Alexander Kerr with Members of the DSO
Vail Interfaith Chapel Alexander Kerr with Members of the Dallas Symphony OrchestraConcertmaster Alexander Kerr and Principal Clarinetist Gregory Raden along with other members of the DSO perform Schubert’s String Trio in B-flat Major and Mozart’s Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet.
Featured Artists
Gregory Raden
Alexander Kerr
Eunice Keem
Meredith Kufchak
Theodore Harvey
Gregory Raden
clarinet
Gregory Raden has served as Principal Clarinetist, Mr. & Mrs. C. Thomas May, Jr. Chair, of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra since 1999. Prior to this appointment, he has held positions as assistant principal of the National Symphony Orchestra, and principal clarinetist of the Kennedy Center Opera Orchestra and the Charleston Symphony. With these ensembles and others including the Orchestras of Minnesota, St. Louis, San Francisco, St. Paul and Bergen (Norway), he has performed for audiences across the globe and has been heard on recordings, radio, television, and internet broadcasts around the world.
Known for his ”…flawless intonation…liquescent tone” (Fort Worth Star Telegram), “exquisite nuance” (Washington Post), and “heartrending eloquence” (Dallas Morning News), Mr. Raden has appeared as a concerto soloist with numerous ensembles including the Dallas Symphony, National Symphony, Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra, Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Charleston Symphony, and the New York String Orchestra on such venerable stages as Carnegie Hall (NYC), the Kennedy Center (Washington, DC), and the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center (Dallas).
Greg performs regularly at the Grand Teton and Bravo! Vail Music Festivals and has also participated in the Marlboro, Mainly Mozart, Newport, Bellingham, Mimir, Aspen, Pacific, and Evian Music Festivals. An active chamber musician, San Diego Arts said of his performance of Weber’s Clarinet Quintet, “He makes you wonder how it’s done – how any reed instrument can produce a sound of such beauty and lyricism.” As chamber music collaborator, he has performed with members of the Juilliard, Guarneri, Cavani, and Arianna String Quartets and recently performed the Mozart Clarinet Quintet with cellist Yo-Yo Ma at the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Raden has been featured on National Public Radio’s Performance Today and on recordings with the Dallas Symphony on the Delos, Hyperion, and Bridge labels. Along with the Teton Trio, which he co-founded, he recently made their inaugural recording of music for clarinet, viola and piano for Centaur Records.
As a performing Artist/Clinician for Buffet Crampon Clarinets and Vandoren products, Raden has given recitals, master classes, and clinics throughout North America including at the Curtis Institute of Music, Eastman, Rice University, Baylor University, UT Austin, Texas Christian University, University of Maryland, The Glenn Gould Conservatory, New World Symphony, National Orchestral Institute, and Buffet Crampon’s acclaimed Summer Clarinet Academy in Jacksonville, FL. Raden was also one of five American clarinetists chosen to be part of the research and development team of Buffet’s new model Clarinet, the Tradition.
Having previously served on the faculty at George Washington University and the College of Charleston, Greg is currently an adjunct associate professor of Clarinet at the Meadows School of Music at Southern Methodist University and on the clarinet faculty at the University of North Texas.
A native of White Plains, New York, Raden was a student of David Weber at the Juilliard School Pre-College, Peter Hadcock at New England Conservatory, and with his longtime mentor, Donald Montanaro, at the Curtis Institute of Music, where he received his Bachelor of Music.
Alexander Kerr
violin
Alexander Kerr’s expressive and charismatic style has made him one of the most accomplished and versatile violinists on the international music scene today. In 1996 at the age of 26, Mr. Kerr was appointed to the prestigious position of Concertmaster of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. After nine successful years at that post, he left in June, 2006 to assume the endowed Linda and Jack Gill Chair in Music as Professor of Violin at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. In addition to his teaching responsibilities in Bloomington, he maintains a busy concert schedule appearing with orchestras and in recital and chamber music performances throughout the U.S., Asia and Europe. In 2008 he began his tenure as Principal Guest Concertmaster of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and in September 2011, he assumed his role as Concertmaster, Michael L. Rosenberg Chair, of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.
Eunice Keem
violin
Violinist Eunice Keem has established herself as a dynamic and engaging artist, equally compelling as both soloist and chamber musician. A Chicago native, she attended Carnegie Mellon University for her music studies. After joining the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in September of 2011, she began her new position as Associate Concertmaster, Marcella Poppen Chair, in the 2014/15 season.
As a soloist, Keem has been a featured with orchestras such as the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, National Chamber Orchestra, Park Ridge Civic Orchestra, Keweenaw Symphony Orchestra, Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra, and Evanston Symphony Orchestra, among others. A winner of numerous competitions, she received first and top prizes at the Irving M. Klein International Competition, Schadt International Competition, Corpus Christi International Competition, Kingsville International Competition, as well as a Paganini Prize at the 7th International Violin Competition of Indianapolis.
