Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective to Make U.S. Debut At Shriver Hall Concert Series

Shriver Hall Concert Series (SHCS) — Baltimore's premier presenter of chamber music ensembles and solo recitalists — is excited to welcome Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective in its much anticipated U.S. debut on Sunday, December 3, 2023 at 5:30pm. The collective, co-founded by Elena Urioste and Tom Poster, has American and British membership, and is the Associate Ensemble of London's renowned Wigmore Hall. Following its debut U.S. recital at Shriver Hall, Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective continues its tour of the U.S. at Kaufman Music Center in NYC on December 12 and with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society on December 13, among other venues.

The program includes major quintets from two historical American composers, Amy Beach and Florence Price, both glorious works of lyricism and virtuosity, in addition to compositions by Franz Schubert and George Walker.

Quintet for Piano and Strings in A minor was Price's second contribution to the genre. At the time of the composer's death, much of her music remained unpublished and many of her manuscripts had simply disappeared, their whereabouts unknown. It wasn't until 2009 that a cache of them (including two lost symphonies) was discovered in the attic of an abandoned house in Illinois. It took another decade until the publisher G. Schirmer/Music Sales acquired the rights to her music and – beginning from 2018 – started to distribute it internationally. The Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective is notable for being the first to record Quintet for Piano and Strings in A minor – which can be heard on its 2021 debut album American Quintets (Chandos Records), also anchored by Beach's well-known Quintet for Piano and Strings in F-sharp minor, a milestone in American chamber literature that reflects the strong influence of the music of Brahms. American Quintets was nominated for a BBC Music Magazine Award and described as “performed with [...] courage, erudition and aplomb” by Gramophone.

The Adagio and Rondo concertante for Piano and Strings, D. 487 was composed by Schubert in 1816. The work is designed as a display piece for the piano soloist and is one of the few works Schubert wrote in this style. Schubert's Adagio and Rondo concertante for Piano and Strings is his first complete composition for piano and string ensemble, preceding the Trout Quintet by three years. Lyric for Strings is a musical composition written by the American composer George Walker. It was first composed as the second movement of Walker's String Quartet No. 1 in 1946 and originally titled Lament. In 1990, Walker expanded the work for string orchestra, retitling it Lyric for Strings; the arrangement became Walker's most-performed composition.

Elena Urioste and Tom Poster, Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective co-founders and directors, share: “We could not be more excited to be embarking on our first US tour with Kaleidoscope – for Elena this feels like something of a homecoming, having been raised in Philadelphia and studied there and in New York. For both of us, it's the hugest privilege to bring our ensemble, which was conceived and has bloomed largely across the pond, to some of the east coast's most prestigious venues, kicking off the festivities at the illustrious Shriver Hall Concert Series in Baltimore. We hope this is the first of many trips to the States with some of our most beloved friends and colleagues, sharing music – this time around by Florence Price, Amy Beach, George Walker and more – that we feel so passionately about!”

Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, which was founded in 2017, has been described as a “sparky, shape-shifting ensemble of starry young musicians” (Arts Desk). Its most recent recording of works by Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn was named one of the best of 2022 by The Times (London) and Gramophone, while its 2021 debut album of Beach, Barber, and Price works featured the world premiere recording of the Price quintet, which had only been discovered in archives in 2009. The Arts Fuse raved, “The KCC digs into the music throughout, ably illuminating its busy textures and troves of tunes” and Klassik wrote, “you can hardly wish for better recordings”.

Preceding Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective's performance at Shriver Hall will be the acclaimed Takács Quartet on Sunday, November 19, 2023 at 5:30pm in the Baltimore premiere of flow by Nokuthula Ngwenyama, also a SHCS co-commission. The following concert in SHCS' 23-24 season features soprano Julia Bullock and pianist Bretton Brown on Sunday, January 14, 2024 at 5:30pm with works by Francis Poulenc, Kurt Weill, and more.

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Concert Information

Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective (U.S. Debut)
Sunday, December 3, 2023 at 5:30pm
Shriver Hall | 3400 N. Charles Street | Baltimore, MD 21218
Tickets: $46 Single Tickets and $10 Students
Link: https://www.shriverconcerts.org/kcc

Franz Schubert: Adagio and Rondo concertante for Piano and Strings, D. 487
AMY BEACH: Quintet for Piano and Strings in F-sharp minor, Op. 67
George Walker: Lyric for Strings
Florence Price: Quintet for Piano and Strings in A minor

Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective
     Elena Urioste, violin
     Melissa White, violin
     Juan-Miguel Hernandez, viola
     Laura van der Heijden, cello
     Tom Poster, piano

A Pre-Concert Talk by The Peabody Institute's Jessica Hunt will take place at 4:30pm in Shriver Hall

The Yale Gordon Young Artist Concert

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About Shriver Hall Concert Series

For more than 50 years, Shriver Hall Concert Series (SHCS) has been “Baltimore's finest importer of classical music talent” (The Baltimore Sun) and the area's premier presenter of chamber music ensembles and solo recitalists with a mission to craft performances and educational programs at the highest level of excellence. A 5-time recipient of Baltimore Magazine's distinction “Best Classical Music” in its annual “Best of Baltimore” issue, the coveted subscription series features many of the world's most renowned soloists and ensembles, presented in The Johns Hopkins University's Shriver Hall.

