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Skidmore College
Ensemble Connect at Skidmore

 

Ensemble Connect

Ensemble Connect February 2023 Program

Friday, February 17, 2023

7:30 p.m. Performance
Helen Filene Ladd Concert Hall

CONCERT PROGRAM

JENNIFER HIGDON | Dark Wood
MOZART | Quintet for Piano and Winds in E-flat Major, K. 452
MICHI WIANCKO | 7 Kinships (World Premiere, commissioned by Carnegie Hall)
R. SCHUMANN | Piano Quintet

 
The talented musicians performing in Ensemble Connect form ā€œone of the strongest ensembles in the cityā€ (New York Classical Review). Over the course of this two-year fellowship program, extraordinary young professionals perform a series of concerts that smartly bridges the history and future of classical music, from timeless Baroque music to new works. This program includes a world premiere by Michi Wiancko, commissioned by Carnegie Hall; brilliant quintets by Mozart and R. Schumann; and Dark Wood by Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Higdonā€”a title that refers to the bassoon, used virtuosically throughout the piece.
 

Presented by the Department of Music and the Office of Special Programs

The biannual residency is made possible by the generous support of David and Beverly Sanders Payne '59 (October residency) and the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation (February residency).


 

 

Michi Wiancko

 

Michi Wiancko is a versatile and highly imaginative composer, violinist, and collaborator, whose multi-faceted creative projects and organizational work prioritize not only artistic discovery, but community resilience and social change. 

Recent chamber music commissions include works for Boston Chamber Music Society, Schubert Club, Accordo, Ecstatic Music Festival, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, East Coast Chamber Orchestra, Anne Akiko Meyers, Ecstatic Music Festival, Aizuri Quartet, Parker Quartet, Friction Quartet, and the Jupiter Quartet, to name a few.

Michiā€™s first opera Murasakiā€™s Moon, for which she was a 2018 recipient of an Opera America Commissioning Grant, premiered at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in May of 2019 and was commissioned by Met Live Arts, Onsite opera, and American Lyric Theater. Since then, she has composed two more operas: Arkana Aquarium, commissioned by Experiments in Opera and premiered in 2021, and The Stream, commissioned by Baldwin Wallace and the Cleveland Lyric Theater, and premiered in 2022. Michi has also composed music for short and feature-length films, commercials, and for her own band, Kono Michi.

A passionate collaborator, Michi has been fortunate to work and tour with renowned artists from across a vast musical spectrum: Gabriela Lena Frank, Missy Mazzoli, PaviElle French, Vijay Iyer, Steve Reich, Jenn Wasner, Emily Wells, Laurie Anderson, Judd Greenstein, William Brittelle, Paula Matthusen, Kaoru Watanabe, Qasim Naqvi, Mark Dancigers, Satoshi Takeishi, Mazz Swift, Cristina Pato, Sandeep Das, Jessie Montgomery, Emanuel Ax, Yo-Yo Ma, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Matt Berninger, Dolio the Sleuth, and Rench. A member of Silkroad and the East Coast Chamber Orchestra, she has also performed with The Knights, A Far Cry, Mark Morris Dance Group, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Alarm Will Sound, and International Contemporary Ensemble.

A native of California, Michi holds degrees from CIM and Juilliard, where she studied with Donald Weilerstein and the late Robert Mann, respectively. Her early teachers include Sharon Holland and Haroutune Bedelian. In addition to her composition and performing career, Michi is director and curator of Antenna Cloud Farm, a music festival, arts retreat, and community organization based in western Massachusetts, and she recently launched The Experimental Institute in collaboration with Mazz Swift and PaviElle French.


Please mark your calendars for October 2023

Ensemble Connect October 2023 Program

Friday, October 27, 2023

7:30 PM Performance
Helen Filene Ladd Concert Hall

CONCERT PROGRAM

MISSY MAZZOLI | Still Life with Avalanche
BARBER | Summer Music, Op. 31
FRANZ SCHUBERT | Piano Quintet in A Major, D. 667, "Trout" 


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