2023-24 Concert Season
Concert 3: The World As Inspiration
Roberto Cani, Benjamin Hoffman, Adam Millstein, violins | Jonah Sirota, Aaron Oltman, violas | Michael Kaufman, cello | Brendan White, piano
Presented by Sunset ChamberFest and the Pasadena Conservatory
June 15, 2024 at 2PM
Barrett Hall
Pasadena Conservatory of Music
100 North Hill Ave. Pasadena, CA, 91106
Program
Mieczysław Weinberg – Concertino
Gabriela Lena Frank – Zapatos de chincha
Peter Myers – Icefall (LA Premiere)
Johannes Brahms – String Quintet No. 2 in G Major
With thanks to Robert Ronus
Roberto Cani, violin
Violinist Roberto Cani has established himself as a versatile and respected artist worldwide. He is currently Concertmaster of the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra and works closely with Music Director James Conlon. He has been a first and grand prize winner of numerous international competitions and has performed as a soloist throughout the United States and Europe. Actively involved in chamber music, Roberto Cani has toured with conductor and pianist Justus Frantz, and has also performed with Lynn Harrell, Jeffrey Swann, and Jason Vieaux. His discography includes the Vivaldi Four Seasons, Sonatas by Respighi and Busoni with pianist Jeffrey Swann, and the solo sonatas of Bartok, Ysaÿe, Bloch, and Prokofiev under the Arkadia and Agora labels. Other recordings include the Tchaikovsky violin concerto, and a CD of favorite encores. Mr. Cani is a graduate of the Milan Conservatory, the Gnessin Institute in Moscow and the University of Southern California, and was a pupil of world-renowned violinists Viktor Tretiakov and Abram Shtern.
Benjamin Hoffman, violin
Violinist Benjamin Hoffman has been heard across Asia, Europe, North America, and Oceania, performing with artists such as Ani Kavafian, Wolfram Christ, Jorja Fleezanis, John Adams, and Gary Hoffman. He has appeared at Yellow Barn, Chamber Music Northwest, Aspen, the Ojai Music Festival, and Music Academy of the West, and has performed in Carnegie Hall, the Wiener Konzertverein, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Seoul Arts Center, and the National Centre for the Performing Arts Beijing. Mr. Hoffman is an enthusiastic concertmaster and has led much of the symphonic repertoire both with and without conductor. He has also performed as a guest musician with the New York Philharmonic, the London Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, and the San Diego Symphony. Mr. Hoffman holds a doctorate and master of music degree from the Yale School of Music and an undergraduate degree from Indiana University.
Adam Millstein, violin
Adam Millstein is a violinist who will begin his DMA studies at UCLA with Varty Manouelian and Movses Pogossian this fall. He is the recipient of a scholarship from the Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience. He holds an Artist Diploma and Masters of Music degree from the Colburn School where he studied with Robert Lipsett, and a BMA from the University of Michigan. He is the Program Manager of the Ziering-Conlon Initiative for Recovered Voices at the Colburn School. He acted as curator for the Initiative’s 2021 Schulhoff and More project where he organized and performed on filmed recordings of composer Erwin Schulhoff’s music, some of which is on the album “Shapeshifter: Music of Erwin Schulhoff” for the Delos Label. He has also recorded music of Franz Schreker, Pál Hermann, Mieczysław Weinberg, and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. Mr. Millstein actively curates and produces concerts including a filmed Recovered Voices performance for the Library of Congress. He has guest lectured at Arizona State University.
As an orchestral musician, Mr. Millstein has acted as concertmaster of the Sequoia Symphony and Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra. He has played as guest associate concertmaster of the Baltimore Symphony and Louisville Orchestra. He has performed as a substitute with the LA Opera and LA Chamber Orchestra and appeared as soloist with US and international orchestras.
Jonah Sirota, violist
Composer, producer, and violist Jonah Sirota is a new breed of multi-talented musician. Equally at home scoring and recording music for TV, film, and video games, writing concert music, and performing as a soloist and chamber musician, Jonah creates and recreates vivid music for a wide variety of audiences. He has performed and/or arranged music for numerous projects including the 2021 Oscar-nominated animated short If Anything Happens I Love You…, the 2021 Sundance film Wild Hearts, and major cinematic releases from Mulan to the Mandalorian. His recent EP Storylander brings his unique string voice to life in cinematic cues made for visual media. His debut solo recording STRONG SAD features premiere recordings of new elegies for the viola by Nico Muhly, Paola Prestini, Arthur Joseph McCaffrey, Valgeir Sigurðsson, Robert Sirota, Kurt Knecht, and Jonah himself. Recent concert compositions include Entangled—a flute and viola d’amore duo for Christina Jennings and Matthew Dane, and the string quartet Socially Distant, commissioned by the Hartt School of Music.
