Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players

“This was music-making of a very high order”
“at the Jupiter concerts, there is always so much about which to be enthusiastic.”
“the rarities glittered like jewels”

Fred Kirshnit, The New York Sun
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Jupiter 2019 - 2020 Season
20 Mondays at 2:00 PM & 7:30 PM

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please call (212) 799-1259 or buy at the door
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Concert Venue:
Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church
152 West 66 Street (west of Broadway), New York

“one of the most refined and intelligent church spaces in New York” ~ The New York Times Built in 1893 by Josiah Cleveland Cady, architect of the old Metropolitan Opera House and the American Museum of Natural History

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JUPITER SYMPHONY
155 West 68th Street, Suite 319
New York, NY 10023
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(212) 799-1259

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Listen to a live recording of the Jupiter Symphony
Chamber Players from September 23, 2013
Recorded by Joseph Patrych

Roman Rabinovich piano
Xiao-Dong Wang violin
Mihai Marica cello

Antonín DVORÁK  Piano Trio No. 1 in B^b Major Op. 21
i. Allegro molto
ii. Adagio molto e mesto
iii. Allegretto scherzando
iv. Finale

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Jupiter in the News

ConcertoNet
“knocked the socks off this listener...It was wondrous chamber music. And the three artists gave it the deserving excitement, volition and imagination.” 
Harry Rolnick, ConcertoNet   more...

“the performers were top notch”
“The homey church where these concerts take place, nestled on West 66th Street in the shadow of Lincoln Center, is an intimate and acoustically vibrant place for chamber music.”
Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times   more...

Strad Magazine
“A finely forthright, fluent and expressive account of Haydn's Divertimento in E-flat major opened this programme of miscellaneous chamber music in a series known for adventurous programming.”
Dennis Rooney, Strad Magazine   more...

ConcertoNet
“Mr. Nygaard’s cadenza flowed down Mozart lanes and paths, each with beautiful backgrounds. And at the very end, Mr. Nygaard brought forth that martial major theme, like an unexpected gift.” 
Harry Rolnick, ConcertoNet   more...

“...the group’s efforts proved illuminating ...Brown played a lovely, subtly virtuosic cadenza for Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 by Jens Nygaard, the ensemble’s founder, who died in 2001, but whose fascination with rarities continues to drive its programming”
Allan Kozinn, The New York Times   more...

Merry Holidays ​
& A Very Happy New Year

Dear Friend and Music Lover ~

We’ll tell you once, tell you twice,
Tell you once again,
Where else can you hear such rare standouts
as the Wolf-Ferrari Sinfonia
and Taneyev Piano Quartet in E.
As a fan so aptly posted on Facebook,
“Performing 95% of the classical literature
that’s usually performed 5% of the time.”

Thus, don’t miss out on many more rarities
to come, as well as the known and familiar,
performed by The Best musicians in varied
and unusual programs, at bargain prices.

For this exceptional effort, please
Give us once, give us twice,
Give us once again.

Thank you so so much!

All contributions are tax deductible

Monday, December 16, 2pm & 7:30pm 
Warhorses
Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church
152 West 66 Street (west of Broadway)

Roman Rabinovich piano
Winner of the Rubinstein, Animato and Arjil competitions, the Mezzo and Salon de Virtuosi awards, and the Vendome Prize ~ “admirable interpretations...performed with a rich, full-blooded sound, singing lines and witty dexterity.” The New York Times

William Hagen violin
Third prize winner of the 2015 Queen Elisabeth Competition (the highest ranking American since 1980) ~ a “brilliant virtuoso…a standout” The Dallas Morning News ~ “an intellectual command of line and score, and just the right amount of power” Violinist.com ~ “plays with an obvious and sincere love for the very act of music making” North Texas Performing Arts News

Paul Neubauer viola
First violist to win an Avery Fisher Career Grant, first prize winner of the Whitaker, D’Angelo and Lionel Tertis competitions ~ “Neubauer’s seamless control of the bow, his intonation, his rich and varied tonal palette, mark him as a member of the elite.” The New York Times

