Thursday, July 1st, 2010, at 7:30 PM
JP Concerts presents the ARCTURUS CHAMBER ENSEMBLE performing Sergei Prokofiev (27 April 1891 – 5 March 1953), Overture on Hebrew Themes for string quartet, clarinet, and piano; Ludwig von Beethoven (17 December 1770 – 26 March 1827), Trio Opus 11 for clarinet, cello, and piano; and Alberto Ginastera (April 11, 1916 – June 25, 1983), String Quartet No. 2. Musicians featured are Megumi Stohs and Ethan Wood, violins; Sarah Darling, viola; Kate Haynes and Josh Packard, cellos; Thomas Weisschnur, clarinet; and Hannah Shields, piano. Donations welcomed to support the series and the musicians.
Raised in Portland, OR, Megumi Stohs grew up with the dream of studying agricultural science. The summer she turned sixteen, she attended the Olympic Music Festival, held on a beautiful farm in Washington State, and realized that chamber music and the countryside were a perfect combination. She immediately went home and started a quartet, and ever since, chamber music has been the avenue for her most euphoric musical experiences. Megumi has soloed with orchestras throughout the US and Japan, and has toured with ensembles to Australia, New Zealand and Europe. In the New England area she is a co-founder of A Far Cry Chamber Orchestra, has been a guest with the Radius Ensemble, the Andover Chamber Music Series, and the North Country Chamber Players and regularly plays with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Opera Boston, the Rhode Island Philharmonic and has served as concertmaster for the National Lyric Opera. Starting in 2008, Megumi picked up the baroque violin and quickly fell for the gut strings and a variety of period bows. She also loves to fiddle and play rock and regularly tours with Britain's Jethro Tull. During the summers, Megumi is able to satisfy her longing for the country in many beautiful places, including the Olympic, Yellowbarn, Kneisel Hall, Taos, Marrowstone, and Aspen Festivals. She hikes, swims, and spends time outdoors as often as possible during the year. Listening to vinyl, cooking for friends and reading also give great pleasure. Megumi received her musical training at the San Francisco and New England Conservatories studying with Camilla Wicks, Ian Swensen, and Lucy Chapman.
Violinist Ethan Wood has been praised by The Columbian as “sensational” and “in full command of his instrument,” performing with “flair and sensitivity” by ArtsEditor, and “riveting” by The Boston Globe. He has appeared around the United States and abroad as guest artist, recitalist, and chamber and orchestral musician. His high-school string quartet appeared on From the Top, and he was part of a New England Conservatory Honors Ensemble for the ‘06-’07 academic year. Much of his time is spent interpreting contemporary and new works, having collaborated with various groups such as Radius Ensemble, Ludovico Ensemble, Mimesis Ensemble, and is a member of Callithumpian Consort. As a pianist, he has accompanied in recitals and performed chamber music; as a mandolinist, he recently was part of the NEC Elliot Carter festival and a Tanglewood Music Center production of Don Giovani. Also a composer, he has had works performed across the US and recently had a work premiered at the International Holland Music Sessions. Currently living in the Boston area, he serves on faculty at the Arlington High School Private Music School as violin and viola teacher, is a member of Atlantic Symphony Orchestra and Neponset Valley Philharmonic Orchestra, and is a frequent substitute with A Far Cry. Mr. Wood has had undergraduate studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he studied with David and Linda Cerone and Vartan Manoogian, respectively, and holds BM, MM, and GD degrees from the New England Conservatory, where he studied with Eric Rosenblith and Lucy Chapman.
Sarah Darling, violist and baroque violinist, enjoys a diverse musical career that spans many centuries and styles. Sarah studied at Harvard, Juilliard, Amsterdam, and Freiburg (as a recipient of the Beebe, Paine, and DAAD grants) and is currently in the doctoral program at NEC with Kim Kashkashian. She is the director of the Arcturus Chamber Ensemble, concertmaster and assistant director of the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra (winner of last year's Bodky prize), and a member of the Rosetta Trio, the Sanssouci Quartet, Musicians of the Old Post Road, and the unconducted chamber orchestra A Far Cry. She also performs regularly with the BSO, Boston Baroque, Cambridge Concentus, La Donna Musicale, Les Bostonades, the Callithumpian Consort, Sarasa, Radius, and the Portland and Rhode Island Symphonies. Sarah has participated in the Carmel, Ravinia, Lucerne, Norfolk, Sarasota, and Yellow Barn festivals, and has collaborated with members of the Juilliard, Takacs, Borromeo, Ying, Orion, and Cleveland quartets. She is the winner of the NEC, Harvard Bach Society, Arlington, Marlboro, and Freiburg concerto competitions. A passionate advocate of new music, she has been involved in the premiere of more than 100 works, and just released a critically acclaimed solo recording featuring American composer Leland Smith on the Naxos label.
