This featured preview is part of a publicity exchange with ECU’s Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival. For more information about CVNC’s publicity exchange program, please follow this link.
For more than 23 years Four Seasons has brought world-renowned musicians, unforgettable performances, innovative community engagement, and unrivaled educational initiatives to North Carolina and beyond. In residence at the East Carolina University School of Music, Four Seasons has presented more than 2,000 concerts and initiatives, featured more than 950 musicians, and created vibrant homes in both Greenville and the Triangle.
Four Seasons highlights include multiple concerts at Carnegie Hall; a six-concert tour of Israel; 23 years of Signature Series concerts; the Dose of Hope initiative (110+ mega vaccine clinic concerts in Winter/Spring 2021); a series of four educational videos viewed by 45,000 schoolchildren and counting; 45 Next Generation residencies; 12 Children’s Residencies; 9 Winter Workshops; and 7 Summer Chamber Music Institutes. Throughout all 23 seasons, a commitment to artistic and educational excellence has formed the core of all that Four Seasons presents.
The 2023-2024 season features Signature Series concerts in Greenville and Raleigh; the launch of the Soirées; Next Gen residencies in Greenville and Raleigh; a Next Gen on the tour to schools in central and western North Carolina; Donor Celebrations; Spring Workshop 2024; and countless master classes, children’s concerts, and community engagement initiatives.
This weekend, the Signature Series continues with its second* program of the season: two offerings of its Contrasts program. From Hungarian folk music to lyrical Romanticism, Armenian dances to gentle spirituality, this concert represents a study in contrasts. Acclaimed pianist Adam Neiman joins audience-favorite Alan Kay (clarinet) and Four Seasons’ own Ara Gregorian (violin) in a concert featuring the music of Alexander Arutiunian, Béla Bartók, and Aram Khatchaturian against the backdrop of J.S. Bach and Johannes Brahms. A Klezmer-inspired work by Paul Schoenfield brings the program to its rollicking conclusion.
Greenville Concert: Fri, Oct 20 @ 7:30 PM
A.J. Fletcher Recital Hall on the campus of East Carolina University & Online
Raleigh Concert: Sun, Oct 22 @ 3:00 PM
Hayes Barton United Methodist Church & Online
This concert and residency are generously sponsored by Edward C. Smith, Jr. & Grady-White Boats, Inc.
PROGRAM:
Alexander Arutiunian – Finale from Suite for Clarinet, Violin, and Piano
Johannes Brahms – Andante un poco Adagio from Clarinet Sonata in F Minor, Op. 120, No. 1
Béla Bartók – Contrasts
brief pause
Aram Khatchaturian – Trio for Clarinet, Violin, and Piano
J.S. Bach (trans. Egon Petri) – “Sheep may safely graze”
Paul Schoenfield – Freylakh from Trio for Clarinet, Violin, and Piano
About the Artists:
American pianist Adam Neiman has performed as soloist with the symphony orchestras of Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Minnesota, Saint Louis, San Francisco, and Utah, as well as with the National Symphony Orchestra. He has performed throughout the US and Canada and internationally in Italy, France, and Japan. In 1995, Neiman became the youngest-ever winner of the Gilmore Young Artist Award, and the following year won the Young Concert Artists Auditions. Neiman’s live performance of the Brahms Rhapsodies at the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival on NPR’s Performance Today was nominated for a Grammy Award. He has received an Avery Fisher Career Grant and is artistic director of the Manchester Music Festival. Neiman is assistant professor of piano at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University.
Alan R. Kay is Principal Clarinetist and a former Artistic Director of Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. He is the recipient of the Classical Recording Foundation’s Samuel Sanders Award, a Presidential Scholars Teacher Award, and the 1989 Young Concert Artists Award with the sextet Hexagon. A founding member of the Windscape Quintet, he is a regular guest in chamber music venues throughout the world including the Yellow Barn, Orlando (Holland), and Bowdoin festivals and curated a concert series at the Cape May Music Festival for 25 years. Kay teaches at the Manhattan School of Music, The Juilliard School, and Stony Brook University, where he also serves as Executive Director of the Stony Brook Symphony Orchestra. He has served on the juries of Young Concert Artists, Concert Artist Guild, and the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.
Violinist/violist Ara Gregorian made his debut as soloist with the Boston Pops Orchestra in Symphony Hall and has appeared at Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall and the Kennedy Center, and in cities throughout the world including Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Vancouver, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Ulaanbaatar, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Helsinki. Gregorian is the founder and artistic director of Four Seasons and has appeared at the SpringLight (Finland), Storioni (Holland), Casals (Puerto Rico), Intimacy of Creativity (Hong Kong), Voice of Music (Israel), Vail, Taos and Sante Fe festivals. He has performed extensively as a member of the Cooperstown and Daedalus quartets and the chamber music ensemble Concertante. Gregorian is the Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival Distinguished Professor in Music at East Carolina University where he has been on the violin/viola faculty since 1998.
*Erratum: We previously said this was the first concert of the 23-24 Signature Series, but it kicked off on September 29th and October 1st.
