
Chamber Works for Strings and Piano, at Lincoln Center (Site)
Sunday October 19, 5:00 pm

The opening concert of CMS’s celebratory violin season reunites Johannes Brahms and Clara and Robert Schumann with the violinist who inspired them to compose like no other. To Joseph Joachim, the dominant violinist of the Romantic age, we owe Brahms’s mighty violin concerto, Schumann’s and Dvořák’s concertos, and much more.
Program
Program
Clara Schumann
(1819–1896)
Three Romances for Violin and Piano, Op. 22
(1853)
Robert Schumann
(1810–1856)
Sonata in D minor for Violin and Piano, Op. 121
(1851)
Joseph Joachim
(1831-1907)
Romance for Violin and Piano
(1855)
Johannes Brahms
(1833–1897)
Sextet No. 2 in G major for Two Violins, Two Violas, and Two Cellos, Op. 36
(1864-65)
Performers
Gilles Vonsattel
Stella Chen
Lun Li
Paul Neubauer
James Thompson
David Finckel
Paul Watkins
Swiss-born American pianist Gilles Vonsattel boasts remarkable versatility and artistic originality. Winner of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, the 2016 Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award, and top prizes in the Naumburg and Geneva competitions, he has graced prestigious stages worldwide, collaborating with renowned orchestras and enthralling audiences with recitals and chamber performances. As a champion of new music, he has premiered compositions by celebrated composers such as Jörg Widmann, Heinz Holliger, Anthony Cheung, and George Benjamin. He is an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, and has earned degrees from Columbia University and the Juilliard School. Today, Vonsattel shares his passion for music as a Professor of Piano at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and on faculty at Bard College Conservatory of Music.
Praised for her “silken grace” and “brilliant command” (The Strad), American violinist Stella Chen captured international attention as the winner of the 2019 Queen Elisabeth International Violin Competition, followed by the 2020 Avery Fisher Career Grant. Her debut album, Stella x Schubert, was released in 2023 on Apple Music’s Platoon label to critical acclaim, garnering her the title of Young Artist of the Year at the Gramophone Awards. Stella has performed across North America, Europe, and Asia, appearing as soloist with orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Brussels Philharmonic, and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. A recently appointed faculty member of the Juilliard School, she holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and a doctorate from Juilliard, and is an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program. Chen performs on the 1720 “General Kyd” Stradivarius, generously loaned by Dr. Ryuji Ueno and Rare Violins In Consortium, Artists and Benefactors Collaborative.
A native of Shanghai currently based in New York, violinist Lun Li won first prize in the 2021 Young Concert Artists Susan Wadsworth International Auditions. He has appeared on major stages around the world, including Helsinki Music Centre, Konzerthaus Berlin, Kulturpalast Dresden, Wiener Konzerthaus, and Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center. He recently made his solo recital debuts in Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Music Center in New York and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, as well as his concerto debut at Lincoln Center. An avid chamber musician, he has participated in the Marlboro, Music@Menlo, Verbier, and Angel Fire music festivals. He is a member of CMS’s Bowers Program and holds degrees from the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School; his mentors include Ida Kavafian, Catherine Cho, and Joseph Lin. Li plays the Stradivarius “Samazeuilh” 1735 violin, on generous loan from the Nippon Music Foundation.
Violist Paul Neubauer, hailed by the New York Times as a “master musician,” will release two new albums in 2025 on First Hand Records, featuring the final works of two great composers: an all-Bartók album including the revised version of the Viola Concerto, and a Shostakovich recording that includes the monumental Viola Sonata. Appointed principal violist of the New York Philharmonic at the age of 21, Neubauer has appeared as soloist with the New York, Los Angeles, and Helsinki Philharmonics; the Chicago, National, St. Louis, Detroit, Dallas, San Francisco, and Bournemouth Symphonies; and the Santa Cecilia, English Chamber, and Beethovenhalle Orchestras. He has premiered viola concertos by Bartók (revised version), Friedman, Glière, Jacob, Kernis, Lazarof, Müller-Siemens, Ott, Penderecki, Picker, Suter, and Tower. A two-time Grammy nominee, Neubauer is artistic director of the Mostly Music series in New Jersey and serves on the faculties of the Juilliard School and Mannes College.