Kate Bennett Haynes was educated at the New England Conservatory, Harvard College, and the Royal Dutch Conservatory in the Hague, where she studied baroque cello with Jaap ter Linden. She now enjoys an international musical life dedicated to historical performance of all periods. She has toured in North America and Europe with baroque orchestras such as Tafelmusik and B’Rock, and she has recorded for the Naxos, ATMA, Artemis/Vanguard, and Early-Music labels with ensembles such as Arion, Aradia, and Tempo Rubato. Especially passionate about classical and romantic performance practice, Kate is a founding member of Boston Hausmusik, the Rosetta String Trio, the Sanssouci Quartet, and a newly formed duo with Amsterdam-based fortepianist Yi-heng Yang. Kate has performed at chamber music festivals such as Yellow Barn, Sarasota, Taos and Norfolk, and has collaborated with a wide range of musicians, among them Eric Hoeprich, Donald Weilerstein, Anthony Marwood, Bobby McFerrin and the Ying Quartet.
Josh Packard decided to be a cellist at the age of four, upon hearing a performance of "Turkey in the Straw" at his pre-school. A few years later (his musical tastes having already matured substantially), he heard a performance of Brahms B major trio, and a lifelong passion for chamber music was ignited. Josh received his BA in music from Harvard University, where his activities included composing double fugues, improvising continuo realizations, and analyzing the modal structure of classical Arabic music, in addition to performances with a plethora of campus ensembles. Major musical mentors have included Bill Rounds, Michael Reynolds, Robert Levin, Daniel Stepner, Robert Merfeld, Robert Mealy, and John Stewart. Josh currently resides in Cambridge, MA, where he enjoys performing music ranging from Renaissance consort suites to newly composed works.
Clarinettist Thomas Weisschnur studied at the Musikhochschule Freiburg, the Sibelius Academy Helsinki, the University of Southern California. L.A. and is currently pursuing an Artist Diploma program at the University of Arts, Berlin with Francois Benda. His teachers include Jörg Widmann, Yehuda Gilad and Hari Mäki. He began to play piano at age six and clarinet at ten and gave his first piano concerto performances at the age of 13 accompanied by the Collegium Instrumentale Stuttgart. Thomas won numerous 1st prizes at the German wide youth-competition "Jugend Musiziert" in various categories and has been granted scholarships by the Fulbright foundation and the Brahms Association of Baden-Baden. Chamber music has always played an essential part in his musical life and is documented through concerts with the Guarneri Trio Prague, Paul Neubauer, Paul Meyer and the Amaryllis Quartet. In 2009, Thomas moved to Hong Kong after acting principal clarinet of the Macau Orchestra for almost one year and subsequently became a member of the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble. He is currently moving back to Berlin to finish his degree. Many of his concerts were broadcast live by the Chinese National Television and recent venues included the National Performing Arts Centre in Beijing, the Shanghai Concert Hall and the Macau Dome during Macau’s 10 year Hand-Over Gala. Thomas has also played with the Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin, the Phiharmonisches Orchester der Stadt Freiburg and the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie. He has soloed with orchestras in Germany and the USA, has toured with ensembles in Europe, Asia and the USA and participated such music festivals as the Encuentro de Música de Santander/Spain, Aurora chamber music festival/Sweden and the Academie Musicale de Villecroze/France.
Hannah Shields has performed widely throughout the US both as a soloist and a chamber musician. She has appeared as a soloist in the Bach concerto for four keyboards at Carnegie Hall under the baton of Itzhak Perlman, and she has performed in major venues throughout the country, including Alice Tully Hall, Boston's Jordan Hall, the Metropolitan Museum, the Seattle Opera House, and Carnegie's Weill and Zankel Halls. She holds a Bachelor's degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, a Master's degree from Yale School of Music, and a Graduate Diploma from the New England Conservatory of Music. Her primary teachers have been Daniel Shapiro, Claude Frank, and Vivian Hornik Weilerstein; her chamber music coaches include Paul Katz, Lawrence Lesser, Pamela Frank, Kim Kashkashian, Donald Weilerstein, Lucy Chapman, Joel Krosnick, and Robert Mann. She is a prizewinner of the Kosciuszko Chopin Competition, and has attended numerous music festivals, among them the Yellow Barn Music Festival, the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Banff Chamber Music Festival, and the Taos School of Music. Ms. Shields has collaborated with Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Barbara Stein Mallow, Andre Emelianoff, and Myung-Wha Chung, among others, and is a founding member of the "Musique a la Mode" chamber music series in New York City.