A quartet of women perform works for piano and strings by a diverse group of female composers to include Florence Price, Amy Beach, Rebecca Clarke, Vitezslava Kaprálová, Teresa Carreño, Maria Theresia von Paradis, Louise Lincoln Kerr, Fanny Mendelssohn and Dora Pejačević.
PROGRAM to include the following works but is subject to change:
Fantasie #2 for Violin and Piano (1940)…Florence Price (1887 – 1953)
Elegie for Violin and Piano (1939)…Vitezslava Kaprálová (1915 – 1940)
Lied from Piano Trio in D minor, op. 11 (1846)…Fanny Mendelssohn (1805 – 1847)
Sicilienne for Cello and Piano…Maria Theresia von Paradis (1759 – 1824)
Two Pieces for Viola and Cello (1918)…Rebecca Clarke (1886 – 1979)
I. Lullaby
II. Grotesque
Gottschalk Waltz for Piano (1863)…Teresa Carreño (1853 – 1917)
INTERMISSION
Romance for Violin and Piano, op. 23 (1893)…Amy Beach (1867 – 1944)
Five Character Pieces for Viola and Piano…Louise Lincoln Kerr (1892 – 1977)
I. Habanera
V. Toccata
Piano Quartet in D minor, Op.25 (1908)…Dora Pejačević (1885 – 1923)
Allegro
Adagio
Minuetto and Trio
Rondo
Acclaimed violinist Sarah Pratt-Parsamian has been a prizewinner at the Jeunesses Musicales International Violin Competition, and Silver Medal winner in the Canadian National Music Competition. At the age of 14 she made her solo debut with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra at the Guelph Spring Festival in Ontario, and since has performed as soloist with orchestras in Canada and the U.S. An avid chamber musician and recital artist, Sarah has performed across Canada and the United States, including Stratford Summer Music Festival, the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society, the Arts and Letters Club, Heliconian Club, the British Art Museum, Bargemusic, the Detroit Institute of Art, Clefworks, and others. She performs as a substitute with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic, with whom she has traveled on tours across the United States, Europe and Asia. She is a member of the New York City Opera Orchestra, a position she has held since 2006. Sarah holds a Bachelor in Performance from the University of Toronto, Master’s Degree and Artist Diploma from Yale University, and Doctor of Musical Arts from SUNY Stony Brook.
A graduate of the Juilliard School with BA and MA degrees and currently a DMA candidate at Stony Brook University, violist Liuh-Wen Ting enjoys a fulfilling career as both a performer and teacher. An avid chamber musician, Liuh-Wen was a member of the Meridian String Quartet and has collaborated with many notable artists and ensembles across diverse genres. A proponent of contemporary music, she made her solo debut at Merkin Hall in 2001 for the “Interpretation Series” with five commissioned compositions based on elements of the I Ching. Her performance of Morton Feldman’s “Viola in My Life IV” with the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra was praised by Czech Music 2001 as “an extraordinary experience.” She has been featured in festivals such as the Prague Spring Music Festival, Ostrava Days, Warsaw Autumn Music Festival, and the Primavera en la Habana International Electro-Acoustic Music Festival in Cuba. She has premiered and recorded many chamber and solo works for labels including Naxos, Mode, Capstone, and Albany, among others. In addition to performing regularly with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the American Composers Orchestra, and the SEM Ensemble, she serves as a viola faculty at the Mannes School Prep Division and Vassar College.
Roberta Cooper, cellist, won the Artists International Competition which sponsored her Carnegie Hall debut. She is a member of the Walsh-Drucker-Cooper Trio, which has performed extensively on major series in the US. and Europe. Ms. Cooper is the assistant principal cellist of the American Symphony Orchestra and is a member of the American Composers Orchestra and the Westchester Philharmonic. She has performed in the Berlin Philharmonic, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the New York City Opera and the ballet orchestras of both the NYC Ballet and American Ballet Theatre. Roberta has been a guest cellist with the Emerson Quartet in many concerts in the US and Europe. She has been the continuo player with the Berkshire Bach Society for more than two decades and has been a regular chamber music participant at many music festivals at Classical Tahoe, Festival Napa, and the St Bart’s Music Festival. In 2024 she made her debut with the “Frankly Music” series in Milwaukee in January and at Taconic Music in Manchester, Vermont in July. A favorite project was as featured soloist on pop singer Linda Ronstadt’s recording of jazz standards, titled “Hummin’ to Myself”. This group, filled with jazz legends performed for a A&E TV special and at Jazz@Lincoln Center. Ms. Cooper was a scholarship student of Lorne Munroe and Harvey Shapiro at the Juilliard School, where she received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees and the William Henderson Prize for outstanding achievement.
A native of New York, pianist and teaching artist Barbara Podgurski holds a DMA in piano performance from The Graduate Center (CUNY) as well as a BM in piano performance and an MM in both piano performance and music theory from the Mannes College of Music. Dr. Podgurski has performed as soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Caribbean, and Europe, including a number of performances at Carnegie Hall. Dr. Podgurski was featured on the 2015 television documentary for NHK in Japan with her touring partner violinist Elizabeth Pitcairn and the famed “Red” Mendelssohn Stradivarius and has been featured in many radio programs on WQXR, WPLN, NRP and WQED.
Dr. Podgurski is currently the Executive and Artistic Director of Musica Reginae Productions. She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at BMCC (CUNY), Staff Pianist for the Strings Department at NYU, and is on the faculty of the RiverArts Music Program in Hudson Valley. She recently performed with rock band Evanescence on their Synthesis Tour and with legendary vocal group Il Divo on their 2019 and 2022 tours. Barbara has been an Arts Commissioner Advisor for the Queens Council on the Arts and is Chief Advisor on the advisory board of NY Sound Circuit. Barbara is the organist and music director at Trinity St. Andrews Evangelical Lutheran Church in Maspeth, Queens. She is featured in a documentary titled “A Taste of Chamber Music” which will be released in Spring 2025 on PBS.org. Barbara is the Associate Director of KIISS – The Krakauer Institute for Intensive Summer Study in Vaison-la-Romaine, France (krakauerinstitute.org).