Sunday, March 21, 2010, 3:00pm

Sponsored by Priscilla Sears and YogaCrossroads, Inc.

Willy Sucre &The Matisse Piano Trio

Willy Sucre on viola, Katie Wolfe on violin,
Anthony Arnone on cello, and Ksenia Nosikova on piano

The Matisse Piano Trio was formed in 2004 by pianist Ksenia Nosikova, violinist Katie Wolfe, and cellist Anthony Arnone, faculty members at the University of Iowa. Their passion for chamber music has brought these three internationally acclaimed soloists together to explore the rich and varied repertoire of the piano trio. While maintaining active solo and teaching careers, the Matisse Trio has performed around the country in New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Kansas, Iowa, and Hawaii. As they are also dedicated educators, the trio regularly gives clinics and master classes to college and high school students.

Called a pianist of "impressive musicianship" and "refined sensibility and exquisite pianism, fascinating to watch and hear" by the Boston Globe and New York Concert Reviews, Ksenia Nosikova has performed extensively as a solo pianist and chamber musician in Europe, Russia, and both Americas. In the United States she appeared at different concert venues including Merkin Hall, Jordan Hall, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Dame Myra Hess concert series in Chicago, Los Angeles Museum of Arts concert series, and at over 50 American universities guest artist series. She has been invited to perform in various international and national festivals including those in Rimini (Italy), Munster (France), and Rovin (Yugoslavia), as well as the Aspen and Sarasota Music Festivals in the United States. The press has praised her performances as being "... brilliant, full of grace and the most astonishing precision...." (Dernieres Nouvilles D'Alsace), and "...musically very poetic ...full of light, warmth, and joy..." (Madison Music Review).

Among her recordings are 3 solo piano compact discs of The Years of Pilgrimage by Franz Liszt released by Centaur Records, Inc. to critical acclaim. "...Ksenia Nosikova proves to be a worthy contender on every level, as her stylish, intelligent, and technically rock-solid artistry bears out..." ClassicsToday. And to quote the American Record Guide "...Her Polonaise Melancolique is indeed revelatory...extraordinary elasticity of rhythm, tasteful rubato, and above all, spellbinding atmosphere. I don't expect this unusual work played so remarkably any time soon..." Her most recent release (fall 2006) is a recording of early twentieth-century English music for viola and piano The Blissful Viola with violist Christine Rutledge on Centaur Records label. Ksenia Nosikova's collaboration with an American composer Lera Auerbach led to a world-premiere recording of Auerbach's solo piano music, which will be released in 2007. Nosikova has been featured on several live radio and television programs, including WQXR in New York City, WFMT in Chicago, WGBH in Boston, KMZT in Los Angeles, and Zagreb TV.

Ksenia Nosikova is a graduate of Moscow Conservatory, where she received her Undergraduate and Masters' (with highest honors) degrees. She earned her Doctoral degree from the University of Colorado. Presently, Ksenia Nosikova is an associate professor of piano at The University of Iowa, where she devotedly teaches an international studio of graduate and undergraduate students. Her students have been successful in obtaining college teaching jobs, winning international, regional, and state piano competitions, and performing on national and state radio broadcasts, such as the From the Top (Boston) and Know the Score (Iowa City). Since joining The University of Iowa faculty in 1998, she has presented over 40 master classes in the U.S. and abroad. The winner of three international competitions, she served the Ibla Grand Prize International Competition (Italy), several American young artists' competitions, and MTNA auditions as a jury member.

Originally from Minnesota, violinist Katie Wolfe joined the string faculty of The University of Iowa in 2004. She enjoys a diverse and exciting career as a soloist, teacher, chamber and orchestral musician on the national and international stage. She has performed in the United States, Canada, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Malaysia, Korea, Japan, the Soviet Union, Spain and the Netherlands.

Wolfe received a B.M. in violin performance from Indiana University, where she was a student of Miriam Fried. She coached chamber music with Rostislav Dubinsky and Janos Starker, among others. She continued her studies earning a M.M. in violin performance from the Manhattan School of Music (MSM), studying violin with Sylvia Rosenberg.

After graduating from MSM, Wolfe received the prestigious Fulbright Lecture Award to teach and perform in Bolivia. She formed a string quartet which performed educational and public concerts throughout the country, taught at the National Conservatory, and served as Associate Concertmaster of the National Symphony of Bolivia for one season.

Prior to teaching in Iowa, Wolfe taught violin, viola and chamber music at Oklahoma State University for five years, as well as serving as Associate Concertmaster of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, and performed frequent solo and chamber music concerts throughout the state.

As a chamber musician, Wolfe has performed with Miriam Fried, James Campbell, Atar Arad, as a guest violinist with the Maia and Harrington String Quartets, and with many other incredible musicians. She considers herself fortunate to have worked with some of the greatest artist in the world in festivals, master classes and seminars, such as with members of the Juilliard, Guarneri, Mendelssohn, and Vermeer Quartets, Eugene Lehner, Gil Kalish, Charles Castleman, Renato Bonancini, and many others.

Broadening her experiences and musical career as a freelance artist in New York City, Katie has performed and toured with groups such as Jupiter Symphony, Philharmonia Virtuosi, Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, the S.E.M. Ensemble, City Island Baroque Ensemble, in Broadway pit orchestras, and with many other ensembles.

Cellist Anthony Arnone is an active soloist, chamber musician, conductor and teacher throughout the country and around the world.

Arnone is currently the assistant professor of cello at The University of Iowa School of Music. He is on the faculty of the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, North Carolina, where he teaches, conducts, and performs chamber and orchestral music during the summers. He is also on the faculty of the Preucil School of Music in Iowa City, where he conducts the Preucil School String Orchestra. An active clinician as well, Arnone has given master classes throughout the country. Classes in spring of 2007 will include Cleveland Institute of Music, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and the University of Missouri, St. Louis.

