Chamber music concerts with internationally acclaimed artists

Artistic Director Ariadne Daskalakis leads an international career as violin soloist, baroque violinist and renowned pedagogue. She has collaborated with fine orchestras like the English Chamber Orchestras, the Athens State Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra Munich, the Stuttgart Philharmonic, Dortmund Philharmonic and the New Artistic Director Ariadne Daskalakis leads an international career as violin soloist, baroque violinist and renowned pedagogue. She has collaborated with fine orchestras like the English Chamber Orchestras, the Athens State Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra Munich, the Stuttgart Philharmonic, Dortmund Philharmonic and the New Bedford Symphony. As soloist and leader she also collaborated with the Prague, Cologne and Stuttgart Chamber Orchestras and with Ensemble Oriol Berlin. As baroque violinist she has led projects with the Academy for Ancient Music Berlin, the Norwegian Baroque Orchestra, Concerto Köln and Barokkanerne Oslo. Prizewinner in the International Competition of the ARD Munich and the St. Louis Symphony Young Artists Competition, she also received awards from the Harvard Music Association, the New England Conservatory and the Dortmund Mozart Society.  Born of Greek parentage in Boston, she studied violin with Eric Rosenblith at the New England Conservatory Prep School and with Szymon Goldberg at the Juilliard School. She holds degrees with honors from Harvard College and the Hochschule der Künste Berlin. She has recorded numerous CD’s including concertos by Tartini and Kalliwoda, the complete Sonatas of Faure, Raff and Handel and the cycle of Rosary Sonatas by Biber. She is Professor of Violin at the Cologne Conservatory. In 2015 she became Artistic Director of the European Academy of Music and Art “Palazzo Ricci” in Montepulciano, Italy.For more information please visit

https://www.ariadne-daskalakis.com

Janice Weber is a summa cum laudegraduate of the Eastman School of Music. She has appeared with many orchestras including the American Composers Orchestra, Boston Civic Symphony, Boston Pops, New Hampshire Symphony, Sarajevo Philharmonic, Sarasota Pops, and Syracuse Symphony. Her solo performances have been at the White House, Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, National Gallery of Art, Cleveland Institute of Art, Boston Symphony Hall, the 92ndStreet Y, Merkin Hall, and Boston Hatch Shell. She was awarded piano fellowship to Tanglewood and has performed at summer festivals at Bard, Sarajevo, and Newport.

Her interest in the uncommon avenues of the piano literature led to a world premiere recording of Liszt’s 1838 Transcendental Etudes. Her eclectic recordings include Rachmaninoff’s complete transcriptions; with the Lydian Quartet, Leo Ornstein’s vast Piano Quintet; flute and piano works of Sigfrid Karg-Elert; and waltz transcriptions of Godowsky, Rosenthal, and Friedman. For VAI, Miss Weber recorded Liszt’s last Hungarian Rhapsody, one of only two living pianists to be included in a compendium of historic performances by nineteen legendary artists. This disc subsequently won the International Liszt Prize. A 2002 recording of Leo Ornstein’s radical piano works was followed by a best-selling recording of Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time on Ongaku Records. Seascapes, a collection of virtuoso water music, was recently named one of “Ten Notable 2015 Piano Releases” in critic Jed Distler’s influential keyboard blog. Her recording with the late Judith Kellock of Ross Lee Finney’s “Chamber Music” will soon be released by Cambria Records. 

Sebastian Gottschick was born in 1959 to a family of church musicians. He studied violin, composition and conducting in Cologne, Berlin, Hamburg and at the Juilliard School in New York. The broad spectrum of his interests and experience – in contemporary and early music, as conductor, composer and arranger, violinist, violist and teacher at the Cologne Conservatory (HfMT Köln) - is reflected in his compositions. 

His arrangements of musical masterpieces – sometimes expanding them, sometimes reducing their instrumentation – are like translation, transforming the work from one context to another while preserving the essence of the piece. 

Sebastian led the Ensemble Oriol Berlin and was violist of the Manon Quartet Berlin for ten years, respectively. As conductor he has worked with ensembles including KlangForum Wien/Vienna, MusikFabrik Köln/Cologne, the Kammerakademie Potsdam, the Düsseldorf Symphonikern, the Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and the Radio Orchestras in Frankfurt, Warsaw, Berlin, Stuttgart und Munich. He also appeared at the KonzertTheater Bern, the State Theater Saarbrücken, Teatro Sao Carlos Lisbon, La Fenice in Venice and at the Basel Theatre. He enjoys a longstanding collaboration with the ensemble für neue musik zurich. Numerous recordings with that ensemble include the Charles Ives Songbook, Gottschick’s adaptation of Ives’songs. Two further CD’s were recorded in 2018, one of Gottschick’s chamber music and a second Volume of Ives songs. His arrangements for the Alliage-Quintet have been released by Sony Classics, including Stravinsky’s „Firebird“ with Sabine Meyer. The CD Dancing Paris, for which Gottschick arranged works by Enescu, Milhaud and Copland, was awarded an Echo Prize in 2010.