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Program notes written by students

Written by Stilbon Trio
This year is our first and last time playing with one another, and we have grown significantly thanks to our coach, Miho Weber. Although we all had different styles of playing as soloists, we were able to grow as a group and stretch each other’s ability to adapt to each other's musical choices. We had the opportunity to play various styles of music as well, starting off with Arensky’s Piano Trio no. 1 in D Minor and shifting gears to a more modern Schoenfeld’s Cafe Music. Our group was also given the opportunity to play pieces by the composition students of the New York Youth Symphony, through which we learned how to read newer and more contemporary notations. The last piece we will be working on is Mendelssohn's Piano Trio no. 2; we are incredibly excited to share this challenging yet complex work and hope that with our performance, we will exhibit how much we have grown throughout the past year. 
Felix Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No. 2 in C Minor opens with a movement of extraordinary emotional depth and turbulence. Titled Allegro energico e con fuoco (fast, energetic, and with fire), it explodes with a passionate outcry. The piano introduces a restless, almost anguished theme in C Minor, mimicking the rumble of an oncoming thunderstorm. The swelling and yearning phrases create a sense of turmoil and unsettled longing. This opening movement is a masterful exploration of contrasting moods – moments of lyrical beauty clash with fiery outbursts, creating a gripping emotional narrative. The first movement is a testament to the Romantic era's fascination with raw emotion and personal expression. It invites us to experience the music viscerally, to feel its agitation, its yearning, and its moments of fragile beauty.

Written by Mosaica Trio
When we first met the composer of this piece, Maestro Kian Ravaei, he gave us the eye-opening experience of seeing exactly what he wanted to hear in his piece. Parvāneh, named after his grandmother, whose name means ‘butterfly’ in Persian, holds contradicting emotions of joy, sadness, and longing: a symbol of his grandmother’s battle with cancer, as the piece grows and swells in both dynamic and tempo. Both the trills and the main melody play a part in the beauty of the piece, making it so that until the very end, there is no point of time with complete silence. In the past few months, we have focused on being able to express what he wrote in the music in order to convey this story to the audience, and we hope that we are able to in this performance.


Written by Moda Quartet
This year, the group focused on the third movement of the Piano Quartet in A minor by Joaquin Turina. The Spanish heritage of the composer is reflected in the contrasting dynamics of the piece, and the layered building of tension in the melodic line, similar to the feeling of traditional dance in Spain. The third movement of the piece comes after a winding second movement with chaotic passages and indecisive harmonies, ending with an A major chord played by all of the instruments. While working through the piece, we found the non-traditional harmonies to be interesting, and enjoyed the process of putting the different phrases together, to form a story through the music as a whole.


Written by Chambers Street Piano Quartet
Written in 1842, Schumann’s Piano Quartet is one of the most prominent pieces of music among many others that he wrote. Schumann’s extreme melancholy did not serve as a hindrance to his composing, instead, it gave life and beauty to this piece. His two personalities, “Florestan” and “Eusebius” are deeply woven throughout the movements. The nostalgic and solemn “Andante Cantabile” movement contains one of the most beautiful melodies ever written, one that yearns for comfort, something that Schumann struggled to find even until the end of his life. The fourth movement is the climax of the entire quartet, flipping between fiery excitement and lyrical sweetness. Throughout the year, we worked on spontaneously changing the character of our playing to bring the different personalities to life. It is haunting how you can hear Schumann struggling to hold onto the last remnants of his sanity, even as profound as the piece is. It was truly an honor to learn and perform such a masterpiece


Written by ROEL Quartet
Flutes en Vacances by Jaques Casterede really boosted our ability as a quartet. First of all, our current piece has many movements, all with different styles of music that let us focus on dynamics, volumes, and trying different articulations. Being able to play, collaborate, and share ideas with each other allowed us to become more than just a quartet: we became a symphony of creativity and harmony. With our current piece, it's not just about making sure every note is correct, and it's not about being able to do well individually. It's about blending and working as a team. Flutes en Vacances, with the variety of styles that it provides, allowed us to explore the musicality inside us and helped bring us closer together as a team that is able to bring out the story in each of the movements.

