CONCERTS

78TH SEASON OF

national gallery of art | november 17, 2019
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PROGRAM

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THE MUSICIANS

Curtis Winds and Strings

Sara Han, clarinet

Doron Laznow, bassoon

Gabriel Kovach, horn

Benjamin Schmid, violin

Haeji Kim, viola

John Lee, cello

Marcus Elliott Gaved, double bass

Benjamin Krasner, piano

November 17, 2019 | 3:30

West Building, West Garden Court

Krzysztof Penderecki (b. 1933)

Duo Concertante for Violin and Double Bass (2010)

Penderecki

Sextet (2000)

Allegro moderato

Larghetto

Intermission

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827)

Septet in E-flat Major, op. 20 (1800)

Adagio; Allegro con brio

Adagio cantabile

Tempo di menuetto

Tema con variazioni

Scherzo: Allegro molto e vivace

Andante con moto alla marcia; Presto

Curtis on Tour and the Curtis Institute of Music

Curtis on Tour is the Nina von Maltzahn Global Touring Initiative of the Curtis Institute 

of Music. An embodiment of the school’s “learn by doing” philosophy, the program 

offers students professional touring experience alongside celebrated alumni and 

faculty. In addition to performances, the musicians offer master classes, interactive 

programs, and community engagement activities. Curtis on Tour also facilitates solo 

performances of Curtis students and alumni with professional orchestras and recital 

series. Since the program was established in 2008, students, faculty, and alumni have 

performed more than three hundred concerts in nearly one hundred cities in Europe, 

Asia, and the Americas. 

The Curtis Institute of Music educates and trains exceptionally gifted young 

musicians to engage a local and global community through the highest level of artistry. 

One of the most selective schools in the United States, Curtis accepts 4 percent of 

applicants each year on average, and a tuition-free policy ensures that talent and 

artistic promise are the only considerations for admission.

With a small student body of about 175, Curtis ensures that each young musician 

receives an education of unparalleled quality, distinguished by a “learn by doing” 

philosophy, and personalized attention from a faculty that includes a high proportion 

of actively performing musicians. Curtis students hone their craft through more than 

two hundred orchestra, opera, and solo and chamber music offerings each year and 

programs that bring arts access and education to the community. This real-world 

training allows these extraordinary young musicians to join the front rank of performers, composers, conductors, and musical leaders, making a profound impact on music 

both onstage and in their communities. 

Sara Han, clarinet

Sara Han, from Seoul, entered the Curtis Institute of Music in 2017 and studies with 

Anthony McGill, principal clarinet of the New York Philharmonic. Han is acting principal 

clarinet for Opera Philadelphia and a member of Symphony in C. She has appeared on 

NPR’s From the Top and as a soloist with the Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra and 

the Seoul Romance Orchestra. 

The concert is presented by Curtis on Tour: The Nina von Maltzahn Global 

Touring Initiative of the Curtis Institute of Music
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Doron Laznow, bassoon

Doron Laznow, from Jerusalem, entered the Curtis Institute of Music in 2016 and 

studies with Daniel Matsukawa, principal bassoon of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Laznow 

has appeared as a soloist with the Haifa Symphony Orchestra, the Ra’anana Symphony 

Orchestra, the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, and most recently, the Aspen 

Conducting Academy Orchestra. He has performed with numerous chamber ensembles 

including the 21st Century Ensemble, the Meitar Ensemble, and Ensemble Modern. 

Gabriel Kovach, horn

Gabriel Kovach has been principal horn of the Phoenix Symphony since 2006. He 

is also principal horn of the Glimmerglass and Artosphere Festival Orchestras; and 

previously served as principal horn of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, 

the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, the Opera Company of Philadelphia, the 

Delaware Symphony Orchestra, and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra. Kovach holds 

a bachelor’s degree from the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Myron 

Bloom, and a master’s degree from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Julie 

Landsman and Jerome Ashby.

Benjamin Schmid, violin

Benjamin Schmid was born in Vienna and grew up in Salzburg. In 1992, he won the 

Carl Flesch Competition in London, where he was also awarded the Mozart, Beethoven, 

and Audience Prizes. Since then, he has performed on the world’s major stages with 

renowned orchestras, including the Vienna Philharmonic, the Philharmonia Orchestra 

(London), the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, and the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), 

under the conductors Christoph von Dohnányi, Valery Gergiev, Ingo Metzmacher, Seiji 

Ozawa, and David Zinman. A 1991 graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, he plays the 

ex-Viotti 1718 Stradivarius violin.

Haeji Kim, viola

Haeji Kim, from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, entered the Curtis Institute of Music in 2015 

and studies viola with Roberto Díaz and Hsin-Yun Huang. Kim has appeared as a soloist 

with Michigan’s music festivals and the Rochester Symphony Orchestra. She has also 

performed twice with the New York String Orchestra Seminar at Carnegie Hall. Kim 

has attended numerous summer programs, including the Bravo String Music, Northern 

Lights Music, Summit Music, the Triada Music Festival, Center Stage Strings, and the 

Cambridge and the Pilsen International String Academies. 

John Lee, cello

John Lee, from Basking Ridge, New Jersey, entered the Curtis Institute of Music in 2018 

and studies cello with Carter Brey and Peter Wiley. Lee has performed at Carnegie Hall’s 

Weill Recital Hall, Paul Hall, the New World Center, and Paine Hall. He has appeared on 

NPR’s From the Top and at the Young Musician’s Forum in Schenectady, New York. Lee 

began playing the cello at age eight. He earned a bachelor’s degree in the history of 

science and statistics at Harvard University and a master of music degree from the New 

England Conservatory, as part of the five-year, dual-degree program. 

