Greenleaf Chamber Players To Open Newtown Friends Of Music 24th Season

It simply doesn’t get any better: classical music at its best thanks to a performance by a small ensemble of masterful artists, each one a talented and experienced performer coming together to play music old and new, will take place Sunday, September 23, in Newtown.

Beginning at 3 that afternoon, on the auditorium stage of Edmond Town Hall, the highly regarded Greenleaf Chamber Players will make a return engagement to open the 2000-01 season for Newtown Friends of Music.

The ensemble offers a blend of music for oboe, strings, harpsichord, and piano. Leader of the ensemble is oboist Peggy Pearson, the winner of the Pope Foundation Award for Outstanding Accomplishment in Music.

Ms Pearson, and Ellen Parrella, the president of Newtown Friends of Music, released the following statement this week:

“Our deepest sympathies and heartfelt prayers go out to everyone affected by the tragic events of September 11. We jointly wish to express our condolences to all who have been touched. It is hoped that the music will bring a small degree of comfort to all of us who must deal with the grim reality of this horror.

“This concert will be dedicated to the victims and their loved ones, and to the heroic rescuers still at work.”

Ms Pearson gave her New York debut with the soprano Dawn Upshaw in 1995, in a program featuring the premiere of John Harbison’s Chorale Cantata. She has performed solo, chamber and orchestral music throughout the United States and abroad. A member of The Bach Aria Group, Ms Pearson is also solo oboist with Emmanuel Chamber Orchestra, an organization that has performed the complete cycle of sacred cantatas by J S Bach.

According to Richard Dyer of The Boston Globe, “Peggy Pearson has probably played more Bach than any other oboist of her generation. This is music she plays in a state of eloquence and grace.”

Ms Pearson is also artistic director of Greenleaf Chamber Players, in residence at Purchase College, and has appeared with Boston Symphony Orchestra as principal oboist, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and Music from Marlboro.

For the Newtown concert Ms Pearson will premiere a new work by Martin Brody entitled Divertimento for Four Players, which feature the oboe as a solo instrument.

Supporting and collaborating, the other artists on the program will include the husband and wife team Catherine Cho and Todd Phillips, both violinists with rich careers. Ms Cho started her career at age 11 and has since appeared as soloist with major symphony orchestras both here and abroad. Last December, Ms Cho performed Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with Buffalo Philharmonic, which was taped for national broadcast on PBS. As a chamber musician she has performed on the stages of the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and many other venues.

Mr Phillips’ extensive chamber music activities have included, among many others, performances at Mostly Mozart, Marlboro, Spoleto, and the 92nd Street Y. He has participated in 15 tours with Musicians from Marlboro and has collaborated with renowned artists and quartets.

He made his solo debut with Pittsburgh Symphony at the age of 13 and has appeared with many orchestras throughout the United States and Europe. Mr Phillips is a founding member of the highly acclaimed Orion String Quartet, quartet-in-residence at The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Mannes College of Music and Aspen Music Festival.

Violist Maria Lambros has performed as chamber musician throughout the world as a member of three of the country’s finest string quartets in venues such as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, New York’s Lincoln Center, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, and Library of Congress in Washington, DC.

She was most recently a member of Mendelssohn String Quartet and she was also a founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning Meliora String Quartet. She is currently associate professor of viola at Conservatory of Music at Purchase College.

Cellist Marci Rosen, honored with many awards and prizes and a regular participant of all the major music festivals, also has an extensive discography with performances on Deutsche Grammophon, Sony Classical, Nonesuch, and several other labels. Critics have showered her with praise, as in The Washington Post: “Rosen’s sensitivity was noteworthy: her playing is highly musical and filled with succulent phrasing. Her tone was gorgeous.”

Peter Sykes performs widely on the harpsichord, organ, clavichord, and fortepiano, and has appeared at the Library of Congress, the Boston Early Music Festival, the American Guild of Organists, and throughout the United States. He is director of music at First Church in Cambridge Congregational, an instructor in keyboard instruments and chamber music at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, and a member of the faculty of the Preparatory and Continuing Studies Division of New England Conservatory.

The incomparable pianist Diane Walsh will be joining the musician sfor the performance of the Brahms Quintet in F minor, Opus 34. Ms Walsh has given recitals throughout North and South America, Europe and Russia, and has played concertos with the radio symphonies of Munich, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Berlin, the San Francisco Symphony under Seiji Ozawa, the Indianapolis Symphony, the St Louis Symphony, and other orchestras in the US and abroad. She is the winner of most of the prestigious piano competitions and has been awarded numerous other prizes.

On the program for the September 23 concert sponsored by Newtown Friends of Music will be J.S. Bach’s Sonata in E-Flat Major for Oboe, Violin and Continuo; the premiere of Brody’s Divertimento; Joseph Haydn’s Trio No. 96 in B minor for Oboe D’Amore, Viola and Cello; and the Brahms Quintet in F minor, Opus 34 for Piano and Strings.

Tickets for the concert are $14 for adults and $12 for seniors. Children between the ages of five and fourteen are admitted free of charge when accompanied by a ticket holding adult.

For further information and for reservations call 426-6470 or send e-mail to FriendsOfMusic@snet.net. Advance reservations are strongly recommended.