Hyunah Yu soprano
Prizewinner at the 1999 Naumburg competition and recipient of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award ~ “absolutely captivating...with exceptional style and effortless lyrical grace. The audience, to judge by the general swooning, was helplessly in love by the end.” The Washington Post

SCHUBERT  “The Shepherd on the Rock” D. 965a
  ~ composed barely a month before his death at age 31 for the soprano Anna Milder-Hauptmann, whom Schubert admired ~ premiered by Milder on 10 February 1830 at the House of the Blackheads in Riga ~ for soprano, clarinet, and piano

Richard STRAUSS  String Sextet from “Capriccio”
  ~ the exquisite “overture” to and subject of Strauss’s last opera—about opera—its perennial debate over which should prevail, the words or the music

WAGNER  Wesendonck Lieder
  ~ 5 songs written during an affair that Wagner had with Mathilde Wesendonck—the poet, author, and wife of his patron ~ arranged by cellist Rudolf Leopold for soprano and string sextet

Wagner set music to 5 poems that Mathidle had written during her years as his lover. In a letter to Liszt dated December 1854, Wagner revealed, “Since I have never enjoyed in life the real happiness of love, I will erect to this most beautiful of all dreams a memorial in which, from beginning to end, this love shall for once drink its fill.” The result was the Wesendonck Lieder, and upon its completion, he reportedly stated, “I have done nothing better than these songs.”

Heinrich Wilhelm ERNST  Grand Caprice on Schubert’s Der Erlkönig Op. 26
  ~ his finger-twisting paraphrase of Schubert’s art song set to Goethe’s poem is considered one of the most difficult pieces for solo violin, which has to assume 4 voices—the narrator, boy child, father, and supernatural being—in its depiction of the child’s death when snatched away by the Erlking

Ernst, a Moravian-Jewish virtuoso and Paganini’s greatest successor, often performed with Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Chopin, Wagner, Clara Schumann, Joachim, and other friends.

BRAHMS  Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor “Werther” Op. 60
  ~ a swirling vortex of emotions that include the dark, dramatic, and passionate

Work on the Quartet began as early as 1855, during a very difficult period for the young composer, torn between despair for his friend Robert Schumann, then confined in a mental asylum, and love for his wife Clara. Upon its revision and completion twenty years later, the older Brahms confessed to his publisher through a grim allusion, “On the cover you must have a picture, namely a head with a pistol to it. Now you can form some conception of the music! I’ll send you my photograph for the purpose.” Thus, the moniker “Werther,” after Goethe’s archetypal Romantic hero in his novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, who shot himself for the unrequited love of a married woman, whose husband he honored and admired.

Jupiter Players on this program:

Lisa Shihoten violin
Honored by the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, and winner of the Menuhin and Paganini violin competitions

Lisa Sung viola
Special prizewinner of the 2016 Lionel Tertis Viola Competition, top prizewinner of the 2019 Vienna & 2017 Manhattan competitions, twice winner of the Australian States Concerto Competition ~ “a viola prodigy” Australian Daily Telegraph

Timotheos Petrin cello
Winner of the 2015 Astral Artists Auditionm, top prize winner at the Paulo Cello Competition in Finland ~ “a great and passionate soloist style: expressive, vibrant singing lines, sparkling rhythm... an interesting, original personality” Helsingin Sanomat

Daniel Hass cello
Gold Medal winner of the 2016 Stulberg String Competition, as well as the 2016 winner of the Canada Council for the Arts Michael Measures Prize

Vadim Lando clarinet
Winner of the CMC Canada, Yale and Stonybrook competitions ~ “consistently distinguished...vibrant, precise, virtuosic playing” The New York Times

Monday, January 6, 2pm & 7:30pm 
Austro-German Gems
Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church
152 West 66 Street (west of Broadway)