Written by Alexandrite Quartet
Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983, was a 20th-century composer who was heavily influenced by the music of Béla Bartók as well as the Argentine folk songs he grew up listening to. After graduating from the Williams Conservatory in 1938, Ginastera went on to study with Aaron Copeland at Tanglewood from 1945-1947. His music can be described in three different ways: “Objective Nationalism,” “Subjective Nationalism,” and “Neo-expressionism.” In other words, the different works written in separate years of his life had varying musical influences and styles. Ginastera composed his String Quartet No. 1, Op. 20 in 1948, shortly after he moved back to Buenos Aires from the United States; it is considered to be a transitional work between his “Objective Nationalism” and “Subjective Nationalism” periods. Ginastera incorporates many specific notations in this piece, including martellato, non spiccato, and Allegro violento ed agitato. This quartet not only reflects the influence Ginastera gained from the rhythmic intensity of Béla Bartók’s music, but also showcases many fragments of Argentine folk-themes he was surrounded by while living in Buenos Aires — an unexpected, yet striking combination. As a group, we have focused on highlighting the small details in this piece, such as deciding which bow stroke to play in different sections (with the intent of staying true to Ginastera’s markings), ensuring we know how our rhythms fit together to create an overall group effect, and highlighting the sections that are more tonal and melodic. We also strived to emphasize the unique, percussive nature of this string quartet while simultaneously bringing out the more tender elements of the piece. During the first half of the year, we worked on our overall sound as a quartet through classical repertoire; thus, when we encountered this piece, we were eager to continue developing our sound in a new context. In the beginning stages of learning this piece, we struggled with expressing our phrasing clearly, but as we became more familiar with and dove deeper into the rhythm and tonal infrastructure of the quartet, we were able to understand how Ginastera brilliantly uses melodic and rhythmic interplay. Although this quartet may differ from “conventional” repertoire in melodic and stylistic ways, we have placed emphasis on playing each line with intention and phrasing so that we may make our performance as beautiful, fun, and ferocious as possible.


Written by Traumerei
Learning the clarinet quintet transcription of Amilcare Ponchielli’s Dance of the Hours (1876) from the opera La Gioconda has been an exciting journey for all of us at Träumerei. The dynamic natures of the piece, aptly representative of the tumultuous and dramatic plot of the opera, were new things that our ensemble constantly tried to bring out in our rehearsals. It is a breathtaking piece that captivates audiences with its elegance, charm, and intricate musicality. Though all of us are playing the clarinet, we can imagine ourselves taking on the role of another instrument family, like an expressive oboe or flute, or grandiose cello or viola of the strings. With the masterful arrangement of the original piece, all of us were able to bond over the melodies, with starkly contrasting tones, tempos, and ideas to guide our phrasing and musicality. Overall, we are proud of the work we have done on this piece, and we hope our passion for building collaborative music can be expressed with this piece.


Written by Connect 4
Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8 was composed in 1960 in Communist East Germany, where he was to write music for a film about the destruction of Dresden. He dedicated his work to “victims of fascism and war,” and this is interpreted in a variety of ways today. The first movement is like walking across a tightrope between despair and hope. Looming over us like a giant shadow from the past, the opening notes, D, E-flat, C, B-natural, is a motif that can be heard throughout the movements, as well as across Shostakovich’s works. (In German musical notation, the note E-flat is called “Es,” like “S,” and the note B-natural is written as “H.” Thus, the motif spells “DSCH,” representing his initials.) Each note, a whisper from history, carries the weight of untold stories. We conveyed the uncertainty of this movement, an oscillation between grief and hope, with drastic dynamic contrasts and varied vibrato styles. Like a rubber band snapping from prolonged tension, the transition into the second movement is sudden, unleashing a storm that had been brewing. The second movement, characterized by violent turbulence and relentless pace, is like a battle against the darkness. It demanded of us not only speed and precision, but a ferocity of spirit. The notes cascade, collide, and intertwine, telling of chaos, a struggle against oppression. Learning and performing this piece has been a profound journey of musical exploration, allowing us to delve into unique interpretations and ensemble cohesion. Our group learned the importance of emotional depth and unity, forming a tight-knit friendship along the way!


