Western New York Chamber Orchestra
Wednesday, December 4, 2019
7:30PM   Reg Lenna Center for the Arts
Glen Cortese, artistic director and conductor
Alissa Stahler, soprano soloist
With ballet excerpts from The Nutcracker by CRYB
 
 ‘Tis the season for joyful holiday favorites and light classics from our very own Western New York Chamber Orchestra.  This annual performance, led by renowned conductor Glen Cortese with guest soloist Alissa Stahler, ushers in the festiveness of the season. With more than 30 years of sharing exceptional music and talent with Chautauqua County, WNYCO shines on the elegant stage of the Reg Lenna Center for The Arts.  As a special addition, dancers from Chautauqua Regional Youth Ballet will perform excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker”.  Join us for this evening tradition that is sure to fill everyone with the holiday spirit.
Doors open at 6:30 for pre-concert refreshments and merriment in the lobby!  Wine, beer, and water available at The Reg concession stand, tasty nibbles courtesy of Wegmans in the inner lobby.  A Chautauqua Regional Youth Symphony ensemble will perform holiday music from the lobby balcony as people eat, drink, and mingle making their way to their seats.
 
Tickets are available at The Reg box office, 716.484-7070, and Reglenna.com
 
Corporate sponsors for the concert are Jamestown Community College and Jamestown’s Rental Properties.
 
JCA receives funding from the Chautauqua Region Community Foundation, the Ralph C. Sheldon Foundation, and the United Arts Appeal of Chautauqua County.
 

Friday, November 1, 2019  
8:00 pm  |  St. Luke’s Episcopal Church

Thomas Gallant, oboe Caeli Smith, viola
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Now in their third season, Frisson is still as exciting as ever. Led by oboist Thomas Gallant and violist Caeli Smith, the exuberant ensemble rightly call themselves the “new faces of classical music.” The group is composed of musicians from the nation's major music schools including Juilliard, Curtis, and Yale and are being heralded as the “best and brightest of classical music’s rising stars.” Though their breadth of ability with the classics is incontestable, they don’t limit themselves to the Brahms and Beethovens we’ve all come to know. They delight with rarely-performed masterworks, contemporary arrangements and even works from lesser-known female composers, shedding light on the difficulties women have had breaking into the world of classical music. Frisson bring these works to life through varying quintets, sextets, nonets, and a small chamber orchestra, creating their signature thrill throughout.    
Frissonensemble.com

JCA Annual Meeting Notification and
2019-20 Concert Season Preview
 
Please join us for Jamestown Concert Association’s 2018-19 Annual Meeting. And consider becoming a member of the JCA Board! There are many different areas where your skills and interests could be used, from listening to potential performers and designing a season of well-balanced concerts to grant writing and marketing concert series. This is an opportunity for any lovers of music to share that passion with their community.
 
The meeting will be held on Tuesday June 11, 2019 at 7:00 p.m. in the boardroom of the Jamestown Concert Association offices at 315 N. Main St., Suite 200, Jamestown, NY.
 
All 2018-19 Jamestown Concert Association members are welcome and encouraged to attend. Immediately following the annual meeting, the board will remain for its regular June meeting.  Hope to see many of you there!
 
 
2019-20 Season Program Highlights
 

• Tesla – A state-of-the-art car? No, a state-of-the-art string quartet …with a superb capacity to find the inner heart of everything they play, regardless of era, style or technical demand.   Teslaquartet.com

 

• Frisson – “A shiver or thrill; a sudden burst of excitement!” From NYC, this string/wind ensemble features the best and brightest of classical music's rising stars drawn from many of the nation's major music schools.   Frissonensemble.com

 

• WNYCO – Winter celebrations begin at The Reg with light classics and Holiday favorites performed by the orchestra.  Pre-concert music, refreshments, & merriment.

 

• Suchan Kim – (a native of Busan, South Korea, his “virtuosic baritone voice exudes a combination of seductive warmth and overpowering strength.”    Suchankim.com

 

• Fabio – an Italian-American actor and model? No, Fabio Menchetti is a gifted and recent PhD–holding pianist, born in Lucca, Italy, now teaching, recording, and concertizing on stages across the US.    Youtube.com/fabiomenchetti

 

• Mirari – A powerful spell? Perhaps, as this engaging and eclectic brass quintet   joyfully performs a spectacular tight-rope act, balancing intensity with levity and refined virtuosity with pure fun.    Miraribrass.com

Why become a member, patron, sponsor, benefactor, or sustainer of the 2019-20 Jamestown Concert Association Season? You will be:
 

• Helping in a big way to keep classical music alive in Jamestown, NY!

