GUEST ARTISTS: HARLEM CHAMBER PLAYERS

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

TERRANCE MCKNIGHT, NARRATOR | Radio host, commentator, curator, writer, author, and pianist Terrance McKnight serves humanity and music by “bringing everyone’s culture to the table, by not putting one above the other, but rather by ensuring a big enough table with a place for all.” McKnight is the weekday evening host for WQXR, New York’s only all-classical music station. His various roles as commentator, curator, and writer go hand in hand with his writing, producing, and hosting audio documentaries on Langston Hughes, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Hazel Scott, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, Florence Beatrice Price, Leonard Bernstein and Harry Belafonte for WQXR. Another of his radio shows for WQXR, All Ears with Terrance McKnight, a series about musical discovery, was honored with an ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award. He has hosted concerts for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts, and the Finals and Celebratory Weekend of the Spring 2021 American Pianists Association Competition in Indianapolis. His is the voice of recent media campaigns for Carnegie Hall and the Studio Museum in Harlem. Terrance McKnight is the author of “Concert Black,” anticipating a 2022 release by Abrams Press. 2022 also initiates a 3-year commitment as a member of the Artistic Council, with Claire Chase and conductor Robert Spano, for The Hermitage Artist Retreat in Florida. Terrance serves on the board of MacDowell and is the Artistic Advisor for the Harlem Chamber Players. It is Terrance McKnight’s commentary that introduces the liner notes for an upcoming release of Three Ife Songs by Phillip Glass, featuring singer Angelique Kidjo, Dennis Russell Davies and the Bruckner Orchestra Linz.

THE HARLEM CHAMBER PLAYERS STRING QUARTET

ASHLEY HORNE | A native of Los Angeles, violinist Ashley Horne has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician around the world. A graduate of The Juilliard School, he is known for his “bright tone and fine overall sense of style” (Dennis Rooney of Strad Magazine). He has performed regularly with American Symphony Orchestra, Brooklyn Philharmonic, Bard Festival Orchestra, Westchester Symphony, West-Park Chamber Society, Gateways Music Festival, Dance Theater of Harlem Orchestra and New York City Opera, as well as on Broadway’s The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Wild Party, Carousel, The Producers and On the Town. He has been the featured soloist and concertmaster of numerous ensembles, including The New Black Repertory Ensemble, The Antara Ensemble of NY, Cascade Festival Orchestra, and Aspen Young Artists Orchestra and has served as the music director of The Antara Ensemble. Solo and chamber music performances have taken him to many interesting parts of the globe, such as Spain, Portugal, the Azores Islands, Odessa and Istanbul. Filmgoers can see Mr. Horne in “Le Mozart Noir,” the PBS documentary of violinist and composer Chevalier de Saint George, as well as in Eddie Murphy’s “Coming to America.”

CLAIRE CHAN | Claire Chan demonstrated a prolific talent for the violin at the age of eight when she first performed as a soloist with orchestra. As an avid chamber musician, she has collaborated with several award-winning groups: the Essex Quartet, managed by Columbia Artists, was supported by a grant from Chamber Music America and a residence at Rutgers University; the Beijing String Quartet won first prize in the China National String Quartet Competition; the Beijing Chamber Players performed in the auspicious venues of the Forbidden City Music Festival and the Beijing Concert Hall; the Kneisel Trio held summer residencies at the MidAmerica Chamber Music Institute and at the Troy Public Library Chamber Music Institute.

Ms. Chan, born in Detroit of Chinese parentage, graduated Magna Cum Laude from Brown University, where she earned musical honors and a Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience. She earned a full scholarship from The Juilliard School as a student of Joseph Fuchs, where she completed both her master's and doctoral degrees.

Ms. Chan performed as a member of the New York City Opera and continues to perform on Broadway with Phantom of the Opera. She teaches at Third Street Music School Settlement and at The Town School.

WILLIAM FRAMPTON | Violist William Frampton has been praised by critics for his “impressive” performances (The New York Times) and “a glowing amber tone” (The Boston Globe). Since his New York recital debut in 2009 at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, William has enjoyed a career of diverse performances around the world as a chamber musician, soloist, orchestral player, and teacher. Recent highlights include over 100 performances with a string quartet led by Midori Goto in tours of Asia and North America, numerous appearances as principal viola with the American Symphony Orchestra, appearances as a guest artist with the Johannes Quartet, and world premieres of chamber music by J. Mark Stambaugh and a concerto by Peter Homans. He can be heard frequently in the Broadway orchestras of Hamilton, Wicked, and The Lion King, and on film scores including The Joker, The Greatest Showman, The Girl on the Train, and many others.

