Spring 21 Chamber Concert Series - Springfield Symphony

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The Springfield Symphony is delighted to bring you a series of three professionally filmed, on-demand chamber music concerts for you to enjoy safely from the comfort of home.

Each concert will feature musical selections from three SSO ensembles:

String Quartet – Masako Yanagita, Violin; Marsha Harbison, Violin; Delores Thayer, Viola; Boris Kogan, Cello
String Trio – Beth Welty, Violin; Noralee Walker, Viola; Joel Wolfe, Cello
Percussion Trio – Martin Kluger, Nathan Lassell, and Robert McEwan

These virtual chamber music concerts premiere at a specific date and time, but will be available through May 21 for on-demand streaming at your convenience.

Once you purchase your ticket/s, you will receive a unique link for each concert via email. Please contact Lynn Nichols if you lose or misplace your concert link email and it will be resent to you.

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Tickets for these concerts are $25.00/each, or buy the series of 3 for just $60.00 – a $15 savings! Having trouble buying online? Call the Box Office at 413-733-2291.

Through the Card to Culture program, individuals who are EBT, WIC, or ConnectorCare card holders may get free tickets to these events. Contact Education Director Kirsten Lipkens if you are interested.

Thank You to Our Sponsors

For repertoire and program notes for each concert, click on the images below:

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String Quartet

Masako Yanagita

Violin

Winner of top honors in international competitions, including the Paganini (Genoa), the Carl Flesch (London) and the Munich International, Masako is an active concert soloist and chamber musician, as well as a teacher and coach. She has performed throughout United States, Europe and Asian countries. At the present, she is the concertmaster of the Queens (NY) & Springfield (MA) Symphony Orchestras, co-music director of Mohawk Trail Concerts and a faculty member in Greenwood Music Camp, Bennington Chamber Music Conference and Princeton Chamber Music Play Week. As an orchestra musician, she has freelanced in New York City playing in multiple groups including New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet, The Orpheus, Broadway shows and commercial recordings. Ms. Yanagita began her violin studies in Japan at an early age and came to the United States to study with William Kroll at The Mannes College of Music on Fulbright and J.D Rockefeller III Grants. She has recorded chamber music and solo works for Musical Heritage Society, Vox-Turnabout, Music Minus One and most recently, the entire Schubert repertoire for violin/viola and piano with her late husband, pianist Abba Bogin, and two Schumann piano trios with the West End Trio (both for Town Hall Records). She resides in both New York City and Charlemont, MA.

Marsh Harbison

Violin

Marsha is the Assistant Concertmaster of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra, which she joined in 1977. She is also a frequent performer of chamber music and was one of the founders, artistic directors, and performers of the Longmeadow Chamber Music Society for 38 seasons. She has also organized and performed an annual chamber music concert at Lake Champlain for the last 20 years as a benefit for the Adirondack Nature Conservancy and Land Trust. Marsha received a B.A. from Carleton College, Northfield, MN. and a Masters from the Juilliard School in NYC, where she studied with Ivan Galamian. While in NYC, she performed in the American Symphony, the Pro Arte Orchestra, the Bach Cantata Series, and subbed in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. In Montreal, she performed in the Montreal Symphony, the McGill Chamber Orchestra, and the Radio, TV, and Ballet Orchestras. Marsha has performed in music festivals in Aspen, Jackson Hole, Spoleto, Italy, and has been concertmistress for the Leonard Bernstein Festival at UMASS, and the Berkshire Choral Festival Orchestra in Sheffield, MA and Salzburg, Austria. Marsha has taught numerous music courses at Westfield State University, Bay Path University, violin students at Mt. Holyoke, and continues to teach private violin students. Marsha is married to Dr. William Harbison, and they have 3 grown children and 9 grandchildren.