Jonah was the violist of the recently-disbanded Chiara String Quartet for all of its 18 years. With the Chiara Quartet, he toured internationally, recorded seven albums and played in numerous major venues worldwide. The Chiara Quartet performed much of the string quartet repertoire from memory ('By Heart"), including the complete string quartets of Béla Bartók, a recording of which was released in 2016 on Azica Records. The group was honored with a Grammy nomination (2011, Best Contemporary Classical Composition for Jefferson Friedman's 3rd String Quartet on the New Amsterdam label), the ASCAP/CMA Adventurous Programming Award, the Guarneri Quartet Award, and top prizes at the Paolo Borciani, Astral, and Fischoff competitions. Their albums have been featured on N.P.R., and in "Best of the Year" lists from the Boston Globe, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. In the 2015-2016 season, the group was in residence at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, a venue to which the group returned for their farewell New York concert in May of 2018.
As a concert violist, Jonah performs with pianist Molly Morkoski, with organist Kurt Knecht as the improv duo Mondegreen, and as a member of the revived California String Quartet. He is sought after as a session player and regularly plays with major orchestras, including the Long Beach Symphony, where he is Assistant Principal Viola. He coaches chamber music at the Colburn School, teaches viola at Cal State University Fullerton and the Greenwood Music Camp, and gives viola and composition masterclasses and residencies across the country. He resides in South Pasadena, CA.
Aaron Oltman, viola
Aaron Oltman has performed with many of the orchestras in the Southern California area, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Opera, Pasadena Symphony, New West Symphony, Santa Barbara Symphony and the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra. He has appeared in chamber music concerts for the Camerata Pacifica in Santa Barbara, Sundays Live at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the South Bay Chamber Music Society, the San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival, the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Green Umbrella series, and is active in the Recording Industry.
He received his Bachelors and Masters degrees of Music in Performance at the University of Southern California, studying under Donald McInnes. He has performed in Master Classes for Karen Tuttle, Gerald Stanick, Robert Vernon and Roland Vamos. He has participated in the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, Encore Music Festival in Cleveland and the Sunflower Music Festival in Topeka, Kansas.
Michael Kaufman, cellist
An exciting cellist exploring various facets of the classical music scene, Michael Kaufman has recorded works by Tigran Mansurian for ECM Records and has performed at prestigious venues such as Zankel and Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall. Concerto performances and chamber music engagements have taken him across the United States and Western Europe to festivals such as Open Chamber Music at Prussia Cove, Yellow Barn, Music@Menlo, and Verbier. His diverse performance projects have included chamber music concerts with Midori, Brett Dean’s 12 Angry Men in Disney Hall at the Piatigorsky Festival, the premiere of a concerto written by Sean Friar with the Eastman Wind Ensemble, and leading as principal cello of La Monnaie in Brussels. Founder and artistic director of Sunset ChamberFest and founding member of the cello quintet SAKURA, Michael champions eclectic juxtapositions of music from the classical and contemporary canon and is an advocate for guiding and cultivating future generations of composers. He received his bachelor’s degree from Eastman studying with Steven Doane, and his master’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Southern California under the mentorship and guidance of Ralph Kirshbaum. Michael is a member of Los Angeles Opera and teaches at the Pasadena Conservatory of Music and Colburn Community School of Performing Arts.
Brendan White, piano
Born in Jackson, TN, but now based in Los Angeles, pianist Brendan White appears frequently in solo recitals, chamber ensembles, and as soloist with orchestra. As soloist, White has performed with Musica Nova (Eastman School of Music), Vicente Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra of the Verdugos, Crown City Symphony, Delta Symphony Orchestra, and Jackson Symphony Orchestra. As a recording artist, White was featured on Danaë Vlasse’s Grammy Award-winning album Mythologies. White’s collaborations in Southern California have included the Mühlfeld Trio, which won the prestigious Beverly Hills Auditions, the Speakeasy Society, and Eighteen Squared. He is an original member of the Sunset ChamberFest in Los Angeles. White’s repertoire spans many centuries and genres and he has worked with well-known composers such as Thomas Adès, Stephen Cohn, Donald Crockett, and Danaë Vlasse. White is also a composer of original music. Local recital appearances include: Piano Spheres Emerging Artist Series, Soundwaves in Santa Monica, Silicon Beach CO Recital Series, Glendale Noon Concerts, Pasadena Presbyterian Music at Noon, Music@Mimoda, and Mason Concerts. He attended the Eastman School of Music and the Thornton School of Music, University of Southern California.