(MONTCLAIR, NJ) -- Peak Performances’ 2019-2020 season continues with concerts by the “utterly sublime” (The New York Times) Shanghai Quartet with celebrated guest pianist Simone Dinnerstein (October 5) and one of the nation’s most dynamic chamber orchestras, Sphinx Virtuosi (October 6), in a weekend of vibrant classical and new music at the Alexander Kasser Theater at Montclair State University (1 Normal Ave., Montclair, NJ). Each concert is $30; FREE for Montclair State students with ID.
The Detroit-based Sphinx Virtuosi, comprising 18 prizewinning Black and Latinx soloists, makes its Peak Performances debut with a program evoking historical and current struggles for justice and peace, stretching from Venezuela to the American South to Britain to the entirety of our warming planet. The program includes new composition—and titular inspiration—“For Justice and Peace,” by Xavier Foley; Philip Herbert’s requiem for a life lost to violence, “Elegy: In Memoriam – Stephen Lawrence”; Jessie Montgomery’s “Source Code,” an homage to African-American artists in the Civil Rights era; Michael Abels’ ode to the well-being of earth, “Global Warming”; as well as works by Aldemaro Romero, Béla Bartók, Jennifer Higdon, and Franz Schubert. With “immeasurable power, unwavering command, and soulful beauty” (The Washington Post), these talented young artists address our current moment with rare sensitivity and clarity.
The Shanghai Quartet, the quartet-in-residence at Montclair State University’s Cali School of Music, is renowned for its passionate musicality, impressive technique, and distinctive blend of styles, and has become one of the world’s foremost chamber ensembles. Of Billboard classical chart-topping pianist Simone Dinnerstein, The Washington Post writes: “[her] intoxicatingly rich, velvety sound always retains agility and translucence. She risks slow tempos that suspend time without sacrificing the musical thread, and when things heat up the room seems ready to burst into flames. Ultimately, it is Dinnerstein’s unreserved identification with every note she plays that makes her performance so spellbinding.” These two remarkable musical forces come together in a captivating evening of classical music, with a program new to Peak Performances featuring Bedřich Smetana’s Quartet No. 1 “From My Life” and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Piano Quartet in G Minor and Piano Quartet in E-Flat Major. The Shanghai Quartet will return for a second concert later in Peak Performances’ 2019-2020 season, on February 8.
Performance Schedule and Ticketing - The Shanghai Quartet and guest pianist Simone Dinnerstein will perform Saturday, October 5 at 8:00pm and Sphinx Virtuosi will perform Sunday, October 6 at 3:00pm at the Alexander Kasser Theater at Montclair State University (1 Normal Ave, Montclair, NJ).
Immediately after Sphinx Virtuosi’s Sunday, October 6 performance, the audience is invited to join members of the company for reflections and responses.
Tickets for both events are affordably priced at $30, and can be purchased at www.peakperfs.org or 973.655.5112. Tickets are always free for Montclair State students.
Shanghai Quartet - Renowned for its passionate musicality, impressive technique, and multicultural innovations, the Shanghai Quartet has become one of the world’s foremost chamber ensembles. Its elegant style melds the delicacy of Eastern music with the emotional breadth of Western repertoire, allowing it to traverse musical genres including traditional Chinese folk music, masterpieces of Western music, and cutting-edge contemporary works. Formed at the Shanghai Conservatory in 1983, the Quartet has worked with the world’s most distinguished artists and regularly tours the major music centers of Europe, North America, and Asia. Recent festival performances range from the International Music Festivals of Seoul and Beijing to the Festival Pablo Casals in France and the Beethoven Festival in Poland, as well as numerous concerts in all regions of North America.
The Quartet has appeared at Carnegie Hall in chamber performances and with orchestra; in 2006 they gave the premiere of Takuma Itoh’s Concerto for Quartet and Orchestra in Isaac Stern Auditorium. Among their various collaborations with noted artists, they have performed with the Tokyo, Juilliard, and Guarneri Quartets, cellists Yo-Yo Ma and Lynn Harrell, pianists Menahem Pressler, Peter Serkin, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Yuja Wang, pipa virtuoso Wu Man, and the vocal ensemble Chanticleer. The Shanghai Quartet has been a regular performer at many of North America’s leading chamber music festivals, including Maverick Concerts where they recently made their 27th consecutive annual appearance. The Shanghai Quartet currently serves as Quartet-in-Residence at the John J. Cali School of Music, Montclair State University in New Jersey, Ensemble-in-Residence with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, and visiting guest professors of the Shanghai Conservatory and the Central Conservatory in Beijing.
Simone Dinnerstein - American pianist Simone Dinnerstein is known for her “majestic originality of vision” (The Independent) and her “lean, knowing and unpretentious elegance” (The New Yorker).
In 2017 Dinnerstein released the album Mozart in Havana, recorded in Cuba with the Havana Lyceum Orchestra. She went on to bring the orchestra to the United States for their first-ever American tour. In the same year, Dinnerstein premiered a piano concerto written for her by Philip Glass and co-commissioned by twelve orchestras. She will perform the concerto nationally and internationally during 2018 and has recorded it for release in the spring. In 2017 she also collaborated with choreographer Pam Tanowitz on New Work for Goldberg Variations, which featured on the year-end top ten lists of critics at The New York Times and The Boston Globe.
