DALÍ QUARTET, MCDERMOTT, MORALES & MONTONE
Dalí Quartet - Ricardo Morales, clarinet - Jennifer Montone, horn - Anne-Marie McDermott, pianoThe Dalí Quartet returns to the Chamber Music Series performing rarely heard string quartets by Arriaga and Ginastera, as well as Dohnányi’s Sextet in C Major joined by McDermott, The Philadelphia Orchestra’s Principal Horn Jennifer Montone, and Principal Clarinet Ricardo Morales.
Did you know?
Arriaga, Ginastera, Dohnányi—under-represented but well worth knowing. The early-19th-century Basque composer Arriaga left a small but choice oeuvre, including three string quartets that are unimaginably fine for a composer who wrote them at age 17 and died at 19.
Featured Artists
Ricardo Morales
Jennifer Montone
Anne-Marie McDermott
Dalí Quartet
Ricardo Morales
clarinet
Ricardo Morales is one of the most sought-after clarinetists of today. He joined The Philadelphia Orchestra as principal clarinet in 2003. Prior to this he was principal clarinet of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, a position he assumed at the age of 21. His virtuosity and artistry as a soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician has been hailed and recognized in concert halls around the world. He has been asked to perform as principal clarinet with the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, and at the invitation of Sir Simon Rattle, performed as guest principal clarinet with the Berlin Philharmonic. He also performs as principal clarinet with the Saito Kinen Festival Orchestra and the Mito Chamber Orchestra, at the invitation of Maestro Seiji Ozawa.
A native of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Mr. Morales began his studies at the Escuela Libre de Musica along with his five siblings, who are all distinguished musicians. He continued his studies at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and Indiana University, where he received his Artist Diploma.
Mr. Morales has been a featured soloist with many orchestras, including the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, the Seoul Philharmonic, and the Flemish Radio Symphony. During his tenure with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, he soloed in Carnegie Hall and on two European tours. He made his solo debut with The Philadelphia Orchestra in 2004 and has since performed as soloist on numerous occasions. Ricardo performed the world premiere of the Clarinet Concerto by Jonathan Leshnoff, commissioned for him by The Philadelphia Orchestra.
An active chamber musician, Mr. Morales has performed in the MET Chamber Ensemble series at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Seattle Chamber Music Summer Festival, and the Saratoga Chamber Music Festival, on NBC’s The Today Show, and with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He has performed with many distinguished ensembles, such as the Juilliard Quartet, the Pacifica Quartet, the Miró Quartet, the Leipzig Quartet, and the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio. He has also collaborated with Christoph Eschenbach, André Watts, Emanuel Ax, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, James Ehnes, Gil Shaham, and Kathleen Battle.
Mr. Morales is highly sought after for his recitals and master classes, which have taken him throughout North America, Europe and Asia. In addition, he currently serves on the faculty of Temple University.
Mr. Morales’s performances have been met with critical acclaim. The Philadelphia Inquirer hailed his appointment to The Philadelphia Orchestra, stating that “… in fact, may represent the most salutary personnel event of the orchestra’s last decade.” He was praised by The New York Times as having “ … fleet technique, utterly natural musical grace, and the lyricism and breath control of a fine opera singer.” Mr. Morales was also singled out in The New York Times review of the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Berlioz’s Les Troyens, describing his playing as “exquisite” and declaring that he “deserved a place onstage during curtain calls.”
Mr. Morales’s debut solo recording, French Portraits, is available on the Boston Records label. His recent recordings include performances with the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, with the Pacifica Quartet, which was nominated for a Latin GRAMMY Award, as well as the Mozart Concerto with the Mito Chamber Orchestra for DECCA. Ricardo is a sought-after consultant and designer of musical instruments and accessories, and enjoys a musical partnership with F. Arthur Uebel, a world renowned manufacturer of artist level clarinets.
