Composer

Four remarkable artists with a passion for chamber music have come together to form an exciting new piano-and-strings quartet, destined to become an audience favorite.  For decades, violinist Jaime Laredo and cellist Sharon Robinson, together with their piano trio partner the late Joseph Kalichstein, were hailed as “chamber music royalty” (Washington Post), a distinction that equally applies to their ESPRESSIVO! partners—the stellar violist Milena Pájaro-van de Stadt, a founding member of the Dover Quartet, and the award-winning pianist Anna Polonsky, one of chamber music’s most sought-after collaborators.  Their program includes favorites by Beethoven and Schumann and a reprise of Richard Danielpour’s Book of Hours, co-commissioned by the Hudson Valley Chamber Music Circle and premiered on our series at Olin Auditorium in 2007.

EPSG:4326

Espressivo!

Fisher Center at Bard

ROCO concludes its Albert and Margaret Alkek Foundation In Concert Series on Saturday, April 18, 5:00 p.m. at The Church of St. John the Divine with ROCO In Concert: Seeing Is Believing—a thrilling finale led by Artistic Partner Delyana Lazarova, and featuring guest soprano Viviana Goodwin and guest concertmaster Laura Frautschi, along with ROCO wind soloists. The season finale features Richard Danielpour’s Breaking the Veil, set for full chamber orchestra, and his Adagietto for Strings, plus the world premiere of Composer In Residence Kevin Lau’s orchestral work inspired by the world of Narnia. The Houston Youth Symphony joins ROCO for a side-by-side performance in Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s Overture in C Major, and the evening concludes with J. Todd Frazier’s We Hold These Truths and Wild Horses, sung by Viviana Goodwin.

ROCO In Concert: Seeing Is Believing

The Church of St. John the Divine

On January 21, the Iranshahr Orchestra, conducted by Stefan Lano and Shahab Paranj, will celebrate the 70th birthday of American composer Richard Danielpour. The program features violinist Aida Kavafian performing Fiat Lux, Danielpour’s violin concerto, as well as his Symphony for Strings. The concert also includes two works that reflect the composer’s Persian heritage: Songs of Love and Loss, sung by acclaimed American soprano Hila Plitmann, and Breaking the Veil, performed by soloists Catherine Gregory, Kristin Wolfe Jensen, and Alecia Lawyer.

Celebrating Richard Danielpour

UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music

Our season finale will take us on a scenic journey! Principal Clarinet of the New York Philharmonic Anthony McGill performs Richard Danielpour’s Clarinet Concerto “From the Mountaintop” inspired by Martin Luther King Jr., and the orchestra will perform Saint-Saëns Symphony No. 3 “Organ” featuring the Dallas Symphony’s Resident Organist and Baylor graduate, Bradley Hunter Welch. This symphony has been featured in several television shows and films, most famously in Babe (1995). Conveying a pioneering spirit, the orchestra will also perform Brian Tyler’s theme to Yellowstone from the hit TV series!

From Yellowstone to the Mountaintop

Baylor University

Music Director Ken-David Masur conducts a powerful program highlighting three generations of American composers. In Aaron Copland’s stirring musical portrait of Abraham Lincoln, the composer begins by suggesting “the mysterious sense of fatality that surrounds Lincoln’s personality” and ends by attempting “to draw a simple but impressive frame about the words of Lincoln himself.” MSO Principal Clarinet Todd Levy performs Richard Danielpour’s From the Mountaintop, dedicated to the legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The evening concludes with Charles Ives’s Second Symphony, which samples classic American folk tunes such as “America the Beautiful,” “Turkey in the Straw,” and “Camptown Races” — the last of which Lincoln himself used as a campaign song, bringing the concert full circle.

American Voices

Warner Grand Theater

### Event Description: ROCO Connections: Addio

**Date and Time:** Sunday, April 21, 2024, at 6:30 PM  
**Location:** Museum of Fine Arts, Houston - European Wing  
**Sponsored by:** Frost Bank

Join ROCO for an evening of musical innovation and heartfelt farewells with "ROCO Connections: Addio." This concert, set in the elegant European Wing of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, celebrates the evolution of the string quartet through the works of pioneering composers.

**Program Highlights:**

1. **Giuseppe Verdi: String Quartet in E minor**
   - II. Andantino
   - III. Prestissimo
   - IV. Scherzo fuga. Allegro assai mosso

2. **Maddalena Laura Lombardini Sirmen: String Quartet in E major, Op. 3, No. 6**
   - A remarkable piece by an 18th-century woman who significantly influenced the string quartet genre.

3. **Richard Danielpour: String Quartet No. 6 "Addio"**
   - This contemporary work uses the quartet as a metaphor for family, exploring themes of distance, time, and saying goodbye.

**Performing Artists:**
- **Scott St. John, violin**
- **Eva Burmeister, violin**
- **Sharon Wei, viola**
- **Alexis Pia Gerlach, cello**

Experience the beauty and emotional depth of these compositions, performed by a talented ensemble of musicians. This concert not only pays homage to the historical roots of the string quartet but also pushes the boundaries of the genre, making it a must-attend event for classical music enthusiasts.