Founded in 1966 by Dr. Ernest Bueding, a pharmacologist at The Johns Hopkins University, and a group of similarly dedicated music enthusiasts, SHCS set out to make an important contribution to the vitality of an already vibrant city. When flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal walked onto the stage of Shriver Hall for the first concert, more than 1,100 people witnessed the launch of what is now recognized as a remarkable success story: Shriver Hall Concert Series. In the succeeding years SHCS has presented hundreds of acclaimed and emerging International Artists in classical chamber music and recitals and a legacy of important debuts and premieres. In addition, SHCS collaborates with local schools and subsidizes hundreds of student tickets each season.

The list of artists presented by SHCS is remarkable—Radu Lupu, Murray Perahia, Ewa Podlés, Maurizio Pollini, Jacqueline du Pré, Mstislav Rostropovich, Jordi Savall, András Schiff, Rudolf Serkin, Janos Starker, Daniil Trifonov, Lynn Harrell, Emmanuel Ax, Alban Berg Quartet, Guarneri Quartet, Kronos Quartet, Cleveland Quartet, and Quartetto Italiano, among many others. SHCS also has a history of championing important musicians early in their careers, including Richard Goode, Hilary Hahn, Hélène Grimaud, Dawn Upshaw, Lang Lang, and the Emerson String Quartet. Commissioned composers include Timo Andres, Sebastian Currier, Jonathan Leshnoff, James Lee III, Han Lash, Caroline Shaw, and Nina C. Young.

Designed specifically for the community, SHCS offers the Discovery Series, a series of free concerts presented in venues throughout the region focused on artists emerging on the national and international scene. Artists featured include Narek Hakhnazaryan, Colin Currie, Xavier Foley, Eric Lu, and the Dover Quartet. SHCS also offers the annual Spring Lecture Series, a series of free talks focused on annual topics related to the intersection of music and society, and a variety of student programs.

For more information, visit www.shriverconcerts.org.

About Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective

Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, hailed for its “exhilarating performances” (The Times), was dreamed up in 2017 by Tom Poster and Elena Urioste, who met through the BBC New Generation Artists Scheme. Kaleidoscope's flexible roster features many of today's most inspirational musicians, both instrumentalists and singers, and its creative programming is marked by an ardent commitment to celebrating diversity of all forms and a desire to unearth lesser-known gems of the repertoire.

In 2020, Kaleidoscope was appointed Associate Ensemble at Wigmore Hall, where the group makes multiple appearances each season, and was invited to give the Hall's 120th birthday concert in May 2021. Kaleidoscope broadcasts regularly on BBC Radio 3 and has recently been ensemble-in-residence at Aldeburgh Festival, Kettle's Yard, Ischia Music Festival, and Cheltenham Festival, where the group gave several world premieres and collaborated with Sir Simon Russell Beale and the cast of The Lehman Trilogy.

Kaleidoscope's debut recording for Chandos Records, American Quintets, features music by Amy Beach, Florence Price, and Samuel Barber. It received glowing reviews and a BBC Music Magazine Award nomination, and immediately led to an invitation to record a series of albums for the label. Two further albums, featuring chamber music by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn, were released in summer 2023 to widespread critical acclaim, with all three of Kaleidoscope's albums so far being awarded Editor's Choice in Gramophone. It's fourth album, Transfigured, featuring music of Arnold Schoenberg, Alexander von Zemlinsky, Anton Webern, and Alma Mahler, was released in September 2023, with a three-disc series of the piano quartets of Johannes Brahms and his female contemporaries to follow.

Passionate about inspiring the next generation of musicians, Kaleidoscope has featured in Wigmore Hall's Learning Festival, directed courses for the Benedetti Foundation, and held a visiting professorship at the Royal Academy of Music for the 2022-23 academic year. Recent performance highlights include concerts in London and Dortmund with Hilary Hahn and a debut at the BBC Proms.

Image at top of release: Headshots by Chris Gloag, Jason Joyce