CANCELLED Faculty Recital: Shostakovich – Weilerstein Duo with Leland Ko and Sara LeMesh

Artist(s)

The Weilerstein Duo - Vivian Hornik Weilerstein, piano, and Donald Weilerstein, violin - has been widely acclaimed nationally and internationally as performers and teachers. Noted for its dynamic expressivity, the Duo has given recitals at Alice Tully Hall, the 92nd Street Y, and Merkin Hall in New York City, at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC, and in major cities in the United States, Europe, Asia, South America, and Israel. Highlights of recent seasons include the premiere of Joseph Hallman’s Concerto for Violin and Piano with the New York Classical Players in New York, their release of the Ives Third Sonata for Azica Records, and performances throughout Germany. In great demand as teachers and coaches, they have held numerous residencies and master classes at the world’s major conservatories, including at the Hannover Hochschule, Guildhall, and Lubeck Conservatory.

The Duo returns regularly to the Yellow Barn Music Festival and the Perlman Music Program and has participated in many other festivals, including Banff, Marlboro, Aspen, Norfolk, La Jolla, Music Academy of the West, Verbier, Kneisel Hall, and Aldeburgh. They have also taught and performed throughout China, and in Venezuela as part of El Sistema.

The Duo’s critically acclaimed recordings include two volumes of the complete works by Ernest Bloch for violin and piano, lauded by Fanfare as a “must” on the journal’s annual “Want List,” the sonatas of Janáček, Enescu, and Dohnányi, and the complete Schumann sonatas for violin and piano.

The Weilersteins are on the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music and the Juilliard School. Donald Weilerstein’s students, who have been prizewinners in major national and international competitions, can be heard as soloists and as members of many of today’s leading orchestras and chamber ensembles. Vivian Hornik Weilerstein is the director of the Professional Piano Trio Program at the New England Conservatory in addition to serving on NEC’s piano, collaborative piano, and chamber music faculties. Donald and Vivian have been featured individually in Strad Magazine and More Magazine.

In his twenty years as first violinist of the renowned Cleveland Quartet, of which he was a founding member, Donald Weilerstein toured the world and made numerous recordings on the RCA, Telarc, CBS, Phillips, and Pro Arte labels. These recordings won seven Grammy nominations and Best of the Year awards from Time and Stereo Review. Early in his career he won both the Munich and Young Concert Artists Competitions. He is the recipient of the American String Teacher’s Artist Teacher Award for 2011.

Vivian Hornik Weilerstein performs frequently as a collaborator with many of today’s most eminent artists and ensembles. In addition to chamber music concerts across the United States, Asia, and Europe, she has appeared as a soloist with the Kansas City Symphony and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale di Torino. She has also recorded for the EMI debut series. Donald and Vivian perform with Alisa Weilerstein as the highly acclaimed Weilerstein Trio. Their discography includes trios of Dvorak which was featured on NPR’s "All Things Considered," and trios by Janáček and Schumann.


Romanian-American soprano Sara LeMesh, praised by San Francisco Classical Voice for her "lush tone, exceptional high-register clarity, dramatic breadth, and fearless command," is equally at home on the opera stage and in the concert hall. Operatic highlights of the 2025-26 season include Zerlina in Don Giovanni (Annapolis Opera), Adele in Die Fledermaus (Boheme Opera NJ), Galatea in Acis & Galatea (The Florentine Opera), and Contessa in Le nozze di Figaro (Opera North). Upcoming concert appearances include the soprano soloist in Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Handel’s Messiah with the Hudson Valley Symphony Orchestra, and Ned Rorem’s Evidence of Things Not Seen with the Brooklyn Art Song Society. Ms. LeMesh is the First Prize winner of the PARTNERS for the Arts, Inc. National Opera Competition, Lyndon Woodside Oratorio-Solo Competition, and the Federation of the Art Song Fellowship Competition. She was also awarded Third Prize at the Zenith Opera Competition in Berlin.


Described as someone with “Disarming charisma” (South Florida Classical Review) yet simultaneously as someone “Byronic” and “excelling in both poetic longing and dramatic outbursts” (Boston Classical Review), Leland Ko has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in venues across America and abroad, from Carnegie Hall in New York and Symphony Hall in Boston to the Maison Symphonique in Montréal; and internationally in Belgium, Italy, Sweden, Israel, Spain, Korea, and Hong Kong.  He is a first prize winner of the Concours Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, the Concert Artists Guild Louis and Susan Meisel Competition, and the Walter W. Naumburg International Cello Competition.

Highlights for Leland’s 2025-2026 season include appearances with the Orchestre Symphonique de Sherbrooke and the DuPage Symphony; recitals at the Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts, Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance, Pro Musica San Miguel de Allende, Pepperdine University, and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall; and chamber music for the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, the Kaufman Center’s Merkin Hall, Palm Beach State College, and Chico Performances.  Past engagements over the last decade have included concerto appearances with the Boston Landmarks Orchestra, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, the Princeton University Orchestra, the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, and multiple appearances with the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, the New England Conservatory Philharmonia, Symphony Pro Musica, the Apollo Ensemble of Boston, and the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal.

Despite growing up a part of Boston’s strong youth orchestra culture, Leland has sought out chamber music throughout his life, having partaken at ChamberFest West, Methow Valley Chamber Music Festival, Meetinghouse Chamber Music Festival, La Jolla Music Society, Montreal Chamber Music Festival, Yellow Barn, Ravinia's Steans Music Institute, Four Seasons Chamber Music Workshop, and the Perlman Music Program’s Summer Music School and its Chamber Music Workshop.  Leland’s love for chamber music has also led him to be a former Artist in Residence of New York Piano Society (NYPS), and former Music Director of Opus 21, a student-run chamber music collective at Princeton.  He is the cellist of Trio Rai, the OAK Trio, the Phaidros Quartet, and also a frequent member of Sejong Soloists.

Leland was a long-time student of Kirsten Peltz, Ronald Lowry, and Paul Katz before attending Princeton University, where he graduated with an A.B. in German Literature.  He went on to complete an M.M. at The Juilliard School under the teaching of Minhye Clara Kim, Timothy Eddy, and Natasha Brofsky, and then earned an Artist Diploma from the New England Conservatory under guidance of Laurence Lesser, Yeesun Kim, and Donald Weilerstein.  Leland performs on a cello by Giovanni Battista Rugeri, Cremona, c. 1710, ex-Denis Vigay, which is on generous loan to him from Canimex Inc.; and professional development activities for Leland are generously supported by Marilyn G. and Joseph B. Schwartz.  He resides in Boston, with his 13-year-old cat, Ham.