Delores Thayer

Viola

Delores (Loree) is the Assistant Principal violist of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra. She plays regularly with the Hartford Symphony, various Boston groups, and at other venues throughout the New England area as violist and Baroque violist. She has performed with the Berkshire Symphony at Williams College, the Arcadia Players Early Music Group, as soloist with the Holyoke Civic Symphony, and most recently as violist in the Wistaria String Quartet. Delores has also performed with the Longmeadow Chamber Music Society, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and the New England Bach Festival under Blanche Moyse. She has worked with conductors Seiji Ozawa, Leonard Bernstein, Gunther Schuller, and Gil Rose. Her performances have taken her to the summer music festivals in Ayamonte and Santander, Spain; Spoleto, Italy; Tanglewood; Yale Norfolk Music Festival; and Manchester, VT music festival. In addition, Delores has performed in The Five College New Music Festival, at Alice Tully Hall, Kennedy Center, and has participated in numerous premiers and recordings. Delores has most recently been on the viola faculty at Amherst College and the Northfield Mount Hermon School. A graduate of the University of Michigan and the Yale School of Music, her teachers and mentors were Frank Bundra, Raphael Hillyer, Walter Trampler, Joseph Silverstein, and Karen Tuttle. Originally from Western Michigan, Delores resides in Northampton. She has two grown children, Leland and Eva.

Boris Kogan

Cello

Boris was born in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg Russia. He began studying cello at age 5, attending the School for Musically Gifted Children. He received his Bachelor’s Degree from the Leningrad College of Music and his Master’s from the Leningrad Conservatory of Music. He served as Assistant Principal Cellist with the Leningrad Symphony and with the Television and Radio Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Kogan moved to the United States in 1991 and is now Principal Cellist with the New England Symphony as well as a member of the Springfield Symphony, the Thayer Symphony Orchestra, and the Central Massachusetts Symphony. In addition to teaching at CMSS, he teaches at Deerfield Academy and Amherst College.

String Trio

Beth Welty

Violin

Beth received her Bachelor and Master's degrees in violin performance from Indiana University, where she was a student of Yuval Yaron. She has performed with numerous groups in the Boston area, including the Bach, Beethoven and Brahms Society, the Handel and Haydn Society, and the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra. She has performed abroad with various organizations, touring Italy with the Chorus of Westerly and South Africa with the London Chamber Players. She toured Spain twice as concertmaster of the Massachusetts Symphony. In 2014, she traveled to Switzerland to perform a solo recital, and in 2015 played a five concert tour of England with the Aryaloka String Quartet. Beth is the assistant principal second violinist with the Springfield Symphony Orchestra, and has served as concertmaster of the Nashua Chamber Orchestra since 2005. She is also the principal second violinist with the New Hampshire Philharmonic. An avid chamber musician, Beth is a founding member of the Kaleidoscope Chamber Ensemble of Boston. In 1991 she made her Lincoln Center debut in New York with the Boston Quartet, of which she was a founding member. She maintains a private teaching studio in her home in Waltham, and is a violin and viola teacher at the Upbeat NH Strings program in Nashua, NH. In her spare time, she enjoys gardening and making stoneware pottery.
- photo © Susan Wilson, susanwilsonphoto.com

Noralee Walker

Viola

Born in Boston, Noralee is a versatile artist whose musical adventures have included crisscrossing England in performances with the Aryaloka String Quartet, twice touring the U.S. with the multi-media show Star Wars In Concert, soloing with Paul Henry Smith's digital Fauxharmonic, and multiple stints of studying and performing at the legendary Magic Mountain Music Farm in Morris, New York. Sought after as a freelance artist, Noralee has performed with many of the area's best ensembles, including the Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms Society (Boston), the Orchestra of Emmanuel Music (Boston), Boston Modern Orchestra Project, (BMOP), and the symphonies of Springfield, Vermont, Portland, and Rhode Island. A founding member of the Aryaloka String Quartet, she has also appeared in collaboration with the Musicians of the Old Post Road, the Kaleidoscope Chamber Players, and the South Coast Chamber Players. Prior to the pandemic, she was planning a European tour with duo partner, pianist Yun Lee, to include recitals and masterclasses at the conservatory in St. Germaine-en-Laye, Paris. Noralee is a graduate of Wellesley College, the Harid Conservatory (now Lynn University), and the Yale School of Music. She studied viola with Leonard Matczynski, Victoria Chiang, Michelle LaCourse, and Burton Kaplan and chamber music with the Muir, Tokyo, and Lydian String Quartets. Her performing and teaching is informed by her interest in the mind/body connection, with studies in Dalcroze Eurhythmics, yoga, Qi Gong, Alexander Technique, and the work of Moshe Feldenkrais. She is a certified instructor in the Nia Technique, a mindful movement practice which blends martial arts, healing arts, and dance. She is Chair of the String Department at the Winchester Community Music School in Winchester, MA.
- photo © Susan Wilson, susanwilsonphoto.com