**Venue Address:**
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston  
Bissonnet Street, Houston, TX, USA  
[View on Google Maps](https://www.google.com/maps)

Don't miss this unique opportunity to witness the convergence of tradition and innovation in the world of string quartets. Secure your tickets now and be part of an unforgettable musical journey.

ROCO Connections: Addio

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Conductor Johannes Debus makes his ROCO debut in INFRARED, a program featuring more than the eye can see—including two radiant world premieres commissioned by ROCO. Triple-threat Grammy-nominated Brazilian-American composer Clarice Assad’s Fanfare opens, then experience "Nell 'Inferno", the blazing first movement of Richard Danielpour’s Symphony in Three Movement After the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. Go galactic in Missy Mazzoli’s Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) “…music in the shape of a solar system, a collection of rococo loops that twist around each other within a larger orbit”, before Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 1 with its fiery opening brings the listener back to earth, in time for Mozart’s delectable Divertimento, KV 136—a work written simply to entertain.

ROCO In Concert: Infrared

Miller Outdoor Theatre

“Our opening concert of the 2023/2024 season features an extraordinary premiere of a piano work that was commissioned for SCMR and composed by the internationally renowned composer, Richard Danielpour. The RPO string principals will follow the premiere with the lush Brahms C minor Quartet.”

Premiere

The Hochstein School

America/Beautiful is a project by pianist and arts advocate Min Kwon, in which she has commissioned a diverse group of more than 70 of today’s leading American composers to each compose a variation on “America the Beautiful.”

Kwon's hope is to paint a sonic picture of her adopted country in all of its sprawling complexity, and ultimately try to find the beauty at the core of the American experiment and its credo of e pluribus unum (out of many, one).

America / Beautiful: Min Kwon piano

Aspen Meadows Resort

America/Beautiful: Min Kwon piano

ZA’ATAR

First Presbyterian Church of Santa Monica

The Curtis Institute of Music honors distinguished composition faculty member Richard Danielpour in a celebratory evening of new work by the Grammy Award winner. Praised as “an outstanding composer for any time” (New York Daily News), Danielpour is one of the most sought-after and recorded American composers of his generation. These striking pieces capture three unique facets of his singular compositional voice.  

Music of Richard Danielpour

Curtis Institute of Music

Curtis on Tour’s beloved Cello Quintet returns to finish their 2022 tour in 2023. The brilliant Quintet in C major, D. 956, written by Franz Schubert for two violins, viola, and two cellos, is one of the finest and most compelling works in the chamber music repertoire. Schubert’s masterpiece was be paired with a new companion piece, co-commissioned by Curtis for this tour, by composition faculty Richard Danielpour. The ensemble will be led by faculty members and renowned chamber musicians Ida Kavafian and Peter Wiley, both former members of the internationally-acclaimed Beaux Arts Trio.

Curtis on Tour in Burlingame, CA

Kohl Mansion

Curtis on Tour in Oakmont, CA

Berger Center

This event is part of the Art + Sol Winter Arts Festival. To learn more, visit artsolsantafe.org.

A Standing Witness is a monumental new collaboration between Grammy Award-winning composer Richard Danielpour and Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove, created especially for the incomparable mezzo-soprano Susan Graham and the celebrated Music from Copland House Ensemble. The soaring music and probing poetry of this epic cycle for mezzo-soprano and chamber ensemble is a sweeping retrospective tracing enormous social, cultural, technological, and political upheavals in the U.S. since the watershed year of 1968. Rapturously received in premiere performances at the Kennedy Center, the University of Chicago, and elsewhere around the U.S., there is no more timely or provocative work for this pivotal moment in American history.

Susan Graham + Music from Copland House – A Standing Witness

Lensic Performing Arts Center

This fall, Curtis on Tour performs across Europe with a newly commissioned work by Richard Danielpour entitled Canti della Natura (Songs of Nature). These exciting new songs set sonnets penned by Antonio Vivaldi, which were written to accompany his own Le quattro stagioni (Four Seasons). The new piece is performed alongside works of Schubert and Brahms.

Curtis on Tour in Madrid, Spain

Fundación Juan March

Curtis on Tour in Teulada-Moraira, Spain

Auditori Teulada

Experience a major world premiere as the BPO brings Richard Danielpour’s Francis to life—an expansive new oratorio inspired by the life of St. Francis of Assisi, marking the 800th anniversary of his death. Blending orchestra, chorus, soloists, and narration, this work explores compassion, humanity, and the search for meaning through a story that continues to resonate today.

Composer

Richard Danielpour

Events

Upcoming events

10 - 11 Oct, 2026

Francis: A New Oratorio by Richard Danielpour · Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra

Past events

Jun 14, 2026

Espressivo! · Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College

Apr 18, 2026

ROCO In Concert: Seeing Is Believing · ROCO

About

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