Music at Kohl Mansion Sets 42nd Annual Chamber Music Season

Music at Kohl Mansion’s 42nd annual international chamber music season will begin with the highly respected and renowned Borromeo String Quartet on Sunday, October 20 at 7 p.m.

Hailed by The Boston Globe as “simply the best,” the Quartet will perform an outstanding program of musical works by J.S. Bach, Beethoven, Sibelius, and the local premier of a work by Jamaican-born composer, Eleanor Alberga. Music at Kohl Mansion also announced today that popular baritone opera and concert singer Bradley Kynard will debut at Kohl Mansion as guest soloist with the San Francisco Girls Chorus Premier Ensemble in the December 15 holiday concert.

The 2024-25 season, spanning from October 20 to May 4, will present many of the world’s leading artists from the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Israel and Venezuela - including three highly prominent ensembles in their house debut - showcasing the finest classical and contemporary chamber music repertoire plus the U.S. debut of a recent work by Lukas Ligeti, in addition to many notable Bay Area premieres.

The season is distinguished further by the programming of chamber works by no less than six female composers. All performances are presented in the jewel-box setting of the historic and richly acoustic Kohl Mansion’s Great Hall, 2750 Adeline Drive, Burlingame.

The 2024-25 Season Music at Kohl Mansion Artists

BORROMEO STRING QUARTET

Sunday, October 20, 2024 at 7 p.m.

J.S. Bach: Prelude and Fugue in D-sharp minor from Book 1, arr. Nicholas Kitchen

Eleanor Alberga: Remember for String Quartet

Ludwig van Beethoven: String Quartet No. 16 in F Major, Op. 135

Jean Sibelius: String Quartet in D minor, Op. 56, “Voces intimae”

Nicholas Kitchen and Kristopher Tong, violin; Melissa Reardon, viola; Yeesun Kim, cello

Each visionary performance of the award-winning Borromeo String Quartet (BSQ) strengthens and deepens its reputation as one of the most important ensembles of our time. Admired and sought after for both its fresh interpretations of the classical music canon and its championing of works by 20th and 21st century composers, the ensemble has been hailed for its “edge-of-the- seat performances,” by the Boston Globe, which called it “simply the best.”

Inspiring audiences for more than 25 years, Borromeo has been ensemble-in-residence at Boston’s New England Conservatory of Music and Taos School of Music summer program, and continues to be a pioneer in its use of technology. BSQ has the trailblazing distinction of being the first-string quartet to utilize laptop computers on the concert stage. Reading music this way helps push artistic boundaries, allowing the artists to perform solely from 4-part scores and composers’ manuscripts, a revealing and metamorphic experience which these dedicated musicians now teach to students around the world. As the New York Times noted, “The digital tide washing over society is lapping at the shores of classical music. The Borromeo players have embraced it in their daily musical lives like no other major chamber music group.” Moreover, the Quartet often leads discussions enhanced by projections of handwritten manuscripts, investigating with the audience the creative process of the composer.

The multi-award winning BSQ’s repertoire includes highly lauded in-depth performances and lectures of the Bartók String Quartets; the complete Beethoven cycle and the dramatic discoveries within the manuscripts; the Shostakovich Cycle and those of Mendelssohn, Dvořák, Brahms, Schumann, Schoenberg, Janáček, Lera Auerbach, Tchaikovsky, and Gunther Schuller. The Quartet has collaborated with some of this generation’s most important composers, including Gunther Schuller, John Cage, György Ligeti, Steve Reich, Aaron Jay Kernis, Osvaldo Golijov, Jennifer Higdon, Steve Mackey, John Harbison, Sebastian Currier, and Leon Kirchner.

The Borromeo has performed on major concert stages across the globe, including appearances at Carnegie Hall, the Berlin Philharmonie, Wigmore Hall, Suntory Hall (Tokyo), the Concertgebouw, Seoul Arts Center, Shanghai Oriental Arts Center, the Incontri in Terra di Siena Chamber Music Festival in Tuscany, Kammermusik Basel (Switzerland), the Prague Spring Festival, and the Haydn Festival in Eisenstadt. The ensemble continues to perform violinist Nicholas Kitchen's transcriptions of Bach’s Goldberg Variations and the Well-Tempered Clavier Bk. I; the BSQ released a critically praised recording of the Well-Tempered Clavier Bk. 1 which hit the billboard charts.  

