Season Finale: Spectacular Sextets

Brahms vs Tchaikovsky

Arnaud Sussmann, Chad Hoopes, violins | Tien-Hsin Cindy Wu, Matthew Lipman, violas | Colin Carr, Nicholas Canellakis, cellos

Sunday, April 3, 2022 | 3:00pm

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About the artists

Arnaud Sussmann, violin

Winner of a 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Arnaud Sussmann has distinguished himself with his unique sound, bravura, and profound musicianship. Minnesota’s Pioneer Press writes, “Sussmann has an old-school sound reminiscent of what you’ll hear on vintage recordings by Jascha Heifetz or Fritz Kreisler, a rare combination of sweet and smooth that can hypnotize a listener.” A thrilling musician capturing the attention of classical critics and audiences around the world, he has recently appeared as a soloist with the Mariinsky Orchestra under Valery Gergiev, the Vancouver Symphony, and the New World Symphony.

As a chamber musician, he has performed at the Tel Aviv Museum in Israel, London’s Wigmore Hall, Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, the White Nights Festival in Saint Petersburg, the Dresden Music Festival in Germany, and the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC. He has been presented in recital in Omaha on the Tuesday Musical Club series, New Orleans by the Friends of Music and at the Louvre Museum in Paris. He has also given concerts at the OK Mozart, Moritzburg, Caramoor, Music@Menlo, La Jolla SummerFest, Mainly Mozart, Seattle Chamber Music, Chamber Music Northwest, and the Moab Music festivals. Mr. Sussmann has performed with many of today’s leading artists including Itzhak Perlman, Menahem Pressler, Gary Hoffman, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Wu Han, David Finckel and Jan Vogler.

Chad Hoopes, violin

Acclaimed by critics worldwide for his exceptional talent and magnificent tone, American violinist Chad Hoopes has remained an impressive, consistent, and versatile performer with many of the world’s leading orchestras since winning First Prize at the Young Artists Division of the Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition.

Hoopes is a 2017 recipient of Lincoln Center’s Avery Fischer Career Grant. Former winners include Kirill Gerstein, Yuja Wang, Leila Josefowicz, Joshua Bell and Hilary Hahn.

Highlights of past and present seasons include performances with The Philadelphia Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse for the premiere of Qigang Chen’s concerto “La joie de la souffrance.” He has performed with leading orchestras including San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Houston and National Symphony, as well as Minnesota Orchestra, Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, and the National Arts Centre Orchestra. Hoopes frequently performs with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Additionally, he has performed recitals at the Ravinia Festival, Tonhalle Zürich, the Louvre, and at Lincoln Center’s Great Performers series in New York City.

His debut recording with the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra under Kristjan Järvi featured the Mendelssohn and Adams concertos was released in 2014 on the French label Naïve. The recording was enthusiastically received by both press and public. His recording of Bernstein’s Violin Sonata with pianist Wayne Marshall will be released this autumn.

Hoopes is a frequent guest artist at the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad, Switzerland, the Rheingau Festival, and at Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, where he was named the winner of the prestigious Audience Award. He served as Munich Symphony Orchestra’s first Artist in Residence, a position created specifically for him after his highly acclaimed debut with the orchestra.

Born in Florida, Hoopes began his violin studies at the age of three in Minneapolis, and continued his training at the Cleveland Institute of Music under David Cerone and Joel Smirnoff. He additionally studied at the Kronberg Academy with Professor Ana Chumachenco, who remains his mentor.

Hoopes plays the 1991 Samuel Zygmuntowicz, ex Isaac Stern violin.

Tien-Hsin Cindy Wu, viola

Praised by the Seattle Times as “Simply marvelous” and Taiwan’s Liberty Times for “astonishingly capturing the spirit of the music,” violinist Tien-Hsin Cindy Wu enjoys a versatile career as a soloist, chamber musician, and educator throughout North America, Europe and Asia. Cindy has collaborated in concerts with renowned artists such as Yefim Bronfman, Lynn Harrell, Leila Josefowicz, Cho-Liang Lin, Midori, Thomas Quasthoff, Yuja Wang, and members of the Alban Berg, Emerson, Guarneri, Miró, and Tokyo string quartets at prominent venues such as the Kennedy Center, Library of Congress, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and festivals such as Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, La Jolla Summerfest, Marlboro Music Festival, Music@Menlo, and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. She has also collaborated as a guest violist with the Dover, Orion, and Shanghai quartets. Cindy is a recipient of many awards including the Milka Violin Artist Prize from the Curtis Institute of Music, and third prize at the International Violin Competition of David Oistrakh. She has taught at the Thornton School of Music of the University of Southern California, and curated programs for the Da Camera Society in Los Angeles as the Artistic Partner. She is currently the Music Director of New Asia Chamber Music Society and founded Sunkiss’d Mozart. Cindy plays on a 1918 Stefano Scarampella violin and a 2015 Stanley Kiernoziak viola.