Written by Astor
Florence Price, a native of Arkansas and a graduate of the New England Conservatory was thoroughly at home both in the European classical tradition and in the African-American folk music of the South. Price’s Piano Quintet in A minor, representative of the American style based on Black musical components, has quickly found its place in the American chamber repertoire. Many of the four-movement work’s melodies are based on the pentatonic scale, which represents a shared heritage of many musical cultures around the world. Each member of the quintet is given important solo moments as those themes are developed. Capturing this rich culture in the lyrical first movement, Allegro non troppo, was a difficult challenge for our group this year, but one that was well worth it.


Written by Esprit Quartet
This being our first year together, we have gotten the opportunity to work through and play Brahms Piano Quartet in C Minor op. 60. We began the school year working on the first movement, Allegro, where we explored the importance of breathing together as a group. Furthermore, we discovered what feeling the music as one whole unit is and how that is beneficial, rather than playing individually. As we continued through the year, we decided to learn the Andante movement. In this movement we learned the importance of transitioning from one musical idea to another, and similar to the first movement, the importance of breathing together. We also came up with a story that helped us better understand the movement’s arc. We have all grown as individual musicians after learning this piece together, but more importantly we have grown as a chamber music group.

Written by Mystique Quartet
After a wonderful six years together, our time as a quartet is coming to an end as our first violinist and cellist head off to college. We decided to close out our season with the first movement of Mendelssohn’s 6th string quartet. Through learning this piece, we have been given an insight into Mendelssohn’s grief following the passing of his sister, with various feelings of anger, sadness, and emotional turmoil. There is an intense feeling throughout the first movement, with strong statements passed back and forth between instruments, as well as beautiful and grief filled melodies. Over the past couple of years we have come back to this piece, learning all four movements. We have learned how returning to a piece over time can help in achieving a better understanding of the work and a more mature interpretation. We have really enjoyed learning and performing the Mendelssohn Op 80 string quartet and think it will be a triumphant way to close out our season. Thank you to the New York Youth Symphony for all of the amazing opportunities we have been given. We are forever grateful to the program for introducing us to Amelia Dietrich, without whom we would not be the group we have grown to be today.

Program notes written by students

Written by Stilbon Trio
This year is our first and last time playing with one another, and we have grown significantly thanks to our coach, Miho Weber. Although we all had different styles of playing as soloists, we were able to grow as a group and stretch each other’s ability to adapt to each other's musical choices. We had the opportunity to play various styles of music as well, starting off with Arensky’s Piano Trio no. 1 in D Minor and shifting gears to a more modern Schoenfeld’s Cafe Music. Our group was also given the opportunity to play pieces by the composition students of the New York Youth Symphony, through which we learned how to read newer and more contemporary notations. The last piece we will be working on is Mendelssohn's Piano Trio no. 2; we are incredibly excited to share this challenging yet complex work and hope that with our performance, we will exhibit how much we have grown throughout the past year. 
Felix Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No. 2 in C Minor opens with a movement of extraordinary emotional depth and turbulence. Titled Allegro energico e con fuoco (fast, energetic, and with fire), it explodes with a passionate outcry. The piano introduces a restless, almost anguished theme in C Minor, mimicking the rumble of an oncoming thunderstorm. The swelling and yearning phrases create a sense of turmoil and unsettled longing. This opening movement is a masterful exploration of contrasting moods – moments of lyrical beauty clash with fiery outbursts, creating a gripping emotional narrative. The first movement is a testament to the Romantic era's fascination with raw emotion and personal expression. It invites us to experience the music viscerally, to feel its agitation, its yearning, and its moments of fragile beauty.

Written by Mosaica Trio
When we first met the composer of this piece, Maestro Kian Ravaei, he gave us the eye-opening experience of seeing exactly what he wanted to hear in his piece. Parvāneh, named after his grandmother, whose name means ‘butterfly’ in Persian, holds contradicting emotions of joy, sadness, and longing: a symbol of his grandmother’s battle with cancer, as the piece grows and swells in both dynamic and tempo. Both the trills and the main melody play a part in the beauty of the piece, making it so that until the very end, there is no point of time with complete silence. In the past few months, we have focused on being able to express what he wrote in the music in order to convey this story to the audience, and we hope that we are able to in this performance.


