Slavic Scenes
When it comes to capturing the colors of human emotion, few do so more profoundly than Eastern European composers! String masterpieces by Sergei Prokofiev, Anton Arensky, and his Ukrainian student Reinhold Glière will sweep you away with their passion, introspection, and inspiration.
Sponsors: David & Maryann Holman
CATCH the pre-concert prelude inside with the Young Artists Institute musicians at 6:30pm!
COME EARLY to picnic beforehand at Reed (BYOP or pick up nosh on-site from Bon Appétit ), at The Reser visit the food carts or Caffe Mingo nearby.
Patricia Reser Center for the Arts
Thursday, 7/7 • 8:00 pm
Reed College, Kaul Auditorium
Saturday, 7/9 • 8:00 pm PT
Program
Click on any piece of music below to learn more about it.
- GLIÈRE Selections from ‘12 Album Leaves,’ Op.51
GLIÈRE (1875–1956) Selections from 12 Album Leaves, Op.51 • (13’)
II. Commodo
III. Andantino
VI. Allegretto
X. Con tristezza
XII. AnimatoReinhold Glière is known for his large-scale works: operas, symphonies, and especially ballets (audiences may know him best as the composer of The Russian Sailors Dance from the 1927 ballet, The Red Poppy). 12 Album Leaves, Op. 51, is a youthful work, composed while Glière lived in Berlin in 1910. This collection of short, vivid character pieces for cello and piano showcases Glière’s lifelong affinity for expressive, singable melodies. The selections on tonight’s concert explores various moods: warm and welcoming; pensive; bold and powerful; sorrowful; passionate.
—© Elizabeth Schwartz
- SERGEI PROKOFIEV String Quartet No. 2 in F Major, Op. 92 (‘Kabardinian’) (1941)
PROKOFIEV (1891-1953) String Quartet No. 2 in F Major, Op. 92, (“Kabardinian”) (1941) • (22’)
I. Allegro sostenuto
II. Adagio
III. AllegroIn August 1941, Sergei Prokofiev and several other Soviet artists, having already been evacuated from Moscow, arrived in Nalchik, the capital city of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, in the North Caucasus. Far from the ravages of WWII, Prokofiev settled into the mountain town and made the acquaintance of the region’s Minister of Culture, Khatu Sagidovich Temirkano and his wife. In Prokofiev’s autobiography, the composer writes, “[Temirkano] said to us, ‘You have a gold mine of untapped folk music in this region. If you take advantage of your stay here to work up this material, you will be laying the foundation of Kabardinian music … Indeed, the material proved to be fresh and original … I settled on writing a string quartet, thinking that the combination of new, untouched Oriental folk-lore with the most classical of forms, the string quartet, ought to produce interesting and unexpected results.”
Prokofiev’s String Quartet No. 2, Op. 92 fuses Kabardian folk melodies with sophisticated 20th-century harmonies. In just three movements, Op. 92 is a compact, tautly constructed work; Prokofiev presents each folk melody straightforwardly, then amplifies and develops it using western classical structures imbued with his unique voice.
The Allegro sostenuto contains three Kabardian folk themes. While Prokofiev was attracted to the region’s “non-Russian” sound, he did not make any attempt to smooth out the basic rough contours of these melodies. Instead, he presents them broadly, unadorned, develops them briefly using his signature ironic wit, and ends with a simple restatement. An exquisite Kabardian love song serves as the melodic framework for the Adagio, which Prokofiev presents with simple open intervals and octave declamations; a central quasi-Scherzo section brightens and speeds up before the opening melody returns. The closing Allegro centers around a recurring jaunty dissonant theme, with contrasting episodes of scratchy discords, non-Western scales, a solo cello cadenza, and moments of
breathless speed.—© Elizabeth Schwartz
- ANTON ARENSKY String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor, Op. 35
ARENSKY (1861-1906) String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor, Op. 35 • (28’)
I. Moderato
II. Thème and Variations: Moderato
III. Finale: Andante sostenuto - Allegro moderatoThe first thing to notice about Anton Arensky’s String Quartet No. 2, Op. 35, is its highly unusual instrumentation: violin, viola, and two cellos, rather than the standard two violins, viola, and single cello. Arensky chose this configuration to emphasize the lower end of the quartet’s range and to focus on the rich expansive sonorities of the cellos, which he thought appropriate for a work written as an homage to his friend and mentor Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who had died in November 1893. Arensky’s quartet reconciles the two opposing aesthetic schools of late 19th-century Russian music by incorporating The Five’s passion for all things Russian with Tchaikovsky’s inclination towards the formal structures of non-Russian composers, particularly Mozart and Haydn.
