Pianist-composer Michael Brown, an artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, was the first musician featured in that organization’s new Front Row: Artist Series—a weekly virtual concert series showcasing eight CMSLC artists. Brown also made a little bit of musical history this spring as the first artist to collaborate virtually, rather than live and in person, with educator/musicologist/composer Rob Kapilow on Kapilow’s long-running What Makes It Great? program.

Harlem Quartet is known for the unique eclecticism of its repertoire, and the ensemble’s newest recording affirms that legacy. Cross Pollination, a self-produced CD to be released on July 17, features music from the European canon (Debussy’s String Quartet in G Minor, Op. 10); classic American jazz (Dizzy Gillespie’s A Night in Tunisia, as arranged by Dave Glenn and Harlem Quartet); a take on Ragtime by a contemporary European-American composer (William Bolcom’s Three Rags for String Quartet); and Cuarteto en guagancó, an African dance-inspired work by another eminent living composer, Cuba’s Guido Lopéz-Gavilán (father of Havana-born Ilmar Gavilán, Harlem Quartet’s first violinist).

As the pandemic has brought a temporary halt to live performances everywhere, one orchestra near the nation’s capital is continuing to bring its sound to the community while also honoring the heroic healthcare workers on the front lines of COVID-19 . . .

Souvenirs, debut album of the Rolston String Quartet, has been selected as a recording of the month for March 2020 by BBC Music Magazine. Commenting on the all-Tchaikovsky album in the magazine’s official website, classical-music.com, Erik Levi writes, “This beautifully recorded debut release confirms not only the Rolston String Quartet’s superb technical accomplishment and their impeccably blended sound, but also a maturity of interpretative approach that can only be achieved after long and patient engagement with the music.” Released last year . . .

Violinist Tessa Lark has been nominated for a 2020 GRAMMY® Award in the Best Classical Instrumental Solo category. CLICK HERE to listen to the recording.

On November 1, 2019, Canada’s award-winning Rolston String Quartet released its debut recording on the Fuga Libera label. An all-Tchaikovsky album called Souvenirs, it includes the String Quartet No. 1 in D Major, Op. 11; Children’s Album, Op. 39, as arranged for string quartet by Rostislav Dubinsky; and the work whose title inspires that of the CD, the String Sextet in D Minor “Souvenir de Florence,” Op. 70. Joining . . .

New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts has recognized violinist Tessa Lark as one of eleven Emerging Artists for 2020 and the recipient of its prestigious Hunt Family Award. In a November 14 news release announcing the awards, Lark is cited by Lincoln Center Artistic Director Jane Moss as “a brilliant musical force who defies categorization. On and offstage, she conveys expressive warmth and grounded authenticity. She engages effortlessly with audiences.”

Lark is the sole individual to be nominated as an Emerging Artist this year by the center itself rather than one of its many discipline-specific resident organizations such the New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet, Film at Lincoln Center, Juilliard School, and New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. She will make her Lincoln Center recital debut May 10, 2020, on the Great Performers Series. Lark will also perform at a gala awards celebration recognizing the 2020 Emerging Artists, scheduled for February 26 in Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall.

Championing the work of living American composers has long been an important part of pianist Gabriela Martinez’s career. Dan Visconti's 2014 composition Amplified Soul is the title selection on her debut solo CD, a Delos release that also includes White Lies for Lomax (2007) by Mason Bates. Now Martinez is giving voice to the piano music of 39-year-old American composer Adam Schoenberg ...

For his recital debut with Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival on July 24, 2019, pianist-composer Michael Brown performed for a rapt audience at the Kaplan Penthouse, offering a late-night program consisting of Mendelssohn's "Variations Sérieuses," his own "Folk Variations," and a set of Beethoven variations thematically linked to that composer's "Eroica" Symphony, which the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra had performed just minutes earlier in Lincoln Center's Geffen Hall. Here's what New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini had to say:

"Since the final movement of the 'Eroica' Symphony, which many in his audience had just heard, is an epic set of variations, Mr. Brown began with a colorful account of Mendelssohn's impetuous 'Variations Sérieuses,' then played his own flinty yet playfully pointillist 'Folk Variations.' Nodding to the orchestra's earlier program, he ended his recital with a fearless performance of Beethoven's momumental 'Eroica' Variations, in which Beethoven tried out themes later used in the symphony."