The House Blend Concerts are brewed with the audience in mind and feature celebrated soloists and groups. The concerts are chosen by Grammy nominated pianist and innovative programmer Alan Feinberg.
Arvo Pärt Mozart-Adagio, for Violin, Violoncello and Piano (1992)
Paul Schoenfield Three Country Fiddle Pieces (1987)
Charmaine Lee solo (2020)
Maurice Ravel Sonata for Violin and Cello (1922)
With Emily Daggett Smith, Andrea Casarrubios, Blair McMillen, and Charmaine Lee
“We are all waking up from our pandemic year. The House Blend programs are designed to provide the psychic caffeine rush we can’t get from online listening. These programs feature experimentation and whimsy, juxtapose styles and periods, celebrate life and yet engage in modes of threnody for who and what we’ve lost. Our goal is to present the audience something new, as well as revisiting old favorites in new ways. Our “baristas” are extraordinary musicians, dedicated to a musical landscape as wide and deep as possible.” – Alan Feinberg
Violinist Emily Daggett Smith has performed as soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician across the United States, Europe, South America, and Asia, winning accolades for her “beautiful tone” (The Gathering Note) and “irrepressible élan” (The Seattle Times). As a chamber musician at home with the masterpieces of the 17th to the 21st century, she has appeared with members of the Cleveland, Emerson, and Juilliard String Quartets, and at festivals including Caramoor, Ravinia, and Tanglewood. She is the founding first violinist of the Tessera Quartet.
Spanish cellist and composer Andrea Casarrubios has played extensively as a soloist and chamber musician throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Vivien Schweitzer, in the New York Times, praised her effortless emotional range in Ravel’s Piano Trio in A minor, from “languid introspection to fevered intensity,” played “with gorgeous tone and an edge-of-seat intensity.”
Piano soloist, chamber musician, and educator Blair McMillen has been called “a prodigiously accomplished and exciting artist” by New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini. Formerly pianist for the Naumburg Award-winning Da Capo Chamber Players, McMillen now appears nationally and internationally with many major orchestras and ensembles, including the six-piano “supergroup” Grand Band. He is also co-founder and co-director of the Rite of Summer Music Festival, a free, outdoor contemporary-music series held on New York City’s Governors Island.
Charmaine Lee, improvising vocalist and composer, has emerged as a force in experimental music circles, enhancing her voice with staggering extended technique and electronics to create a forceful, elusive practice that shares more in common with noise and experimental approaches than conventional singing. Wordless, cacophonous, and always improvised, pianist Conrad Tao lauded “the richness of her music-making—lyrical, brutal, and funny in equal measure.”
House Blend Concert I, July 5, 2021
Ralph Shapey Evocation No. 1 for Violin, with Percussion and Piano (3rd movement) (1959)
Billy Jim Layton Five Studies for Violin and Piano (2010)
Franco Donatoni Mari (1992)
David Sanford 22 Part 1 for Cello and Piano (1995)
Giya Kancheli Nach dem Weinen (Having Wept) (1994)
With Miranda Cuckson, Matt Haimovitz, Geoffrey Burleson, and Matthew Gold
House Blend Concert II, August 8, 2021
Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644 – 1704) Passacaglia (1676)
Stefan Wolpe The Man from Midian (1942)
Conlon Nancarrow Study #7 transcribed for two pianos by Thomas Adès (1998)
Johann Sebastian Bach Actus Tragicus transcribed for piano by György Kurtág (1708)
The pianists, Steinway artists Steven Beck and Susan Grace of the duo “Quattro mani” and violinist Siwoo Kim
House Blend Concert III: August 19, 2021
Luigi Dallapicolla Tartiniana Seconda (1956)
Aaron Copland from Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson (1950)
György Ligeti Trio for Violin, Horn and Piano (1982)
With Ariadne Greif, Leelanee Sterrett, Miranda Cuckson, and Eric Huebner
House Blend Concert IV: August 26, 2021
Arvo Pärt Mozart-Adagio, for Violin, Violoncello and Piano (1992)
Paul Schoenfield Three Country Fiddle Pieces (1987)
Charmaine Lee solo (2020)
Maurice Ravel Sonata for Violin and Cello (1922)
With Emily Daggett Smith, Andrea Casarrubios, Blair McMillen, and Charmaine Lee