William Wolfram piano
Winner of the William Kapell, Naumburg, and Tchaikovsky competitions ~ “Wolfram’s technique is flabbergasting; fiendishly difficult octave passages were as child’s play, and his strength is tempered by an easy poetry.” The New York Times ~ “Wolfram is a dazzling performer.” Kalamazoo Gazette

Danbi Um violin
Top prize in the 2018 Naumburg competitions; Recipient of the 2018 Salon di Virtuosi Career Grant; Winner of the 2015 Astral Artists Auditions; Silver Medalist in the Menuhin and Michael Hill competitions ~ “...utterly dazzling” The Strad ~ “a marvelous show of superb technique” and “mesmerizing grace” New York Classical Review

MOZART  Clarinet Quartet No. 1 in B^b Major
  ~ arranged from the Violin Sonata K. 378/317d, possibly by his publisher Johann Anton André

The Violin Sonata, dedicated to his pupil Josepha Barbara Aurnhammer, a talented pianist, was written in Salzburg during the 1779–80 season or shortly before his departure for Vienna in 1781. After his death in 1791, Mozart’s widow Constanze sold his manuscripts. The Leipzig publishers Breitkopf & Härtel approached her in 1799 and bought about forty of the autographs. Later that year, she accepted an offer from Johann Anton André for the remaining 300 autographs and a few copies. Shortly after, André published 3 clarinet quartets based on transcriptions of the Violin Sonatas K. 317d and K. 374f, and Piano Trio K. 496.

Alexander Ernst FESCA  Grand Septuor No. 1 in C minor
  ~ scored for piano, violin, viola, cello, bass, oboe, and horn, the Romantic septet is in effect a mini-piano concerto, by turns lyrical, turbulent, powerful, mysterious with intermezzo-like passages, and driven

Fesca, a piano prodigy born in Karlsruhe in 1820, was first taught by his father, Friedrich Ernst Fesca, a composer and music director of the Ducal Court Orchestra of Baden. At age 14 he went to Berlin to study at the Royal Prussian Academy of the Arts. In 1838 he returned to Karlsruhe, where his first opera Mariette was performed. The following year he began the first of a number of concert tours, earning recognition as a piano virtuoso. In 1841 he became chamber virtuoso to Prince Carl Egon von Fürstenburg. At age 28, in 1849, he succumbed to tuberculosis (as did his father). Fesca’s considerable oeuvre includes six piano trios, two piano quartets, a piano sextet, and two septets for piano, winds, and strings. Robert Schumann, in reviewing some of Fesca’s youthful piano pieces in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, wrote, “even if not manifesting a unique power and view of art, all contain within a fresh seed of life”—an opinion applicable to the Septets. A critic in Fesca’s day described his septets as belonging to the “field of higher, nobler entertaining music.” Giacomo Meyerbeer, whom Fesca met at least once in 1841, also highly praised his first three piano trios.

SCHUMANN  Piano Trio No. 3 in G minor Op. 110
  ~ intense and spirited, the Trio explores a darker realm, at times turbulent and dramatic with outbursts, mood swings, and restlessness, but it finally ends in radiance

At the Trio’s first rehearsal in late October, Clara Schumann was deeply impressed with its fervor and exuberance, noting, “It is original and increasingly passionate, especially the scherzo, which carries one along with it into the wildest depths.” She also played it for Liszt at a musical soirée the following March. It was dedicated to Niels Gade, whose music was esteemed by Schumann.