Dinnerstein first attracted attention in 2007 with her self-produced recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. It was a remarkable success, reaching No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Classical Chart, and established Dinnerstein’s distinctive and original approach. The New York Times called her “a unique voice in the forest of Bach interpretation.” Her career has since taken her around the world from Brazil to Japan and she has made a further eight albums with repertoire from Beethoven to Ravel.
Dinnerstein is committed to musical outreach. She plays concerts for the Piatigorsky Foundation, an organization dedicated to bringing classical music to non-traditional venues. Under their auspices she gave the first classical music performance in the Louisiana state prison system at the Avoyelles Correctional Center. She also runs her own concert series supporting music education in public schools and brings a digital keyboard into elementary school classrooms across the country through her Bachpacking initiative. Dinnerstein is on the faculty of the Mannes School of Music and lives in Brooklyn with her husband, son and Old English Sheepdog, Daisy.
Sphinx Virtuosi - Since its founding in 2004, Sphinx Virtuosi has defined itself as the most diverse professional chamber orchestra in the country. The dynamism in this ensemble’s approach to music-making offers an experience of unmatched vibrancy for seasoned and new audiences alike. Comprising 18 of the nation's top Black and Latinx classical soloists, these artists tour annually as cultural ambassadors to communities far and wide.
This unique self-conducted ensemble earned rave reviews from The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Sun Times, and more. The New York Times described their performance as “first-rate in every way…producing a more beautiful, precise and carefully shaped sound than some fully professional orchestras that come through Carnegie Hall in the course of the year.” Since their Carnegie debut in 2004, Sphinx Virtuosi have returned annually from 2006 performing to sold-out halls and earning outstanding reviews. At once a bridge between communities of color and the classical music establishment, Sphinx Virtuosi continue to garner critical acclaim during their annual national tours to many of the leading venues around the country. Inspired by Sphinx’s overarching mission of transforming lives through the power of diversity in the arts, the Sphinx Virtuosi works to advance the social impact of music upon our greater society. Dedicated to new music, the ensemble has pioneered the discovery of work by composers of color to expand the canon and amplify new and important voices. Collaborations with composers like Michael Abels, Kareem Roustom, Jimmy Lopez, Gabriela Lena Frank, Jessie Montgomery, Daniel Bernard Roumain, Terence Blanchard, and Xavier Foley are among many exciting highlights. Masterworks by Shostakovich, Bartok, Schubert, Jennifer Higdon, John Adams, Bach, and Mozart are often woven into the carefully curated programs, which combine risk, exploration, and homage. They have also collaborated with Denyce Graves, Sweet Honey in The Rock, Joshua Bell, Pinchas Zukerman, Chicago Children’s Choir, Damien Sneed, and others.
As individual artists, Sphinx Virtuosi have performed as soloists with America's major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland, Detroit, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestras. Members also hold professional orchestral positions, and several have been named Laureates of other prestigious international competitions, including the Queen Elizabeth and Yehudi Menuhin. Roster members are graduates of the nation’s top music schools, including Juilliard, Curtis and Cleveland Institutes of Music, Eastman School, and beyond. The Sphinx Virtuosi’s first recording was released on the White Pine label and features music of Mendelssohn, Sibelius, Gabriela Lena Frank, and George Walker. Sphinx Virtuosi are passionate about empowering the next generation of artists and audiences, and as such, enjoy building interactive, bi-lingual (English/Spanish) programs and working with schools in underrepresented communities.
About Peak Performances - Under the artistic direction of ACP’s Executive Director, Jedediah Wheeler, PEAK Performances has achieved international recognition for presenting and producing innovative works in dance, music theater and opera. With a celebrated emphasis on interdisciplinary work, PEAK hosted 75 World and American Premieres since 2005. Notable among the artists whose work has been seen on the Alexander Kasser Theater stage are Richard Alston, David Rousseve, Bill T Jones, Camille A. Brown, Wayne MacGregor, Robyn Orlin, Romeo Castelucci, Crystal Pite, Liz Gerring, Faye Driscoll, Angelica Liddell, Jan Fabre, Emma Dante, and Pam Tanowitz.
Robert Wilson conceived and directed The Life of Clementine Hunter for the Kasser stage and has also directed Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape with himself in the title role. Writer, director, designer, and choreographer David Gordon revived his production of Robert Brustein’s seminal musical, Schlemiel the First. PEAK commissions work notably Dog Days by David T. Little and Royce Vavrek, Spinning by Maya Beiser, Julia Wolfe and Laurie Olinder, Leonora and Alejandro by Stacy Klein for Double Edge Theater and My Coma Dreams by Fred Hersch. Companies making their American debuts include Gandini Juggling (UK), Via Katlehong (South Africa), Inbal Oshman (Israel), Charlotte Vincent (UK) and Raphaelle Boitel (France). By bringing together artists of uncommon imagination with diverse audi-ences of adventuresome spirit, PEAK promotes a greater appreciation of human possibility.
Peak Performances is a program of the Office of Arts + Cultural Programming at Montclair State University and has been honored by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts with an Arts Citation of Excellence and Designation of Major Impact. Programs in this season are made possible in part by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.