Jennifer Montone
horn
GRAMMY Award Winner Jennifer Montone has been hailed by The New York Times for her "flawless horn solos... and warm and noble sound." As principal horn of The Philadelphia Orchestra, and a world acclaimed soloist, chamber musician, and teacher, she has been on the faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School since joining the orchestra in 2006.
Previously the principal horn of the Saint Louis Symphony and associate principal horn of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Ms. Montone was an adjunct professor at Southern Methodist University, performer/faculty at the Aspen Music Festival and School, and coaches on occasion at the New World Symphony. She was third horn of the New Jersey Symphony from 1997-2000 and has performed as a guest artist with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic.
Ms. Montone regularly performs as a soloist, with orchestras such as The Philadelphia Orchestra, the Saint Louis Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, the National Symphony, the Polish National Radio Symphony, the Warsaw National Philharmonic, among others. Her recording of the Penderecki Horn Concerto, Winterreise with the Warsaw National Philharmonic won a 2013 GRAMMY Award in the category of Best Classical Compendium.
Other recordings include: Jennifer Montone Performs, her first solo CD; Still Falls the Rain, works of Benjamin Britten; Gabrieli by the National Brass Ensemble; Philadelphia Orchestra, Tchaikovsky and Ewald, featuring the orchestra's principals brass quintet; and Song of Shinobeu, works of Haruka Watanabe.
Ms. Montone made her Carnegie Weil Hall solo recital debut on October 22, 2008. She has enjoyed appearing as a featured artist at many International Horn Society workshops, and as a soloist and collaborator with artists such as Emmanuel Ax, Eric Owens, Christoph Eschenbach, Shmeul Ashkenazi, and Joseph Silverstein, and David Soyer, among many others.
As a chamber musician Ms. Montone performs with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, National Brass Ensemble, Strings Music Festival in Steamboat Springs, Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, La Jolla Chamber Music Festival, Bay Chamber Concerts, Spoleto Italy Chamber Music Festival, and the Marlboro Music Festival.
Ms. Montone is a graduate of the Juilliard School, where she studied with Julie Landsman, legendary pedagogue and former principal horn of the Metropolitan Opera. In May 2006, Ms. Montone was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. She is also the winner of the 1996 Paxman Young Horn Player of the Year Award in London, England. A native of northern Virginia, Ms. Montone studied with Edwin Thayer, principal horn of the National Symphony, in the National Symphony Orchestra Youth Fellowship Program. She is married to double bass player, Timothy Ressler, and immensely enjoys spending time with her two young sons, Max and Felix.
Anne-Marie McDermott
piano
Pianist Anne-Marie McDermott is a consummate artist who balances a versatile career as a soloist and collaborator. She performs over 100 concerts a year in a combination of solo recitals, concerti and chamber music. Her repertoire choices are eclectic, spanning from Bach and Haydn to Prokofiev and Scriabin to Kernis, Hartke, Tower and Wuorinen.
With over 50 concerti in her repertoire, Ms. McDermott has performed with many leading orchestra including the New York Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, Columbus Symphony, Seattle Symphony, National Symphony, Houston Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Moscow Virtuosi, Hong Kong Philharmonic, San Diego Symphony, New Jersey Symphony and Baltimore Symphony among others. Ms, McDermott has toured with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Moscow Virtuosi.
In the recent seasons, Ms. McDermott performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, North Carolina Symphony, Charlotte Symphony, Huntsville Symphony, Alabama Symphony, San Diego Symphony, the Oregon Mozart Players, and the New Century Chamber Orchestra.
Recital engagements have included the 92nd Street Y, Alice Tully Hall, Town Hall, The Schubert Club, Kennedy Center, as well as universities across the country. Anne-Marie McDermott has curated and performed in a number of intense projects including: the Complete Prokofiev Piano Sonatas and Chamber Music, a Three Concert Series of Shostakovich Chamber Music, as well as a recital series of Haydn and Beethoven Piano Sonatas. Most recently, she commissioned works of Charles Wuorinen and Clarice Assad which were premiered in May 2009 at Town Hall, in conjunction with Bach’s Goldberg Variations.