Matthew Lipman, viola

American violist Matthew Lipman has been praised by the New York Times for his “rich tone and elegant phrasing,” and by the Chicago Tribune for a “splendid technique and musical sensitivity.” Lipman has come to be relied on as one of the leading players of his generation, frequently appearing as both a soloist and chamber music performer.

Highlights of recent seasons include appearances with the Minnesota Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Academy of St Martin in the Fields and Juilliard Orchestra. Lipman has worked with conductors including Edward Gardner, the late Sir Neville Marriner, Osmo Vänskä, and Nicholas McGegan. His recent solo debuts include appearances at the Aspen Music Festival, Seoul’s Kumho Art Hall, Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall. This season, Lipman makes his debut at Carnegie Hall with the Soloists of the Kronberg Academy, and with Michael Tilson Thomas’s Viola Visions Festival of the New World Symphony in Miami.

Ascent, his 2019 release by Cedille Records, was celebrated by The Strad as a “most impressive” debut album where Lipman is praised for his “authoritative phrasing and attractive sound.” The album marks the first ever recording of the recently discovered work by Shostakovich, Impromptu for viola and piano and of Clarice Assad’s Metamorfose for viola and piano, which was commissioned for the recording. Lipman has also been featured on the recording of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with violinist Rachel Barton Pine and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields conducted by the late Sir Neville Marriner. The album topped the Billboard Classical Charts and has received praise by both the press and public.

Named the 2019 Artist-in-Residence for the American Viola Society, Lipman has additionally been featured on WFMT Chicago’s list “30 Under 30” of the world’s top classical musicians, and is a published contributor to The Strad, Strings and BBC Music magazines. He performs regularly with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and at music festivals including St. Petersburg’s White Nights, Music@Menlo, Marlboro, Ravinia, Bridgehampton, Seattle, Saratoga, and Kissinger Sommer festivals. His frequent chamber music partners include Martin Helmchen, Tabea Zimmerman, Mitsuko Uchida, Itzhak Perlman, Sir András Schiff, Henry Kramer, and Pinchas Zukerman. Dedicated to expanding the repertoire for the viola, Lipman has also performed the premieres of works by composers such as Helen Grime and David Ludwig.

Lipman is the recipient of a 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant, a Kovner Fellowship, and the Jack Kent Cooke Award, and is also a major prize winner in the Primrose, Tertis, Washington, Johansen, and Stulberg International Viola Competitions. He studied at The Juilliard School with Heidi Castleman, and was further mentored by Tabea Zimmermann at the Kronberg Academy. A native of Chicago and an alum of The Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two), Lipman is on the faculty of Stony Brook University. He performs on a fine 1700 Matteo Goffriller viola loaned through the generous efforts of the RBP Foundation.

Colin Carr, viola

Colin Carr appears throughout the world as a soloist, chamber musician, recording artist, and teacher. He has played with major orchestras worldwide, including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, The Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, the orchestras of Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, Philadelphia, Montréal and all the major orchestras of Australia and New Zealand. Conductors with whom he has worked include Rattle, Gergiev, Dutoit, Elder, Skrowasczewski and Marriner. He has been a regular guest at the BBC Proms and has twice toured Australia.
With his duo partner Thomas Sauer he has played recitals throughout the United States and Europe including New York, Boston, Philadelphia, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and the Wigmore Hall in London. 2016 sees them playing a program of Britten and Adès for both the Chamber Music Societies of New York and Philadelphia. Colin has played complete cycles of the Bach Solo Suites at the Wigmore Hall in London, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Gardner Museum in Boston and in Montreal, Toronto, Ottowa and Vancouver.
As a member of the Golub-Kaplan-Carr Trio, he recorded and toured extensively for 20 years. Chamber music plays an important role in his musical life. He is a frequent visitor to international chamber music festivals worldwide and has appeared often as a guest with the Guarneri and Emerson string quartets and with New York’s Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
Recent CD releases include the complete Bach suites on the Wigmore Live label and the complete Beethoven Sonatas and Variations on the MSR Classics label with Thomas Sauer. Colin is the winner of many prestigious international awards, including First Prize in the Naumburg Competition, the Gregor Piatigorsky Memorial Award, Second Prize in the Rostropovich International Cello Competition and also winner of the Young Concert Artists competition.
He first played the cello at the age of five. Three years later he went to the Yehudi Menuhin School, where he studied with Maurice Gendron and later William Pleeth. He was made a professor at the Royal Academy of Music in 1998, having been on the faculty of the New England Conservatory in Boston for 16 years. In 1998, St. John’s College, Oxford created the post of “Musician in Residence” for him, and in September 2002 he became a professor at Stony Brook University in New York.
Colin’s cello was made by Matteo Gofriller in Venice in 1730. He makes his home with his wife Caroline and 3 children, Clifford, Frankie and Anya, in an old house outside Oxford.

Program

Johannes Brahms: String Sextet No. 1 in B♭ major, Op. 18
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: String Sextet in D minor, Op. 70 “Souvenir de Florence”