Experience the virtuosity and flair of the solo concerto in the intimate setting of a chamber music ensemble! Chopin’s exquisite concerto, scored by the composer for string quintet and piano, pairs with two new works — a brilliantly “reconstructed” concerto for bass, based on an actual fragment by Haydn, and a soliloquy for cello and quintet inspired by Tolstoy.
Don’t miss a beat this season!
Chiarina’s Season Pass includes admission to
all six remaining concerts in 24-25 at a 10% discount.
Cellist Carrie Bean Stute is co-founder and co-artistic director of the Washington, DC-based Chiarina Chamber Players, a chamber music series and flexible ensemble that has won critical acclaim for its artistry and innovative programming. Carrie’s chamber music performances have been broadcast on Classical WETA’s Front Row Washington. In DC, she performs with the National Symphony Orchestra, has served as an adjunct professor of music at George Washington University, and is currently assistant principal cellist of “The President’s Own” Marine Chamber Orchestra, where she performs in such diverse settings as the White House, area public schools, and for events hosted by the United Nations and State Department.
A performer who seeks out the voices of today, she collaborates with a growing set of composers, including Reinaldo Moya, Mary Kouyoumdjian, Juhi Bansal, and Kennedy Center composer-in-residence Carlos Simon. Carrie authored a doctoral dissertation on the cello works of Pēteris Vasks and in 2021 performed as soloist in the North American premiere of his Cello Concerto No. 2. She took part in the Carnegie Hall workshop “New Voices, New Music” and has performed chamber music at such venues as the Phillips Collection, Zankel Hall, Le Poisson Rouge, Roulette, and an in-house educational residency at the 92nd Street Y.
Carrie holds degrees from The Graduate Center at the City University of New York (Doctor of Musical Arts), Indiana University, and the Eastman School of Music. She was a fellow at the New World Symphony and Tanglewood Music Center. Forthcoming in 2024-25 are recordings of chamber music by Carlos Simon (with Domenic Salerni, Efi Hackmey, and Carl DuPont) and clarinet trios by Brahms and Beethoven (with Robert DiLutis and Rita Sloan).
Pianist Efi Hackmey is Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Chiarina Chamber Players, together with cellist Carrie Bean Stute. Mr. Hackmey is an active soloist and chamber musician in NYC and in the DC area. In 2013 he released an album on the Naxos label, which includes several world premiere recordings (Polish Violin Music with violinist Kinga Augustyn). Efi has performed at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center’s Rose Studio, Kennedy Center, Bargemusic, Arion Chamber Music, and the Friends of Mozart series in NYC. He performed many additional concerts in Alabama, California, DC, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Maryland, Montana, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wyoming. In his native Israel he performed as soloist with the Haifa Symphony Orchestra, as well as at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Jerusalem Music Center, and in special concerts presented by the Arthur Rubinstein International Music Society. He has performed on Israeli TV Channel 2, and his recordings have been broadcast on the Israeli National Public Radio,and in the US on WTSU, WRWA and WTJB. A review of one of his New York performances quotes “excellent Israeli musician... under his fingers the piano sounded noble, and each phrase was full of character”, and further praises his “highly personal, thought through interpretation.” (Roman Markowicz, “Nowy Dziennik”).
Mr. Hackmey has served on the piano faculty at DePauw University, and he also taught at the Indiana University system, Montgomery College in Rockville, MD, and Levine School of Music in Washington, DC. He holds a Doctor of Music degree in piano performance from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, and degrees in piano and conducting from Tel Aviv University. He studied with Menahem Pressler, Pnina Salzman and Dina Turgeman, and has had additional coaching with Lazar Berman, Emanuel Ax, Richard Goode, Janos Starker, David Zinman, Richard Stoltzman and Jaime Laredo.
Eugena Chang joined the cello section of the National Symphony Orchestra in 2016 under the Music Director of Christoph Eschenbach. She was previously in the Minnesota Orchestra from 2007-2016. She was only 20 years old when she started, being the youngest in the orchestra. She also acted Associate Principal in the Minnesota Orchestra from 2012-2013 and 2015-2016.
Chang was accepted to the Curtis Institute of Music at the age of 14. She studied with Orlando Cole, Peter Wiley, and William Stokking. While she was at Curtis she participated in numerous chamber music, orchestra and solo performances. She attended Itzhak Perlman's summer music program from 2002 to 2006, studying there with Ron Leonard and Paul Katz, and she has also studied with Eleonore Schoenfeld in California. Her last year at Curtis, she served as principal cello and also subbed in the Philadelphia Orchestra.
As the recipient of numerous awards, prizes, and scholarships, Chang has appeared across the nation as a recitalist and chamber musician, and several of her performances have been broadcast on radio and television. In 2009, she made her Paris recital debut at the Auditorium du Louvre.
Philip Kramp is a versatile performer and teacher whose playing has been heard worldwide. Praised by the New York Times for his “impressive” performances, he has participated in chamber music festivals at Marlboro, Ravinia, Yellow Barn, Sarasota and many others.
