Back at Marlboro after a hiatus

This past week has been quite different from the previous week! Last Saturday, I attended a memorial gathering for Peter Dirk Leiser in the Grange Hall in Dummerston. Sunday we attended a Union Service for the five churches (Guilford, Centre Church, W. Brattleboro, West Dover and Dummerston) in Dummerston. We sang in a choir made up of Dummerston and Guilford folks. Monday I had an afternoon appointment with my Primary Care Physician, Dr. van Dyke. Monday-Thursday I worked on the service I will be leading at Guilford next Sunday (July 31st): getting all elements of the service together for the bulletin, which had to be sent in to Debra by Wednesday, and then writing the sermon and the children's story. So I did not go to Marlboro this week until today. Harry Kalish, Ellen's friend from Philadelphia, arrived for a visit Tuesday evening, and he went with Ellen to Marlboro on Wednesday and Thursday. Thursday, I could have possibly gone to Marlboro, but I had promised Jerome that I would take him to the Guilford Food Pantry at 3pm in the afternoon to get some groceries, and I also needed to be available at the phone to take return calls from Brattleboro Hospital to make appointments for further tests coming out of my appointment with Dr. van Dyke on Monday. So most of the week, I have been home, and keeping pretty busy there. But at this moment, I am in Marlboro, listening to two wonderful pianists, Cynthia Raim and Janice Carissa, play Six Canonic Etudes, Op. 56, by Robert Schumann. I'm going to close the laptop and just listen.

Cynthia Raim, piano. Cynthia Raim came to international attention when she was unanimously chosen as the First Prize Winner of the 1979 Clara Haskil International Piano Competition in Switzerland, after winning First Prizes in the 1977 Three Rivers National Piano Competition in Pittsburgh and the J. S. Bach International Piano Competition in Washington DC. She has been acclaimed for her concerto, recital, and chamber music performances throughout the United States and abroad and also won the 1987 Pro Musicis Award, the Festorazzi Award at the Curtis Institute and the "Distinguished Artist Award" from The Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia. Cynthia Raim has appeared in recitals with soprano Benita Valente, cellist David Soyer, violinist Arnold Steinhardt, violist Samuel Rhodes, and the Guarneri String Quartet and has recorded for Gall, Pantheon, and Connoisseur Society, including solo albums of Ravel, Schumann, Brahms, and Schubert and two-piano recordings of Rachmaninoff, Brahms, and Dvořák with David Allen Wehr. A native of Detroit, where she studied with Mischa Kottler, Ms. Raim studied with Rudolf Serkin and Mieczyslaw Horszowski at the Curtis Institute of Music, where she earned bachelors and masters degrees.

Janice Carissa, piano. Indonesian pianist and 2022 Gilmore Young Artist Janice Carissa began her musical journey at age five studying with her pianist mother. At 15 she entered the Curtis Institute of Music, where she continues her studies today under the tutelage of professors Gary Graffman and Robert McDonald. A rapidly rising star, Ms. Carissa has captivated audiences from the Sydney Opera House to The Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall. She has appeared as a guest artist with The Philadelphia Orchestra under the batons of Cristian Măcelaru and Stéphane Denève and filled in for André Watts as soloist with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Ms. Carissa moved to Philadelphia in 2013. When she’s not practicing or performing, she stays busy exploring the city’s culinary scene. An accomplished photographer, she also enjoys capturing portraits of fellow musicians. In Philadelphia, Ms. Carissa is an active local performer, having appeared with the John Hopkins Symphony, Eastern Wind Symphony, Bay Atlantic Symphony, and more. Ms. Carissa has won prizes at the Aspen Music Festival and Indonesia Pusaka Competition and has been awarded the Arkady Fomin Scholarship and Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant. A deeply devoted chamber musician, she has appeared at festivals from Marlboro to Ravinia and premiered new works by composers like Timo Andres and Alyssa Weinberg. LATER We are now about to hear Jonathan Biss, piano, Rubén Rengel, violin, and Peter Myers, cello play Brahms Piano Trio in B Major, Op. 8. Ellen has heard it several time earlier this week and says it is beautiful. . . . and indeed, it was! It was "over the top," as they say. These three musicians were incredibly "together," and tne piece itself is sublimely beautiful.

