FULL PROGRAM:
Viet Cuong’s Extra(ordinarily) Fancy: Concerto for two oboes
Bach’s Oboe d’amore Concerto in A Major, BWV 1055R
Albinoni’s Concerto for two oboes in C Major, Op. 9 No. 9
Bach’s Violin & Harpsichord Sonata in E Major, Adagio ma non tanto, BWV 1016
Bach’s Violin Concerto in E Major, Adagio, BWV 1042
FEATURED SOLOISTS:
Ronald Mutchnik, Violin
Katherine Needleman, Oboe
Sandra Lisicky, Oboe
Michael Lisicky, Oboe
Bozena Brown, Harpsichord
Treasured Bach in Baltimore friend, oboist Leslie Starr passed away on February 12, 2021. Since graduating from Peabody, Leslie specialized in Baroque music, and she shared her love and skill as an oboist with Bach in Baltimore for almost 25 years. Additionally, she played with the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra. Leslie often told friends and colleagues that playing Bach was one of her favorite musical things to do.
Bach in Baltimore dedicates this spring-themed instrumental concert to the memory of Leslie Elena Starr, which will feature a new work by Viet Cuong, two stunning oboe concertos, and several favorite Bach works performed by her friends and colleagues.
Read the full obituary for Leslie Starr HERE.
Bozena Brown, harpsichord
Bozena Jedrzejczak Brown holds a master’s degree from The Peabody Institute and earned an individualized master’s degree at Northern Illinois University. She received a bachelor’s in music theory from The Frederic Chopin Music University in Poland. She teaches harpsichord and rudiments of figured bass at The Baltimore School for the Arts and is a faculty member at Garrison Forest School. Ms. Brown freelances as a continuo player on harpsichord and chamber organ and has performed with many groups in the Mid-Atlantic region including Richmond Symphony Orchestra and Washington’s Camerata among others.
Katherine Needleman, oboe
Katherine Needleman is a multi-faceted musician and native of Baltimore. She won first prize in the International Double Reed Society’s Gillet-Fox Oboe Competition in 2003, and then their Inaugural Commissioning Competition in 2020. Passionately devoted to the delivery of new music and exploration of the lines between composers and performers, Needleman has commissioned and premiered numerous works, both by living and dead composers. This season, she gives the United States premiere of Ruth Gipps’ Oboe Concerto with the Richmond Symphony and Valentina Peleggi, a work which Needleman found to be languishing unplayed since its premiere in London eighty years ago. She gave the West Coast premiere of Christopher Rouse’s Oboe Concerto; Rouse chose Needleman to make the premiere recording with David Alan Miller and the Albany Symphony. Similarly, Needleman premiered and recorded Kevin Puts’ oboe concerto, Moonlight, with the Baltimore Symphony and Marin Alsop. Needleman gave the United States premiere of Brenno Blauth’s Concertino as soloist and conductor with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. During the COVID-19 lockdown, she presented a series of eleven weekly solo oboe recitals including many premieres to an online audience of more than 75,000 and growing, starting from playing directly into an old laptop microphone, and progressing to using much fancier equipment and delivering a performance from the middle of a cold lake, swimming to shore at the end. She brought her childhood piano skills to the public with several recordings made during lockdown, including both g minor oboe sonatas of J.S. Bach. She has been an improviser since early childhood, and released the album Marmalade Balloon with distinguished colleagues of the Mico Nonet. She started putting music on paper during her time at home in the pandemic. She curates Coffee, Patisserie, and Classical Music at An Die Musik. She explores the connection between composer and performer in this series, focusing on music which has been unreasonably under-programmed for various reasons. She performs as an oboe recitalist throughout the US. As a day job, she is an orchestral oboist, having performed as guest principal with all of the US’s “Big Five” orchestras except for one as well as being the Baltimore Symphony’s principal oboist since 2003.
Ronald Mutchnik, violin
Violinist Ronald Mutchnik graduated from the University of Maryland Baltimore County summa cum laude, where he studied with Robert Gerle. While there, he won the Baltimore Music Club and Baltimore Musicians’ competitions. He earned his Master’s degree from the New England Conservatory, studying with Joseph Gingold and continued post-graduate studies at Tel Aviv University in Israel. with Yair Kless.
