Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Guest Violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg Will Perform Nov. 9

Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and guest violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg will present compositions by Beethoven, Dvorák, and Krzysztof Penderecki 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 9, at the Williams Center for the Arts. The group is described by the New York Times as “everything chamber music should be.”

Tickets cost $4 with Lafayette ID. Public tickets for the concert, which cost $20, are sold out. To inquire about waiting list availability, call the Williams Center box office at 610-330-5010.

Prior to the concert, music historian Barbara Milewski, a specialist on influences of Slavic folk music on composers, will talk about the program. Free and open to the public, the lecture will begin at 7 p.m. in the Williams Center.

The concert will feature Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 7 in C Minor, Op. 30, No. 2; Dvorák’s Piano Quintet in A Major, Op. 81; and the Chamber Music Society premiere of Penderecki’s brand new Sextett. The group will play the same program at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall Nov. 10 and 12.

This is the ensemble’s fifth performance at the Williams Center, continuing a series that began in 1996. In addition to Salerno-Sonnenberg, the musicians will be pianist Anne-Marie McDermott, violinist Ida Kavafian, violist Paul Neubauer, cellist Fred Sherry, horn player William Purvis, and clarinetist David Shifrin

A 1981 winner of the Naumburg International Violin Competition, Salerno-Sonnenberg has been recognized by both an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1983 and an Avery Fisher Prize in 1999. In May of the same year, she was awarded an honorary master of musical arts by New Mexico State University, the first honorary degree to be awarded by that institution. Born in Rome, she came to the United States at age eight to study at the Curtis Institute and, later, with Dorothy DeLay at The Juilliard School. She has appeared as orchestral soloist with the symphonies of Baltimore, Dallas, and Oregon, and the Royal Liverpool and Florida Philharmonics. With the duo-guitarists, Sergio and Odair Assad, she has performed throughout the United States and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Salerno-Sonnenberg has recorded for the Angel-EMI and Nonesuch labels. Her autobiography, Nadja: On My Way, written for children, describes her experiences as a young musician building a career.

Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center received a 2001 Grammy nomination for its highly acclaimed triple-disc recording of Debussy’s Complete Chamber Works. Musicians in the group have received numerous honors in the past couple years, including “Artists of the Week” on A&E’s weekly nationally-televised program “Breakfast with the Arts,” a featured performance on a live PBS telecast, a Grammy Award, and an Avery Fisher Prize.

At the core of Chamber Music Society are 19 artist members who are among the world’s most respected musicians. For the past 11 years, Shifrin has served as artistic director of this core group, which, along with guest artists, can expand as needed to perform virtually any chamber piece. Pioneered by CMS, this structure has been adapted by chamber music organizations around the world.

As founding artistic director, Charles Wadsworth — an eminent pianist, chamber musician, and accompanist — developed the model with Lincoln Center President William Schuman. Former opera singer and vocal recitalist Alice Tully agreed to help finance a venue intended for chamber music on condition that it have exemplary acoustics and comfort, and on Sept. 11, 1969, Chamber Music Society’s inaugural concert marked the opening of its Lincoln Center home, Alice Tully Hall. It hosts 12 annual subscription programs, involving a cross section of the world’s leading interpreters of chamber music.

Shifrin is also artistic director of Oregon’s Chamber Music Northwest and appears frequently with such ensembles at the Guarneri, Tokyo, and Emerson string quartets. In addition to recital appearances, he has performed with the Dallas, Seattle, Houston, Milwaukee, Denver, and Memphis symphonies, the Los Angeles and New York chamber orchestras, and the Philadelphia and Minnesota orchestras. Internationally, he has appeared with orchestras in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and Taiwan. He has served as principal clarinetist with the American Symphony and Cleveland orchestras, the Honolulu and Dallas symphonies, and the Los Angeles and New York chamber orchestras. He has recorded for the Delos, DGG, Angel/EMI, BMG, Sony, and CRI labels. Previously a faculty member of The Juilliard School, the University of Southern California, the University of Michigan, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and the University of Hawaii, he is professor of music at Yale University. In 2000, Shifrin received the Avery Fisher Prize.

Kavafian has appeared as soloist with leading orchestras and festivals, in recital, in duo with her sister, Ani, as a guest with such ensembles as the Guarneri Quartet, and as artistic director of Music from Angel Fire. A founder nearly 30 years ago of the innovative group Tashi, she is a faculty member of the Curtis Institute of Music and is an active advocate of chamber music, having served on the Board of Chamber Music America. She has premiered many new works, has toured and recorded with jazz artists Chick Corea and Wynton Marsalis, and has had a solo feature on CBS “Sunday Morning.” For six years violinist of the Beaux Arts Trio, she recently co-founded the ensemble Opus One with McDermott, cellist Peter Wiley, and her husband, Steven Tenenbom, violist of the Orion String Quartet. Kavafian made her debut under the auspices of Young Concert Artists and was a recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant.