Jonathan Biss, piano. Jonathan Biss is a world-renowned pianist who channels his deep musical curiosity into performances and projects in the concert hall and beyond. In addition to performing with today’s leading orchestras, he continues to expand his reputation as a teacher, musical thinker, and one of the great Beethoven interpreters of our time. He recently joined Mitsuko Uchida as Co-Artistic Director of the Marlboro Music Festival, where he has spent thirteen summers. He has written extensively about the music he plays, and has authored three e-books. Mr. Biss’s projects, including his decade-long Beethoven immersion, represent his complete approach to music-making and connecting his audience to his own passion for the music. Previous projects have included an exploration of composers' “Late Style” in various concert programs at Carnegie Hall, the Barbican Centre, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and San Francisco Performances. He also published the Kindle Single Coda on the topic. Schumann: Under the Influence was a 30-concert exploration of the composer's role in musical history, for which Mr. Biss also recorded Schumann and Dvořák piano quintets with the Elias String Quartet and wrote A Pianist Under the Influence. Mr. Biss represents the third generation in a family of professional musicians that includes his grandmother Raya Garbousova, one of the first well-known female cellists (for whom Samuel Barber composed his Cello Concerto), and his parents, violinist Miriam Fried and violist/violinist Paul Biss. Growing up surrounded by music, Mr. Biss began his piano studies at age six, and his first musical collaborations were with his mother and father. He studied with Evelyne Brancart at Indiana University and with Leon Fleisher at the Curtis Institute of Music. He has since appeared with major orchestras around the world, including in the U.S. with the Los Angeles and New York Philharmonics; the Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco Symphonies; and the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras. He has also been recognized with numerous honors, including Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, the 2003 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, and the 2002 Gilmore Young Artist Award.

Peter Myers, cello. From a musical family (his parents and siblings are all musicians), Peter Myers studied with two of the finest teachers in the country, Ronald Leonard and Ralph Kirshbaum, and is a graduate of the Colburn Conservatory and USC. Before settling in San Francisco, he enjoyed the traveling musician’s life, concertizing in Japan, Mongolia, Laos, and Pakistan, as well as performing in this country with the Marlboro Music Festival and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. As early as 2013, Peter had his sights set on joining the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, but an opening in the cello section did not occur until 2017. After a vigorous and taxing three-round audition, he was selected from a field of 110 applicants to fill the coveted position. Our Music Director at the time, Nicola Luisotti, was very taken with Peter’s playing, and strongly expressed his pleasure and enthusiasm at welcoming a musician of his caliber to the orchestra. Entrepreneurial spirit was evident from his student days. He founded two ensembles, the Saguaro Piano Trio (saguarotrio.com) and the SAKURA Cello Quintet (sakuracellos.com), the latter being one of the most unusual and arresting groups before the public today. The SAKURA video of Debussy’s “The Girl with the Flaxen Hair,” in Peter’s own arrangement, is a wonderful example of his ability on the cello, his skill at arranging, and the quintet’s overall artistry, both individually and as an ensemble.

Rubén Rengel, violin. Earning praise from the New York Concert Review and The Boston Globe, violinist Rubén Rengel is quickly gaining recognition as a prominent artist. He was winner of the Robert Frederick Smith Prize at the 2018 Sphinx Competition, and has appeared as a soloist with the symphonies of Philadelphia, Detroit, Houston, New Jersey, Vermont, Oakland, and Venezuela. An avid chamber musician, Rubén has performed with artists such as Joseph Silverstein, Pamela Frank, Peter Wiley, David Shifrin, Joel Krosnick, Timothy Eddy, and Gilbert Kalish. He has appeared at The Perlman Music Program, Brevard Music Center Summer Festival, Evnin Rising Stars at the Caramoor Center, and Music@Menlo. In addition to classical music, Rubén enjoys performing Venezuelan folk music and jazz. He also has a strong interest in conducting and enjoys performing as a violist. Rubén’s teachers and mentors include Iván Pérez Núñez, Jaime Laredo, Paul Kantor, and Mark Steinberg. As part of his fellowship with Ensemble Connect, Rubén teaches at Celia Cruz Bronx High School of Music in the Bronx.