Roy Eaton

Piano

Quantum of Preludes

    PROGRAM

Beethoven: Variations for Cello and Piano in Eb Major on Mozart’s “Bei Männern” from “The Magic Flute”

Beethoven: Piano Trio in D Major, Op. 70, No.1, the “Ghost”

    INTERMISSION

Korngold: Suite for Two Violins, Cello and Piano Left-Hand, Op. 23

Violinist Nancy McFarland Gaub is a Lecturer in Music at Grinnell College, where she directs the Chamber Ensembles, and teaches violin and aural skills.  She performs frequently as a member of the McFarland-Gaub Duo, the New Prairie Camerata, and the Roycroft Chamber Musicians.  She has been acting concertmaster of the Cedar Rapids Symphony, and is currently concertmaster of the Ottumwa Symphony.  Her violin was made by Giovanni Grancino in 1695.

Along with her husband, pianist Eugene Gaub, Ms. McFarland Gaub is co-artistic Director of the critically acclaimed Roycroft Chamber Music Festival, which they founded in East Aurora, NY, in 1994.  Then a member of Violinist Nancy McFarland Gaub has had a varied career throughout the U.S., Mexico & Europe as soloist, recitalist, chamber & orchestral musician. She teaches violin & chamber music at Grinnell College, performs chamber music with the Iowa Chamber Coalition & the New Prairie Camerata, and is performer & co-artistic director of the Roycroft Chamber Music Festival in E Aurora, NY.

Pianist Eugene Gaub is Associate Professor at Grinnell College.  A graduate of the Juilliard School, he holds a Doctorate from the Eastman School of Music.  Along with his wife, Nancy McFarland Gaub, he is Co-artistic Director of the Roycroft Chamber Music Festival, which they founded in 1994 in East Aurora, NY.  In 2008, he completed a fourteen-concert series devoted to the complete piano sonatas of Beethoven, with performances in Grinnell and other cities.

Rebekah Johnson began violin studies at 3 years of age and gave her first public performance 2 years later on a CBS television special playing the first solo in Bach's Double Violin Concerto. Shortly after that she won the Minneapolis Young Artist Competition with her performance of Mozart's Fourth Violin Concerto. She received Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School where she was a student of Ivan Galamian and Sally Thomas. Ms. Johnson tours the United States and Europe as soloist and chamber musician and performs regularly at summer music festivals such as the Grand Teton Music Festival, Spoleto, Park City International Music Festival and the Roycroft Chamber Music Festival. She has premiered many contemporary works with such composers as Lukas Foss, Aaron Kernis, Philip Glass and John Adams.

Currently playing on a Niccolo Gagliano violin her playing has been hailed by the New York Times as "sweet and attractive…with a melancholy lyricism that was well supported by the performers" and the French press calls Ms. Johnson "…an exciting and insightful artist." Her recording of the 3 Partitas by J.S. Bach is available at Amazon.com. Highlights of the 2002-03 season include solo performances in December at the Bulawayo Festival in Zimbabwe as well as her New York debut recital at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall on April 18, 2003. Ms. Johnson is also the violinist of the acclaimed Leonore Trio.

In addition to her musical career she is also nationally recognized as a fine art photographer and several of her photographs of New York City and the Wyoming wilderness have been on exhibit at Lincoln Center in New York. She also spends time doing community service whether it is tutoring English in the New York public schools, fundraising for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society or giving benefit concerts for events such as the Daniel Pearl Global Music Day.

Scott Ballantyne, described by France's Le Figaro as a "…consummate artist…" who "…provided a rare moment of musicality and poetry in our concert season", studied with Leonard Rose at the Juilliard school. While still a student, he appeared as soloist with orchestras in the U.S., Brazil, Canada and Mexico. After graduating, he joined the faculty of Juilliard and devoted himself to teaching. His students populate orchestras from the New York Philharmonic to the Seoul, Korea Philharmonic, chamber music ensembles like the Lark Quartet and the Carnegie Chamber Players and are rising young soloists such as Jennifer Combs and Sun-ju Kim. Returning to performing in the 1990's he is now too busy to teach.

A highlight of Ballantyne's 2001-2002 season was an appearance at Alice Tully Hall to a sold-out house. At this event, described by critic Robert Lenz as "One of the most impressive events I have seen in over 30 years of concert going," he gave the world premiers of cello concerti by Frank Levy and Ernst Levy with George Maull and the Philharmonic Orchestra of N.J. Ballantyne/Maull also recorded these works with the National Polish Radio Orchestra for the OPUS ONE label. Other notable performances of last season were his first appearances in Iceland, a Beethoven Triple performance with the Atlantic Chamber Symphony (Lukas Foss, conductor) and a return to Europe and Asia. The recipient of many awards and prizes, last season he received the prestigious Morgan Foundation Career development award.

This season, in addition to his usual concerts in the U.S. and abroad, he returned to Tully Hall as soloist in Tan Dun's "Crouching Tiger Concerto" with Little Orchestra Society (Dino Anagnost, conductor) and premiered Jack Gottlieb's Fantasy for Solo Cello.

In addition to his busy career as soloist, he is also a founding member of the Leonore Trio (Steven Masi, piano, Rebekah Johnson, violin). Described as "…one of the most exciting new groups on the chamber music scene," the trio tours widely, is heard frequently in the U.S. on National Public Radio's "Performance Today" series and has also been featured on broadcasts in Europe. The Leonore Trio has recorded music of Levy, Schubel, Kauder and Sheng for OPUS ONE.

Tickets $15 general.  $12 students, seniors 65 yrs,

IA Course participants, children (under 12 yrs free).

Call the Sondheim Center box office at 641-472-2787.

www.sondheimcenter.com

On Saturday, March 6 at 8:00 pm, some truly succulent chamber music works by Beethoven & Korngold are on the menu at the Sondheim Center in Fairfield, courtesy of Roycroft Chamber Musicians and Chamber Music Society Fairfield. Beethoven needs no introduction, but re-discovered Austrian-Hungarian composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957) started out as a Wunderkind of the highest order. In his teens, he composed orchestral music, a ballet, chamber music, and two one-act operas that drew admiration from famous composers of his time like Richard Strauss, Mahler, and Puccini. His best known opera “Die tote Stadt”, completed at the age of 23, was a smash hit in Vienna and became an international success. He went on composing works in many genres, including film music after having been invited by theatre and film director, Max Reinhardt to come to Hollywood. The film scores he wrote to “The Sea Hawk” and “The Adventures of Robin Hood” are miraculous. One of the highlights of his musical career is the lush Violin Concerto. His considerable chamber music output is quite melodic in a rich, chromatic late Romantic style. Nancy McFarland Gaub and Rebekha Johnson, Violin, Scott Ballantyne, Cello, and Eugene Gaub, Piano will perform his Suite for Two Violins, Cello, and Piano Left-Hand, which was composed for pianist Paul Wittgenstein who lost his right arm in WW I. You’ll also hear Beethoven’s Variations for Cello and Piano on a theme by Mozart, and the Piano Trio, the “Ghost”.

Design and copyright 2009 Freddy Niagara Fonseca

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Maia

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Roy Eaton

Piano

Quantum of

Preludes