Based in Washington, DC, Phil is a former violist in the Kansas City Symphony and a former faculty member of the University of Kansas. Currently, Phil is on the faculty at the University of Maryland and he plays regularly with the National Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony and Pittsburgh Symphony. He has performed on tours worldwide with many orchestras and can be heard on recordings with the Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Kansas City Symphony, Metropolis Ensemble and The Roots. Phil can also be heard on many motion picture soundtracks and television shows.
In chamber music settings, Phil plays regularly with the Chiarina Chamber Players, as well as in concerts with members of the National Symphony, Baltimore Symphony and Philadelphia Orchestra. He is a past participant of the Marlboro Music Festival and has performed on several tours with Musicians from Marlboro. He is also a regular participant and the Twickenham Music Festival and the Music in the Mountains Festival in Durango, Colo. Phil has also enjoyed collaborating with the Mark Morris Dance Group, and has performed alongside many of the world’s greatest artists, such as Richard Goode, Peter Wiley, Michael Tree, Arnold Steinhardt, Marcy Rosen, Miriam Fried and many others.
In competitions, Phil has won prizes in the Irving Klein String Competition, Chicago Viola Society Competition, NEC Concerto Competition and has participated in the Stulberg Competition and the HAMS Viola Competition. Phil received his formal training at the Curtis Institute and the New England Conservatory. His primary mentors include Michael Tree, Roberto Diaz, Kim Kashkashian, Roger Tapping, Joe DePasquale, Peter Wiley and Steven Tenenbom.
Regino Madrid, from Los Angeles, CA, is currently the concertmaster of The American Pops Orchestra frequently featured on PBS and “54 Below” in NYC, the associate concertmaster of NatPhil at Strathmore, a member of Sound Impact, 21st Century Consort, and the Smithsonian Chamber Orchestra. Regino was the associate concertmaster of “The President’s Own” U.S. Marine Chamber Orchestra and played at the White House for 20 years. He currently plays with The National Symphony Orchestra and has played with the Pittsburgh and Baltimore Symphonies. He is a member of the tango band “Quintango” that holds a residency at Blues Alley in Georgetown. In 2021, he recorded Kyle Werner’s violin sonata for its premiere with The Washington Ballet on Marquee TV with a live performance at Wolf Trap. In 2024, he was a soloist with the NATO Symphony Orchestra at the Library of Congress. Regino received his Bachelor of Music degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music after pursuing a Physiological Science degree from UCLA. He currently plays a violin from 1845 by J.B. Vuillaume.
Through “brilliant and compelling programming” (The Strad), Sam Suggs gathers musical materials through composition, re-composition, and improvisation, melting barriers of genre and style with fresh interpretations and deft transitions between old and new worlds of sound, colored by the unique physicality and haunting resonance of the double bass and guiding audiences through unfamiliar territory with the soft palette of his voice.
Sam is the first solo bassist in 36 years to join the Concert Artists Guild roster, and was recently recognized with an award for Extraordinary Creativity at the 2017 Bradetich Foundation International Double Bass Competition.
A paradigm-shifting bassist-composer, Sam was named ‘New Artist of the Month’ (October 2015) by Musical America after winning 1st place at the 2015 International Society of Bassists Solo Competition while performing many original works.
As a collaborative bassist, he has performed at the Mostly Mozart Festival, Yellow Barn, Chamber Music Northwest, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and with the Argus Quartet, PUBLIQuartet, Founders, Frisson Ensemble (composer-in-residence), and his contemporary jazz trio Triplepoint.
A native of Buffalo, NY and doctoral candidate at the Yale School of Music, Sam spends his time between the Northeast and the Shenandoah Valley performing with various chamber, crossover, and contemporary groups, giving recitals and masterclasses, and teaching full-time as Assistant Professor of Bass at James Madison University, as well as at the Heifetz Institute, Peabody Bass Works, Sewanee Summer Music Festival, and the Juilliard Summer Strings Program in Shanghai.
Violinist Sheng-Tsung Wang gave his solo debut at the age of thirteen, performing with the Bremen Symphony Orchestra of Germany. Of the concert, Die Nord Deutsche marveled that Wang “performed the difficult passages with astonishing understanding, as well as interpreting the lyric qualities with sweetness, bravura, and inspired tone.” Dr. Wang presented his Carnegie Hall debut in 1999 with three evenings of solo and chamber performances under the auspices of the La Gesse Foundation. A more recent performance at Carnegie Hall with the Gemini Piano Trio received praise from New York City music critic Edith Eisler, who wrote that the performers, “with such a high level of unanimity and rapport...were concerned only with the music, and used their technical command and tonal variety entirely in its service.” Sheng-Tsung Wang earned his Doctoral of Musical Arts (D.M.A.) degree from the University of Maryland College Park. He received his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Peabody Conservatory, where he was a student of Victor Danchenko. Previous teachers have included Elaine Mishkind, Eugene Drucker of the Emerson String Quartet, Mark Ulrich, and Ik-Hwan Bae. As a member of the prestigious “President’s Own” Marine Chamber Orchestra, SSgt. Wang performs regularly at the White House, as well as at highly distinguished venues in the Washington, D.C. area.