FREE Open Rehearsal: CHRIS ROGERSON World Premiere for Soprano & String Quartet
Go behind the scenes and observe CMNW’s world-class musicians working together to put the finishing touches on the music for upcoming performances. An informal Q&A follows the rehearsal.
Join us for a unique view into creating new music as mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron and the Viano Quartet rehearse Chris Rogerson’s newest commission for CMNW.
This year’s open rehearsals are sponsored by: George & Debbie Olsen
Reed College, Kaul Auditorium
Wednesday, 7/26 • 11:00 am
Program
Click on any piece of music below to learn more about it.
- CHRIS ROGERSON “Sign for My Father, Who Stressed the Bunt” (2023)
CHRIS ROGERSON Sign for My Father, Who Stressed the Bunt (2023)
I am right-handed in nearly everything I do—except for baseball, a sport my father taught me as a left-hander himself. I grew up playing wiffle ball in my backyard, my own “rough diamond,” begging my dad to play game after game. Of course I wanted to crush the ball out of the park, but my father taught me to focus on the little things, like how to track down a fly ball in center field. I idolized ruthless competitors like Barry Bonds; my father taught me a game of quietude.
So when my former teacher Martin Bresnick introduced me to the poem “Sign for My Father, Who Stressed the Bunt” by David Bottoms, I was drawn to it and hoped to set it one day. I rediscovered it recently when Bottoms passed away. To me, this beautiful poem embodies the unique relationship between many fathers and their children. Have I ever learned “what you were laying down” (a clever reference to the bunt itself)? In particular, I find it moving that the poem itself is a personal sign to the poet’s father: “Like a hand brushed across the bill of a cap / Let this be the sign / I’m getting a grip on the sacrifice.”
In Sign for My Father, I try to capture an elegiac feeling of childhood, as well as the uniquely American nostalgia for the pastime of baseball. This work is dedicated to my father.
—© Chris Rogerson
Chris Rogerson’s Sign for My Father, Who Stressed the Bunt, was commissioned by CMNW’s Commissioning Fund. Since 1971, CMNW has commissioned and premiered more than 120 new works by some of America’s leading composers.
It is Chris’ fourth commission from CMNW. His other works include: Meditation for Violin & Saxophone Quartet (2022), Thirty Thousand Days (2017), and Constellations (2015), as a CMNW Protégé Composer.
Artists
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Fleur Barron
Mezzo-soprano
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Hailed as “a knockout performer” by The Times, Singaporean-British mezzo Fleur Barron is a 2025 Grammy Award winner for Best Opera Recording, in which she sang the title role in Kaija Saariaho’s Adriana Mater with the San Francisco Symphony under Esa-Pekka Salonen. A passionate interpreter of opera, symphonic works, and chamber music ranging from the Baroque to the contemporary, Fleur is mentored by Barbara Hannigan.
Fleur opens her 2025-26 season with a debut at the Salzburg Festival, teaming up once again with Esa-Pekka Salonen and Peter Sellars for One Morning Turns into an Eternity, a staged creation in which Fleur performs Mahler’s “Abschied” from Das Lied von der Erde. Fleur continues her collaboration with Peter Sellars in a return to the title role in Kaija Saariho’s Adriana Mater for her debut at Teatro dell’Opera di Roma. She also makes a house and role debut as Cornelia in Handel’s Giulio Cesare at Maggio Musicale in Florence; performs a staged version of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde directed by Lemi Ponifasio at The Barbican; George Benjamin’s Into the Little Hill, conducted by the composer, at the Tongyeong Festival in Korea; Piacere in Handel’s Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno with La Nuova Musica under David Bates at Wigmore Hall; and workshops for Bryce Dessner’s Night Sky with Exit Wounds, a monodrama being conceived for Fleur, directed by Kaneza Schaal.
Fleur’s 2025-2026 symphonic calendar reflects her artistic versatility across a broad range of repertoire. She debuts with the New York Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel in the world premiere of David Lang’s oratorio The Wealth of Nations; debuts with the Berlin Philharmonic under Kirill Petrenko in Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, which also tours to the Salzburg Easter Festival; returns to both the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Atlanta Symphony at the invitation of Nathalie Stutzmann for Mozart’s Requiem and Bach’s B Minor Mass. Fleur also solidifies her reputation as a Mahler interpreter, singing the Kindertotenlieder with both the Czech Philharmonic under Semyon Bychkov and the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, Torino; Das Lied von der Erde with the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra under Ludovic Morlot and with the Britten Sinfonia; and Symphony No. 3 at both the Palau de la Musica Valencia and the Colorado Music Festival. Other symphonic performances include Alma Mahler’s Fünf Lieder with RAI National Symphony Orchestra, Respighi’s Il Tramonto with CBSO under Carlo Rizzi and Mason Bates’s Passage with Nashville Symphony under Giancarlo Guerrero.