As a soloist, Ms. McDermott has recorded the complete Prokofiev Piano Sonatas, Bach English Suites and Partitas (which was named Gramophone Magazine’s Editor’s Choice), and most recently, Gershwin Complete Works for Piano and Orchestra with the Dallas Symphony and Justin Brown.
In addition to her many achievements, Anne-Marie McDermott has been named the Artistic Director of the famed Bravo! Vail Music Festival in Colorado, which hosts the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Dallas Symphony in addition to presenting over 40 chamber music concerts throughout the summer. She is also Artistic Director of Santa Fe Pro Musica, The Ocean Reef Chamber Music Festival, McKnight Chamber Music Festival, and The Avila Chamber Music Celebration in Curacao.
As a chamber music performer, Anne-Marie McDermott was named an artist member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in 1995 and performs and tours extensively with CMS each season. She continues a long standing collaboration with the highly acclaimed violinist, Nadja Salerno Sonnenberg. As a duo, they have released a CD titled “Live” on the NSS label and plan to release the Complete Brahms Violin and Piano Sonatas in the future. Ms. McDermott is also a member of the renowned piano quartet, Opus One, with colleagues Ida Kavafian, Steven Tenenbom and Peter Wiley.
She continues to perform each season with her sisters, Maureen McDermott and Kerry McDermott in the McDermott Trio. Ms, McDermott has also released an all Schumann CD with violist, Paul Neubauer, as well as the Complete Chamber Music of Debussy with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
Ms. McDermott studied at the Manhattan School of Music with Dalmo Carra, Constance Keene and John Browning. She was a winner of the Young Concert Artists auditions and was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant.
Ms. McDermott regularly performs at Festivals across the United States including, Spoleto, Mainly Mozart, Sante Fe, La Jolla Summerfest, Mostly Mozart, Newport, Caramoor, Bravo, Chamber Music Northwest, Aspen, Music from Angelfire, and the Festival Casals in Puerto Rico, among others.
Dalí Quartet
The Dalí Quartet is acclaimed for bringing Latin American quartet repertoire to an equal standing alongside the Classical and Romantic canon. Tours of its “Classical Roots, Latin Soul” programming have reached enthusiastic audiences across the U.S., Canada and South America. Its fresh approach has been sought out by distinguished series in New York, Toronto, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, Seattle, San Juan, and countless communities beyond.
The quartet has been called upon for return engagements at the National Gallery of Art, Friends of Chamber Music in Portland, Chamber Music at Beall, and the SA’OAXACA International Music Festival in México among others. Upcoming appearances include the Bravo! Vail Music Festival, Virginia Arts Festival, Princeton University Summer Chamber Concerts and Maverick Concerts and the east coast premiere of Anna Clyne’s “Quarter Days Concerto for String Quartet and Chamber Orchestra,” co-commissioned by the Harrisburg Symphony.
In addition to works of the master's from Haydn to Brahms and Amaya to Piazzolla, the group's adventurous and entertaining programming includes new works for quartet with percussionist Orlando Cotto, and quintets both Latin and Classical with the renowned clarinetist Ricardo Morales, principal clarinetist of The Philadelphia Orchestra, and with acclaimed pianist Vanessa Perez. The Dalí Quartet has an ongoing collaboration with the Van Cliburn Competition’s gold-medal winning pianist Olga Kern, with whom they have toured from coast to coast and recorded the piano quintets of Brahms and Shostakovich released on the Delos label.
