Journey Through Textural Colors

Solo Chamber Music

April 12, 2024

April 12, 2024

Solo Chamber Music

CMSFW Ensemble

Baya Kakouberi, piano; Avi Nagin, violin; Gary Levinson, violin; Michael Klotz, viola; Allan Steele, cello

Program includes:
Amy Beach: Piano Trio A minor, Op. 150
Zoltán Kodály: Duo for Violin and Cello, Op. 7
Erich Wolfgang Korngold: Piano Quintet in E major, Op.15

Gary Levinson and Friends perform Amy Beach’s mesmerizing and haunting piano trio and Kodály’s masterpiece, rooted in Hungarian folk music. The group then joins forces, lyrically transporting the audience with the Korngold piano quintet.

Purchase Tickets


Eric Korngold

The Artists

Piano

Baya Kakouberi

Dr. Daredjan Baya Kakouberi, pianist, hailed as a “treat to watch and hear”, was born in Tbilisi, Georgia, and made her debut at the age of eleven. After graduating from Tbilisi Special School of Music for the Talented and Gifted, she entered the Moscow Conservatory, where she continued her studies on the Master’s and Doctoral levels under the tutelage of professor Sergei Dorenski, and Tchaikovsky Competition Gold Medalist, Vladimir Krainev. Her engagements have included the Strings Music Festival, Steamboat Springs, CO, Nancyphiles Festival in Nancy, France and a solo recital at the request of the San Antonio International Piano Competition. Ms. Kakouberi is an annual artist at the Musical Bridges Around the World series in San Antonio, TX, where she was a key participant in the city’s all-inclusive Brahms and Beethoven Festival.

Business Leader magazine selected Ms. Kakouberi for the Woman Extraordinaire award in 2012. This honor exemplifies women who “demonstrated significant business achievement and community involvement” in their given field. In March 2010, Dr. Kakouberi was honored as the recipient of the coveted International Ambassador for Cultural Exchange Award. Awarded by the Russian Winter Festival at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX, this award recognizes outstanding achievement in performing and teaching disciplines domestically and abroad. In 2009, Ms. Kakouberi was engaged to tour China a soloist. Due to her much sought after teaching skills, she is also rounding out the cultural event by presenting master classes in the leading conservatories in Mainland China.

In an unprecedented project in the spring of 2009, Ms. Kakouberi has recorded the three books of the Russian Piano Technique, based on the teachings of Professor Nikolaev, to be used in practice and performance techniques for students of all levels.

In 2009, she collaborated with violinist Gary Levinson in the recording of the complete sonatas for piano and violin by Beethoven. The project was spearheaded by the Classical Music Recording Foundation. The four CD set was released n 2012. Ms. Kakouberi has appeared as a soloist with orchestras in Moscow, Georgia, Armenia, Latvia, Italy and the United States.

In 1996, she was among the “World’s Ten Most Distinguished Pianists” chosen by the Palm Beach Invitational Piano Competition. In the summer of 2000, Ms. Kakouberi was chosen as recipient of the “Most Outstanding and Distinguished Pianist” award in the IBLA International Competition in Italy. In addition to her solo recitals, she has appeared as guest soloist in concerts throughout the US and Europe, including performances at Moscow Conservatory Great Hall, Steinway Hall in New York, and the Cerritos Center for Performing Arts in California.

As a chamber performer Ms. Kakouberi made her debut at Carnegie Weill Recital Hall in New York in February 2002. Ms. Kakouberi returned to that venue in a scheduled appearance on the CMRF annual gala concert in the fall of 2011 at Weill Hall.

Noted as an outstanding chamber music artist, Ms. Kakouberi is the Artistic Director of the Blue Candlelight Music Series in Dallas, Texas, where she enjoys collaboration with internationally renowned artists. She has appeared multiple times at the Music in the Mountains Festival in Durango, CO, where she was also a frequent soloist. She is a household name at the major venues in North Texas, such as the University of North Texas in Denton, TX, the Dallas Museum of Art and the Eisemann Center for the Performing Arts where she has appeared as a concerto soloist.

Baya Kakouberi’s Website

Photo by Julia Potter

Violin

Avi Nagin

Violinist Avi Nagin is a member of the critically acclaimed Amernet String Quartet, as well as Assistant Teaching Professor and Head of Strings at Florida International University where the quartet serves as Artist-In-Residence Ensemble. A native New Yorker, Nagin’s performances have brought him to halls across the United States, Europe, and Israel. In addition to his touring schedule with the Amernet, Nagin maintains an active career as a chamber musician and has performed with members of the Borromeo, Ebène and Orion Quartets, Ani Kavafian, Anton Nel, Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, Benny and Eric Kim, Ronald Leonard, Ronald Thomas, and Awadagin Pratt. Nagin is also in demand as an orchestral leader, having served as Concertmaster of Opera Naples, Sarasota Opera, Artosphere Festival Orchestra, Assistant Concertmaster of the Palm Beach Symphony and Florida Grand Opera, Principal 2nd Violin of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, and guest Assistant Concertmaster of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.

Prior to joining the Amernet, Nagin was faculty assistant to Dr. Ann Setzer at The Juilliard School’s Pre-College Division, violin faculty and Director of Chamber Music at the JCC Thurnauer School of Music (NJ), and chamber music faculty with the New York Youth Symphony. During the summer Nagin serves as 2nd Assistant Concertmaster and faculty at the Eastern Music Festival (NC). Nagin has also attended the festivals of Prussia Cove, Tanglewood, Aspen, Kneisel Hall, Heifetz, and Meadowmount. Nagin holds degrees from Yale University and The Colburn School, and his principal teachers include Ani Kavafian, Robert Lipsett, Ann Setzer, and Daniel Phillips, as well as violin and chamber music studies with Arnold Steinhardt.

Violin

Gary Levinson

Gary Levinson is the Senior Principal Associate Concertmaster of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and the Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth. Known for his Bel Canto playing style and adroit technique, Mr. Levinson made his New York Philharmonic solo debut in 1991, under the baton of Erich Leinsdorf, coinciding with the completion of his Master’s of Music degree at the Juilliard School, where his teachers included Dorothy DeLay, Glenn Dicterow and Felix Galimir.

Gary Levinson’s Website

Viola

Michael Klotz

Born in 1978 in Rochester, NY, Michael Klotz has established an international reputation as a performer and pedagogue of the viola. Klotz made his solo debut with the Rochester Philharmonic at the age of 17 and has since then appeared as soloist with orchestra, recitalist, chamber musician, and orchestra principal worldwide. After a performance of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 with violist Roberto Diaz, the Portland Press-Herald proclaimed, “this concert squelched all viola jokes, now and forever, due to the talents of Diaz and Klotz”.

Micahel Klotz’s Website

Photo by So-Min Kang

Cello

Allan Steele

Allan Steele was born in Chicago and began studying the cello at the age of four. He studied at the Music Institute of Chicago for four years, and was a long-time member of the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras. He previously studied with Tanya Carey, Hans Jensen, Susan Moses, and most recently, Ronald Leonard at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles, where he graduated with a Bachelor’s of Music.

Allan Steele’s Biography