GRYPHON TRIO

Sunday, November 24, 2024 at 7 p.m.

Joseph Haydn: Piano Trio in C Major, Op. 86, No. 1, Hob. XV:27

Paul Wiancko: Piano Trio (Bay Area Premiere)

Felix Mendelssohn: Piano Trio No. 2 in C minor, Op. 66

Annalee Patipatanakoon, violin; Roman Borys, cello; Jamie Parker, piano

Canada’s endlessly inventive Gryphon Trio has impressed international audiences and the press for the past twenty-five years with its highly refined, dynamic performances, and has firmly established itself as one of the world’s preeminent piano trios. With a repertoire that ranges from the traditional to the contemporary and from European classicism to modern-day multimedia, the Gryphons are committed to redefining chamber music for the 21st century.

The Gryphon Trio, the ensemble-in-residence at Music Toronto for more than a decade, tours each season extensively throughout North America and Europe. Recent performances include those for the Chamber Music Society of Detroit, Northwestern University, the Eastman School of Music, Tippet Rise, and Williams College, and a performance of Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time with clarinetist Anthony McGill for the Mobile Chamber Music Society.

Now in its 30th year, the Trio is dedicated to pushing the boundaries of chamber music and has commissioned and premiered over eighty new works from established and emerging composers around the world. They have collaborated on special projects with clarinetist James Campbell, actor Colin Fox, choreographer David Earle, the vocal ensemble Nordic Voices, and a host of jazz luminaries at Lula Lounge, Toronto’s leading venue for jazz and world music. Their most ambitious undertaking to date is a groundbreaking multimedia production of composer Christos Hatzis’s epic work Constantinople, scored for mezzo-soprano, Middle Eastern singer, violin, cello, piano, and electronic audiovisual media, which they have brought to audiences across North America and at the Royal Opera House in London.

The Trio’s celebrated recordings on the Analekta label are an encyclopedia of works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Dvořák, Lalo, Shostakovich, and Piazzolla. Their groundbreaking 2004 release, Canadian Premieres, featuring new works by leading Canadian composers, was warmly received and acknowledged with a coveted Juno Award from the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

SAN FRANCISCO GIRLS CHORUS PREMIER ENSEMBLE* with baritone BRADLEY KYNARD*

Family Holiday Program (non-subscription concert)

Sunday, December 15, 2024 at 7 pm

Repertoire to include works by John Rutter, Ola Gjeilo, traditional carols and more

Valérie Sainte-Agathe, Artistic Director

Under the direction of Artistic Director Valérie Sainte-Agathe, the San Francisco Girls Chorus (SFGC) has achieved an incomparable sound that underscores the unique clarity and force of impeccably trained treble voices fused with expressiveness and drama. As a result, the Chorus vibrantly performs 1,000 years of choral masterworks from plainchant to the most challenging and nuanced contemporary works created expressly for them in programs that are as intelligently designed as they are enjoyable and revelatory to experience. 

Established in 1978, the Chorus is a leading voice on the Bay Area and national music scenes, producing award-winning concerts, recordings and tours, empowering young women in music and other fields, expanding the field of music for treble voices and setting the international standard for the highest level of performance and education.

Commissions of new works, collaborations with renowned guest artists, and partnerships with other Bay Area and national arts organizations provide the young women of SFGC with matchless performance experiences among powerful adult role models. In addition to its annual engagements with the San Francisco Opera and San Francisco Symphony, recent and upcoming artistic partnerships for the Chorus include San Francisco Ballet, San Francisco Film Festival, Opera Parallèle, Kronos Quartet, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, New Century Chamber Orchestra, TEDxSanFrancisco, and Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky.

SFGC's commitment to artistic excellence has been recognized through many awards and honors, including five GRAMMY Awards; four ASCAP/Chorus America Awards for Adventurous Programming; and, in 2002, becoming the first youth chorus to receive Chorus America's prestigious Margaret Hillis Achievement Award for Choral Excellence.

Bay Area baritone singer Bradley Kynard maintains a highly active career performing in a variety of classic and contemporary concerts and operas with Opera Parallèle, San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Choral Society, Pocket Opera, Island City Opera, Handel Opera Project, Vallejo Symphony, and the Golden Gate Symphony.

