Bourgie Hall presents

Beethoven and Brahms

A concert of chamber music in the purest tradition, featuring a daring string trio by Beethoven followed by a piano quartet by Brahms written in the manner of the style hongrois, both performed by exceptional musicians from McGill University’s Faculty of Music.

Artists
Axel Strauss, violin

German violinist Axel Strauss, equally passionate about teaching and performing, joined the faculty of the Schulich School of Music of McGill University in 2012. Prior to moving to Montreal he served as Professor of Violin and Chamber Music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Axel Strauss won the international Naumburg Violin Award in New York in 1998. Later that same year he made his American debut at the Library of Congress in Washington DC and his New York debut at Alice Tully Hall. Since then he has given recitals in major US cities, including Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles and San Francisco. In 2007 he was the violinist in the world premiere of “Two Awakenings and a Double Lullaby” – written for him by Pulitzer Prize winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis.

Mr. Strauss has performed as soloist with orchestras in Budapest, Hamburg, New York, Seoul, Shanghai, Bucharest, San Francisco and Cincinnati, among others. He has collaborated with conductors such as Maxim Shostakovitch, Rico Saccani, Joseph Silverstein, and Alasdair Neale. Mr. Strauss has also served as guest concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic as well as the Montreal Symphony Orchestra.

At the age of seventeen he won the silver medal at the Enescu Competition in Romania and has been recognized with many other awards, including top prizes in the Bach, Wieniawski and Kocian competitions. Mr. Strauss studied at the Music Academies of Lübeck and Rostock with Petru Munteanu. In 1996 he began working with the late Dorothy DeLay at The Juilliard School and became her teaching assistant in 1998.  He has also worked with such artists as Itzhak Perlman, Felix Galimir, and Ruggiero Ricci, and at the Marlboro Music Festival with Richard Goode, Mitsuko Uchida and Andras Schiff.

Douglas McNabney, viola

Native of Toronto, violist Douglas McNabney is one of Canada’s distinguished chamber musicians. An international performing career has taken him to Holland, Belgium, France, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Italy, Germany, Ireland, Great Britain, Switzerland, Mexico, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, in addition to his appearances throughout Canada and the U.S.A. He has recorded for, among others, BRT (Brussels), Radio Bremen, RTE (Dublin), Finnish Broadcasting (Helsinki), Sudwestdeutscher Rundfunk (Karlsruhe), Norwegian Radio (Oslo), Radio Sweden (Stockholm), NPR (USA), and the CBC. His recording on the Oxingale label of the Mozart Divertimento with Jonathan Crow and Matt Haimovitz was nominated for a Juno in 2007 and his Dorian recording of Mahler with the Smithsonian Chamber Players was nominated for a Grammy in 2008.

As one of Canada’s most active chamber musicians, he has appeared as guest artist with the leading chamber music groups and societies across Canada. His chamber music partners have included Canadians Marc-André Hamelin, Louis Lortie, André Laplante, Anton Kuerti, James Ehnes and renowned soloists Menahem Pressler, Steven Isserlis, Jamie Buswell, William Preucil, Miriam Fried, among many others.

Douglas McNabney is currently Associate Dean, Academic and Student Affairs and Coordinator of Chamber Music at the Schulich School of Music. He continues to pursue a busy schedule of appearances as soloist and guest artist in festivals and with chamber music societies and ensembles across North America and in Europe.

Matt Haimovitz, cello

Renowned as a musical pioneer, cellist Matt Haimovitz is praised by The New York Times as a “ferociously talented cellist who brings his megawatt sound and uncommon expressive gifts to a vast variety of styles” and by The New Yorker as “remarkable virtuoso” who “never turns in a predictable performance.” He has inspired classical music lovers and countless new listeners by bringing his artistry to concert halls and clubs, outdoor festivals and intimate coffee houses – any place where passionate music can be heard. Alongside a relentless touring schedule, he mentors an award-winning studio of young cellists at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music in Montreal.

Haimovitz made his debut in 1984, at the age of 13, as soloist with Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic. At 17 he made his first recording with James Levine and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, for Deutsche Grammophon. Haimovitz made his Carnegie Hall debut when he substituted for his teacher, the legendary Leonard Rose, in Schubert’s String Quintet in C, alongside Isaac Stern, Shlomo Mintz, Pinchas Zukerman and Mstislav Rostropovich.

The solo cello recital is a Haimovitz trademark, both inside and outside the concert hall. In 2000, he made waves with his Bach “Listening-Room” Tour, for which, to great acclaim, Haimovitz took Bach’s beloved cello suites out into the clubs across the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. Haimovitz’ 50-state Anthem tour in 2003 celebrated living American composers and featured the cellist’s own arrangement of Jimi Hendrix’s “Star-Spangled Banner.” He was the first classical artist to play at New York’s infamous CBGB club, in a performance filmed by ABC News for Nightline UpClose.

Born in Israel, Haimovitz has also been honored with the Avery Fisher Career Grant (1986), the Grand Prix du Disque (1991), the Diapason d’Or (1991) and was the first cellist to receive the Premio Internazionale “Accademia Musicale Chigiana” (1999). Haimovitz studied at the Collegiate School in New York and at the Juilliard School, in the final class of Leonard Rose, followed by cello studies with Ronald Leonard and Yo-Yo Ma. In 1996, he received a B.A. magna cum laude with highest honors from Harvard University. Matt Haimovitz plays a Venetian cello, made in 1710 by Matteo Gofriller.

Stéphane Lemelin, piano

Pianist Stéphane Lemelin is well-known to audiences throughout Canada and regularly tours in the United States, Europe and Asia as soloist and chamber musician.

His repertory is vast, with a predilection for the German Classical and Romantic literature and a particular affinity for French music, as evidenced by his more than twenty-five recordings, which include works by Fauré, Saint-Saëns, Debussy, Poulenc and Roussel. Stéphane Lemelin is director of the French music series “Découvertes 1890-1939” on the Atma Classique label, dedicated to the rediscovery of neglected early twentieth-century French repertoire and for which he has recorded works by Samazeuilh, Ropartz, Migot, Dupont, Dubois, Rhené-Bâton, Rosenthal, Alder, Lekeu and others.

Stéphane Lemelin studied with Yvonne Hubert in Montreal, Karl-Ulrich Schnabel in New York, and received both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the Peabody Conservatory as a student of Leon Fleisher. He holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Yale University, where his teachers were Boris Berman and Claude Frank. He taught at the University of Alberta for more than ten years and at University of Ottawa from 2001 to 2013. While there, he served as Director of the School of Music from 2007 to 2012. He has been appointed Professor of Piano and Chair of the Department of Performance at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University starting May 2014.  A dedicated pedagogue, he has been invited to give master classes around the world. Stéphane Lemelin was a member of Trio Hochelaga from 2003 to 2012 and is the founder and Artistic Director of the Prince Edward County Music Festival.

Program
BEETHOVEN String Trio No. 3 in G major, Op. 9, No. 1
BRAHMS Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25

Live at Bourgie Hall
May 11-12, 2021 at 7:00pm
Covid-19 adapted seating plan and measures in effect

Webcast on May 16 at 2:30 pm and available online until May 30, 11 pm

To purchase your Live Bourgie Hall or webcast concert tickets visit: www.mbam.qc.ca/en/bourgie-hall/