• E-mailed advance program notes and concert reminders.
• Receiving preferred seating at Reg Lenna Center for The Arts and other selected concerts.
• Entered in a chance to win box seats at Reg Lenna Center concert for Patron level and above.

Join us Friday, 17 May 2019 for the Jamestown Concert Association's Season Finale - Ensemble Schumann!  The Program includes selections from Heinrich von Herzongenberg, Max Bruch, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Robert Schumann.  These pieces are performed by a dazzling, colorful trio of soloists, the members of Ensemble Schumann – Thomas Gallant, Oboe, Steve Larson, Viola, and Sally Pinkas, Piano. 

They will present works by their name-sake Robert Schumann, as well as by Brahms, Saint-Saëns, Loeffler, Poulenc, Shostakovich and others. Gallant, Larson and Pinkas have each performed at notable venues, including Lincoln Center, the Frick Collection and Carnegie Hall in New York City, Jordan Hall in Boston, Wigmore Hall in London, the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and the festivals at Tanglewood, Ravinia, Lucerne, Spoleto and Mostly Mozart. Performing together since 2005, Ensemble Schumann has been featured at the prestigious Da Camera Series in Los Angeles, at the Clark Art Museum in Massachusetts and on Live From Fraser on WGBH- Radio in Boston.

Recent seasons have included performances for the Stockton Friends of Music in California, Mount Vernon Museum of Art and Principia College in Illinois, Cornell College in Iowa, Auburn Chamber Music Society in Alabama, Washington University Chamber Series in St. Louis, Young Auditorium in Whitewater, Wisconsin, and Strathmore Hall in Maryland, Big Arts on Sanibel Island, The Forum in St. Thomas, and appearances in Iowa, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas and Georgia.  Ensemble Schumann's recordings on the MSR Classics label have received high praise in such publications as Gramophone, Fanfare, and Audiophile Audition.
 
Considered by many to be the most difficult of all the musical instruments, the oboe is often called the “ill wind that no one blows good.”   Oboist Thomas Gallant is one of the world’s few virtuoso solo and chamber music performers on this instrument and he has been praised by The New Yorker magazine as “a player who unites technical mastery with intentness, charm and wit.”  Thomas Gallant is a First Prize Winner of the Concert Artists Guild International New York Competition.  His performances have taken him to Avery Fisher Hall, Weill Recital Hall and the Frick Collection in New York City, to Washington, DC, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, to the Spoleto Festival in Italy, and to the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center.  He has appeared as guest soloist with the Kronos Quartet at the Ravinia Festival and has collaborated with flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal, with Cuarteto Casals, the Colorado, Calder, Tesla and Lark Quartets, Cuarteto Latinoamericano and with the Adaskin String Trio.  Recent and upcoming performances include a concert of solo and chamber music works for the oboe at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, and tours across the United States as soloist with Camerata Bariloche from Argentina performing concerti by J. S. Bach and Vaughan-Williams. Thomas Gallant is dedicated to performing neglected and contemporary works for the oboe and has given the New York premieres of works for oboe and strings by Berio and Penderecki as well as the Washington, DC premiere of Elliott Carter’s Quartet for oboe and strings. He is a member of Ensemble Schumann and Artistic Director for Frisson.
 
Violist Steve Larson is a Senior Artist Teacher at The Hartt School of the University of Hartford, where he has taught since 1998 and has served both as Chair for Strings and Chair of Chamber Music. He is a founding member of the acclaimed oboe, viola and piano trio, Ensemble Schumann, and the equally renowned Adaskin String Trio. He also performs and records in duo with his wife, violinist Annie Trépanier and throughout the Americas and Europe with their chamber groups, Avery Ensemble and Cuatro Puntos. Both groups also present their own Hartford, Connecticut concert series which present numerous world premieres and cross-cultural collaborations in programs specially crafted to give the music a meaningful context. Larson is Principal Viola of the Wintergreen Festival Orchestra and Chair of Viola Studies for the intensive string chamber music program at the Wintergreen Summer Music Academy in Virginia. He is a former member of the Alcan String Quartet and has performed as a guest with groups such as the Emerson Quartet and the Lions Gate Trio as well as with orchestras such as the Montreal Symphony and National Arts Center Orchestra.
Originally from Regina, Saskatchewan (Canada), Larson holds degrees from McGill University, l’Université de Montréal and The Hartt School.
At the 1997 Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition in the United Kingdom he won second prize and received the special award for his performance of the commissioned work. He studied violin with Ernest Kassian, Elman Lowe, Howard Leyton-Brown, and Mauricio Fuks, viola with Jutta Puchhammer and Steve Tenenbom, and chamber music with members of the Emerson and Orford String Quartets. He plays an exceptional 17-3/8 inch viola made by Helmuth Keller in 1981.
 