Joel Wolfe

Cello

A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Joel graduated Summa Cum Laude from Boston University and received his Master's degree from the St. Louis Conservatory of Music. His principal teachers included Leslie Parnas, Samuel Mayes, Regina Mushabac, and Robert Perry. Joel has been a member of the Portland (ME) and Springfield (MA) Symphony Orchestras since 1984 and has taught cello and performed chamber music extensively throughout the area. During the day, Joel works as a systems administrator for Idemia Identity and Security supporting the server systems that make your drivers license. He also enjoys playing blues harmonica, writing children's songs, and thinking about practicing yoga. Joel and his wife, pianist Linnea Bardarson, are the parents of almost sixteen year old twin boys. Joel and family reside in Dedham, Massachusetts.

Percussion Trio

Martin Kluger

Principal Timpanist

MARTY is principal timpanist/percussionist for the Springfield Symphony Orchestra, and won that position in 1980, the same year as graduating from the Yale School of Music. Educational experiences include kettledrum lessons at home with Dad, degree studies at Juilliard and an outstanding instrumentalist award (from Seiji Ozawa and Gunther Schuller) while a Tanglewood Music Center Fellow. Performances include Broadway shows, the New Haven and Hartford Symphony Orchestras, and as assistant conductor for the Youth Symphony Orchestra of NY in Carnegie Hall. He was faculty instructor of percussion at UCONN, where he earned a PhD in biochemistry, which led to a second academic career as a scientist studying molecular mechanisms of blood vessel inflammation at the Yale School of Medicine. Proud father of three, Marty volunteers time for the SSO Advisory Board and enjoys singing barbershop with the Hartford Men in Harmony and bass with the Hartford Chorale. These SSO virtual concerts will be the first performances of his composition “Sudoku 75” and of his arrangement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 4.

Nathan Lassell

Percussionist

Nathan enjoys an active career as an orchestral percussionist and drum set artist. Since 2009, he has been a member of the U.S. Coast Guard Band in New London, CT and performs throughout the country with their various ensembles. Nathan is Principal Percussionist with the Springfield Symphony Orchestra and Section Percussionist with the Rhode Island Philharmonic. In addition, Mr. Lassell performs with the National Symphony Orchestra, Hartford Symphony, New London Big Band, Eastern Connecticut Symphony, and has performed with orchestras of Nashville, Knoxville, Huntsville, San Antonio, and Richmond. He is adjunct professor of percussion at Central Connecticut State University, earned his B.M. from George Mason University, and his M.M. from Rice University.

Robert McEwan

Percussionist

Rob's current appointments include principal percussionist with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra and the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra, and section percussionist with the Springfield Symphony Orchestra. He currently serves on active duty as principal percussionist/timpanist with the United States Coast Guard Band, one of the five premiere service bands that provide music for military, congressional, presidential and public functions throughout the nation. Formerly percussion faculty at the University of Rhode Island, he is currently percussion head at the University of Connecticut. Rob attended the Eastman School of Music, the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and the Juilliard School. He also attended the Tanglewood Music Center, the National Repertory Orchestra, and he was a two-time contemporary music fellow at the Aspen Music Festival. Rob has enjoyed a diverse musical career; he has performed extensively with the New York Philharmonic, been a member of the Talujon Percussion Quartet, and played a nine month run of an off-Broadway musical. He has performed on movie soundtracks, on pop and classical recordings, and with many popular touring acts. He has performed contemporary classical music with the some of finest ensembles in New York City, and he has been privileged to perform orchestral music under the direction such legends as Boulez, Maazel, Mehta, Mazur, Previn, and Gergiev.