The Moderato begins and ends with music for a Russian Orthodox psalm; the second movement is a haunting theme and variations based on Tchaikovsky’s A Legend from his 16 Songs for Children, Op. 54. This movement, the longest of the three, became so popular that Arensky’s publisher encouraged Arensky to arrange it as a stand-alone work for string orchestra. This version, titled simply Variations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky, Op. 35a, is Arensky’s best known work, far outstripping the original quartet.
The brief finale begins by quoting music from a Russian funeral Mass, moves into a spirited fugue, briefly returns to the somber church melody, and ends with a joyful version of the Russian folksong Slava! (Glory), often played at coronation ceremonies for czars. This song was also previously used by Ludwig van Beethoven in one of his Razumovsky Quartets, and by Modest Mussorgsky, in Boris Godunov.
After Op. 35’s 1894 premiere in Moscow, Arensky’s publisher, fearing the work wouldn’t sell well because of its unusual instrumentation, asked Arensky to arrange it for standard string quartet. Both versions can be found on concert programs today.
—© Elizabeth Schwartz
Artists
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Gloria Chien
Piano & Artistic Director
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Taiwanese-born pianist Gloria Chien has one of the most diverse musical lives as a noted performer, concert presenter, and educator. She made her orchestral debut at the age of sixteen with the Boston Symphony Orchestra with Thomas Dausgaard, and she performed again with the BSO with Keith Lockhart. She was subsequently selected by The Boston Globe as one of its Superior Pianists of the year, “who appears to excel in everything.” In recent seasons, she has performed as a recitalist and chamber musician at Alice Tully Hall, the Library of Congress, the Dresden Chamber Music Festival, and the National Concert Hall in Taiwan. She performs frequently with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. In 2009, she launched String Theory, a chamber music series in Chattanooga, Tennessee that has become one of the region’s premier classical music presenters. The following year she was appointed director of the Chamber Music Institute at Music@Menlo, a position she held for the next decade.
In 2017, she joined her husband, violinist Soovin Kim, as artistic director of the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival in Burlington, Vermont. The duo became artistic directors at Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon in 2020. They were named recipients of Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Award for Extraordinary Service in 2021 for their efforts during the pandemic.
Most recently, Gloria was named Advisor of the newly launched Institute for Concert Artists at the New England Conservatory of Music. Gloria released two albums—her Gloria Chien LIVE from the Music@Menlo LIVE label and Here With You with acclaimed clarinetist Anthony McGill on Cedille Records.
Gloria received her bachelor, master’s, and doctoral degrees at the New England Conservatory of Music with Wha Kyung Byun and Russell Sherman. She is Artist-in-Residence at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee, and she is a Steinway Artist.
Upcoming Concerts & Events
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Soovin Kim
Violin & Artistic Director
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Soovin Kim enjoys a broad musical career regularly performing Bach sonatas and Paganini caprices for solo violin, sonatas for violin and piano ranging from Beethoven to Ives, Mozart, and Haydn concertos and symphonies as a conductor, and new world-premiere works almost every season.
When he was 20 years old, Kim received first prize at the Paganini International Violin Competition. He immersed himself in the string quartet literature for 20 years as the 1st violinist of the Johannes Quartet. Among his many commercial recordings are his “thrillingly triumphant” (Classic FM Magazine) disc of Paganini’s demanding 24 Caprices and a two-disc set of Bach’s complete solo violin works that were released in 2022.
Kim is the founder and artistic director of the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival (LCCMF) in Burlington, Vermont. In addition to its explorative programming and extensive work with living composers, LCCMF created the ONE Strings program through which all 3rd through 5th grade students of the Integrated Arts Academy in Burlington study violin. The University of Vermont recognized Soovin Kim’s work by bestowing an Honorary Doctorate upon him in 2015.
In 2020, he and his wife, pianist Gloria Chien, became artistic directors of Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon. He, with Chien, were awarded Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s 2021 CMS Award for Extraordinary Service to Chamber Music. Kim devotes much of his time to his passion for teaching at the New England Conservatory in Boston and the Yale School of Music in New Haven.
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Nicholas Cords
Viola
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For three decades, omnivorous violist Nicholas Cords has been on the front line of a unique constellation of projects as performer, educator, and cultural advocate, with a signature passion for the cross section between the long tradition of classical music and the wide range of music being created today.
