The Euclid Quartet enjoys one of the most highly regarded reputations of any chamber ensemble of its generation. Formed in 1998, it won top prizes at the Osaka, Hugo Kauder, Carmel, and Chamber Music Yellow Springs competitions. In 2009, the Euclid Quartet was awarded the “American Masterpieces” grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. “Rarely has a group found such meaning and vision” (American Record Guide). The Euclid Quartet joins our own clarinet virtuoso, Oskar Espina Ruiz for a clarinet quintet by Anna Wessner, lauded by the American Academy of Arts and Letters for her “simple, unpredictably expressive music.”

Hugo KAUDER, String Quartet #4
William BOLCOM, Graceful Ghost Rag
Anna WEESNER, The Eight Lost Songs of Orlando Underground for clarinet quintet
Franz SCHUBERT, String Quartet in D Minor, D. 810, “Death and the Maiden”

Simone Dinnerstein is an American pianist with a distinctive musical voice. The Washington Post has called her “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity.” She first came to wider public attention in 2007 through her recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, reflecting an aesthetic that was both deeply rooted in the score and profoundly idiosyncratic. She is, wrote The New York Times, “a unique voice in the forest of Bach interpretation.” Since that recording, she has had a busy performing career, playing with orchestras ranging from the New York Philharmonic and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra to the London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI. Simone has made thirteen albums, all of which topped the Billboard classical charts, with repertoire ranging from Couperin to Glass.

Philip LASSER, Twelve Variations on Chorale by J.S. Bach
Jean-Philippe RAMEAU, Gavotte and Six Doubles
Johann Sebastian BACH, 15 Sinfonias for keyboard, BWV 787-801
Keith JARRETT, (arr. Uwe KARCHER) Encore from Tokyo

Faculty member of the Curtis Institute of Music and GRAMMY Award-winning guitarist Jason Vieaux, renowned violist and Curtis President Roberto Díaz, and emerging artists from Curtis perform a thrilling program for guitar and strings. Vieaux, “among the elite of today’s classical guitarists” (Gramophone), is described by NPR as “perhaps the most precise and soulful classical guitarist of his generation.” A violist of international reputation, Roberto Díaz, a teacher of viola at Curtis and former principal viola of the Philadelphia Orchestra, has already had a significant impact on American musical life. His recording of Jennifer Higdon’s Viola Concerto won the GRAMMY for Best Contemporary Classical Composition in 2018. He plays the ex-Primrose Amati viola.

Vieaux, Diaz and their accompanying student artists appear as part of the Nina von Maltzahn Global Touring Initiative of the Curtis Institute of Music.

Manuel DE FALLA, Suite Populaire Espagnole for cello and guitar
Solo guitar (works TBD)
Ástor PIAZZOLLA (transcribed: Julien Labro), Oblivion
ZHOU Tian, Red Trees, Wrinkled Cliffs for guitar and string trio
Niccolò PAGANINI, Quartet in A minor, M.S. 42 for guitar and string trio

Oskar Espina Ruiz, Artistic Director

A world-class clarinetist and faculty member of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Oskar Espina Ruiz assumed the role of Artistic Director in January, 2022. He also serves as Artistic Director at Chamber Music Wilmington (from May, 2020), the Treetops Chamber Music Society (Stamford, CT) and America's oldest continuing summer chamber music festival: Music Mountain Festival (Falls Village, CT).
 
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