As a cello soloist and chamber musician, Arnone was a founding member of the Meridien Trio and the Sedgewick String Quartet, which performed regularly at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston. More recently, he has been part of the Matisse Trio, faculty trio at the University of Iowa. The Matisse Trio has played throughout the United States and at international conferences. Arnone also has performed as soloist with orchestras including the Newton/Mid-Kansas Symphony, Madison Symphony, and the Wichita State University Orchestra, and regularly performs solo and chamber music recitals around the country.

A native of Honolulu, Arnone received his bachelor of music degree from the New England Conservatory of Music where he studied with Colin Carr. He left graduate studies with Bonnie Hampton at the San Francisco Conservatory to accept a position with the Orchestré Philharmonique de Nice, France, where he remained for 2 years, continuing his studies with Paul and Maude Tortelier. He later returned to the United States to complete his master's degree in conducting at Wichita State University.

In addition to the Orchestré Philharmonique de Nice, Arnone was the principal cellist of the Madison Symphony in Wisconsin. He was also a member of the New World Symphony and the Wichita Symphony, as well as co-principal cello in the Spoleto Festival Orchestra in Charleston, South Carolina and the Festival dei due Mondi in Italy.

Before coming to The University of Iowa,  Arnone was professor of cello and conducting at Ripon College in Ripon, WI, in addition to being principal cellist of the Madison Symphony.  Arnone and his wife, Hannah Holman, started the Iowa Cello Society in 2002, and have had yearly "Cello Daze" weekends with such prominent guests as Colin Carr, Bonnie Hampton, Richard Aaron, Tanya Carey, and Hans Jorgen Jensen.

The program should include:

Piano Quartet in A Minor

by Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler was born in Bohemia on July 7, 1860, in a town then known as Iglau . In Iglau the young Gustav heard the folk songs, military bands, popular tunes and art music that was to so flavor his later master pieces.

The earliest surviving work by Mahler is this incomplete Piano Quartet in A minor, composed in Vienna during his student days, when he was sixteen years old. This work had been lost and was not published until 1964. This is decidedly a romantic work with rich harmonies, which has a symphonic feel to it, even though it only is scored for four instruments. Mahler never completed this Quartet-it has only one movement, although he did write 24 measures of a Scherzo, intended to be the work’s second movement.

It is believed that it was performed at the Conservatory on July 10, 1876, and given its first public performance in Jihlava on September 12 of the same year, Mahler playing the piano on both occasions. The first modern performance of the movement was given in New York, on January 12, 1964 played by Peter Serkin and the Galimir Quartet.

It is written in A minor key, which Mahler believed symbolized the "unconscious anticipation of things to come". The melancholy end of the movement is clairvoyant, for sad things indeed lay ahead for Mahler, for though he would become world renowned as an Opera conductor and later as a composer, he would also experience the untimely death of his children and his own very ill health.  He died in Vienna on May 18 1911.

Notes adapted from Wikipedia, the free on-line encyclopedia and info supplied by Willy Sucre.

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I. Prélude et fugue: Lento
II. Thème et variations: Andante
III. Sonate: Allegro

Turina was born in Sevilla, Spain, as Joaquín Turina Pérez, on December 9, 1882, into a comfortable middle-class family. He grew up in an artistic environment and at the age of four was given an accordion, which he learned to play quickly and with skill. In 1894 he began his formal studies of harmony, theory, and counterpoint. Almost immediately he began to compose small pieces.  

Despite its title, the Trio No. 1 in D major was not actually Turina's first trio. In 1904, he wrote a substantial but little-known Trio in F major. But by 1926, the year he produced the D major trio, Turina had developed a more personal style, having assimilated a variety of early influences and given more prominent expression to his Spanish heritage (as recommended by his countryman Isaac Albéniz). Published with a dedication to the Infanta Isabel de Borbón, the Trio in D major won the 1926 Spanish National Competition.

The Trio was premiered in London on July 5, 1927, with the composer as pianist and is dedicated to Her Royal Highness L’Infante Dona Isabel de Borbon.  Like all of his pre-1907 works, Turina treated it with disdain and never encouraged a performance.  It was performed in 1999 to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of his death on January 14, 1949 in Madrid.

Notes adapted from the Classical Archives and the Sierra Chamber Society websites.

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Piano Quartet in E Flat Major, op. 87

by Antonín Dvorák

I. Allegro con fuoco
II. Lento
III. Allegro moderato, grazioso
IV. Finale: Allegro ma non troppo

Dvořák was born to Slavic parents on September 8, 1841, in Nelabozeves, near Prague, in the Bohemia area of what is now Czechoslovakia. His father, a poor butcher and innkeeper, played the zither at local weddings and other festivities and sometimes composed original dance tunes. Before very long, young Antonin was playing fiddle with his father.  Although his father planned for his son to follow his trade as a butcher, music won out, and by age sixteen the young man was in Prague getting a solid grounding in Classical musical practices.

For some four years, starting in 1885, Dvorak’s publisher, Simrock, pressed him to compose a second piano quartet. (The first, Op. 23 in D major, was written in 1875.) Finally on August 10, 1889, Dvorak acceded and in one month was able to write his friend, Alois Gobl, “I’ve now already finished three movements of a new piano quartet, and the Finale will be ready in a few days. As I expected it came easily, and the melodies just surged upon me, Thank God!” The quartet was indeed completed on August 19, and the premiere was given in Prague on November 23, 1890.

Notes adapted from Melvin Berger's Guide to Chamber Music

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Photo taken after the March, 2008 concert.

Time, date, and program subject to change.