Written by Moda Quartet
This year, the group focused on the third movement of the Piano Quartet in A minor by Joaquin Turina. The Spanish heritage of the composer is reflected in the contrasting dynamics of the piece, and the layered building of tension in the melodic line, similar to the feeling of traditional dance in Spain. The third movement of the piece comes after a winding second movement with chaotic passages and indecisive harmonies, ending with an A major chord played by all of the instruments. While working through the piece, we found the non-traditional harmonies to be interesting, and enjoyed the process of putting the different phrases together, to form a story through the music as a whole.


Written by Chambers Street Piano Quartet
Written in 1842, Schumann’s Piano Quartet is one of the most prominent pieces of music among many others that he wrote. Schumann’s extreme melancholy did not serve as a hindrance to his composing, instead, it gave life and beauty to this piece. His two personalities, “Florestan” and “Eusebius” are deeply woven throughout the movements. The nostalgic and solemn “Andante Cantabile” movement contains one of the most beautiful melodies ever written, one that yearns for comfort, something that Schumann struggled to find even until the end of his life. The fourth movement is the climax of the entire quartet, flipping between fiery excitement and lyrical sweetness. Throughout the year, we worked on spontaneously changing the character of our playing to bring the different personalities to life. It is haunting how you can hear Schumann struggling to hold onto the last remnants of his sanity, even as profound as the piece is. It was truly an honor to learn and perform such a masterpiece


Written by ROEL Quartet
Flutes en Vacances by Jaques Casterede really boosted our ability as a quartet. First of all, our current piece has many movements, all with different styles of music that let us focus on dynamics, volumes, and trying different articulations. Being able to play, collaborate, and share ideas with each other allowed us to become more than just a quartet: we became a symphony of creativity and harmony. With our current piece, it's not just about making sure every note is correct, and it's not about being able to do well individually. It's about blending and working as a team. Flutes en Vacances, with the variety of styles that it provides, allowed us to explore the musicality inside us and helped bring us closer together as a team that is able to bring out the story in each of the movements.

Written by Alexandrite Quartet
Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983, was a 20th-century composer who was heavily influenced by the music of Béla Bartók as well as the Argentine folk songs he grew up listening to. After graduating from the Williams Conservatory in 1938, Ginastera went on to study with Aaron Copeland at Tanglewood from 1945-1947. His music can be described in three different ways: “Objective Nationalism,” “Subjective Nationalism,” and “Neo-expressionism.” In other words, the different works written in separate years of his life had varying musical influences and styles. Ginastera composed his String Quartet No. 1, Op. 20 in 1948, shortly after he moved back to Buenos Aires from the United States; it is considered to be a transitional work between his “Objective Nationalism” and “Subjective Nationalism” periods. Ginastera incorporates many specific notations in this piece, including martellato, non spiccato, and Allegro violento ed agitato. This quartet not only reflects the influence Ginastera gained from the rhythmic intensity of Béla Bartók’s music, but also showcases many fragments of Argentine folk-themes he was surrounded by while living in Buenos Aires — an unexpected, yet striking combination. As a group, we have focused on highlighting the small details in this piece, such as deciding which bow stroke to play in different sections (with the intent of staying true to Ginastera’s markings), ensuring we know how our rhythms fit together to create an overall group effect, and highlighting the sections that are more tonal and melodic. We also strived to emphasize the unique, percussive nature of this string quartet while simultaneously bringing out the more tender elements of the piece. During the first half of the year, we worked on our overall sound as a quartet through classical repertoire; thus, when we encountered this piece, we were eager to continue developing our sound in a new context. In the beginning stages of learning this piece, we struggled with expressing our phrasing clearly, but as we became more familiar with and dove deeper into the rhythm and tonal infrastructure of the quartet, we were able to understand how Ginastera brilliantly uses melodic and rhythmic interplay. Although this quartet may differ from “conventional” repertoire in melodic and stylistic ways, we have placed emphasis on playing each line with intention and phrasing so that we may make our performance as beautiful, fun, and ferocious as possible.