Nicholas served for twenty years as violist of the Silkroad Ensemble, a musical collective founded by Yo-Yo Ma in 2000 with the belief that cross-cultural collaboration leads to a more hopeful world. This mission was poignantly explored by the recent Oscar-nominated documentary by Morgan Neville, The Music of Strangers, which makes a case for why culture matters. In addition, Nicholas served from 2017-2020 as a Co-Artistic Director for Silkroad, and previously as Silkroad’s Programming Chair. He appears on all of the Silkroad Ensemble’s albums including Sing Me Home (Sony Music), which received a 2017 Grammy Award for Best World Music Album.
Another key aspect of Nicholas’s musical life is as founding member of Brooklyn Rider, an intrepid group which NPR credits with “recreating the 300-year-old form of the string quartet as a vital and creative 21st-century ensemble.” Highly committed to collaborative ventures, the group has worked with Irish fiddler Martin Hayes, jazz saxophonist Joshua Redman, ballerina Wendy Whelan, Persian kemancheh virtuoso Kayhan Kalhor, Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, Mexican singer Magos Herrera, and banjoist Béla Fleck, to name a few. Their most recent recording, Healing Modes, was lauded by The New York Times and received a 2021 Grammy Nomination.
His acclaimed 2020 solo recording, Touch Harmonious (In a Circle Records), is a reflection on the arc of tradition spanning from the baroque to today, featuring multiple premieres. A dedicated teacher, Nicholas currently serves on the viola and chamber music faculty of New England Conservatory.
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Zlatomir Fung
Cello
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Cellist Zlatomir Fung burst onto the scene as the first American in four decades (and youngest musician ever) to win First Prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition Cello Division. Subsequent accolades, critical acclaim, and standing ovations at performances around the world have established him as one of the preeminent cellists of our time. Astounding audiences with his boundless virtuosity and exquisite sensitivity, the 25-year-old has already proven himself a star among the next generation of world-class musicians.
In the 2024–2025 season, Fung gives recitals in New York City, Boston, and St. Louis, and performs the complete Bach Cello Suites at Mechanics Hall in Worcester, Massachusetts and in Arcata, California, following summer appearances at the Aspen and Ravinia Festivals. He joins orchestras in Rochester, San Antonio, and Billings, among others. Internationally, he performs in Europe and Asia with the London Philharmonic, Barcelona Symphony, and others, and offers a recital tour of Italy. In January 2025, Signum Records released Fung’s debut album, a collection of opera fantasies and transcriptions for cello and piano.
Fung served as Artist-in-Residence with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for the 2023–2024 season; recent debut appearances include the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lille, and BBC Philharmonic, as well as Baltimore, Dallas, Detroit, Seattle, and Kansas City Symphonies.
Fung made his recital debut at Carnegie Hall in 2021 and was described by Bachtrack as “one of those rare musicians with a Midas touch: he quickly envelopes every score he plays in an almost palpable golden aura.” Fung was a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship Winner in 2022.
Upcoming Concerts & Events
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Peter Stumpf
Cello
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Peter Stumpf is Professor of Cello at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Prior to his appointment, he was the Principal Cellist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic for nine years, following a twelve-year tenure as Associate Principal Cellist of the Philadelphia Orchestra. He received a Bachelor’s degree from the Curtis Institute of Music and an Artist’s Diploma from the New England Conservatory of Music.
A dedicated chamber music musician, he is a member of the Weiss-Kaplan-Stumpf Trio and has appeared at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center, and in Amsterdam, Tokyo, and Cologne. He has performed with the chamber music societies of Boston and Philadelphia, and at numerous festivals including Marlboro, Santa Fe, Bridgehampton, Spoleto, and Aspen. He has toured with Music from Marlboro, and with pianist Mitsuko Uchida in performances of the complete Mozart Piano Trios. As a member of the Johannes Quartet, he collaborated with the Guarneri String Quartet on a tour including premieres of works by Bolcom and Salonen.
Concerto appearances have included the Boston Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Aspen Music Festival, among others. Solo recitals have been at Jordan Hall in Boston, on the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society series, on the Chamber Music in Historic Sites series in Los Angeles, and at the Philips and Corcoran Galleries in Washington, D.C. His awards include first prize in the Washington International Competition.
He has served on the cello faculties at the New England Conservatory and the University of Southern California.
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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.