Highlights of the 2025-26 recital platform include a French song program with Kirill Gerstein at Festival Ravel; a U.S. tour with Trio Afiori, a voice-clarinet-piano trio she has newly formed with Anthony McGill and Gloria Chien. The trio has a residency and concert at Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center before heading to Reno, Portland, and Eugene. With long-time duo partner Julius Drake, she gives concerts in Genoa, South Korea, Paris, London, Leeds, and Germany. Fleur joins the Australian String Quartet at the Helsinki Festival and the Parker Quartet at National Sawdust in Brooklyn. Fleur also undertakes a residency with LIFE Victoria Barcelona, for which she performs two recitals with Kunal Lahiry and coaches the young artists.
Fleur is committed to exploring the many ways music can facilitate cross-cultural dialogue and healing. She is passionate about curating inclusive chamber music programming that amplifies the voices of diverse communities. An active mentor and educator, Fleur has led vocal masterclasses and seminars at Manhattan School of Music, Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, Royal Academy of Music, Royal Northern College of Music, the Malaysian Philharmonic, Temple University, and King’s College London, and has also mentored young musicians privately. Born to a British father and Singaporean mother in Northern Ireland, Fleur grew up in the Far East and has also spent considerable time in New York and the U.K. She is currently based in London.
Fleur holds a B.A. in Comparative Literature with highest honours from Columbia University and a Masters in Vocal Performance from Manhattan School of Music.
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Viano Quartet
String Ensemble
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Lucy Wang, violin
Hao Zhou, violin
Aiden Kane, viola
Tate Zawadiuk, celloPraised for their “virtuosity, visceral expression, and rare unity of intention” (Boston Globe), the Viano Quartet is one of the most sought-after ensembles today and recipients of the prestigious 2025 Avery Fisher Career Grant. Since soaring to international acclaim as the first-prize winner at the 13th Banff International String Quartet Competition, they have traveled to nearly every major city across the globe, captivating audiences in New York, London, Berlin, Hong Kong, Vancouver, Paris, Beijing, Toronto, Lucerne, and Los Angeles. They are currently in-residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Bowers Program from 2024-2027.
During the 2025 summer season, the quartet will debut at Klavier-Festival Ruhr, CMS Summer Evenings, Tippet Rise, and Saratoga Performing Arts Center. Their many return visits include Music@Menlo, Mt. Desert Festival of Chamber Music, and MISQA. Their latest album, Voyager, was released with Platoon Records in Spring 2025.
The Viano Quartet has collaborated with world-class musicians including Emanuel Ax, Fleur Barron, Sir Stephen Hough, Miloš Karadaglić, Mahan Esfahani, and Marc-André Hamelin. Dedicated advocates of music education, they have given classes at institutions such as Northwestern University, University of Victoria, Colburn Academy, Duke University, and SMU Meadows School of the Arts. Each member of the quartet is grateful to the interminable support from their mentors at the Curtis Institute and Colburn Conservatory, including members of the Dover, Guarneri, and Tokyo string quartets.
The name “Viano” reflects the unity of four string instruments acting as one, much like a piano, where harmony and melody intertwine.
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Chris Rogerson
Composer
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Hailed as a “confident new musical voice” (The New York Times), a “big discovery” (The Philadelphia Inquirer), and a “fully-grown composing talent” (The Washington Post), Chris Rogerson’s music has been praised for its “haunting beauty” and “virtuosic exuberance” (The New York Times). Recent notable works include Of Simple Grace, for cellist Yo-Yo Ma; Four Autumn Landscapes, a clarinet concerto written for Anthony McGill, and String Quartet No. 4, for the Escher Quartet. Rogerson’s music has been programmed at venues around the world including Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, the Kennedy Center, Wigmore Hall in London, and the Musikverein in Vienna.
The 2021-22 season brings several major orchestral premieres: a new piano concerto for Anne-Marie McDermott, commissioned by the Bravo! Vail Festival; a new violin concerto for Benjamin Beilman, commissioned by the Kansas City Symphony; and Sacred Earth, for mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges with video by Emmy-nominated director and National Geographic photographer Keith Ladzinski. Other recent commissions and performances have come from the Atlanta, Houston, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, New Jersey, New World, and San Francisco symphonies, the Buffalo Philharmonic, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s.
Born in 1988, Mr. Rogerson studied at the Curtis Institute of Music, Yale School of Music, and Princeton University. He is represented by Young Concert Artists, Inc. and served as YCA Composer-in-Residence from 2010-2012. In 2016, Mr. Rogerson joined the Musical Studies Faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he lives full-time.