Violinist

Featuring SPCO violinist Maureen Nelson’s new arrangement of Medieval works, this program is a musical response to the poet Rumi who wrote: “The lamps are different, but the Light is the same. One matter, one energy, one Light, one Light-mind, endlessly emanating all things.” Opening with music of Hildegard von Bingen, this Express Concert is a journey of light through the eyes of different composers. At the heart lies Franz Joseph Haydn’s uplifting Midday Symphony and Osvaldo Golijov’s lush Tenebrae for String Quartet.

EPSG:4326

Express Concert: Haydn’s Midday Symphony

Ted Mann Concert Hall

Temple Israel

Ordway Center for the Performing Arts

Saint Paul's United Church of Christ

Principal Bass Zachary Cohen plays an arrangement of Franz Schubert’s famous work for arpeggione, a now extinct instrument similar to a bowed guitar, alongside Florence Price’s technically and lyrically epic String Quartet No 2. Originally published in 1935, the quartet was rediscovered in 2009 with hundreds of manuscripts written by Price over her lifetime — audiences are in for a treat as the SPCO tackles the entire work after having previously performed the “Juba” movement for streaming audiences early in the pandemic.

Zachary Cohen Plays Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata

Trinity Lutheran Church of Minnesota

Wayzata Community Church

Fans of chamber music will delight in this concert featuring three quintets of winds and strings alike. Franz Hasenöhrl's arrangement of Richard Strauss’ immensely popular tone poem Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks cleverly distills the large-scale orchestral work to its essence. The work is based on medieval German folk tales about a practical joker whose exploits range from pranks in the marketplace to revenge on upper-class society. Closing out the program is Antonín Dvořák’s American Quintet, written during his summer in Spillville Iowa.

Dvořák, Haydn and Strauss

Shepherd of The Valley Lutheran Church

Humboldt High School Auditorium

Written during his summer in Spillville Iowa, Antonín Dvořák’s American Quintet draws on influences he saw as uniquely American — African-American spiritual melodies, taught to him by composer Henry T. Burleigh, and rhythms from Native American music, which he discovered through the traveling Kickapoo Medicine Show. Other pieces on this program reflect similar influence. David Bruce’s Gumboots is derived from the Apartheid-era South African dance, and Louis W. Ballard’s Ritmo Indio is a study in American Indian rhythms.

Ballard, Bruce and Dvořák

Capri Theater

SPCO violinist Eunae Koh curates a program of composers from the Romantic era to the present day inspired by emotional and natural landscapes. Clara Schumann’s Three Romances and Louise Farrenc’s Sextet showcase the virtuosic talent of both composers who were celebrated pianists and influential advocates for their contemporaries. An evocative work for oboe, viola and cello by living composer Hilary Tann is inspired by a ruined castle in Wales. The program ends with a jubilant, but rarely performed, string quartet by Swedish composer Valborg Aulin.

Romantic Landscapes with Eunae Koh

2023.24 Sandbox Composer-in-Residence Clarice Assad's Synchronous is a two-movement work composed for oboe and string quartet depicting the same five minutes of time, first as a beautiful sunrise, and second as disconnected images of events happening around the world during those same five minutes. 

Assad, Farrenc and Schubert

The Festival artists lead an exciting evening of chamber music at the Harold Miossi Cultural & Performing Arts Center, including the West Coast Premiere of George Tsontakis' Portraits by El Greco Book II.

Rolf Haas

Violinist

Events

1 - 4 Feb, 2024

Express Concert: Haydn’s Midday Symphony · Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra

5 - 7 Oct, 2023

Zachary Cohen Plays Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata · Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra

11 - 16 May, 2023

Dvořák, Haydn and Strauss · Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra

4 - 5 May, 2023

Ballard, Bruce and Dvořák · Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra

5 - 7 Jan, 2023

Romantic Landscapes with Eunae Koh · Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra

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