REVERÓN PIANO TRIO*

Sunday, January 12, 2025 at 7 p.m.

Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel: Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 11

Teresa Carreño: Mi Teresita – (Bay Area Premiere)

Gabriela Lena Frank: Folk Songs – (Bay Area Premiere)

Ricardo Lorenz: La Hamaca – (Bay Area Premiere)

Astor Piazzola: Verano Porteño, arr. José Bragato

Simon Gollo, violin; Horacio Contreras, cello; Ana Maria Otamendi, piano

Founded in 2017, the Reverón Piano Trio has quickly established itself as one of the most important chamber music ensembles from Latin America. Its members share a true passion in the performance of works by Latin American composers whose main goal is to introduce audiences to their rich repertoire of contemporary and standard works.

These seasoned artists, all Venezuelan but now residing in the U.S., are active promoters of Latin American music through their work as scholars and entrepreneurs, and they have devoted their careers to the discovery, cataloging, performance, editing, and recording of this repertoire along with commissioning new works.  Recent collaborations include La Hamaca (2021) and El Ventilador (2022), written for the trio by Venezuelan-American composer Ricardo Lorenz, and the world premiere of Barroqueada (2020) by Grammy-nominated composer Miguel del Águila.

The Reverón Piano Trio appears in important festivals and concert halls including Festival Casals in Puerto Rico, the Festival A la Vela de la Alhambra, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., a residency at El Paso University, Latin American Music Initiative's first conference, the Music Mountain Festival, Aruba Symphony Festival, Chamber Music Wilmington, the American Festival, the Beethoven Festival Park City, the Collaborative Piano Institute, and the Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá.

Additionally, the trio has been in residence at the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, University of Wisconsin, Dickinson College, Lawrence University, Louisiana State University, the Westfield Center for Historical Keyboard Studies, and the Collaborative Piano Institute. The Reverón Trio is named after Venezuelan painter and sculptor Armando Reverón (1889- 1954), one of the earliest modernists and considered one of the most important visual artists in Latin America.

TRIO KARÉNINE*

Sunday, February 23, 2025 at 7 p.m.

Camille Saint-Saëns: Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 92

Germaine Tailleferre: Piano Trio

Maurice Ravel: Trio in A minor

Julien Dieudegard, violin; Louis Rodde, cello; Paloma Kouider, piano

Founded in Paris in 2009, Trio Karénine bears the name of Tolstoy’s beautiful and emotionally honest heroine. The French trio is acclaimed by critics and audiences for its musical integrity and passionate interpretations, and was the top prizewinner at the ARD International Competition in 2013. The group has performed in the world’s most prestigious halls, including the Philharmonie and Auditorium du Louvre in Paris, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Frick Collection in New York, Salle Bourgie in Montréal, the Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Herkulessaal and Prinzregententheater in Münich, the Leiszhalle in Hamburg, and Sydney Opera House. The trio has just completed a highly successful return tour of Australia and is currently engaged in a full summer schedule of performances throughout France.

The ensemble received the prestigious Nordmetall-Ensemble Prize from the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festspiele in 2015 for its interpretation of Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet, performed with bassist Laurene Durantel and violist Krzysztof Chorzelski (Belcea Quartet). Trio Karénine received the first prize at the International Chamber Music Competition in the Netherlands, is a laureate of the Joseph Haydn Competition in Vienna, and a recipient of the prestigious “Banque Populaire” grant. The trio is also a laureate of the Maurice Ravel Academy and the Charles Oulmont Foundation, and was unanimously awarded the International Pro Musicis Prize in Paris. The trio’s impressive and critically praised discography ranges from the music of Schumann, Fauré, Ravel, Weinberg, Dvořák and Suk, to the recent highly lauded release of Benoît Menut’s Triple Concerto.

ARIS QUARTET* 

Sunday, March 16, 2025 at 7 p.m.

Felix Mendelssohn: String Quartet No. 1 in E-flat Major, Op. 12

Erwin Schulhoff: Five Pieces for String Quartet

Lukas Ligeti: String Quartet No. 4, Neostasis (U.S. premiere)

Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel: String Quartet in E-flat Major

Anna Katharina Wildermuth and Noémi Zipperling, violin; Caspar Vinzens, viola; Lukas Sieber, cello

Expressive, dynamic, spectacular – the Aris Quartet of Germany has been at home on international stages for the past fifteen years. With its unmistakable sound, it has long been known as one of the world’s top-rank chamber music ensembles. The musicians have performed in venues including London's Wigmore Hall, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Herbst Theatre San Francisco, and the Philharmonie de Paris.