Since her London debut at Wigmore Hall, Israeli-born pianist Sally Pinkas has been heard as soloist and chamber musician throughout the world.  Among career highlights are performances with the Boston Pops, the Aspen Philarmonia and New York's Jupiter Symphony, appearances at the festivals of Marlboro, Tanglewood, Aspen and Rockport, as well as Kfar Blum in Israel, Officina Scotese in Italy and Masters de Pontlevoy in France.  Pinkas' solo discography includes music by Schumann, Debussy, Faure, Rochberg and Christian Wolff for MSR, Centaur, Naxos, Albany and Mode labels.  The Wall Street Journal noted her "exquisite performance" in her "superlatively well-played" recording of Harold Shapero's Piano Music on Toccata Classics (UK), and Gramophone hailed her as "the scintillating force..."  in a Mozart release on MSR.  As collaborative artist, Pinkas fosters a number of ongoing partnerships: with her husband Evan Hirsch, the Hirsch-Pinkas Piano Duo has toured extensively throughout Europe and Southeast Asia, and will be making its Indonesia debut in 2019.  She collaborates regularly with the Adaskin String Trio, the Apple Hill String Quartet and the Uk's Villiers Quartet, and along with California-based clarinetist Patricia Shands will be appearing for the first time in Cuba and Brazil during the upcoming season.  Based in New England, Pinkas serves as Pianist-in-residence at the Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College and teaches at the College's Music Department.  

The Jamestown Concert Association welcomes New York Youth Symphony’s principal flutist, Aimee Toner, and Manhattan School of Music’s undergrad pianist, Seth Schultheis in its next concert on Friday, April 12th at 8pm at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in downtown Jamestown.

Aimee Toner is a junior at Barnard College pursuing a double major in Ethnomusicology and Economics. She has led in orchestral settings by playing principal, piccolo, and assistant parts for the New York Symphony, the Columbia University Orchestra, the American Youth Orchestra, and the Columbia Pops Orchestra. Ms. Toner has performed alongside numerous ensembles and as a soloist in several esteemed venues, including: Symphony Space, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center.

Seth Schultheis is a freshman pianist studying under the tutelage of Phillip Kawin at the Manhattan School of Music. Prior to his undergraduate studies, Mr. Schultheis attended the MSM Precollege program for four years. In 2017, he won the MSM Precollege Concert Competition, subsequently performing the fourth movement of Prokofiev’s Second Concerto with the MSM Philharmonic Orchestra. Mr. Schultheis has won several other national and international competitions, and has had the opportunity to perform in venues including Weill Recital Hall and Merkin Concert Hall in New York, and the State Department and the Germany Embassy in Washington, D.C.

The evening’s performance will be comprised of Griffes, Fauré, Chopin, among other well-loved classical compositions. It will be a truly sensational performance by a young flutist commanding the attention of NYC concert-goers.

Discounted pre-sale tickets for this event are available at the Reg Lenna Center for the Arts box office (716-484-7070), Chautauqua Music, and Germaine & Pappalardo. Tickets will also be available at the door: $20 for adults, $17 for seniors 65+, $7.50 for college students, and students 18 and under have free admission. 

The Jamestown Concert Association is dedicated to great classical music and ensuring that it continues to flourish in Jamestown, NY. For more information on upcoming concerts and to find out how to support the Jamestown Concert Association, visit www.jamestownconcertassociation.org.    
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Corporate sponsors for this concert are Bodell Overcash Anderson and Jamestown Rental Properties. JCA receives funding from the Chautauqua Region Community Foundation, the Ralph C. Sheldon Foundation, and the United Arts Appeal of Chautauqua County. This project is made possible with funds from the Decentralization Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and administered by Tri-County Arts Council.

On Friday, the 22nd of March, the Jamestown Concert Association resumes its 2018-19 season, Dedicated to Great Music.  Chamber Orchestra Kremlin, a vibrant string ensemble comprised of the best young string players in Russia, will perform at 8 PM at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, 410 N. Main St., Jamestown, NY.  Recently changing their name to Russian String Orchestra, 14 stellar string players directed by founder Misha Rachlevsky will perform selections by Vainberg, Piazzolla, Shahab Paranj (UCLA student composition winner), and Tchaikovsky.  Admission by season pass or single tickets available at The Reg Lenna Center for The Arts Box Office, Chautauqua Music, Germaine & Pappalardo, and at the door.  Children accompanied by an adult ticket-holder are free of charge.

