First Monday at Jordan Hall

25th Anniversary Season 

NEC faculty have always enjoyed playing chamber music together, but it was cellist Laurence Lesser—then Conservatory President—who transformed these occasional musical evenings into a stellar, regularly occurring series. Twenty-five years later, chamber music buffs eagerly anticipate the six free concerts held on the first Mondays of October, November, December, March, April, and May. They know they can count on fascinating repertory that ranges from Bach and Brahms to Bartók and beyond. They know they can hear the concerts in one of the great halls of the world. And they know they can expect illuminating performances by some of the world's greatest artists—NEC faculty, alumni, students and friends, who donate their services in exchange for the opportunity to experience together music that is among the most transcendent expressions of human culture.            

This year, to celebrate the 25th Anniversary, Lesser has programmed a season of composer anniversaries that promises to be particularly festive. Among the composers to be featured will be Franz Josef Haydn, Grazyna Bacewicz, Giovanni Pergolesi, and Hugo Wolf. Performers range from NEC's Boston Symphony Orchestra members to faculty with distinguished solo and ensemble careers to resident ensembles like the Borromeo Quartet to recent graduates.  

Tonight's concert celebrates Eastern European composers and players. Franz Josef Haydn was born in what is now Hungary; Kati Agócs of our faculty is of Hungarian heritage: Grazyna Bacewicz, a Pole, was a great violinist/composer whose style is somewhere between Szymanowski and Lutoslawski. Violinist Johanna Kurkowicz '98 A.D. is a distinguished Polish NEC alumna who has recorded quite a bit of Bacewicz's work—her new CD features three of the composer's violin concerti. Dvorak is, of course, the greatest of Czech composers. 

Haydn's Piano Trio in E Minor, H. XV:12 will feature Pei-Shan Lee '09 D.M.A., piano; Lucy Chapman, violin; Natasha Brofsky, cello. Kati Agócs's Awakening Galatea, to be heard in its Boston Premiere, will also feature the composer as soprano soloist partnered by Renée Krimsier, flute and Franziska Huhn, harp. Kurkowicz will team with violinist Masuko Ushioda for Bacewicz's Suite for Two Violins. And the program will conclude with the irresistible brio of Dvorak's Piano Quintet in A Major, Opus 81, with Ushioda, Chapman, Kim Kashkashian, viola; Paul Katz, cello; and Randall Hodgkinson, piano.

Listen to First Monday at Jordan Hall Artistic Director Laurence Lesser (interviewed by NEC Public Relations Manager Ellen Pfeifer) as he discusses the history of the First Mondays series at NEC, gives a sneak peak of repertoire & performers featured in the 2009-2010 season, and more.