The Quartet’s choice of chamber music partners is exceptional: Christiane Karg, Tabea Zimmermann, Daniel Müller-Schott, Eckart Runge, Kit Armstrong and Nils Mönkemeyer. The ensemble also devotes itself to cross-genre projects, including with the jazz pianist Omer Klein. From the very beginning, the musicians have also placed a special focus on contemporary music. Composers such as Lukas Ligeti, Gerald Resch, Misato Mochizuki, and Pierre Dominique Ponnelle have entrusted the Quartet with world premieres of their works.

Founded in Frankfurt am Main in 2009, the Aris Quartet, one of whose most important mentors has been Günter Pichler (Alban Berg Quartet), continues to perform to this day in an unchanged format. The ensemble’s success is no coincidence: having earned numerous first prizes at prestigious competitions, the Aris Quartet quickly achieved its international breakthrough. The musicians have also been honored as ECHO Rising Stars by the European Concert Hall Organisation, were among the BBC's New Generation Artists, and have won five awards at the ARD International Music Competition in Munich.

In addition to regular appearances on radio and television, the Aris Quartet has released six CD recordings that have received considerable acclaim from the international music press. The Quartet’s affinity and advocacy for the underappreciated works of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel was realized with the Deutsche Grammophon release in October 2023. The recording garnered high praise for the Quartet’s sparkling performance of Fanny’s Quartet in E-flat of 1834, a work that languished unperformed until it was finally published in 1989, and paired with her sibling Felix Mendelssohn’s dramatic final quartet in 1847, a work composed in response to his sister’s sudden death.  

ARIEL QUARTET

Sunday, April 13, 2025 at 7 p.m.

Felix Mendelssohn: String Quartet in F minor, Op. 80

Lera Auerbach: String Quartet No. 3, Cetera Desunt

Benjamin Britten: String Quartet No. 2 in C Major, Op. 36

Alexandra Kazovsky and Gershon Gerchikov, violin; Jan Grüning, viola; Amit Even-Tov, cello

Distinguished by its virtuosity, probing musical insight, and impassioned, fiery performances, the Ariel Quartet has garnered critical praise worldwide for more than twenty years. Formed when the members were just teenagers studying at the Jerusalem Academy Middle School of Music and Dance in Israel, the Ariel was named a recipient of the prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award, granted by Chamber Music America in recognition of artistic achievement and career support.

Celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2023, the Quartet serves as the Faculty Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), where the musicians direct the chamber music program and present a concert series, in addition to maintaining a busy touring schedule in the U.S. and abroad. Recent highlights include the Ariel Quartet’s sold-out Carnegie Hall debut, a series of performances at Lincoln Center together with pianist Inon Barnatan and the Mark Morris Dance Group, as well as the release of a Brahms and Bartók album for Avie Records. In 2020, the Ariel gave the U.S. premiere of the Quintet for Piano and Strings by Daniil Trifonov, with the composer as pianist.

The Quartet has dedicated much of its artistic energy and musical prowess to the groundbreaking Beethoven quartets and has performed the complete Beethoven cycle on six occasions throughout the U.S. and Europe. Over the years, the Quartet has collaborated with an array of international musicians including the legendary Menahem Pressler, cellist Alisa Weilerstein, violinist Itzhak Perlman, and pianists Orion Weiss and Jeremy Denk. Among its many awards, the Ariel Quartet won the Gold Medal and Grand Prize at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition.

ALEXANDER STRING QUARTET with pianist Jeffrey LaDeur*

Sunday, May 4, 2025 at 7 p.m.