The Dalí Quartet is Chamber Music America's 2024 Ensemble of the Year, recipient of the 2023 ACMP Foundation's Susan McIntosh Lloyd Award for Excellence and Diversity in Chamber Music, 2021 recipient of Chamber Music America's Guarneri String Quartet Residency, funded by the Sewell Family Foundation, and the 2021 Silver Medal at the inaugural Piazzolla Music Competition. The quartet is also the 2019 recipient of the Atlanta Symphony's esteemed Aspire Award for accomplished African American and Latino Musicians. The quartet’s latest CD is Voces Latinas and is now available on Centaur Records.
The Dalí is devoted to audience development and to reaching communities of all kinds. The group’s Latin Fiesta Workshops and Family Concerts in both traditional and innovative settings move listeners – literally! The Dalí Quartet is sought after for master classes and professional development workshops for students, (recently at the National Repertory Orchestra, Miami University, Michigan State, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Iowa) and has opened musical vistas for younger kids with its week-long Any Given Child programs (over three seasons for the Tulsa Public School System). In addition, the quartet’s International Music Festival is an admired chamber music and orchestral program founded in 2004 which develops the performance skills of young musicians up through semi-professional level. The Dalí has also served as a guest resident ensemble at Lehigh University, and the 2023-24 Hartt School of Music's Composition Feldman/Geoffroy Ensemble-in-Residence at the University of Hartford.
Trained by world-renowned artists, members of the Dalí Quartet are from Venezuela, Puerto Rico and the US, and have degrees from esteemed institutions including the New England Conservatory, Cleveland Institute of Music, Juilliard, Indiana University Bloomington, and the Simón Bolivar Conservatory in Caracas, Venezuela. The quartet is based in Philadelphia, PA.
Inspired by its namesake, the great Spanish artist Salvador Dalí, the quartet holds imagination and excellence at the heart of its music making.
The quartet serves as faculty at West Chester University Wells School of Music as the Quartet in Residence and is an Iris Collective Resident Ensemble.
The Dalí Quartet proudly uses Pirastro Strings and WMutes.
Worldwide representation by Jonathan Wentworth Associates.
Program Highlights
- Dalí Quartet
- Ari Isaacman-Beck, violin
- Carlos Rubio, violin
- Adriana Linares, viola
- Jesús Morales, cello
- Ricardo Morales, clarinet
- Jennifer Montone, horn
- Anne-Marie McDermott, piano
ARRIAGA String Quartet No. 1
GINASTERA String Quartet No. 1
DOHNÁNYI Sextet in C major
Program Notes
String Quartet No. 1 in D minor (1823)
JUAN CRISÓSTOMO DE ARRIAGA Y BALZOLA (1806-26)
String Quartet No. 1 in D minor
Allegro
Adagio con espressione
Menuetto. Allegro
Adagio—Allegro—Allegretto
One of the most remarkable of all prodigy composers, Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga y Balzola was born in Bilbao 50 years to the day after the death of another, Wolfgang Amadè Mozart, and Arriaga inevitably got called “the Spanish Mozart,” and later “The Basque Mozart.” At the age of 11 he composed a chamber work titled Nada y mucho (Nothing and Much) for three violins and bass, the next year he completed an overture for chamber orchestra, and in 1819, at the age of 13, he wrote his opera Los esclavos felices (The Happy Slaves), which was produced in Bilbao the following year. Its title would not look great plastered on a marquee today, and there is little chance of that happening since it survives only in fragments; still, orchestras do occasionally program its delightful Overture, which is complete. His is mostly a case of “what might have been,” since he died in Paris, of some pulmonary disease (officially a “condition of languor”), 10 days short of his 20th birthday.
For chamber music aficionados the name of Arriaga is synonymous with his three string quartets, which were published in Paris in 1824, a year after their composition—his only works to appear in print in his lifetime. He was 16 when he wrote them, and was studying at the Paris Conservatoire with the eminent Pierre Baillot (for violin) and François-Joseph Fétis (counterpoint and fugue), who promptly appointed him his teaching assistant. When Fétis published his encyclopedic Biographie universelle des musiciens (1835-44), he offered this assessment of Arriaga’s string quartets: “It is impossible to imagine anything more original or elegant, or written with greater purity, than these quartets, which are not very well known. Every time they were performed by their young author they inspired the audience’s admiration.”