Jupiter Players on this program:

Claire Bourg violin
A laureate of many competitions, Claire has appeared on NPR’s From the Top and Chicago’s WFMT Introductions programs

Luosha Fang viola
Winner of the 2013 Astral Artists Auditions as violinist; won 1st Prize in the 2018 Tokyo Viola Competition as violist; winner of the Silver Medal at the 2010 Fischoff competition as first violinist and founding member of the Chimeng Quartet

Ani Aznavoorian cello
Winner of the Julius Stulberg and Paolo competitions ~ “shows great sensitivity and great virtuosity at all moments” Los Angeles Times ~ “stunning in her assured technical mastery” Kansas City Star

Ha Young Jung double bass
Gold Medalist in the 2017 Berliner competition, multiple prizewinner at the 2016 Irving Klein and 2016 Boulder Chamber Music competition, First Prizes at the 2013 Koussevitzky and 2007 International Double Bass competitions, Grand-Prix in the 2006 String Competition in Moscow ~ “Disarming prodigy who achieved the rare distinction of making her instrument seem worthy of solo status.” Daily Telegraph of London

Roni Gal-Ed oboe
First Prize winner of the Lauschmann Oboe Competition in Mannheim ~ “Outstanding” The New York Times ~ “Expressive, wonderful player” German SZ Magaziner

Vadim Lando clarinet
Winner of the CMC Canada, Yale and Stonybrook competitions ~ “consistently distinguished...vibrant, precise, virtuosic playing” The New York Times

Eric Reed horn
Member of the American Brass Quintet and Ensemble Échappé, a sinfonietta dedicated to 21st century music; he plays regularly with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Orpheus, and Orchestra of St. Luke’s. He is on the faculty at Juilliard, Aspen, and Round Top.

Monday, January 20, 2pm & 7:30pm 
Schubert and His Best Pal
Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church
152 West 66 Street (west of Broadway)

Dasol Kim piano
Winner of the 2017 John Giordano Award at the Van Cliburn Competition, First Prize at the Young Concert Artists Auditions (2010 in Leipzig and 2015 in New York), and First Prize at the 2011 Epinal Competition in France ~ “refined artistry of incredible maturity” North Germany Review

Robin Scott violin
First Violin of the Ying Quartet ~ 1st prizes: California Young Artists Competition and WAMSO, 2nd prizes: Menuhin, Irving Klein, and Stulberg competitions ~ “sweetly spun tone and formidable technique” Washington Post

Franz LACHNER  Nonet in F Major
  ~ influenced by Beethoven, the warm-hearted early Romantic work is beautifully written, with lush harmonies and a catchy, original finale ~ for violin, viola, cello, double bass, and wind quintet

The South German composer was Schubert’s most intimate friend in Vienna, and after his return to Munich in 1836, he conducted the Vienna Court Opera and became an important figure in that city. The works of Beethoven he performed were considered exemplary. Graham Johnson clarifies the relationship between Lachner and Schubert: “Lachner was the most successful composer of the Schubert circle, the only one of Schubert’s younger musical friends to become a musical celebrity outside Vienna.... Lachner is [also] the ‘missing’ link between Schubert and Schumann. He was born in Bavaria, and he was to return there as a favourite son; in the intervening years, one may call these his ‘Schubert period’, he lived in Vienna where he was a pupil of Sechter and the Abbé Stadler. He was a friend of the composer from about 1823, although we have no idea how he was introduced to the Schubert circle. In 1826 Lachner was appointed to a post at the Kärntnertor Theatre. He was with Schubert on many occasions in the last years of the composer’s life, but his memoirs of the time are not always reliable. He seems to have been more interested than many of his contemporaries in Schubert’s instrumental works. He claimed he often discussed his current compositions with Schubert, and that the two men showed their sketches to each other. This must have been something rare indeed: since his break with Mayrhofer, Schubert had no one among his friends, apart from Schober perhaps, with whom he might have had this kind of exchange. Lachner returned to Munich in 1836 and he played an increasingly dominant part in the musical life of that city. On the twenty-fifth anniversary of Lachner’s return to Munich, Moritz von Schwind dedicated to him the ‘Lachner roll’, twelve-and-a-half metres of remarkably witty drawings on a roll of paper thirty-four centimetres high. This depicted Lachner’s career from its beginnings, and included several drawings of Schubert surrounded by his friends. Schwind’s own close position to Schubert, and the integrity of his memories, verifies the strength of the connection between Lachner and his immortal mentor.”