Purvis has appeared with the festivals of Norfolk, Tanglewood, Chamber Music Northwest, Mostly Mozart, Aston Magna, Salzburg, Schleswig-Holstein, and Hong Kong. He makes frequent appearances with the New York Woodwind Quintet, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. He has performed with the Tokyo, Orion, Mendelssohn, Sibelius, and Fine Arts string quartets and has appeared as solo horn player with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe under Nicholas Harnoncourt. A graduate of Haverford College with a major in philosophy, Purvis is a faculty member of the Yale School of Music, The Juilliard School, SUNY Stony Brook, and Columbia University.

McDermott made her debut with the New York Philharmonic in 1997. Since then, she has appeared as soloist with virtually every major American orchestra, including North Carolina, Indianapolis, Chattanooga, Memphis, Nashville, Atlanta, Baltimore, Columbus, Dallas, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Rochester, San Diego, St. Louis, Seattle, and Vermont. Other orchestral appearances include the Mostly Mozart Festival, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Brandenburg Ensemble at Kennedy Center, Moscow Virtuosi in Boston and New York, and New York Pops at Carnegie Hall. She has toured with Kavafian and the Miami String Quartet, and has joined the Guarneri Quartet in concert at the Metropolitan Museum. McDermott plays regularly at the Santa Fe, Newport, Chamber Music Northwest, Bravo! Colorado, and Ravinia festivals and has made guest appearances at the Festival Casals in Puerto Rico, the Dubrovnik Festival, the Tucson Winter Festival, and Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival in Helsinki. A winner of the Young Concert Artists Auditions, she has received an Avery Fisher Career Development Award, the Andrew Wolf Memorial Chamber Music Award, the Joseph Kalichstein Piano Prize, and the Mortimer Levitt Career Development Award for Women Artists.

This year, Neubauer made his concerto debut in Paris with the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris and the North American premiere of the Detlev Muller-Siemens Viola Concerto with the Riverside Symphony at Lincoln Center, in addition to return engagements with the Utah and Puerto Rico Symphonies. He also will present all-Schumann programs for viola and piano with McDermott. He has appeared as soloist with the New York, Los Angeles, Taipei, and Helsinki Philharmonics, the National, St. Louis, Dallas, Detroit, and San Francisco Symphonies, and the St. Luke’s, English Chamber, and Santa Cecilia Orchestras. He performed the world premiere of the revised Bartok Viola Concerto, as well as concertos by Penderecki, Picker, Jacob, Lazarof, Suter, Ott, and Friedman. The director of chamber music at the OK Mozart Festival, he was the first-prize winner of the Whitaker, D’Angelo, and Lionel Tertis international competitions and a recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant. He was principal violist of the New York Philharmonic for six years, having joined the orchestra at age 21, and appeared as its soloist in over 20 performances. He has been featured on CBS’s “Sunday Morning”, PBS’s “Front Row Center,” “In Concert,” and “A Prairie Home Companion” with Garrison Keillor. Neubauer is on the faculty of The Juilliard School and lives in New York City with his wife, violinist Kerry McDermott, and their children, Oliver and Clara.

Sherry has performed nearly 1,500 times with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since the early 1970s, serving as its artistic director from 1989 to 1992. A champion of contemporary music, Mr. Sherry has introduced audiences on five continents and all 50 United States to music of our time through his close association with such composers as Babbitt, Berio, Carter, Davidovsky, Foss, Knussen, Lieberson, Mackey, Takemitsu, Wuorinen, and Zorn. Sherry was a founding member of Tashi and Speculum Musicae, a member of the Galimir String Quartet and the Group for Contemporary Music, and is a frequent performer at Bargemusic, Ltd. He is a member of the faculty of The Juilliard School and is working on a treatise about modern string playing. Sherry was the creator and director of “A Great Day in New York,” the groundbreaking festival featuring 52 living composers presented by The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Merkin Concert Hall in 2001. In the vast scope of his recording career, Fred Sherry has been soloist and sideman on hundreds of commercial and esoteric recordings for RCA, Nonesuch, Vanguard, Koch, Tzadik, ECM, Delos, and Arabesque, in music ranging from Heinrich Schütz to Chick Corea. Last year, he added the Schoenberg cello concerto with Robert Craft and the Philharmonia Orchestra of London to his discography. Sherry gave the European premiere of the Elliott Carter cello concerto with Oliver Knussen and the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the 2002 Aldeburgh Festival.

The nationally recognized Performance Series attracts more than 10,000 people each season. It has been cited for performing excellence by the National Endowment for the Arts, National Dance Project, Chamber Music America, Lila Wallace Reader’s Digest Fund, Pennsylvania Arts and Humanities Councils, and Association of Performing Arts Presenters.

The 2002-03 Performance Series at Lafayette is supported in part by gifts from Friends of the Williams Center for the Arts; by the F.M. Kirby Foundation; by provisions of the Alan and Wendy Pesky Artist-in-Residence Program, the James Bradley Fund, and the Ed Brunswick Jazz Fund; and by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour, and New England Foundation for the Arts.