Beethoven, Beach, Cassado and Kodaly’s music

Rossini Club’s February 16th concert

Our featured performers will be DaPonte String Quartet members Lydia Forbes* and Myles Jordan* performing the second movement of
Kodaly’s Duo for Violin and Cello Op. 7

Violinist Eleanor Lehmann and pianist Jesse Feinberg* will perform Romances by Beethoven and Beach

Mathew Nichols will perform Gaspar Cassado’s Suite for Solo Cello

Torrey Gimpel, soprano and Eric Peppe, piano will perform works by Richard Strauss and Giuseppe Verdi

February 16th Concert Flyer

February 16th Concert Program

*Guest

Guest Bios for February 16 Program

Lydia Forbes (Violin): Lydia’s career has been guided by a singular intention — to delve as deeply as possible into the magic of great chamber music literature, old and new.

Lydia has concertized throughout Europe and the U.K. with Ensemble L’Archibudelli, Zephyr Kwartet, Het Schoenberg Ensemble, Sinfonietta Amsterdam, Het Blazers Ensemble, Osiris Piano Trio, I Fiamminghi, and Ensemble Explorations. During this time, she recorded with some of the world’s most prominent labels; Sony Classical, Harmonia Mundi, CNM, and for Vienna Modern Masters as soloist with the Czech Radio Philharmonic. She has also performed for festivals in Europe, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S. Lydia has also served as concertmaster for Het Orkest van het Oosten in the Netherlands.

Lydia was drawn to the DaPonte String Quartet by their love and respect for the work. She lives in Alna, Maine with cellist Myles Jordan and their children.

Myles Jordan (Cello): Myles Jordan worked as a child actor for CBC Television and the National Film Board of Canada before taking up the cello. Inspired by the North American premiere of the second Shostakovich cello concerto and a Casals master class, Myles asked for and received from his father a bright orange Hofner cello as a birthday present. He went on to train at the Banff School of Fine Arts in Alberta, the Britten-Pears School of Advanced Musical Studies in England, and at Schloss Weikersheim in Germany. In 1981, he won a Floyd S. Chalmers Foundation Award, which enabled him to study at the Juilliard School, and by 1983 he had earned two degrees there. From New York he moved to Philadelphia, where he served as associate principal cellist of the Concerto Soloists Chamber Orchestra, completed a Doctor of Musical Arts, and founded the DaPonte String Quartet.

Myles uses historical research to inform his musical performances so he can remain as faithful as possible to the composer’s original intentions. His Bach cello suites recording, available worldwide on the Centaur label, is the first to dispense with Pablo Casals’s interpretive model in favor of a conception based strictly on sources close to Bach, such as Johann Mattheson’s 1739 treatise Der vollkommene Capellmeister and written testimonies from Bach’s students. This recording drew a rave review from James Mannheim in the All Music Guide and Laurence Vittes, in Gramophone Magazine, described it as “astonishing.” Vittes lauds Myles’s break from the Casals model, indicating how his approach produces “a completely new spectrum” of interpretation that comes closer to Bach’s original conception than previous recorded performances.

Myles has delivered lectures on early music performance practice at both the University of North Texas Graduate School Early Music Division and the Boston Early Music Festival. He also plays and teaches the Baroque violoncello piccolo.

Jesse Feinberg (piano): Jesse Feinberg is an accomplished and internationally recognized concert pianist and piano teacher. He has performed on stages in Turkù and Helsinki, Finland; Stockholm, Sweden; Oslo, Norway; and most recently in Moscow, Russia. Jesse graduated summa cum laude with his Bachelor’s of Music degree in Jazz and Contemporary Music from the University of Maine at Augusta in 2013, and his Associate’s Degree in the Arts from Holyoke Community College in 1999. Jesse appears on the recently released album: Taylor O’Donnell sings T. Monk Ballads: A Love Letter to Thelonious, and has released multiple volumes of a method to teach improvisation, entitled: Classical Improvisation Templates.

The concert takes place Sunday, February 16th, at 3:00 p.m. at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke, 143 State Street, Portland.

Suggested donation $10/5 seniors (students are admitted free of charge).

Enjoy a brief reception after the concert where you can meet our performers.

There are no tickets for the performances. Admission is at the door with a suggested donation of $10 for adults and $5 for seniors. Performances are free to students.

Limited parking is available behind the cathedral, as well as limited street parking (typically off of Park Street).