Thursday, February 28, 12:05 – 1:00 PM

FREE Admission

Landmark Center, Courtroom 317
651–292–3267


Artaria String Quartet
Ray Shows, violin
Nancy Oliveros, violin
Annalee Wolf, viola
Laura Sewell, cello

Antonin Dvorák (1841-1904)
String Quartet No. 8 in E Major, Op. 80 B.57
    Allegro
    Andante con moto
    Allegro scherzando
    Finale - Allegro con brio

Christin-Marie Hill, mezzo-soprano
Bryan Lemke, piano

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
    Beau Soir

Reynaldo Hahn (1875-1947)
    Infidelité

Ernest Chausson (1855-1899)
    Le Charme
    Le Colibri
    Serenade Italienne

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
    Die Mainacht
    Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer
    Von ewige Liebe

ARTIST BIOS:

Violinist  Ray Shows made his solo debut with orchestra in his native Atlanta. As a founding member of the ARTARIA STRING QUARTET, he has performed in major concert halls in New York, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Minneapolis across the U.S. and in Europe. A 2004 winner of a prestigious McKnight Performing Artist Fellowship, Ray is a highly regarded chamber musician who has concertized with many renowned artists including Arnold Steinhardt (Guarneri Quartet), Eugene Drucker (Emerson Quartet), Paul Katz (Cleveland Quartet), and Raphael Hillyer (Juilliard Quartet). He was featured as a concerto soloist with the Portland Symphony Orchestra, where he served as interim Concertmaster and Principal Second Violin. Other professional performance engagements include the Boston Ballet, Boston Pops Esplanade and the Boston Opera Company. Ray is passionate about 20th century music and has performed and recorded music of today's leading composers, including Gunther Schuller, Augusta Read Thomas, Marjorie Merryman and Thomas Oboe Lee, commissioning solo and chamber works for his own New Music Festivals. An Artist/Teacher in Residence at the Tanglewood Institute and a 3-time recipient of prestigious grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Ray has held teaching residencies at Boston College, Viterbo University, Florida State University and Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory. He received the coveted Director's Award and graduated with distinction from Boston University with his Master's Degree in Violin Performance under the tutelage of Carl Flesch protege Roman Totenberg. His BM Magna Cum Laude was received from Florida State University studying with Gerardo Ribeiro. Studies in Chamber Music were mentored by Eugene Lehner (Kolisch Quartet) and members of the Budapest, Juilliard, Emerson, Cleveland, LaSalle, Muir, and Colorado Quartets. Since 2000 Ray has been a member of the faculty of St. Olaf College and co-directs the Artaria Chamber Music School in St. Paul. Ray plays on a rare Italian violin made in Rome by David Tecchler in 1726.

A founding member of the critically acclaimed ARTARIA STRING QUARTET and a 2004 McKnight Fellow, violinist  Nancy Oliveros has performed at renowned venues in New York, Boston, Atlanta, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Chicago, and throughout the United States and Europe. She is a multi-year recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Chamber Music America, and the Heartland Fund for performance and educational outreach projects. She has appeared with members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops, Juilliard and Cleveland Quartets, and performed in Boston with the Pops "Cameo", Ballet, Opera and Pro Arte Chamber Orchestras. Prior to co-founding Stringwood, a unique summer chamber music program, she was an Artist/Teacher in Residence at the world-renowned Tanglewood Institute. With the ASQ, other festival performances include Banff, Hampden-Sydney, and the L'Epau Festival in France. She was awarded past fellowships to Aspen, Kneisel Hall, the Florida Festival, and Brevard. Nancy was a graduate teaching assistant at The Florida State University, and Boston University where she received a Director's Award for post-graduate violin and chamber music studies with Roman Totenberg, Eugene Lehner, Raphael Hillyer, and the Muir Quartet. Further studies in chamber music were mentored by members of the Budapest, Emerson, Cleveland, LaSalle, and Colorado Quartets. Major violin teachers include Roman Totenberg, Gerardo Ribeiro, Karen Clarke and Robert Gerle. She has served on the faculty at Carleton College and Viterbo University. Nancy resides in St. Paul, Minnesota where she co-directs the Artaria Chamber Music School and maintains a private studio. She plays on a rare 1819 violin by Joseph Ceruti.