String Quartet No. 1, Op. 20 (1948)
ALBERTO GINASTERA (1916-83)
String Quartet No. 1, Op. 20
Allegro violento ed agitato
Vivacissimo
Calmo e poetico
Allegramente rustico
Born in Argentina into a family of Catalan and Italian roots, Alberto Ginastera was entirely schooled in his native country, principally at the National Conservatory of Music in Buenos Aires. Already as a teenager he produced numerous pieces with a distinctive flavor, often employing native Argentine rhythms or folk melodies. He did not flourish under the oppressive regime of Juan Perón. In 1945-47, he traveled to study in the United States, and after that his journeys abroad grew more frequent. After Perón was overthrown, in 1955, he assumed several political-academic posts in Argentina; but in 1969, exasperated with the political situation in his country, he left Argentina definitively, and spent most of the rest of his life in Geneva, where he would die.
His chamber music includes a piano quintet (1963) and, most significantly, three string quartets; a fourth quartet, in which a baritone sings a text from Beethoven’s “Heiligenstadt Testament” was begun in 1974, but remained incomplete at his death. His interest in musical folklore is evident in his Quartet No. 1, which includes in its first and last movements references to the malambo, a competitive dance of the Argentine gauchos that turns up often in his early works, including in his much-performed ballet Estancia. The third movement also has an unmistakably Spanish/Latin American touch. It begins with a chord familiar to everyone who has heard a guitar being tuned—that instrument’s six open strings, plucked from bottom to top, with the tones lingering—and above this the first violin traces mysterious phrases. When this quartet reached New York, in 1955, the New York Herald Tribune hailed it as “a work so fresh, brilliant, and esthetically forceful that it will surely follow a route into the working repertoire of chamber music.”
INTERMISSION
Sextet in C major for Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello, Clarinet, and Horn, Op. 37 (1935)
ERNST (ERNŐ) VON DOHNÁNYI (1877-1960)
Sextet in C major for Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello, Clarinet, and Horn, Op. 37 (1935)
Allegro appassionato
Intermezzo (Adagio)
Allegro con sentimento—Presto, quasi
l’istesso tempo—Meno mosso
Finale (segue): Allegro vivace—giocoso
Ernst von Dohnányi honed his skills as a pianist and composer at the Budapest Conservatory with such acumen that in 1896 (the year he graduated) his F-major Symphony won the Hungarian Millennium Prize, a prestigious national award and a terrific achievement for someone who was not yet 20. By that time, he had already won an important seal of approval from no less an eminence than Johannes Brahms, who in 1895 expressed deep admiration for Dohnányi’s C-minor Piano Quintet (Op. 1) and arranged for its premiere in Vienna. For the next two decades he led the busy life of a touring pianist with a special sympathy for Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. World War II brought tragedy: one of his two sons was killed in combat and the other was executed for participating in a plot to assassinate Hitler in July 1944. Following the war, he emigrated across the Atlantic, first to Argentina, then (in 1949) to Tallahassee, Florida, where he spent many years fostering an extraordinary musical climate at Florida State University.
As a composer, Dohnányi tended to look back to what had been rather than ahead to unknown musical terrain. Chamber music was central to his output from the beginning. His last chamber piece, the Sextet deploys an unusual instrumentation, its assemblage of string and wind instruments—in addition to the piano—lending an almost symphonic richness. One should not overstate the Brahmsian element in his music, since he really did develop a distinct late-Romantic voice. Nonetheless, there is something recognizably Brahmsian in the expansiveness of the first movement, and maybe some harmonic touches redolent of Korngold or Richard Strauss. The good-spirited finale makes for fun listening as bits of a nostalgic waltz and then a few cinematic licks worthy of Nino Rota pass through before a final harmonic witticism.