William is the Artistic Director of Music at Bunker Hill, a chamber music series in Southern New Jersey he co-founded in 2008 that brings five professional chamber music performances to Gloucester County, New Jersey every year. The community built as a result of Music at Bunker Hill has brought regular collaborations with schools, libraries, orchestras, and civic organizations, contributing to the cultural life of Southern New Jersey. William has performed at festivals including Bard Summerscape, Verbier, and IMS Prussia Cove, and as soloist with conductors Joseph Silverstein and David Hoose. He holds degrees from New England Conservatory and The Juilliard School and studied with Kim Kashkashian, Samuel Rhodes, Choong-Jin Chang, and Byrnina Socolofsky. William teaches viola and chamber music at Queens College, CUNY.

WAYNE SMITH | Cellist Wayne Smith gave his recital debut at the Kennedy Center in 1996 and has appeared as soloist and chamber musician in the United States, Italy, Germany, Romania, Hungary, Austria, Poland, and China. He has played with the New Jersey Chamber Music Society, the National Chamber Orchestra, the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, the Philharmonic of New Jersey, the Princeton Chamber Symphony, and the Heidelberg Castle Festival Orchestra in Heidelberg, Germany, among other groups, and was a featured soloist on the PBS Series “Musical Encounters”. He has recorded and performed with such artists as Joe, Richard Smallwood, and the Spin Doctors’ Anthony Krizan, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and the Moody Blues. He has also enjoyed an active teaching career and has taught lessons and masterclasses at Amherst College, Salisbury State University in Maryland, and the University of Massachusetts. He completed his undergraduate studies at the Eastman School of Music with Steven Doane and his graduate studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst with Astrid Schween.

OTHER ARTISTS

DAVID BERRY, PIANO | David Berry is a concert pianist whose performances have been featured in venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Kimmel Center, and live broadcasts of WQXR. He is a member of the Harlem Chamber Players, Ritz Chamber Players, and the Core Ensemble. David is Associate Professor of Music and Chair of the Music Department at Eastern Mennonite University. He is the incoming Artistic Director of the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival and has served as Co-Coordinator of Chamber Music for the Gateways Music Festival. David earned his DMA and MM from the Juilliard School and BM from the Eastman School of Music.

KEARSTIN PIPER BROWN, SOPRANO | Soprano Kearstin Piper Brown just made her San Francisco Opera debut covering the role of Dame Shirley in the world premiere of John Adams’s Girls of the Golden West. Recently, Ms. Brown performed with Rochester Oratorio Society in the Vaughan-Williams Dona Nobis Pacem and Emancipation Oratorio. She also toured Israel as Bess in Gershwin’s masterpiece, Porgy and Bess. This season Ms. Brown will return as a guest artist with the Chaliapin Festival at the Kazan Opera Theater in Russia and in the spring, she will also begin work singing the lead role in the new opera, Promised Land: An Adirondack Folk Opera. Next season brings Ms. Brown back to the West Coast for Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the San Jose Chamber Orchestra and a return to San Francisco Opera to sing the Clara in Jake Heggie’s, It’s a Wonderful Life. She will also sing her role debut as Pamina in The Magic Flute with Opera in Williamsburg and make appearances in the KeyBank Rochester Fringe Festival. Highlights of Ms. Brown’s performances as a concert soloist include an appearance at the Palais Augarten in Vienna, a gala of American music with the Moscow City Symphony Orchestra, Handel’s Messiah with the Lebanon Symphony, a concert with the Rochester Early Music Festival, the Festival Classique’s Opera Under the Stars concert with the Residentie Orkest in The Hague and the Edison Awards Gala 2010 with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, both of which were televised LIVE in the Netherlands, as well as concerts with the Pasadena Symphony and Pops, the Cedar Rapids Chorale and Symphony, and the Hines- Lee Opera Ensemble at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Ms. Brown was a young artist at the International Institute of Vocal Arts in Italy, the Opera Colorado and the Utah Festival Opera, as well as an Artist-in- Residence with Dayton Opera, Opera Memphis, and Cincinnati Opera. She has been a prize-winner in several international competitions, including the Montserrat Caballé International Competition, the William Matheus Sullivan Foundation, the Gerda Lissner Foundation Vocal Competition, and the Licia Albanese-Pucinni Foundation International Vocal Competition. A native of Alexandria, Virginia, Ms. Brown is a graduate of both Spelman College and Northwestern University.

