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Molly Morkoski and I are presenting a recital at the Steinway Gallery in Westport, CT, a series run by the Stamford Symphony. We were so happy to be invited back after we gave a concert of Variations last year! This time, we'll present the Bach G Major Gamba Sonata, Magnus Lindberg Konzertstueck, Beethoven D Major Sonata, and I'll play the Ligeti Solo Sonata, an early one but a goodie. I confess that I have never performed ANY of the Gamba Sonatas - I'm not sure how that happened, but I am so enjoying working on them. Bach is a gift, no matter when we come to him. (concert information)

Molly Morkoski and Caroline Stinson

 

After five summers performing with the Weekend of Chamber Music in the lower-Catskill region, Judith Pearce, WCM's founding director of 19 years, approached Andy (Waggoner) and I about taking over her position as Artistic Director. What followed has been a wonderful experience in baton-passing from a generous, dedicated leader and musician with impeccable integrity and a head for the best creative programming either of us have seen. We are thrilled to announce ourselves as the new Co-Artistic Directors and the upcoming season - July 14-28th, 2013 - celebrates the festival's 20th Anniversary and Judith Pearce, and for our inaugural year, our composer-in-residence is John Harbison. As one board member put it: Quite a beginning - how will you follow that? Well, we have some things up our sleeves, but first come and join us this summer!

From left: Judith Pearce, Founder and Board President; myself and Andy Waggoner; Terry Schommer, Managing Director of the Weekend of Chamber Music

 

The Lark is thrilled to be releasing our recording of works by Jennifer Higdon on Bridge Records February 1st. We are so grateful for the support of the Aaron Copland Foundation through its recording grant, Silas Brown for his great work as Producer, and our Board of Directors for their support in this longterm project. The Piano Quintet, written for Lark and Gary Graffman in 1998, is now finally out there! Also on the CD are Jennifer's string quartet "An Exaltation of Larks" and "Light Refracted" with collaborators Todd Palmer and Blair McMillen.

 

 

James Tapia and the Syracuse University Orchestra joined me to learn and perform the Lutoslawski Cello Concerto - one of the great concertos in the literature. I spent many hours in rehearsal with them as we learned this together, and was so impressed with the dedication they showed - in particular the strings with my constant nagging about finding more colour in all the varying sound! It was a wonderful project and I can't wait to play it again.

The fall with full of recording. With the Perspectives Ensemble, led by Sato Moughalian, I recorded multiple works by the Spanish composer Montsalvage for Naxos; Ensemble Meme completed a recording of chamber music works of Gabriela Lena Frank for Albany Records (I was part of her Piano Quintet with Harumi Rhodes, Austin Hartman, Liuhwen Tang and Molly Morkoski); and the Lark Quartet completed recording our percussion and quartet version of five of the John Adams Book of Alleged Dances. Just yesterday we completed our disc by recording our Bolcom Commission with baritone Stephen Salters and the Copland Two Pieces for String Quartet. It's going to be really fun to hear this in its final version.