He is active as an orchestral violinist, chamber musician, recitalist, and soloist and has served as Concertmaster of the Columbia Pro Cantare for over 30 years and with the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra for 36 years. He has performed as soloist with numerous orchestras in Maryland, including the Columbia Orchestra and the Frederick Symphony and appeared in the film Washington Square, performing his own composition, and in concerts with Smokey Robinson, Dionne Warwick, and was the concertmaster at Pat Sajack’s wedding in Annapolis. As a chamber musician he has appeared on many local series including Music in the Great Hall and An Die Musik.
As a teacher he has taught privately in Howard County for 40 years and taught at Towson University. He was a past president of the American String Teachers associations MD/DC Chapter, produced a music education video, “Posture and Balance: The Dynamic Duo” toured Korea coaching and performing chamber music, and is a founder of and performer with the Sundays At Three” Chamber Music Series and the founder and music director of the HCCO, the professional chamber orchestra of Howard County, Maryland. He is the 2009 winner of the MD/DC Chapter of ASTA’s String Teacher of the Year award and the Outstanding Artist Award, the “Howie” for Howard County, Maryland. Recent performances with the Bach In Baltimore Orchestra have included the Bach Double Violin Concerto with Tamara Seymour and the Violin & Oboe Concerto with Sandra Lisicky.
“Bach in Baltimore is a perfect organization to feature the music of what is arguably history’s most important composer. Without Bach, there is no Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms or so many other wonderful composers who studied and played his music and benefited immeasurably from this great master’s unique ability to communicate humanity’s deepest and most personal thoughts into sound. Bach was able to create music that unfolds logically and that creates interest in every voice in the musical texture, but at the same time, is suffused with emotion and humility in his honest and sincere search to express the perfection of the Divine. Few can equal this level of inspiration, and none have surpassed it.”
Ronald Mutchnik, Violin
Sandra Lisicky, oboe
Sandra (Gerster) Lisicky, oboe, has played with the Bach in Baltimore Orchestra since 2006. She recalls her first concert with Bach in Baltimore performing Bach’s Cantata 1, along with her husband Michael on the English horn.
Additionally, she is the Principal Oboist of the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival (Harrisonburg, VA) since 1994, performs regularly with the Baltimore and Maryland Symphonies. Formerly Principal Oboist of the Hartford Symphony, Connecticut Opera, Berkshire Opera, New Sousa Band and Opera New England, Ms. Lisicky was also a member of the Richmond and Virginia (Norfolk) Symphonies, Virginia Opera and Williamsburg Symphonia.
She has collaborated with the New World, Franciscan and Cavani String Quartets on numerous occasions and was a founding member of Soni Fidelis Quintet, a resident ensemble of the Hartt School of Music. In 1998 she participated in a special chamber music concert in London for Prime Minister Tony Blair and members of his Cabinet.
As an oboist there is nothing more rewarding, uplifting, exciting and challenging than playing Bach! What a gift to perform his wonderful repertoire every month with my superlative and supportive Bach in Baltimore colleagues!
Sandra Lisicky, Oboe
Ms. Lisicky has held teaching appointments at more than twenty educational institutions, including James Madison and Virginia Commonwealth Universities, and the Universities of Richmond and Connecticut. She is currently a faculty member of the Baltimore School for the Arts and Peabody Institute and serves as the music coordinator for BSA’s TWIGS program.
Michael Lisicky, oboe
Oboist Michael Lisicky has been performing with the Baltimore Symphony since 2003. He has been praised by critics for his “magical nuances” (Baltimore Sun), “tonal purity” (Richmond Times-Dispatch) and “quite wonderful musicianship” (Boston Globe).
He was a member of the Richmond Symphony and served on the faculty of the University of Richmond, performing as a soloist with the RSO on six occasions. He is also a former member of the Savannah Symphony.
A graduate of the New England Conservatory, Mr. Lisicky has performed as a principal oboist with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, North Carolina Symphony, and the Taipei Philharmonic.
Lisicky is a founding member of the ensemble, Trio La Milpa, along with BSO principal oboist Katherine Needleman and oboist Sandra Gerster.