Romance and Rapture

This program is inspiring, heart-rending, vivacious, captivating, and life-affirming. Sakari Vanderveer is one of the leading female black composers of our time and an inspiring leader in bringing young children to embrace playing string instruments. Mel Bonis (who used the masculine form of her name to gain acceptance) fought great odds to become one of France’s esteemed composers alongside classmates Debussy and Gabriel Pierné. Nineteenth century Hungarian icon Ernst von Dohnanyi fled the Nazis and then the communists before emigrating to the U.S. A virtuoso pianist and composer, his Sextet is poignant and exhilarating in its cosmopolitan alure.

Obsidian, rippled moonlight, gleams (2019) by Sakari Dixon Vanderveer

Quartet No. 2 in D Major, Op. 124 by Mélanie Bonis

Sextet in C Major, Op. 37 by Ernst von Dohnányi

Musicians
JJ Koh, Clarinet
Fritz Foss, Horn
Jeannie Yu, Piano
David Perry & Ann Palen, Violin
Sally Chisholm, Viola
Cole Randolph, Cello

JJ is sponsored by Mary Pikul Anderson. David is sponsored by Michael Elkow and Mary Hauser & Jerry Randall. Ann is sponsored by the Nancy T. & David A. Borghesi Fund. Allyson is sponsored by Beverly Ann & Peter Conroy. Jeannie is sponsored by Mary Hauser & Jerry Randall.