Violinist and violist James Thompson enjoys a multifaceted career as a chamber musician, soloist, educator, and lecturer. He is currently on faculty at Music@Menlo and was a member of CMS’s Bowers Program from 2021 to 2024. He has performed for prestigious chamber music organizations across the country, including the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Music@Menlo, the Four Arts Society, Parlance Chamber Concerts, the Perlman Music Program, and the Taos School of Music. Solo engagements include appearances with the Cleveland Orchestra, the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra, the Cleveland Pops Orchestra, and the Blue Water Chamber Orchestra. He was invited to perform in Budapest as part of the First Bartók World Competition and in Sendai for the Seventh Sendai International Violin Competition. Recently, his abilities as a presenter have earned him invitations to speak at a variety of established concert series. His multimedia live interview with the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, hosted by CMS, was a highlight of his 2021–22 season. Alongside his career on stage, he is forming a strong reputation as a private instructor and chamber music coach, and has recently served as a teaching fellow at both the Encore Chamber Music Festival and the Western Reserve Chamber Music Festival. Thompson holds bachelor’s, master’s, and artist diploma degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music; his primary teachers include Jaime Laredo, William Preucil, and Paul Kantor.
Co-Artistic Director of CMS since 2004, cellist David Finckel’s dynamic musical career has included performances on the world’s stages in the roles of recitalist, chamber artist, and orchestral soloist. The first American student of Mstislav Rostropovich, he joined the Emerson String Quartet in 1979, and during 34 seasons garnered nine Grammy Awards and the Avery Fisher Prize. His quartet performances and recordings include quartet cycles of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Dvorák, Brahms, Bartók, and Shostakovich, as well as collaborative masterpieces and commissioned works. In 1997, he and pianist Wu Han founded ArtistLed, the first internet-based, artist-controlled classical recording label. ArtistLed’s catalog of more than 20 releases includes the standard literature for cello and piano, plus works composed for the duo by George Tsontakis, Gabriela Lena Frank, Bruce Adolphe, Lera Auerbach, Edwin Finckel, Augusta Read Thomas, and Pierre Jalbert. In 2022, Music@Menlo, an innovative summer chamber music festival in Silicon Valley founded and directed by David and Wu Han, celebrated its 20th season. As a young student, David was winner of the Philadelphia Orchestra’s junior and senior divisions, resulting in two performances with the orchestra. Having taught extensively with the late Isaac Stern in America, Israel, and Japan, he is currently a professor at both the Juilliard School and Stony Brook University, and oversees both CMS’s Bowers Program and Music@Menlo’s Chamber Music Institute. David’s 100 online Cello Talks, lessons on cello technique, are viewed by an international audience of musicians. Along with Wu Han, he was the recipient of Musical America’s 2012 Musicians of the Year Award.
Acclaimed for his inspirational performances and eloquent musicianship, Paul Watkins enjoys a remarkably varied and distinguished career as soloist, chamber musician, and conductor. He is the Artistic Director of the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, and in 2019 he was appointed Professor of Cello at the Yale School of Music. He has performed as concerto soloist with prestigious orchestras throughout the world under eminent conductors including Bernard Haitink, Paavo Berglund, Leonard Slatkin, Sakari Oramo, Gianandrea Noseda, Sir Mark Elder, Sir Andrew Davis, Sir Charles Mackerras, Andris Nelsons, Edo de Waart, Hannu Lintu and Vasily Petrenko. A dedicated chamber musician, Paul was a member of the Nash Ensemble from 1997 until 2013, when he joined the Emerson String Quartet. With the Quartet he has travelled extensively, performing at major international festivals including Tanglewood, Aspen, Ravinia, Edinburgh, Berlin, and Evian, and has collaborated with artists such as Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, Evgeny Kissin, Renée Fleming, and Barbara Hannigan. He is a regular guest artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
He took first prize in the 2002 Leeds Conducting Competition, and has held the positions of Music Director of the English Chamber Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of the Ulster Orchestra. In recent seasons he made his conducting debuts with the Minnesota Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, and Omaha Symphony. His extensive discography as a cellist includes more than 70 recordings, including 18 solo albums for Chandos. His first recording as a conductor, of the Britten and Berg violin concertos with Daniel Hope, received a Grammy nomination.
Paul’s future plans include solo performances and recordings with, among others, Alessio Bax, Anthony Marwood, Lawrence Power, Leila Josefowicz, Edward Gardner, and Sir Andrew Davis. He is also in demand as a visiting teacher and has residencies this season at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Butler School of Music at the University of Texas at Austin.