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Series generously underwritten by Rob Diefenbach in loving memory of Ruth DeNoyelles Diefenbach

Individual concert sponsored by Jerry & Gaile Greenhoot

Chamber Music Series Presents:

Ehnes String Quartet

with pianist Andrew Armstrong

Inaugural debut of our new Steinway & Sons Grand Piano!

Program

Joseph Haydn: String Quartet Op.77, No. 1

Robert Schumann – String Quartet Op. 4, No.1

Antonín Dvořák: Piano Quintet No. 2, Op. 81

About the Musicians:

James Ehnes, Violin

James Ehnes is recognized as one of the world’s foremost violinists, and is a favorite guest of many of the world’s most celebrated orchestras and concert halls. Recent orchestral highlights include the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, London Symphony, Gedwandhausorchester Leipzig, New York Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Chicago Symphony, Orchestre National de France, Cleveland Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Sydney Symphony, and Hong Kong Philharmonic. Alongside his concerto work, Ehnes maintains a busy recital schedule and performs regularly at Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall, Symphony Center Chicago, and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. In 2010, he established the Ehnes Quartet, with whom he has performed throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.

Ehnes has an extensive discography of over 40 CDs and has won many awards for his recordings, including a Gramophone Award, two GRAMMY Awards and 11 JUNO awards. He began violin studies at the age of four, made his orchestral debut with l’Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal at age 13 and graduated from The Juilliard School in 1997, winning the Peter Mennin Prize for Outstanding Achievement and Leadership in Music. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a Member of the Order of Canada, and has received honorary degrees from Brandon University and the University of British Columbia. James Ehnes plays the “Marsick” Stradivarius of 1715.

AmySchwartz Moretti, Violin

Amy Schwartz Moretti has a distinguished musical career of broad versatility. Since 2007, she has been Director of the McDuffie Center for Strings and has developed the Fabian Concert Series; she also holds the Caroline Paul King Chair, teaching in the Mercer University Townsend School of Music. A performing artist with an affinity for chamber music, she enjoys touring with the Ehnes Quartet and maintains an active schedule of solo, chamber and concertmaster appearances. Recent performances include the 2019 premiere of Schmitz’s Violin Concerto written for her. Her other festival appearances this summer include Bridgehampton, ChamberFest Cleveland, La Jolla, Meadowmount, and Manchester Music Festival. Moretti is former concertmaster of the Oregon Symphony and Florida Orchestra. She has served as guest concertmaster for the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Houston, Pittsburgh; the New York Pops and Hawaii Pops; and the festival orchestras of Brevard, Colorado and Grand Teton. The Cleveland Institute of Music has recognized her with an Alumni Achievement Award and she is the 2014 San Francisco Conservatory of Music Fanfare Honoree. In December 2018, Moretti was selected as one of Musical America’s “Top 30 Professionals of the Year.

Che-Yen Chen, Viola

Taiwanese-American violist Che-Yen Chen is a founding member of the Formosa Quartet and First-Prize winner of the 2006 London International String Quartet Competition. He was awarded the First-Prize in the 2003 Primrose International Viola Competition and the “President Prize” of the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition. Chen’s recordings can be found on EMI, Delos, and New World Records, and his recent recording of Bach’s sonatas for viola da gamba is released on Aeolian Classics. Having served as principal violist of the San Diego Symphony and Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Chen has appeared as guest principal with Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra, and Toronto Symphony. A former member of Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society Two, and participant of the Marlboro Festival and the Steans Institute for Young Artists at Ravinia, he is also a member of Camera Lucida and The Myriad Trio. Performing in chamber music festivals across North America and Asia, Chen appears frequently at the Kingston Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music International, La Jolla Summerfest, Art of Elan, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Hong Kong Chamber Music Festival, and National Youth Orchestra of Canada where the Formosa Quartet serves as faculty quartet-in-residence. He currently serves as a viola professor at USC Thornton School of Music.

