Three Works By Robert Chumbley to be Presented at New York City's Tenri Cultural Institute

American composer Robert Chumbley is being celebrated in a concert on Friday evening, October 25, 2024, 7 p.m. at New York City's Tenri Cultural Institute. A highlight will be the world premiere of his Serenade for clarinet, cello, and piano; the balance of the program includes the New York premiere of 5 Bagatelles for solo piano; and "Brahmsiana II" for solo piano. The concert concludes with a performance of the celebrated Brahms Trio for clarinet, cello, and piano, Op. 114. The full program follows:

Robert Chumbley, Serenade for clarinet, cello and piano (world premiere)

Robert Chumbley, 5 Bagatelles for solo piano (New York premiere)

Robert Chumbley, "Brahmsiana II" for solo piano

Intermission

Johannes Brahms, Trio for clarinet, cello and piano, Op. 114

The works will be performed by noted soloists, including pianist Steven Masi, clarinetist Diana Petrella, and cellist Barbara Stein Mallow. Tickets at $40 and student tickets at $15 are available on the Eventbrite page and at the door at Tenri on the night of the performance, for more information, please visit composer Robert Chumbley's website.

Robert Chumbley's compositions have been praised by numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, and Cleveland Plain Dealer. In a recent American Record Guide review, his Piano Quartet was described as being "a good example of eclectic modern American writing; colorful, clear-textured, balancing rhythmic excitement and introspection." One of the most versatile musicians of our day, Robert Chumbley has dedicated his life to composing and conducting for the musical theatre, opera, ballet, chamber music, and the symphony.

Reviewing the world premiere of Three More Self Studies for violin, horn, cello, piano, and percussion, The Chicago Tribune praised: "Robert Chumbley evoked a much larger ensemble than the five players in Three More Self Studies might have suggested. His quintet fairly dripped with theatrical imagery and rhetoric. Chumbley used his material and instruments wisely, gradually expanding melodic fragments into full-size tunes, and reforming subgroups as the dramatic focus shifted."

Mr. Chumbley has served as Music Director for Atlanta Ballet and Cleveland Opera. He has appeared as a guest conductor for the American Repertory Ballet, the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, the Royal Ballet Orchestra (London), the Carolina Chamber Symphony, the Winston-Salem Symphony, and the Prague Chamber Orchestra. He has served as Principal Guest Conductor of the renowned Piedmont Wind Symphony and as Artistic Advisor for the Chicago Chamber Musicians.

His compositions have been commissioned throughout Europe and the United States and have been performed by such organizations as the Atlanta Ballet, North Carolina Symphony, Omaha Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Warsaw Philharmonic, Piedmont Wind Symphony, Chicago Chamber Musicians, Broyhill Chamber Ensemble, Boston Conservatory Chamber Players, the Da Vinci Trio, WGBH Radio (Boston, on a commission from Very Special Arts Massachusetts,) and major international music festivals including An Appalachian Summer, North American New Music Festival, MANCA New Music Festival (Nice, France,) Nestle/Musical Encounters Festival (Lisbon, Portugal,) and ArtsIgnite! He has written incidental theatrical music and three large-scale ballets. His works are recorded on Centaur, Navona, and Parma Records.

In 1989, Mr. Chumbley won the Composer Fellowship Prize presented by the North Carolina Arts Council and followed that award with the Composer Fellow Prize from the Nebraska Arts Council in 1993. In 1989 he was honored by a major grant from Opera America for the initial commission and development of his opera Ordinary People for the Piedmont Opera and the Des Moines Metro Opera. In 1992, Opera America awarded him another grant for a second workshop production. The opera received a full semi-staged production from the Maryland Opera Studio in 2008. Mr. Chumbley has also been the recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation grant, the Irwin Friendlich Prize at the William Kapell International Piano Competition, and First Prize at the International Musical Showcase Competition.

Recent performances of Mr. Chumbley's works include the world premiere and New York City premiere of his Particle I for solo cello (Millikin University, March 2017; Lincoln Center, June, 2017). The Letter for baritone voice and orchestra was premiered by Sinfonia da Camera, Ian Hobson conductor, at the Krannert Center for the Arts at the University of Illinois in October, 2015. Mr. Hobson also premiered his Three Etudes for solo piano at Merkin Concert Hall in New York City in January, 2016. Reviewing the Three Etudes, George Grella of New York Classical Review, wrote:

Chumbley's piece is modeled after Chopin, but strays in subtle ways, as if honoring the master while quietly asserting its own path. While the sound of cascading, arpeggiated chords is familiar from Chopin, the formal design is more settled. These are etudes, not preludes, answers rather than questions. Chumbley's reaction to the technical demands of Chopin's composing was to dig in deeper. Rushing sequences of parallel chords spiraled toward a crunchy harmonic and emotional complexity. The music sounded as if it found Chopin both compelling and maddening, a wonderful response to the Polish composer's unique complexities.

Mr. Hobson also premiered Brahmsiana II (three intermezzi) for piano at his Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall recital in March 2019.

