Bohemian Rhapsody, Viennese Grace: Romantic Piano Trios

Brahms Trio #3 in C minor, op. 101 Allegro energico Presto non assai Andante grazioso Allegro molto Dvořak Trio #4 in E minor, Op. 90 (“Dumky”) Lento maestoso — Allegro quasi doppio movimento Poco Adagio — Vivace non troppo Andante — Vivace non troppo Andante moderato — Allegretto scherzando Allegro — Meno mosso Lento maestoso — Vivace with Mark Peskanov, Nicholas Tzavaras, and Doris Stevenson Biographies Mark Peskanov A native of East Harlem in New York City, cellist Nicholas Tzavaras has toured the globe as a chamber musician, soloist, and educator for more than two decades. He has performed more than 1600 concerts worldwide, from Cartagena Columbia to the Tonhalle in Zurich to Nagasaki Japan. Since 2000, Tzavaras has been the cellist of the internationally renowned Shanghai Quartet. Recent festival engagements have included the Brevard, La Jolla and Taos festivals, the Casals festival in Prades France, the Melbourne Music Festival in Australia and the Marlboro Festival. Tzavaras has held the esteemed title of guest principal cellist of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra since 2009. He has recorded more than 25 albums for the Naxos, Delos, Bis, Centaur, Camerata, and New Albion labels, including the complete Beethoven string quartet cycle and Bright Sheng’s songs for pipa and cello with Wu Man. Tzavaras can be seen in the Academy Award nominated documentary “Small Wonders,” the motion picture “Music of the Heart” and with the Shanghai Quartet in “Melinda Melinda.”Tzavaras began the violin at age 2 with his mother, Roberta Guaspari and moved to the cello when he was 7. A graduate of the Bronx High School of Science, he went on to receive degrees from the New England Conservatory and the State University of New York at Stony Brook working exclusively with Laurence Lesser and Timothy Eddy. From 2002 to 2021, Tzavaras was the coordinator of the String Department and Artist-in-Residence at Montclair State University’s John J. Cali School of Music. In addition, he was on the cello and chamber music faculty at the Longy School of Music in Boston from 2015 to 2020. Doris Stevenson has won lavish praise from critics and public alike in performances around the world. She has soloed with the Boston Pops, played at Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., Salle Pleyel in Paris, Sala de Musica Arango in Bogota, and Suntory Hall in Tokyo. Her acute sensitivity and musicianship have made her a sought-after partner with some of the leading lights in string playing. She has performed with Gregor Piatigorsky, Ruggiero Ricci and Paul Tortelier, great players of the past. Early in her career she was invited by Heifetz and Piatigorsky to perform with them in their chamber concerts. She was pianist for the cello master classes of Piatigorsky, who described her as “an artist of the highest order.” The list of distinguished artists she has performed with includes cellists Andre Navarra, Leslie Parnas and Gary Hoffman, violinists Charles Castleman and Elmar Olivera, violists Walter Trampler and Paul Neubauer and singers Kaaren Erickson and Catherine Malfitano. She is a founding member of the Sitka Summer Music Festival in Alaska and has toured throughout that state, playing in many remote Native Alaskan communities. She has participated in many chamber music festivals and has performed in 48 of the 50 states.She recently performed with cellist Zuill Bailey at the Phillips Gallery in Washington D.C., at Bargemusic in New York and at Smith College. She plays a score of outreach concerts each season for the Piatigorsky Foundation in schools, libraries, prisons, and remote communities, bringing live classical music with commentary to people who wouldn’t otherwise hear it. Doris Stevenson is deeply committed to performing new music. In the last three years she has played in concert the works of twenty living composers. She was the first woman to perform Frederick Rzewski’s masterpiece, De Profundis for speaking pianist, which she brought to New York City to perform as a Williams in New York concert. Her many recordings include six major works by David Kechley and two by Ileana Velazquez-Perez, the Saint Saens violin sonatas with Andres Cardenes, the complete Mendelssohn cello works with Jeffrey Solow, and the Brahms Sonatas with cellist Nathaniel Rosen. A CD of Stravinsky rarities with violinist Mark Peskanov received a Grammy nomination. Miss Stevenson taught for ten years at the University of Southern California and has been Lyell B. Clay Artist in Residence at Williams College since 1987.