SCHUBERT  Piano Trio in E^b Major Op. 100
  ~ Schumann found it “stirring, virile and dramatic” and thought it equal to Beethoven’s “Ghost” and “Archduke” trios; in 1838 he said, “About ten years ago a trio by Schubert passed, like a portent of a stormy sky, over the disturbances of the contemporary musical scene” ~ Schubert made it the centerpiece of a program of his music on March 26, 1828, commemorating the first anniversary of Beethoven’s death

Jupiter Players on this program:

Lisa Sung viola
Special prizewinner of the 2016 Lionel Tertis Viola Competition, top prizewinner of the 2019 Vienna & 2017 Manhattan competitions, twice winner of the Australian States Concerto Competition ~ “a viola prodigy” Australian Daily Telegraph

Zlatomir Fung cello
The first American in four decades and youngest musician ever to win First Prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition Cello Division, Winner of the 2017 Young Concert Artists Auditions and 2017 Astral National Auditions; First Prizewinner of the 2018 Schoenfeld, 2016 Enescu, 2015 Johansen, 2014 Stulberg, and 29th Irving Klein Competitions; Second Prizewinner at the 2018 Paolo (Finland) competition; selected a 2016 Presidential Scholar of the Arts

Xavier Foley double bass
Recipient of the 2018 Avery Fisher Career Grant, First Prize winner at the 2016 Young Concert Artists Auditions, 2014 Sphinx Competition, 2014 Astral National Auditions, 2009 (Junior Division) and 2011 (Senior Division) Bassists Society competitions ~ “The double bass world could use Xavier Foley... a standout player.” The Philadelphia Inquirer

Barry Crawford flute
“Crawford’s playing was superb. I admired his tone, his phrasing and breath control, and the joy-giving communicative quality of his playing.” Southampton Press

Roni Gal-Ed oboe
First Prize winner of the Lauschmann Oboe Competition in Mannheim ~ “Outstanding” The New York Times ~ “Expressive, wonderful player” German SZ Magaziner

Vadim Lando clarinet
Winner of the CMC Canada, Yale and Stonybrook competitions ~ “consistently distinguished...vibrant, precise, virtuosic playing” The New York Times

Gina Cuffari bassoon
Co-principal Bassoonist of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, praised for her “sound that is by turns sensuous, lyric, and fast moving” Palm Beach Daily News

Karl Kramer horn
Winner of the 1997 and 1999 American Horn competitions ~ “Praise goes to the heroic horn playing of Karl Kramer.” New York Classical Review

Dear Friends and Music Lovers,    As many of you already know, Jupiter is a paradise for melomaniacs. It’s a haven to wallow in beautiful melodies, superb musicians and music making, and interesting programs. There’s nary a dull moment, thanks to our brilliant artistic director, Michael Volpert.    Indeed, “The playing is top notch; the programs are full of exotica.” Richard Morrison ~ The London Times “excellent musicians in unusual programs” Anthony Tommasini ~ The New York Times “this was truly impressive music making” “One of the Best Deals in Town” “Those in the know keep coming back.” Fred Kirshnit ~ The New York Sun “bringing classical music to people in a powerful way” Cole Grissom ~ Broadway World    So do come as often as you can. And please give as much as you can to help keep Jupiter spinning its musical magic. Your financial support is truly needed.    All gifts are tax deductible.    Thank you so much,

Pencil drawing of Jens Nygaard by Michael McNamara

Why the name Jupiter: When Jens Nygaard named his orchestra Jupiter, he had the beautiful, gaseous planet in mind—unattainable but worth the effort, like reaching musical perfection. Many, indeed, were privileged and fortunate to hear his music making that was truly Out of This World. Our Players today seek to attain that stellar quality.

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Find out more about the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players.