Written by Traumerei
Learning the clarinet quintet transcription of Amilcare Ponchielli’s Dance of the Hours (1876) from the opera La Gioconda has been an exciting journey for all of us at Träumerei. The dynamic natures of the piece, aptly representative of the tumultuous and dramatic plot of the opera, were new things that our ensemble constantly tried to bring out in our rehearsals. It is a breathtaking piece that captivates audiences with its elegance, charm, and intricate musicality. Though all of us are playing the clarinet, we can imagine ourselves taking on the role of another instrument family, like an expressive oboe or flute, or grandiose cello or viola of the strings. With the masterful arrangement of the original piece, all of us were able to bond over the melodies, with starkly contrasting tones, tempos, and ideas to guide our phrasing and musicality. Overall, we are proud of the work we have done on this piece, and we hope our passion for building collaborative music can be expressed with this piece.


Written by Connect 4
Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8 was composed in 1960 in Communist East Germany, where he was to write music for a film about the destruction of Dresden. He dedicated his work to “victims of fascism and war,” and this is interpreted in a variety of ways today. The first movement is like walking across a tightrope between despair and hope. Looming over us like a giant shadow from the past, the opening notes, D, E-flat, C, B-natural, is a motif that can be heard throughout the movements, as well as across Shostakovich’s works. (In German musical notation, the note E-flat is called “Es,” like “S,” and the note B-natural is written as “H.” Thus, the motif spells “DSCH,” representing his initials.) Each note, a whisper from history, carries the weight of untold stories. We conveyed the uncertainty of this movement, an oscillation between grief and hope, with drastic dynamic contrasts and varied vibrato styles. Like a rubber band snapping from prolonged tension, the transition into the second movement is sudden, unleashing a storm that had been brewing. The second movement, characterized by violent turbulence and relentless pace, is like a battle against the darkness. It demanded of us not only speed and precision, but a ferocity of spirit. The notes cascade, collide, and intertwine, telling of chaos, a struggle against oppression. Learning and performing this piece has been a profound journey of musical exploration, allowing us to delve into unique interpretations and ensemble cohesion. Our group learned the importance of emotional depth and unity, forming a tight-knit friendship along the way!


Written by Astor
Florence Price, a native of Arkansas and a graduate of the New England Conservatory was thoroughly at home both in the European classical tradition and in the African-American folk music of the South. Price’s Piano Quintet in A minor, representative of the American style based on Black musical components, has quickly found its place in the American chamber repertoire. Many of the four-movement work’s melodies are based on the pentatonic scale, which represents a shared heritage of many musical cultures around the world. Each member of the quintet is given important solo moments as those themes are developed. Capturing this rich culture in the lyrical first movement, Allegro non troppo, was a difficult challenge for our group this year, but one that was well worth it.


Written by Esprit Quartet
This being our first year together, we have gotten the opportunity to work through and play Brahms Piano Quartet in C Minor op. 60. We began the school year working on the first movement, Allegro, where we explored the importance of breathing together as a group. Furthermore, we discovered what feeling the music as one whole unit is and how that is beneficial, rather than playing individually. As we continued through the year, we decided to learn the Andante movement. In this movement we learned the importance of transitioning from one musical idea to another, and similar to the first movement, the importance of breathing together. We also came up with a story that helped us better understand the movement’s arc. We have all grown as individual musicians after learning this piece together, but more importantly we have grown as a chamber music group.

Written by Mystique Quartet
After a wonderful six years together, our time as a quartet is coming to an end as our first violinist and cellist head off to college. We decided to close out our season with the first movement of Mendelssohn’s 6th string quartet. Through learning this piece, we have been given an insight into Mendelssohn’s grief following the passing of his sister, with various feelings of anger, sadness, and emotional turmoil. There is an intense feeling throughout the first movement, with strong statements passed back and forth between instruments, as well as beautiful and grief filled melodies. Over the past couple of years we have come back to this piece, learning all four movements. We have learned how returning to a piece over time can help in achieving a better understanding of the work and a more mature interpretation. We have really enjoyed learning and performing the Mendelssohn Op 80 string quartet and think it will be a triumphant way to close out our season. Thank you to the New York Youth Symphony for all of the amazing opportunities we have been given. We are forever grateful to the program for introducing us to Amelia Dietrich, without whom we would not be the group we have grown to be today.