As a chamber musician, Keem was a member of the Fine Arts Trio, first place winners of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. They also performed on Chicago WFMT’S “Dame Myra Hess Concert Series” and “Live from Studio One”. Several years later, she again received first prize at the Fischoff National Competition, this time with the Orion Piano Trio. She was also a founding member of Carnegie Mellon University’s Starling Quartet, with whom she toured Costa Rica, China and the United States in their series of concerts and masterclasses,
Keem has participated in the Grand Teton, Lake George, Colorado, and Breckenridge Music Festivals. She currently serves as an adjunct professor of violin at the University of North Texas.
Meredith Kufchak
viola
Meredith Kufchak joined the Dallas Symphony Orchestra as principal viola, Hortense & Lawrence S. Pollock Chair, in 2019. Prior to her move to Dallas, she spent one season as a member of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.
Born into a talented musical family, Ms. Kufchak grew up in Columbus, Ohio, as the youngest of six musicians. She completed her undergraduate studies in viola performance at Rice University, where she studied with Ivo-Jan van der Werff at the Shepherd School of Music. Ms. Kufchak received her master’s degree in chamber music performance from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Jodi Levitz. Kufchak also holds an artist diploma from the San Francisco Academy Orchestra, where she studied with San Francisco Symphony violist Matthew Young.
While living in the Bay Area, she held positions with the Fresno Philharmonic as principal viola, the Santa Rosa Symphony, and performed frequently with the San Francisco Symphony. Ms. Kufchak has made appearances at festivals including Yellow Barn, Sun Valley Music Festival, Olympic Music Festival, and Tanglewood Music Center.
Theodore Harvey
cello
Theodore Harvey, cellist with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra since September 2008, has performed as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestra member throughout North America, South America and Europe. He is currently Associate Principal Cello, Holly and Tom Mayer Char. He has been a soloist with the New World Symphony, the (Bloomington, Indiana) Camerata Orchestra, and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.
As assistant principal cellist of the Charlotte Symphony from 2004 to 2008, he frequently performed major orchestral solos and was also active as a chamber musician and as an organist in local churches. In February 2006, Mr. Harvey, with pianist Paul Nitsch, gave the world premiere of his own Sonata in D Minor for Cello and Piano, which was subsequently featured on the Charlotte area’s classical radio station WDAV. He performed the Walton concerto with the New World Youth Symphony Orchestra (of which he had been a member from 1987 to 1996) in Indianapolis in November 2012. In June 2022, with his brother, violinist William Harvey, he performed the Brahms Double in two concerts with the Orquesta Filarmónica de Jalisco in Guadalajara, Mexico, conducted by José Luís Castillo.
Mr. Harvey holds a bachelor’s degree from the Indiana University School of Music, from which he graduated with highest distinction in 2000, having studied with Janos Starker and Helga Winold. Following his senior recital, he received the Indiana University Performer’s Certificate. He completed graduate studies with Joel Krosnick at The Juilliard School in 2002. From 2002 to 2004, Mr. Harvey was a Fellow of the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, Florida.
Summer festivals in which Mr. Harvey has participated include Aspen, Sarasota, Schleswig-Holstein, Spoleto USA, Tanglewood, Verbier, Music in the Mountains, Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute (Toronto), International Baroque Institute at Longy and Britt. In May/June 2013 he toured Brazil with the Baroque ensemble Fantasmi, performing in São Paulo and Belém.
In August 2013 he taught cello for a week at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music in Kabul, where his brother William taught violin from 2010 to 2014 and performed a concert there of both Afghan and European music.
In Dallas, Mr. Harvey sang for nine years in the choir of the Church of the Incarnation and twice toured England with the choir, singing at Lichfield and Canterbury cathedrals, Westminster Abbey, and St George’s Chapel (Windsor Castle). An avid student of the history of Europe and its royal families, in his spare time he maintains the website WWW.ROYALTYMONARCHY.COM. In October 2017, Mr. Harvey was invested as an Honorary Knight of the Royal House of Portugal by HRH the Duke of Braganza.
Program Notes
String Trio in B-flat major, D. 471
SCHUBERT
String Trio in B-flat major, D. 471
By the time Schubert wrote the D. 471 String Trio, he was near the end of an unhappy period in his young life. He had finished school, was living in his family’s overcrowded home and teaching at his father’s school, but all he wanted to do was live independently and write music. Over the next three years, still in his late teens, he wrote an astonishing amount of music. Like several of Schubert’s instrumental compositions, this trio is unfinished (the second movement contains only about 30-some measures) but the work that remains, sparkles.
Clarinet Quintet in A major, K. 581
MOZART
Clarinet Quintet in A major, K. 581
Allegro
Larghetto
Menuetto
Allegretto con variazioni
On the other end of the “finished” spectrum, Mozart explores every conceivable set of instrumental relationships with his utterly masterful Clarinet Quintet. Somehow he manages to showcase the idiomatic character of the featured guest while setting it naturally within a chamber context with a balanced, blended ensemble, and also gives each individual instrument its moment in the spotlight. Meticulously structured and brilliantly balanced, this work truly exemplifies the radiant intimacy of chamber music.