Corporate sponsors for this concert are Jamestown Community College and Jamestown’s Rental Properties. JCA receives funding from the Chautauqua Region Community Foundation, the Ralph C. Sheldon Foundation, and the United Arts Appeal of Chautauqua County. This project is made possible with funds from the Decentralization Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and administered by Tri-County Arts Council.
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The Jamestown Concert Association is dedicated to great classical music and ensuring that it continues to flourish in Jamestown, NY. For more information on upcoming concerts and to find out how to support the Jamestown Concert Association, visit www.jamestownconcertassociation.org.   

Mozart Club of Jamestown presents: In Concert: Houghton College’s World-Renowned – Acclaimed Duo Wednesday, March 13, 2019 at 7:00 PM at Christ First United Methodist Church 663 Lakeview Ave., Jamestown NY.
Mozart Club is the oldest music club in New York State, established November 29, 1879. The Mozart Club was created for the study and enjoyment of music through concerts performed by members and guests, and promotes music education among youth by providing college music scholarships.

Mozart Club will Sponsor a FREE Concert on March 13, 2019The artists, world-renowned musicians, head the music and piano performance departments at Houghton College. We invite music lovers of all ages, including teachers and students, to attend with their families and friends. In addition to experiencing a mixture of exciting classical, sacred, and jazz music, this concert provides an opportunity to investigate Houghton College’s Music Program. Adults can also learn more about Mozart Club membership. Enjoy light refreshments and an artist meet- and-greet after the concert.

Dr. Armenio Suzano, Jr. - Dean and Director of the Greatbatch School of Music, Houghton CollegeDr. Armenio Suzano was born in Brazil. At the age of 16 he won a competition to become the youngest member ever of the Rio de Janeiro Opera House Symphony Orchestra, serving as their Assistant Principal Clarinetist for 9 years. An accomplished clarinetist and saxophonist, Suzano has performed with many orchestras around the world. In 1997 Armenio Suzano won the Solo and Aria Competition at Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) and in 1998, the Concerto Competition at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI), where he was also a Humanities Fellow between 1998 and 2000, earning his D.M.A. in 2002, studying under Fred Ormand, Donald Sinta, and Kenneth Keisler. After serving at several other Colleges, Suzano recently joined the faculty at Houghton College, as Director of the Greatbach School of Music.

Dr. William J. Newbrough  - Professor of Piano and Director of Piano Studies, Houghton CollegeDr. William John Newbrough is Professor of Piano and Director of Piano Studies at Houghton College, NY, where he holds the Horne Blanchard Endowed Chair of Music. He has earned the Artist Diploma, Doctor of Musical Arts degree, and Master of Music degree from the Peabody Conservatory of Music/Johns Hopkins University. Newbrough studied piano with Leon Fleisher, Haggai Niv, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Dominique Weber, and Gilbert Kalish. A veteran performer, Newbrough has won many international and national piano competitions and performed in numerous solo, chamber music, and concerto engagements around the world. Highlighted venues have included Carnegie Hall, Sydney Opera House, Van Cliburn Piano Institute, and numerous others. Newbrough was the only American of nine pianists worldwide chosen to perform at the prestigious Franz Liszt International Masterclasses, and Festival in Utrecht, Netherlands. He has performed multiple times on the acclaimed television series “Grand Piano,” and was featured on “Great Discoveries” on the Discovery Channel. Of his numerous awards, his most recent was being named a Steinway Artist.

Free-will donations accepted at concert. Light refreshments and artists meet-and-greet after concert.

​Western New York Chamber Orchestra    
Wednesday, December 5, 2018
7:30 PM Reg Lenna Center for The Arts
Glen Cortese, artistic director & conductor
Light Classics & Holiday Pops
Sleigh bells ring, are you listening?   In the lane, snow is glistening.  A beautiful sight, we're happy tonight….so let the festivities begin! Glen Cortese conducts the Western New York Chamber Orchestra on the elegant stage of the Reg Lenna Center for The Arts in our annual evening of light classics and holiday favorites.  During its 30-year history of excellence WNYCO has been a cultural highlight of Chautauqua County. Don’t miss this popular Jamestown December tradition that celebrates the warmth and spirit of the season!  Arrive early for pre-concert refreshments and merriment in the stunningly refurbished Reg Lenna Center lobby.
www.wnychamberorchestra.com