On a commission from the Dranoff Two Piano Foundation and the Chicago Duo Piano Festival, Chumbley's work Cries and Whispers was premiered in Miami in 2018 and in Chicago in 2021. Millikin University and pianist Silvan Negrutiu commissioned and premiered Five Bagatelles in 2019. Millikin University also commissioned his work for cello and wind symphony, Particle II, and presented the premiere in 2018. A third commission from the university resulted in Songs of the Siren for cello and piano, premiered by cellist Amy Catron and pianist Silvan Negrutiu in 2020.

On the heels of the success of Mr. Chumbley's first opera, Ordinary People, Abilene Christian University Opera Theater commissioned his second opera, Hidden Jewel. The opera, which story centers on the love affair between a German army officer and a Jewish girl during World War II, was premiered in a fully staged production in 2018. In 2019 the Carson McCullers Center for Writers and Musicians awarded Mr. Chumbley the operatic rights to McCullers' masterpiece novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. In collaboration with librettist and McCullers scholar, Carey Scott Wilkerson, portions of the work were presented in a workshop at Millikin University in 2021.

Mr. Chumbley's appearances as solo pianist have included invitations from Carnegie Hall, the 92nd Street in New York, and the U.S. Congress and the Ford Foundation for President Bill Clinton's second inauguration. He has appeared as soloist with the North Carolina Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, Lincoln Symphony, Symphony of the Americas, and the Orchestre Provence in Nice, France, among others. He has given the world and North American premieres of works by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Michael Colgrass-Tales of Power for solo piano at the 92nd St. Y and Memento for 2 Pianos with the Minnesota Orchestra and conductor Leonard Slatkin, and Alfred Schnittke with the Buffalo Philharmonic with conductor Gerhardt Zimmermann.

Mr. Chumbley has served on the faculties of Appalachian State University, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and the State University of New York at Buffalo. He is a graduate of the North Carolina School of the Arts and the Juilliard School.

Acclaimed as an artist of unusual sensitivity and virtuosity, pianist Steven Masi has concertized extensively throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. He has appeared at the Casals Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Chautauqua Festival, Park City International Festival, Central Vermont Chamber Music Festival, and Music Festival of the Hamptons. His many orchestral appearances have included series with the Atlanta Symphony, the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, and the New Symphony Orchestra of London. In Germany, he was an artist member of the Bonn Chamber Music Society.

Mr. Masi's 2017 ten-disc recording of the complete Beethoven Sonatas for Piano has been greeted with praise in the press. Fanfare Magazine's Mark Medwin wrote, "For breathtaking virtuosity serving safe interpretations well inside established lines, we are spoiled for choice, but rarer is the offering of insight via a unified vision of this extraordinary body of work. This is Masi's crowning achievement." His 2019 recording, Brahmsiana on Navona Records was a look at new music inspired by Brahms coupled with operas 117 and 118. Cinemusical commented, "Masi's performances equally focus on the reflective and nostalgic... and help the listener begin to hear the connections between the modern retellings and reimagining of Brahms' original works which are lovingly played."

A graduate of the Juilliard School, Mr. Masi lives in Leonia, New Jersey with his wife, clarinetist Diana Petrella and son Aidan.

Clarinetist Diana Petrella has been acclaimed for her beautiful sound and intensely musical interpretations of the chamber music repertoire. She received her Bachelor and Master degrees of Music from Canterbury Christchurch University in the United Kingdom. She was co-principal clarinet of the Cambridge Philharmonic Orchestra and while in that position performed extensively as a recitalist and chamber musician throughout Great Britain. Ms. Petrella toured internationally as a member of the Campbell Clarinet Quartet and in the United States in duo recitals with her husband, pianist Steven Masi. She taught in Christchurch University in Canterbury.

She was an international bicycle racer competing for Great Britain, winning national titles for two consecutive years.

Her teachers have included Leon Russianoff, David Campbell, and Herb Blayman. She has been on the faculties of the JCC Thurnauer School of Music and the Closter Conservatory of Music and is currently teaching at the Brearley School in New York City.

Cellist Barbara Stein Mallow is recognized as a distinguished recitalist, soloist, and chamber music performer. A member of the renowned Fuchs family, daughter of the violist Lillian Fuchs, and niece of violinist Joseph Fuchs, hers is a heritage of musical excellence and the great tradition of chamber music. She shares this with her daughter, violist Jeanne Mallow.

From her early years she has been an accomplished pianist and was twice winner of the New York Philharmonic Young Composers Award. Her composition studies were with Bohuslav Martinu, Quincy Porter, and Nadia Boulanger. She studied cello with Luigi Silva at the Yale School of Music where she received her bachelor's and master's degrees, followed by Bernard Greenhouse and Zara Nelsova.

She was a founding member of the Carnegie String Quartet in residence at Brooklyn College and a member of the Chamber Arts Trio with her sister violinist Carol Amado and pianist Albert Lotto. A respected teacher of cello and chamber music, she has been a professor at Bennington College, the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, and the Mannes College of Music. During summers she performs and teaches at Kneisel Hall Chamber Music School in Blue Hill, Maine. She also taught at the Perlman Music Program in Shelter Island, New York where she established the cello and Chamber music program.

Ms. Mallow has performed at the Aspen Music Festival, as a soloist with orchestra and recorded in the former USSR. With the Perlman Music Program, she was a visiting professor at the Israel Conservatory of Music in Tel Aviv and at the Shanghai Conservatory in China.

She serves as Vice President of the New York Violoncello Society.

To post a comment, you must register and login.