Chamber Concerts Features String Quintets

Chamber Concert Features String Quintets on November 26

November 13, 2018

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SOCORRO, N.M. – Willie and Friends are back for the second concert in the 2018-19 Presidential Chamber Music Series sponsored by NM Tech President Dr. Stephen Wells. On tap for the concert beginning at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 26, is a piano and strings quintet featuring the music of Dvořák and Dohnányi.

The program is offered through NM Tech’s Performing Arts Series (PAS) and is free to all. Families are encouraged to attend.

Violist Sucre (pictured at right) isa longtime recognized and popular musician and the face of the Willie and Friends musical ensembles. Joining him for this concert are violinists Krzysztof Zimowski and Julanie Collier, Joan Zucker on cello and pianist Sandra Rivers.

“These Presidential Chamber Music programs are a wonderful way to introduce children to the magic of music and instrumentation,” said PAS Director Ronna Kalish. “We’re very grateful to Dr. Wells whose support enables us to offer this classical music program free of charge; and to the faithful who truly are the backbone of the PAS program.”

The evening’s program features Piano Quintet No. 1 in C minor, Op. 1 by Ernõ Dohnányi; and Piano Quintet No. 2 in A Major, Op. 81.

Click here to visit the PAS website.

“Willie and Friends have again arranged for a delightful evening of classical music featuring Dohnányi, a Hungarian composer, and Dvořák, a Czech composer, as the series continues its international tour, this time with Eastern European contemporaries,” Kalish said.

Ernő Dohnányi (July 27, 1877 – February 9, 1960) used a German form of his name, Ernst von Dohnányi, on most of his published compositions. He was born in Pozsony, Kingdom of Hungary, Austria-Hungary (today Bratislava, capital of Slovakia) and first studied music with his father, a professor of mathematics and an amateur cellist; later, at eight, with an organist at the local cathedral. At 17, Dohnáni moved to Budapest to study piano and composition at the Royal National Hungarian Academy of Music.

His Piano Quintet in C minor, Dohnányi's first published composition, earned the approval of Johannes Brahms, who promoted the work in Vienna. He made his debut in Berlin in 1897, at once recognized as an artist of high merit. Similar successes followed, including his American debut with the St. Louis Symphony.

Dohnányi’s compositional style was personal, but very conservative. Although he used elements of Hungarian folk music, he is not considered a nationalist composer like Béla Bartók or Zoltán Kodály. Some characterize his style as traditional mainstream Euro-Germanic in the Brahmsian manner, rather than specifically Hungarian; others hear very little of Brahms in his music.

Antonín Dvořák (September 8, 1841 – May 1, 1904), after Bedřich Smetana, was the second Czech Romantic-era composer to achieve worldwide recognition. Following Smetana's example, Dvořák frequently employed rhythms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia.

His musical gifts were recognized early, being an apt violin student from age six. The first public performances of his works were in Prague in 1872 and, with special success in 1873, when he was 31.

The worlds of Dohnányi and Dvořák dovetailed through Brahms, who recommended Dvořák to his publisher, Simrock, who soon afterward commissioned what became the Slavonic Dances, Op. 46, and Dvořák’s international reputation was launched at last.

In 1892, Dvořák moved to the United States and became the director of the National Conservatory of Music of America in New York City. But shortfalls in salary, along with increasing recognition in Europe and homesickness, led him to leave the states and return to Bohemia in 1895. He has been described as “arguably the most versatile... composer of his time.”

The Guest Musicians

Krzysztof Zimowski

Violinist Krzysztof Zimowski (pictured at right) is concertmaster of the New Mexico Philharmonic and Opera Southwest Orchestra. For more than a decade, he was the concertmaster and featured soloist of the former New Mexico Symphony Orchestra. Born in Wroclaw, Poland, he began his musical studies at the age of six.

In 1977, Zimowski received his master’s degree with honors from the Academy of Music in Wroclaw, later continuing his studies in London. He moved to New Mexico in 1986 to help, with Sucre, form the Helios String Quartet, the onetime artist-in-residence at NM Tech and ensemble-in-residence with the Placitas Artists Series.

Julanie Collier Lee

Julanie Collier Lee, also on violin, joins Willy Sucre and Friends for a third season. Pictured at right, Collier Lee is a member of the New Mexico Philharmonic, performs with Opera Southwest, and maintains a teaching studio. Lee was a member of both the New Mexico Symphony and the Chamber Orchestra of Albuquerque.

She graduated from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and attended Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Lee has played with several orchestras and has summer festival experience. She serves on the leadership committee of the New Mexico Philharmonic Player’s Association and is the American Federation of Musicians Local 618 Union Representative for the NM Philharmonic.

Joan Zucker

Joan Zucker (pictured at righ) is the principal cellist of the New Mexico Philharmonic. She has been a major player in the New Mexico music scene for the past 30 years. She was principal cellist of the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra from 1987 to 2010, and has played with many of New Mexico’s finest ensembles, from the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and Opera, to Pro Musica and Chatter.

Zucker has performed as concerto soloist and recitalist, and in numerous chamber groups and orchestras in the United States and Venezuela.  She recently started a business, “Cello to Go,” giving intimate, informal house concerts of eclectic music she has arranged for solo cello, followed by mini cello lessons for those brave enough to try her 230-year-old Banks cello. A native New Yorker, she holds music degrees from Bennington College and Ithaca College.

Sandra Rivers 

Pianist Sandra Rivers enjoys a reputation as one of the foremost performing artists of her generation. Pictured at right, she has concertized throughout the world, including the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, and on the Great Performers Series at Lincoln Center. She has performed in most of the major halls in the world.

Rivers, who has recently appeared with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Oakland East Bay Symphony Orchestra and the Wilmington Community Orchestra, made her debut in London, England with members of the Serafin String Quartet. Currently on the keyboard faculty of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, she is a Steinway Artist and the artistic coordinator for the CCM/Steinway Recital Series in New York City.

Violist Sucre is a member of the New Mexico Philharmonic and the driving force behind the “Willy Sucre & Friends” concerts. Born in La Paz, Bolivia, Sucre studied at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música in La Paz; Colby College Chamber Music Institute in Waterville, Maine; Mannes School of Music in New York; and the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland.

As a chamber musician, Sucre was the founder of the Cuarteto Boliviano, guest violist with various chamber music ensembles, and for 10 years the violist of the Helios String Quartet. He spends most of his summers in South America looking for new works of chamber music by modern composers and encouraging composers to write new pieces, especially piano quartets. And he clearly enjoys performing with ensembles of diverse instrumentation.

“On behalf of President Wells and our entire PAS family, we welcome one and all to the concert,” Kalish said. “And, again, all are invited to meet the musicians afterward.”

Free concert highlights piano, violins, viola, cello