Joseph Haydn: String Quartet in G Major, Op. 77. No. 1

Kian Ravaei: The Little Things (Bay Area Premiere)

Johannes Brahms: Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34

Zakarias Grafilo & Yuna Lee, violin; David Samuel, viola; Sandy Wilson, cello; Jeffrey LaDeur*, piano

The Alexander String Quartet stands among the world’s premier ensembles, having performed in the major music capitals of five continents. The quartet is a vital artistic presence in its home base of San Francisco, serving since 1989 as Ensemble-in-Residence of San Francisco Performances and as frequent performers for Music at Kohl Mansion. Widely admired for its interpretations of Beethoven, Mozart, and Shostakovich, the quartet’s recordings have won international critical acclaim. Founded in New York City in 1981, the Alexander String Quartet has maintained an unyielding and passionate commitment to education. For decades, the ensemble has trained generations of gifted performers, emerging string quartets, and talented young musicians destined to pass on their knowledge and love of music as teachers in schools across the globe.

The Alexander String Quartet has performed at Lincoln Center, the 92nd Street Y, the Metropolitan Museum, Jordan Hall, the Library of Congress, and appeared as guests at universities nationwide including Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Lewis & Clark, and UCLA. Numerous overseas tours include concert halls in the U.K., the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, France, Greece, the Republic of Georgia, Argentina, Panamá, and the Philippines. Their visit to Poland’s Beethoven Easter Festival is beautifully captured in the 2017 award-winning documentary, Con Moto: The Alexander String Quartet.

In more than four decades of music-making, the Alexander String Quartet has collaborated in performance recording projects — crossing genres from classical and jazz to rock and folk — with many award-winning artists including: Joyce Yang, Marc-André Hamelin, Richard Stoltzman, Joyce DiDonato, Midori, Lynn Harrell, Branford Marsalis, David Sánchez, Jake Heggie, Augusta Read Thomas, Tarik O’Regan, Wayne Peterson, and Samuel Carl Adams.

Joining the Alexander String Quartet in his Music at Kohl Mansion debut will be highly accomplished pianist and recording artist, Jeffrey LaDeur, the founder and artistic director of the annual San Francisco International Piano Festival. He is an active concert performer in solo recitals, concerto soloist with orchestras and with chamber ensembles across the country. LaDeur is a frequent guest artist in universities and coaches gifted pre-college piano and string ensembles including the prestigious Young Chamber Musicians program in residence at Music at Kohl Mansion.

TICKETS, PRE-PERFORMANCE LECTURES, SPONSORS

Music at Kohl Mansion’s 2024-25 season is presented at Kohl Mansion’s Great Hall, 2750 Adeline Drive, Burlingame. All concerts are held on Sunday evenings at 7 p.m. Subscription Tickets for the 7-concert chamber music series are priced $370 (adult), $355 (senior) and $175 (age 30 and under); Single Tickets are priced $62 (adult), $60 (senior) and $30 (age 30 and under); and Holiday Concert Tickets are $40 (adult) and $20 (youth, age 18 and under). To purchase concert tickets, call the Box Office at (650) 762-1130 or order online via musicatkohl.org. All concerts include a complimentary post-performance reception with the artists. Ample free parking is available for all ticket holders.

Christopher Costanza, renowned cellist with the recently disbanded St. Lawrence String Quartet and active Stanford educator/coach, will offer an informative pre-concert lecture for ticket holders at 6 p.m. in the Kohl Mansion Library before all seven subscription concerts; no pre-performance talk before the Dec. 15 program.

Young Chamber Musicians Public Master Classes at Kohl Mansion

Partners in music education since early 2011, Young Chamber Musicians and Music at Kohl Mansion offer a series of free public master classes at 5 p.m. prior to the Sunday chamber concerts. The public is invited to observe musicians in the making as Music at Kohl’s distinguished artists coach and mentor advanced student players in the intimate setting of the Kohl Mansion Library. This is a wonderful behind-the-scenes peek at how music comes to life.

Music at Kohl Mansion gratefully acknowledges and thanks the following for their support: Mervyn L. Brenner Foundation, Sam Mazza Foundation, Moca Foundation, DragonFly Community Arts, San Mateo County Office of Arts and Culture and Arts Commission, Atkinson Foundation, Bella Charitable Foundation, Y & H Soda Foundation, Community Foundation of San Carlos, and the City of Burlingame.

Music at Kohl Mansion is the longest-running chamber music-only presenter on the San Francisco Bay Area Peninsula. MAKM is deeply committed to community building through the arts, both in its mainstage international concert series and in education and civic programs throughout San Mateo County that connect people and promote human understanding. 

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