Marcus Elliott Gaved, double bass

Marcus Elliott Gaved, from London, entered the Curtis Institute of Music in 2018 and 

studies double bass with Edgar Meyer and Harold Robinson. As a soloist and chamber 

musician, Gaved has performed in venues such as the Berlin Konzerthaus, Bozar in 

Brussels, Victoria Hall in Singapore, St. John’s Cathedral in Hong Kong, and London’s 

Wigmore Hall and Royal Festival Hall. Gaved is also a keen advocate for new music. 

He has given world premieres of works by British composer Gareth Wood and 

regularly performs his own arrangements of pieces by Brahms, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, 

and Mendelssohn. Since 2017, he has been a member of LGT Young Soloists, an 

organization for outstanding young musicians based in Zurich. Their latest album 

was recently released by Sony. 

Benjamin Krasner, piano

Benjamin Krasner, from Los Angeles, entered the Curtis Institute of Music in 2018 and 

studies piano with Jonathan Biss and Ignat Solzhenitsyn. Krasner has received awards 

from several national and international music competitions and festivals, including 

the Los Angeles International Liszt Competition, the Liana Cohen Foundation Music 

Festival, and the Helen Brown Music Competition. Krasner earned a bachelor’s degree 

with a double major in piano performance and economics from California State 

University, Northridge, and a master’s degree in piano performance from the Yale 

School of Music. 
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PROGRAM NOTES

For the 2019 – 2020 season, Curtis on Tour chose an unusual grouping of musicians 

for their fall touring ensemble, enabling this unusual programming of Krzysztof 

Penderecki’s Sextet for horn, clarinet, string trio, and piano to be juxtaposed against 

Beethoven’s Septet for clarinet, horn, bassoon, string trio, and double bass. These 

works of chamber music, incorporating a mix of winds and strings, are both innovative 

in their respective circumstances — each being composed at the turn of a century. 

In the history of twentieth-century music, Polish-born Krzysztof Penderecki’s 

career has been marked by his fast rise to musical prominence at age twenty-eight 

with his composition Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima (1960) and by his lifelong achievements as a composer, educator, and conductor. The Sextet is one of 

Penderecki’s weightier contributions to the chamber music canon. The two expansive 

movements, Allegro moderato and Larghetto, are strongly subdivided and structured 

by means of different expressions and tempo changes. The work is an impressive 

manifestation of a composer at the height of his creative powers and is comparable 

to the violin concerto Metamorphoses and the Concerto Grosso for three cellos 

and orchestra. Each instrument is equally involved in the musical development, and 

all players are confronted with the rewarding task of integrating brilliant, virtuosic 

sections with lyrical and meditative ensemble passages.

Composed as he entered his thirtieth year, Beethoven’s Septet for winds and strings 

was written in Vienna, where he had already taken the city by storm with his masterful 

keyboard skills and then, with smaller chamber works. Dedicated to the Empress Maria 

Theresa, the Septet became so popular that Beethoven remarked that it should have 

been burned. A lighthearted work, similar in spirit to an eighteenth-century serenade, it 

was nevertheless innovative in its use of the clarinet as a prominently featured instrument, as well as the equal importance of each of the instruments throughout the piece. 

The program is complemented with Penderecki’s Duo Concertante for Violin and 

Double Bass. Dedicated to violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and bassist Roman Patkoló, 

the work was commissioned by the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation for the encouragement of highly talented string players, and was also born out of the long-term 

friendship between the violinist and composer, a friendship that also resulted in 

Penerecki’s Second Violin Concerto. 

Program Notes by Danielle DeSwert Hahn, Head of Music Programs, 

National Gallery of Art

Upcoming Events of the SeventyEighth Season of The William Nelson 

Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin Concerts

Unless otherwise noted, concerts 

are held in the West Building, West 

Garden Court.

Sound Sketch

Atlantic Reed Consort

Reflecting Pool: Music that Mirrors 

Art on the Mezzanine

November 22, 12:10

East Building Mezzanine

Winners from Washington Performing 

Arts 5th Annual Misbin Family Memorial 

Chamber Music Competition

This year’s winners of the competition 

will delight listeners with their varying 

age groups and instrumental make-up.

November 23, 3:00

Cherokee Chamber Singers

With members of the WinstonSalem Symphony

Presented in honor of Native American

Heritage Month and featuring William

Britelle’s Si Otsedoha (We’re Still Here)

November 24, 3:30

General Information

Admission to the National Gallery of Art 

and all of its programs is free of charge, 

except as noted.

The use of cameras or recording 

equipment during the performance 

is not allowed.

Please be sure that all portable electronic 

devices are turned off.

—

Concerts are made possible in part 

through the generosity of donors to the 

National Gallery of Art through The Circle. 

Reserved seating is available in recognition 

of their support. Please contact the 

development office at (202) 842-6450 or 

circle@nga.gov for more information.

—

The department of music produced 

these program notes. Copyright © 2019 

Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, 

Washington

cover Roy Lichtenstein, A Cherokee 

Brave (detail), 1952, National Gallery 

of Art, Washington, Gift of Roy and 

Dorothy Lichtenstein © Estate of Roy 

Lichtenstein, 1996.56.16
NGA.GOV/MUSIC