Following their successful first collaboration at Oberlin Conservatory in 2023, the Verona Quartet reunites with Wu Man for a performance at San Antonio Chamber Music Society on November 17. Their interdisciplinary program shines a light on the complex fabric of “what is home” and cultural identity in the modern age through a nostalgic and visionary exploration of both ancient and contemporary repertoire from traditions across the globe. Their collaborations continue in spring and summer 2025, at venues including the Eastman School of Music and the National Museum of Asian Art (and more to be announced soon)!

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Melissa White opened the 2024-25 orchestral season with debuts at the Plymouth Philharmonic in September and the Hilton Head Symphony in October. Following these successful appearances, featuring concerti by Florence Price and Max Bruch, Ms. White heads to the Baton Rouge Symphony, Jackson (MI) Symphony, and Orchestra Iowa in November for performances of Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy.

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Tommy Mesa is the Tucson Symphony Orchestra’s 2024-25 Artist-in-Residence. To kick off the residency November 2-3, Mesa will be featured in a chamber music concert he curated featuring TSO musicians with works including Andrea Casarrubios’ solo Seven, Caroline Shaw’s Limestone and Felt, and Schubert’s masterpiece Cello Quintet. He joins the orchestra for subscription concerts in December.

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The two quartets on the roster, the Borromeo and Verona, are teaming up for a new octet program which has its debut at Clemson University’s Brook Center for the Performing Arts as part of the Utsey Chamber Music Series on September 26. The octet, which will continue touring through the 2025-26 season, has subsequent performances with Music for a Great Space in Greensboro on September 27 and Chamber Music Raleigh on September 28, followed by another performance with Dumbarton Concerts in Washington, DC in May.

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Following his 2021 orchestral debut with the orchestra and a successful recital together with Greg Zelek, the Madison Symphony Principal Organist and Overture Hall’s organ, Tommy Mesa returns to Overture Hall for a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations, performed on a program together with Zelek performing Jongen’s Symphonie Concertante.

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Melissa White performed Florence Price’s Violin Concerto No. 2 with the Cape Town Philharmonic and conductor Rossen Milanov on August 29, marking her solo debut on the African continent. The Weekend Special, a South African online publication, noted White’s “dazzling” performance and her “exquisite singing-tone.”

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Melissa White heads to Chautauqua this week to perform first in the chamber series with the Harlem Quartet on July 29, followed by a performance of Bruch’s first violin concerto with the the Chautauqua Orchestra, with Rossen Milanov conducting. More info can be found here and here.

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Verona Quartet makes their upcoming debut with the revered Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival from July 30 - August 5, beginning with a wide-ranging recital program and inspiring chamber programs to follow.

July 30 Verona plays Mozart, Britten and Verdi
August 1 program featuring Golijov’s Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind  

August 4 program featuring Vivaldi’s transcribed concerti for Lute and Mandolin 

August 4-5 program featuring Mahler’s Das Lied van der Erd
The full calendar can be found here.

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Tommy was featured performing Jessie Montgomery’s Divided concerto with the Sphinx Virtuosi at Newport Classical (July 5), Caramoor (July 7), and Nashville’s Schermerhorn Center (July 9). Montgomery describes the work as “a response to the social and political unrest that has plagued our generation in the recent past.”

Reviewing the Newport Classical performance, Stephen Martorella wrote: “In the dramatic Divided, the soloist takes on the personae of the victims, at times pleading, even weeping, then becoming angry, almost violent. This “argument” between solo and ensemble reflects in musical opposites alongside the philosophical. Minor-second intervals expressed outcries against harmonies of the wide-open inversions of these same intervals as dissonant harmonies, projecting pain against pain, yet the dissonance never drowns out the lyric beauty of the human condition. Even to the last note, an unresolved dissonance lingers lyrically poignant in its beauty. With brilliant solo work, Mesa took rich and rewarding artistic ownership on a 1767 Nicolò Gagliano cello.”

Link to the full article here.

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Cellist Tommy Mesa was featured on the Columbus Symphony’s final concert of the 2023-24 season performing Jessie Montgomery’s Divided alongside Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations. Tommy also visited local students for a master class.

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Melissa White was featured on the West Virginia Symphony’s closing weekend of the season, performing Florence Price’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with guest conductor Melisse Brunet. Melissa will perform this work again with her in the fall!

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In his debut performance with the Knoxville Symphony, joined by guest conductor Vinay Parameswaran, Tommy Mesa “stoked the fire” for an incredible performance of Dvorak’s Silent Woods and Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations, according to Arts Knoxville. Read the full review here.

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During Women’s History Month, Melissa spoke with The Strad about her March performances of Florence Price Concerto No. 2 with the Buffalo Philharmonic, and Price Concerto No. 1 with the Indianapolis Symphony. Read the full interview here.

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On the heels of a tour of Florida and feature at the Hilton Head Bravo!Piano Festival, the Verona Quartet will hop to the other side of the country for a tour out West March 16-23. Starting in Tempe, AZ, the quartet will head up to California for visits to the La Jolla Athenaeum (performance March 18), University of California-San Diego (class visits March 19), University of Southern California (master class March 20), Santa Barbara Museum of Art (performance March 21), and the University of Southern California’s Polish Music Center with pianist Bernadene Blaha (March 23).

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Pianist Henry Kramer gave his public harpsichord debut on February 9 at the Schwob School of Music in Columbus, GA, where he formerly served as the Distinguished Chair of Piano. This performance was part of Kramer’s Ravel-inspired program, which will be presented on March 24 by the Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur in Montreal, where he now resides. Due to the ravaging fire at the Chapelle last spring, the performance will take place at the Montreal Center of Architecture.

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Melissa White, along with her colleagues in Harlem Quartet and Imani Winds, won a Grammy for "Passion for Bach and Coltrane" in the category of Best Classical Compendium. The work was arranged and composed by Jeffrey Scott, and the recording is a collection of original arrangements and newly composed music tying together the work of legendary composer Johann Sebastian Bach and mid-20th-century jazz great John Coltrane. The recording also features orator and poet A.B. Spellman and jazz trio Alex Brown, Edward Perez, and Neal Smith.

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Pianist Einav Yarden joins the Rockford (IL) Symphony February 10 for a performance of the rarely heard 1939 piano concerto by Viktor Ullmann, which has only been performed twice in the US. Viktor Ullmann and the pianist for whom he wrote the concerto were killed during the Holocaust, so the work was never performed as intended in the composer’s lifetime. Einav then travels to Washington state with the Bellingham Symphony to give the West Coast premiere of this work on February 25. Both performances are conducted by Yaniv Attar.

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Violinist Melissa White joins the San Francisco Conservatory February 1-7 for a chamber music residency culminating in a concert with students and faculty on February 6 (see here) and a public master class on February 7 (see here).

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Cellist Tommy Mesa will be featured at the annual Sphinx Organization convening in Detroit, including in conversation and at a performance at Orchestra Hall on Friday, January 26. Tommy will perform Jessie Montgomery’s cello concerto, Divided, for which he has held soloist exclusivity since premiering the work in October 2022, together with Haydn’s C Major Cello Concerto with the Ann Arbor Symphony and conductor Earl Lee in Detroit on January 26 and in Ann Arbor on January 27. Details for the Sphinx convening, including Friday’s performance, can be found here.

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As part of its 2024 annual conference, Chamber Music America will celebrate the legacy of the Cleveland Quartet with a concert and reception including performances by three quartets who received the coveted Cleveland Quartet Award, including our very own Borromeo String Quartet (1999) and Verona Quartet (2020). The concert takes place on Saturday, January 20 at 7pm and tickets are included in conference registration.

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