Retrospectives

Charles Neidich

Clarinet

Clarinetist and conductor, Charles Neidich has gained worldwide recognition as one of the most mesmerizing virtuosos performing today. With a tone of hypnotic beauty and a dazzling technique, Mr. Neidich has received unanimous accolades from critics and fellow musicians both in the United States and abroad; but it is his musical intelligence in scores as diverse as Mozart and Elliott Carter that has earned for Mr. Neidich a unique place among clarinetists. In the words of The New Yorker, "He's an artist of uncommon merit - a master of his instrument and, beyond that, an interpreter who keeps listeners hanging on each phrase."

An ardent exponent of new music and a composer himself, he has expanded the technical and expressive possibilities of the clarinet and has championed the works of many of the world’s most important composers. He is a leading performer on period instruments and has restored and reconstructed original versions of works composers from Mozart to Copland.

In wide demand as a soloist, Mr. Neidich has collaborated with some of the world's leading orchestras and ensembles, including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, the MDR, the Berlin Radio Orchestra, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony, Pasadena Symphony, San Diego Symphony, New City Chamber Orchestra of San Francisco, Yomiuri Symphony, Tokyo Philharmonic, NHK Symphony, Tafelmusik, the Handel/Haydn Society, the Norwegian Baroque Orchestra, the Juilliard, Guarneri, American, Mendelssohn, and Parker String Quartets and the Peabody Trio. He has made his mark not only as an instrumentalist, but also as an innovative programmer and student of period instrument performance practice. An avid chamber musician, Mr. Neidich is a member of the renowned New York Woodwind Quintet and is a member emeritus of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.

Mr. Neidich commands a repertoire of over 200 solo works, including pieces written, commissioned or inspired by him, as well as his own transcriptions of vocal and instrumental works. A noted exponent of 20th century music, he has premiered works by Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, Edison Denisov, William Schuman, Ralph Shapey, Joan Tower, and other leading contemporary composers. With a growing discography to his credit, Mr. Neidich can be heard on the Chandos, Sony Classical, Sony Vivarte, Deutsche Grammophon, Musicmasters, Pantheon, Bridge, and Bremen Music Hall labels. His recorded repertoire ranges from familiar works by Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, and Brahms, to lesser-known compositions by Danzi, Reicha, Rossini, and Hummel, as well as music by Elliott Carter, Gyorgy Kurtag, and other contemporary masters. Mr. Neidich received a rave review from Heuwell Tircuit in Fanfare for his Sony recording of Robert Schumann's Sonatas Op. 105 and 121 and the Three Romances, Op. 94: “... Indeed, the First Sonata (a major masterpiece) seems even more expressive on clarinet -- at least as Neidich plays it. Besides sheer enjoyment, I found myself moved by this performance."

Mr. Neidich has performed at numerous summer festivals and appears regularly at the Marlboro Music Festival, the Sarasota Summer Music Festival, the Orford and Domaine Forget Festivals in Canada, and the International Stichting Masterclass Apeldoorn in the Netherlands and the Kyzowa Music Festival in Poland.

A native New Yorker of Belarussian and Greek descent, Charles Neidich had his first clarinet lessons with his father, and his first piano lessons with his mother. Mr. Neidich's early musical idols were Fritz Kreisler, Artur Schnabel and other violinists and pianists, rather than clarinetists. The clarinet, however, won out over time, and he pursued studies with the famed pedagogue Leon Russianoff. Although Mr. Neidich became quite active in music at an early age, he opted against attending a music conservatory in favor of academic studies at Yale University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, in Anthropology. While at Yale, he received the Selden Prize for musicianship and scholarship. In 1975 he became the first American to receive a Fulbright grant for study in the former Soviet Union. He attended the Moscow Conservatory for three years where his teachers were clarinetist, Boris Dikov and pianist, Kirill Vinogradov.

In 1985 Mr. Neidich became the first clarinetist to win the Walter W. Naumburg Competition, which brought him to prominence as a soloist. He then taught at the Eastman School of Music and during that tenure joined the New York Woodwind Quintet, an ensemble with which he still performs. His European honors include top prizes at the 1982 Munich International Competition sponsored by the German television network ARD, and the Geneva and Accanthes International Competitions.

Charles Neidich has also been gaining greater and greater recognition as a conductor. For several years he has been the Artistic Director and Conductor of the Queens College Chamber Orchestra. In addition, he has appeared as guest conductor with orchestras throughout the US, Europe, and in Asia most recently in acclaimed Beethoven programs with the Hyogo PAC Orchestra and Mozart programs with the Tokyo Philharmonic in Japan. He has also been featured in programs in the triple role of Conductor, Soloist, and Composer with the Tapiola Sinfonietta and the San Diego Symphony.

Mr. Neidich has achieved great recognition as a teacher in addition to his activities as a performer, and currently a member of the artist faculties of the Juilliard School, the Manhattan School of Music, the Mannes College of Music and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.. In 2004, he was awarded the William Schuman Award for performance and scholarship at the Juilliard School. Already in its 12th season, together with his wife, Ayako Oshima, he founded the Kitakaruizawa Music Seminar. Just this year, he was awarded a lifetime membership in honor of his artistic achievements by the International Clarinet Society and a medal for lifetime achievement from the National Society of Arts and Letters. This medal has been awarded only to three other musicians: the pianist Menahem Pressler, the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, and the flutist Carol Wincenc.

Dana Kelley

Viola

Violist Dana Kelley is an active chamber musician and member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble. She is also a member of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra for the 2021-2022 season. Praised for her rich and beautiful tone, Dana has been a top prizewinner in the Sphinx Music Competition, the Irving M. Klein International String Competition, the M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition and the Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition. She also serves on the viola faculty of the Mannes School of Music at the New School.

Dana’s performance schedule has brought her to many prestigious venues and festivals, including multiple recitals at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Recital Hall at New York’s Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, the Ravinia Festival, and Bravo! Vail. Dana has collaborated with artists such as Ralph Kirshbaum, Nobuko Imai and Miriam Fried, pianists Leon Fleisher, Anne-Marie MacDermott and Misha Dichter, and cellist Astrid Schween of the Juilliard String Quartet.

Dana received an Artist Diploma in String Quartet Studies with the Argus String Quartet as the 2017-2019 Graduate Quartet in Residence at The Juilliard School. Dana was a 2014-2016 Fellow in Ensemble Connect - a performance and teaching program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and The Weill Music Institute. She received her Bachelor’s of Music from the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University, studying violin with Cornelia Heard and viola with Kathryn Plummer, and completed her Master’s of Music degree at the New England Conservatory as a student of Kim Kashkashian.

Efi Hackmey

Piano

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.