A native of Minnesota,  Violist Annalee Wolf received her undergraduate degree from St. Olaf College. After completing her Master of Music degree at the North Carolina School of the Arts, she earned a Premier Prix in viola performance from the Royal Conservatory in Brussels, and subsequently studied chamber music and the humanities at the European Mozart Academy. She has performed with the North Carolina, Greensboro, Charleston, and Savannah Symphonies, as well as the European Philharmonic Orchestra. As a chamber musician, Annalee has participated in numerous national and international festivals, including the Quartet Program, the Winter Institute for String Quartets, the Kneisel Hall, Hampden-Sydney, Brandeis, Domaine Forget (Quebec) festivals, and the Cours International de Musique in Morges, Switzerland. She has frequently performed as guest artist with the West End Chamber Ensemble and the Ciompi String Quartet, and in 1995 appeared as soloist at the Eduard Tubin Music Festival in Tallinn, Estonia. Other European appearances have included concerts in Rome, Warsaw, Brussels, Budapest, Prague, Bulgaria, Croatia, and a performance for the president of Romania at his palace in Bucharest. Annalee has taught viola and chamber music at the North Carolina School of the Arts and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has been a student of Roland Vamos, Toby Appel, and Ervin Schiffer, and has studied chamber music with members of the Juilliard, Takacs, Mendelssohn, Lydian, and Haydn String Quartets.

Cellist Laura Sewell founded the award-winning Lark Quartet in 1984 and was its cellist for five years, performing over 80 concerts a year in most of America’s major cities, as well as in Europe and the Far East. During her tenure in the group, the quartet was a top prize winner in the Banff International String Quartet Competition, was quartet-in-residence at San Diego State University and served as teaching assistants to the Juilliard String Quartet at the Juilliard School. Since leaving the group and returning to the Twin Cities, Ms. Sewell has played as a substitute cellist with the Minnesota Orchestra and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, she appears regularly with the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota and performs in a duo with jazz pianist Butch Thompson, with whom she has recorded a cello and piano CD. She has been on the faculties of the MacPhail Center for the Arts, Augsburg College and the Madeline Island Music Camp, and currently serves as the Chair of Chamber Music America, the national service organization for chamber musicians. Ms. Sewell received her training at the Juilliard School and the Cleveland Institute of Music, and her teachers have included Leonard Rose and Jacqueline duPre.

Christin-Marie Hill is emerging as one of the most promising mezzo-soprano voices of her generation. She began her musical career as a jazz vocalist in Paris, France. In 1999, she began a transition into classical music and has since added a wide range of operatic roles to her repertoire, including Carmen, Dido and the Sorceress (Dido and Aeneas),Maddelena (Rigoletto), The Witch (Hansel and Gretel), Prince Orlofsky (Die Fledermaus), and La Principessa (Suor Angelica).

An accomplished interpreter of contemporary music, she performed the role of Stella in the U.S. stage premier of Elliot Carter’s What Next under the direction of Maestro James Levine at the Tanglewood Festival.  She returned to Tanglewood this summer and collaborated with composer William Bolcom on the Tanglewood premiere of his song cycle for mezzo and orchestra, A Whitman Triptych.

Her upcoming engagements include her Boston Symphony debut in April 2008, singing the role of Anna in Berlioz’s Les Troyens under the direction of James Levine.  She
then returns to Tanglewood for another project with Maestro Levine, singing the role of Leokadja Begbick in Kurt Weill’s The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny.

In her operatic career, she has appeared with the San Francisco Opera Merola Program, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Connecticut Early Music Festival, Pensacola Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, and the Utah Festival Opera. In concert, she has performed with the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra, Springfield Symphony, New River Valley Symphony, The Prairie Ensemble, Sinfonia di Camera, Concerto Urbano, University of Illinois Symphony, Baroque Artists of Champaign-Urbana, and the Blacksburg Master Chorale of Virginia.
Her distinctions include fellowships in voice at the University of Illinois and University of Kansas, career grants from the Kaplan Foundation and Rislov Foundation, a grant from the 2005 Elardo International Opera Competition, and 2nd Place at the 2005 Shreveport Opera Singer of the Year Competition. Ms. Hill holds bachelor’s degrees in French Literature and Sociology, and a master’s degree in Vocal Performance from the University of Illinois.