been sought out by distinguished series in New York, Buffalo, Toronto, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Los Angeles, San Diego, Boston, Clevaland, Seattle, San Juan and countless communities beyond. The quartet has been called upon for return engagements at Bravo!Vail Music Festival, National Gallery of Art, Friends of Chamber Music in Portland, Chamber Music Tulsa, the Slee Beethoven Cycle Series, the SA’OAXACA International Music Festival in México, among others. Other recent appearances include the Virginia Arts Festival, Princeton University Summer Chamber Concerts, Maverick Concerts, and the east coast premiere of Anna Clyne’s Quarter Days, Concerto for String Quartet and Chamber Orchestra, co-commissioned by the Harrisburg Symphony, and the world premiere of Roydon Tse’s work for string quartet and full orchestra with the Annapolis Symphony.

In addition to works of the masters from Haydn to Brahms and Amaya to Piazzolla, the group’s adventurous and entertaining programming includes new works for quartet with percussionist Orlando Cotto, and quintets both Latin and Classical with the renowned clarinetist Ricardo Morales, principal clarinetist of The Philadelphia Orchestra, and with acclaimed pianist Vanessa Perez. The Dalí Quartet has an ongoing collaboration with the Van Cliburn Competition’s gold-medal winning pianist Olga Kern, with whom they have toured from coast to coast and recorded the piano quintets of Brahms and Shostakovich released on the Delos label.

The Dalí Quartet is Chamber Music America’s 2024 Ensemble of the Year, recipient of the 2023 ACMP Foundation’s Susan McIntosh Lloyd Award for Excellence and Diversity in Chamber Music, 2021 recipient of Chamber Music America’s Guarneri String Quartet Residency, funded by the Sewell Family Foundation, and the 2021 Silver Medal at the inaugural Piazzolla Music Competition. The quartet is also the 2019 recipient of the Atlanta Symphony’s esteemed Aspire Award for accomplished African American and Latino Musicians. The quartet’s latest CD is Voces Latinas is now available on Centaur Records.

The Dalí is devoted to audience development and to reaching communities of all kinds. The group’s Latin Fiesta Workshops and Family Concerts in both traditional and innovative settings move listeners – literally! The Dalí Quartet is sought after for master classes and professional development workshops for students, (recently at the National Repertory Orchestra, Miami University, Michigan State, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Iowa) and has opened musical vistas for younger kids with its week-long Any Given Child programs (over three seasons for the Tulsa Public School System). In addition, the quartet’s International Music Festival is an admired chamber music and orchestral program founded in 2004 which develops the performance skills of young musicians up through semi-professional level. The Dalí has also served as a guest resident ensemble at Lehigh University, and the Hartt School of Music’s Composition Feldman/Geoffroy Ensemble-in-Residence at the University of Hartford.

Trained by world-renowned artists, members of the Dalí Quartet are from Venezuela, Puerto Rico and the US, and have degrees from esteemed institutions including the New England Conservatory, Cleveland Institute of Music, Juilliard, Indiana University Bloomington, and the Simón Bolivar Conservatory in Caracas, Venezuela. The quartet is based in Philadelphia, PA.

Inspired by its namesake, the great Spanish artist Salvador Dalí, the quartet holds imagination and excellence at the heart of its music making.

The quartet serves as faculty at West Chester University Wells School of Music as the Quartet in Residence, and is an Iris Collective Resident Ensemble .

The Dalí Quartet proudly uses Pirastro Strings and WMutes.

Worldwide representation by Jonathan Wentworth Associates.