Edward Aaron, Cello

Cellist Edward Arron made his New York recital debut in 2000 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and has since appeared in recital, as a soloist with major orchestras, and as a chamber musician throughout North America, Europe and Asia. The 2019-20 season marks Arron’s eleventh season as the artistic director and host of the Musical Masterworks concert series in Old Lyme, CT. He is also the Artistic Director of the Festival Series in Beaufort, SC, and is the co-Artistic Director with his wife, pianist Jeewon Park, of the Performing Artists in Residence series at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA. With violinists James Ehnes and Amy Schwartz Moretti, and violist Richard O’Neill, Arron tours as a member of the Ehnes Quartet. He appears regularly at the Caramoor International Music Festival, where he has been a resident performer and curator for over a quarter of a century. A graduate of The Juilliard School, Arron currently serves on the faculty at University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Andrew Armstrong, Piano

Praised by critics for his passionate expression and dazzling technique, pianist Andrew

Armstrong has delighted audiences across Asia, Europe, Latin America, Canada, and the United States, including performances at Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, and Warsaw’s National

Philharmonic.

Andrew’s orchestral engagements across the globe have encompassed a vast repertoire of more than 60 concertos with orchestra. He has performed with such conductors as Peter Oundjian, Itzhak Perlman, Günther Herbig, Stefan Sanderling, Jean-Marie Zeitouni, and Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, and has appeared in solo recitals and in chamber music concerts with the Ehnes, Elias, Alexander, American, and Manhattan String Quartets, and as a member of the Caramoor Virtuosi, Boston Chamber Music Society, Seattle Chamber Music Society, and the JupiterSymphony Chamber Players.

Andrew’s upcoming 2023-24 season looks especially fun: solo recitals in Glasgow and Edinburgh, Scotland and in Norwich, England; concerts with the Barbican String Quartet in the UK & EU; violin recitals with James Ehnes at London’s Wigmore Hall, as well as Cambridge, Oxford, and at Ann Arbor’s University of Michigan; more violin recitals with Arnaud Sussmann in Hong Kong; Chamber Music in Halifax, NS & Portland, ME; Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto with the South Carolina Philharmonic; release of Andrew’s solo album featuring Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, Julia Perry, William Grant Still, and Aaron Jay Kernis; and a new recording session for the album “Home-Away-Home.”

The last two seasons have taken Andy throughout Europe with performances in Glasgow at the

Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, London at Wigmore Hall, Geneva at the Conservatoire de

Musique de Geneve and at the Dresden Music Festival. He crisscrossed Canada with concerts in Halifax, Nova Scotia at the Scotia Fest, Montreal at the Festival Musique de Chambre and

Vancouver at the Vancouver Chamber Music Society. And after joining James Ehnes to perform the complete Beethoven Violin Sonata cycle within Melbourne, Australia as well as a duo recital in Sydney, Andy stopped by Singapore for a solo recital.

In addition to his performance activities, Andrew serves as Artistic Director of several flourishing

chamber music series: Fabbri Chamber Concerts in New York City at the Fabbri Mansion’s 17th century Renaissance library; in Connecticut, New Canaan Chamber Music, which he founded in 2020; and in South Carolina, USC Beaufort’s Chamber Music Series and the Columbia Museum of Art’s Chamber Music on Main. Adding to these efforts in building communities of chamber music appreciation, Andrew will direct two concerts for Chamber Music Charleston and one for Music Worcester (MA) this 23-24 season.

Andrew’s debut solo CD featuring was released to great critical acclaim: “I have heard few pianists play [Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Sonata], recorded or in concert, with such dazzling clarity and confidence” (American Record Guide). He followed that success with a disc on Cordelia Records of works by Chopin, Liszt, Debussy, and the world premiere recording of Bielawa’s Wait for piano & drone. He has released several award-winning recordings with his longtime recital partner James Ehnes — most recently Beethoven’s Sonatas Nos. 7 & 10, to stellar reviews. 

In addition to his many concerts, his performances are heard regularly on National Public Radio, WQXR, New York City’s premier classical music station, and stations across the country.

Andrew Armstrong lives happily in Massachusetts, with his wife Esty, their three children Jack (16), Elise (11), and Gabriel (5), and their two dogs Comet & Dooker.