Ensemble Connect shares classical music with Skidmore, Saratoga Springs
New Class of Ensemble Connect Fellows Debuts First Virtual Performance
Ensemble Connect February 2023 Program
Friday, February 17, 2023
7:30 p.m. Performance
Helen Filene Ladd Concert Hall
Arthur Zankel Music Center
CONCERT PROGRAM
JENNIFER HIGDON | Dark Wood
MOZART | Quintet for Piano and Winds in E-flat Major, K. 452
MICHI WIANCKO | 7 Kinships (World Premiere, commissioned by Carnegie Hall)
R. SCHUMANN | Piano Quintet
The talented musicians performing in Ensemble Connect form “one of the strongest ensembles in the city” (New York Classical Review). Over the course of this two-year fellowship program, extraordinary young professionals
perform a series of concerts that smartly bridges the history and future of classical
music, from timeless Baroque music to new works. This program includes a world premiere
by Michi Wiancko, commissioned by Carnegie Hall; brilliant quintets by Mozart and
R. Schumann; and Dark Wood by Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Higdon—a title that refers to the bassoon, used
virtuosically throughout the piece.
Presented by the Department of Music and the Office of Special Programs
The biannual residency is made possible by the generous support of David and Beverly Sanders Payne '59 (October residency) and the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation (February residency).
Michi Wiancko is a versatile and highly imaginative composer, violinist, and collaborator,
whose multi-faceted creative projects and organizational work prioritize not only
artistic discovery, but community resilience and social change.
Recent chamber music commissions include works for Boston Chamber Music Society, Schubert
Club, Accordo, Ecstatic Music Festival, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, East Coast
Chamber Orchestra, Anne Akiko Meyers, Ecstatic Music Festival, Aizuri Quartet, Parker
Quartet, Friction Quartet, and the Jupiter Quartet, to name a few.
Michi’s first opera Murasaki’s Moon, for which she was a 2018 recipient of an Opera America Commissioning Grant, premiered at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in May of 2019 and was commissioned by Met Live Arts, Onsite opera, and American Lyric Theater. Since then, she has composed two more operas: Arkana Aquarium, commissioned by Experiments in Opera and premiered in 2021, and The Stream, commissioned by Baldwin Wallace and the Cleveland Lyric Theater, and premiered in 2022. Michi has also composed music for short and feature-length films, commercials, and for her own band, Kono Michi.
A passionate collaborator, Michi has been fortunate to work and tour with renowned artists from across a vast musical spectrum: Gabriela Lena Frank, Missy Mazzoli, PaviElle French, Vijay Iyer, Steve Reich, Jenn Wasner, Emily Wells, Laurie Anderson, Judd Greenstein, William Brittelle, Paula Matthusen, Kaoru Watanabe, Qasim Naqvi, Mark Dancigers, Satoshi Takeishi, Mazz Swift, Cristina Pato, Sandeep Das, Jessie Montgomery, Emanuel Ax, Yo-Yo Ma, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Matt Berninger, Dolio the Sleuth, and Rench. A member of Silkroad and the East Coast Chamber Orchestra, she has also performed with The Knights, A Far Cry, Mark Morris Dance Group, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Alarm Will Sound, and International Contemporary Ensemble.
A native of California, Michi holds degrees from CIM and Juilliard, where she studied with Donald Weilerstein and the late Robert Mann, respectively. Her early teachers include Sharon Holland and Haroutune Bedelian. In addition to her composition and performing career, Michi is director and curator of Antenna Cloud Farm, a music festival, arts retreat, and community organization based in western Massachusetts, and she recently launched The Experimental Institute in collaboration with Mazz Swift and PaviElle French.
Please mark your calendars for October 2023
Ensemble Connect October 2023 Program
Friday, October 27, 2023
7:30 PM Performance
Helen Filene Ladd Concert Hall
Arthur Zankel Music Center
CONCERT PROGRAM
MISSY MAZZOLI | Still Life with Avalanche
BARBER | Summer Music, Op. 31
FRANZ SCHUBERT | Piano Quintet in A Major, D. 667, "Trout"