BRANDON PATRICK GEORGE, FLUTE | New York-based flutist Brandon Patrick George is a member of the acclaimed Imani Winds and has appeared with many of the world’s leading ensembles including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). He has performed at Alice Tully Hall, Cité de la Musique, The Kennedy Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and is a frequent recital artist at Bargemusic in New York. An avid chamber musician, Brandon has collaborated with members of the New York Philharmonic, the Jasper String Quartet, and has performed live on New York's WQXR with harpist Bridget Kibbey.

With the LA Phil, Brandon has performed at Walt Disney Concert Hall, and at the Hollywood Bowl, under conductors Gustavo Dudamel, Karina Canellakis, and Ludovic Morlot. Brandon has toured the U.S. and Europe with ICE, appearing at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), the Park Avenue Armory (NYC), and the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in England. His live performances with ICE have been heard worldwide on BBC Radio 3. Brandon's debut album featuring works by Aho, Bach, Boulez, and Prokofiev will be released by Haenssler Classics this autumn.

Brandon is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music at Oberlin College. He received his Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music and won the Manhattan School of Music's Concerto Competition. At the invitation of Sophie Cherrier, Brandon continued his studies in France at the Conservatoire de Paris (Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris).

JOSH HENDERSON, VIOLIN | Cross-genre violinist, violist and composer, Josh Henderson has performed, recorded, and collaborated with popular artists, such as Chris Brown, Bilal, Solange, The Sugar Hill Gang, David Byrne, Sufjan Stevens, Courtney Love, and[1] bands, such as Beirut, Deer Hoof, Blue Oyster Cult, and The Eagles. As a classical soloist, he has performed with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, China Performing Arts Broadcasting Troupe, Starling Chamber Orchestra, Accent X Festival Orchestra, Colour of Music Festival Orchestra, Bard Conductors Festival Orchestra, Colour of Music Virtuosi, Palaver Strings, Urban Playground Chamber Orchestra, Harlem Chamber Players, Contemporaneous, New-Gen Orchestra of Curacao, Ensemble du Monde, and the CCM Showcase Orchestra. Henderson has written for films and had several chamber works performed, including a Carnegie Hall premiere of his A Bird Fell Today by Duo Anova. Josh studied at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music with Kurt Sassmannshaus, and at New York University with Naoko Tanaka.

ABOUT THE HARLEM CHAMBER PLAYERS

The Harlem Chamber Players is an ethnically diverse collective of professional musicians dedicated to bringing high caliber, affordable, accessible live music to people in the Harlem community and beyond. Founded in 2008, The Harlem Chamber Players annually presents a rich season of formal live concerts, indoors, outdoors, and online. They also promote arts inclusion and equal access to the arts, bringing live music to underserved communities and promoting shared community arts and cultural engagement. The group was first inspired by the late Janet Wolfe, a long-time patron of minority musicians and founder of the NYC Housing Authority Symphony Orchestra. The Harlem Chamber Players have presented culturally relevant programs at numerous venues throughout the city and collaborated with many other arts organizations. The Harlem Chamber Players are also Artists-in-residence at the Harlem School for the Arts.

They have been featured on national radio at WQXR/WNYC at The Greene Space. The Harlem Chamber Players have also been mentioned in articles in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Musical America, and on NPR, NBC, and Here and Now on ABC.

To learn more about Harlem Chamber Players, please visit their website (www.harlemchamberplayers.org).

ABOUT THE SCHOMBURG CENTER FOR RESEARCH IN BLACK CULTURE

Founded in 1925 and named a National Historic Landmark in 2017, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is one of the world’s leading cultural institutions devoted to the preservation, research, interpretation, and exhibition of materials focused on African American, African Diasporan, and African experiences. As a research division of The New York Public Library, the Schomburg Center features diverse programming and collections totaling over 11 million items that illuminate the richness of global black history, arts, and culture. Learn more at schomburgcenter.org.