This season's artists:

These are the names and biographies of the artists for the Spring season.

Sunday Afternoon, April 5, at 4:00 PM.
Kurt Nikkanen, New York City Ballet Orchestra concertmaster, returns in partnership with acclaimed pianist Maria Asteriadou, winner of the Maria Callas International Piano Competition. Opening their program: Dvorâk’s four beautiful miniatures, originally for two violins and viola which, fortunately for posterity, the composer arranged for violin and piano. A special treat is Danish composer Carl Nielsen’s G minor violin sonata, a rarely performed masterpiece on a symphonic scale. Brahms’ third and last violin sonata is notable for an intensity and economy of expression that led Sir Donald Tovey to observe "such simplicity comes of the concentration of a life’s experience."

Friday Evening, April 17, at 8:00 PM.
Performers of Westchester is privileged to welcome world-renowned artist André-Michel Schub, hailed in The New York Times as "pianistically flawless… a formidable pianist with a fierce integrity." To hear so gifted a musician perform two of the greatest romantic masterpieces promises an extraordinary evening. Brahms’ sublime Op. 118 is characterized by an eloquent simplicity, and his protégé Schumann’s Carnival has been likened to a masked ball with a profusion of real and imagined characters. Our Artistic Director Andy Simionescu joins Mr. Schub for Fauré’s first violin sonata of which Camile Saint-Saëns said after its 1877 premiere: 'There is no stronger work among those… [of] the past several years, and there is none with more charm.'

Sunday Afternoon, April 26, at 4:00 PM.
Variation String Trio, formed in 2005 by three exceptional artists, makes its welcome second appearance in our series. Joined by acclaimed pianist Benjamin Hochman (a Performer of Westchester "discovery") and our own Andy Simionescu, they perform two irresistibly lyrical and evocative high points of French romantic chamber music. In Fauré’s opus 45, flights of harmonic imagination are tempered by masterful contrapuntal and structural integrity to powerful effect. The F minor quintet represented a creative breakthrough for 57 year old César Franck. His first chamber work in 30 years, it was and is admired for its "glowing beauty" and "unexpected musical passion."

Sunday Afternoon, May 3, at 4:00 PM.
The Mc Dermott Trio may be unique in the chamber music world, since its members, all distinguished artists individually, are related as sisters. Collectively, they have been praised for their "dazzling virtuosity and beautifully integrated ensemble." They are joined by famed violist Paul Neubauer, Anne-Marie’s Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center colleague, and Kerry’s husband. After a delightful Haydn trio, they perform two major works; Shostakovich’s e minor trio, written in memory of a dear friend, is noted for the last movement’s Jewish folk inspiration. Brahms’ towering C minor quartet was, according to the composer, inspired by Goethe’s "Sorrows of Young Werther."

Friday Evening, May 15, at 8:00 PM.
Violinist Andy Simionescu has organized a stellar ensemble of popular Performers of Westchester returnees. Violinist Mark Peskanov is Executive Director of New York’s Bargemusic. Belgian violist Dimitri Murrath, making his Performers of Westchester debut, was winner of the prestigious 2008 Primrose International Viola Competition. Matt Haimovitz is recognized as one of the leading cellists of our time, and pianist Navah Perlman is widely admired as an outstanding young artist. First on their program, Brahms’ second cello sonata is marked by an exuberance born of maturity. Borodin’s D Major string quartet is one of his best known works, since two of its themes appear in the musical "Kismet." Schumann’s E-Flat Major quartet is at once compositionally virtuosic, highly energetic, and emotionally intense.

Sunday Afternoon, May 31, at 4:00 PM.
Two of the outstanding musicians of their generation make their Performers of Westchester debut in a unique collaboration with two pianists and one piano. Ivo Janssen, acclaimed for his performances in his native Netherlands, Europe, and the United States, opens the program with two of Bach’s most brilliant re-imaginings of Baroque Dance forms. Next, pianist and conductor Ignat Solzhenitsyn (Music Director of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia and Marlboro Music Festival favorite) offers his interpretation of the first of Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas with its astoundingly beautiful Theme and Variations. Then, together, favor us with an infrequently performed treasure for four-hands with which Brahms proved himself a master of the Viennese waltz in the spirit of Schubert and Strauss.