Music Around the Corner presents:
Celebrating Classics and Bold Beginnings
Amy Beach: Quartet for Strings in One Movement, Op. 89 (1921-29)
Kalen Smith: Vignettes (2023)
Pari Bahrami: Gravity and Ghosts (2025)
Dimitri Shostakovich: Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110 (1960)
Amy Beach (1867-1944) was an American composer and pianist, and was one of the first successful female composers of large-scale orchestral works. Unique from her compositional peers, she was never trained in Europe, and so is considered one of the first ‘true’ American composers by scholars. Born in New Hampshire, she was considered a child prodigy in every sense, and had a storied early career as a young pianist. She married a Harvard surgeon at 18, and relocated to Boston. There she had a series of extremely successful premieres, including her 1892 Mass in B minor, and her ‘Gaelic’ Symphony, which was premiered by the Boston Symphony in 1896 (the first female composer to be performed in the organization’s history), and remains one of her most iconic works.
She composed her ‘Quartet for Strings’ over many years, sketching it out in 1921 and revising it constantly. It is an ‘arch’-form piece, where the musical content and tempo is almost symmetrical around the piece’s midpoint. What makes the piece so striking is its inspiration- three Inuit folk songs, two of which are introduced in the opening slow section, and the third which is developed in a fugue in the middle fast section. In her composition of this piece, Beach was exploring what makes music ‘American’, and wanted to acknowledge that the culture of the Inuit people in Alaska and Northern Canada are just as (if not more) ‘North American’ as the music being created by the European immigrants to America.
‘“Gravity and Ghosts” captures the emotional tension when being pulled toward someone (gravity) while haunted by doubt, confusion, or the sense that something is wrong (ghosts). Gravity is the irresistible, almost involuntary pull of love or desire, even when it's not good for you. Ghosts are the lingering feelings, red flags, past pain, or inner voices that haunt you when you're with the wrong person. Things that don’t fully go away, even if you're trying to ignore them.’ -Pari Bahrami
‘Vignettes for String Quartet consists of six miniatures. The form is symmetrical, where the first three miniatures are related to the last three. The first miniature is brutal in nature with abrupt and short attacks giving way to emergent sustained pitches. The sixth utilises a variation of the same texture, except it reverses the overall trajectory, moving from sustained into harsh attacks. Both the second and fifth miniatures focus on duets of extreme registers. A haunting melody doubled a wide register apart is interrupted by juxtaposition of the other quartet members. The third miniature utilises a continuous 2-bar rhythmic cell, presented in the viola. As the other quartet members enter, the cell is shared and accented. The cell is then broken apart, snowballing into smaller and smaller units before ending in a unison amongst all four string instruments. The related fourth movement uses the same process, except the rhythmic fragment is slowly consumed by the introduction of sustained pitches. Vignettes for String Quartet offers six snapshots of complex sonic landscapes, gone in a fleeting moment.’ -Kalen Smith
Dimitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) was born in St. Petersburg, and lived for most of his professional life in Moscow. Starting piano at the age of 9, and being admitted to the Petrograd Conservatory at 13, he was considered a rare musical talent. He started with a dual career as composer and concert pianist, with a large source of his income coming from improvised live piano accompaniment to silent films. However, his graduation piece at age 19, his First Symphony, was met with critical enthusiasm, and from then on he led a career as a successful, yet enigmatic, composer.
Dimitri Shostakovich’s Quartet No. 8 was written in Dresden in 3 days, during one his rare trips outside of the Soviet Union. It is dedicated, ‘In memory of the victims of fascism and war’. Opening the piece, and woven throughout the work is his signature ‘DSCH’, (D-E flat-C- B). This signature appears in almost all of his works, but none as prominently as this, leading to the general consensus that this piece is one of his most personal, an expression of savage beauty in the face of oppression and pain. There are many self-quotations in the piece, including the famous march from his Cello Concerto No. 1 in the 3rd movement, as well as a few themes from ‘Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk’, his very controversial 1932 opera that got him in a fair bit of trouble with the government due to its provocative content and jagged harmonic dissonances.
Shostakovich lived during Stalin’s rule of the Soviet Union, and was constantly watched by the government for any artistic expressions of dissent. Therefore, his earlier pieces are always a puzzle- apolitical and classic enough to pass the censors and ensure his survival, but with subtle musical gestures aimed at reaching those who need support, especially fellow artists and friends who were being persecuted by Stalin. However, this piece was written 7 years after Stalin’s death, and it is remarkable for its honesty and rawness, which probably also contributed to it becoming one of Shostakovich’s most iconic and memorable works.
Musicians:
Emma Meinrenken, violin, co-director
Canadian-German violinist Emma Meinrenken recently completed her Master of Musical Arts at Yale University with luminary Augustin Hadelich, and will start her doctorate degree at CUNY in September 2025. She is the recipient of Yale’s Presser Foundation Graduate Music Award and holds a Bachelor of Music from the Curtis Institute of Music. Meinrenken has won many awards internationally, including 1st place at the Stradivarius International Violin Competition and the Prix Ravel at the Ecole d'Art Américaines de Fontainebleau. She has performed at festivals including the NUME Festival in Italy, Norfolk Music Festival, Verbier Festival, The Festival of the Sound, and the Four Seasons Winter Workshop, and recently went on a chamber music tour of Europe. She is a faculty member for the Music Niagara Festival’s performance academy. Meinrenken debuted with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra at the age of 10, and has since performed as a soloist with many other orchestras, most recently with the Richmond Symphony. She is passionate about collaborating with composers, being the dedicatee of many new compositions including a violin concerto by Maya Miro Johnson, an upcoming violin concerto by Jaebong Rho, and solo violin works by Elizabeth Younan and Alistair Coleman. She made her Carnegie Hall debut playing the premiere of a piece by Fred Lerdahl.
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Diane Kim, violin
Diane Dahyeon Kim is a Korean-Canadian violinist who is actively performing worldwide. She was part of the National Youth Orchestra in 2022 and 2023 where she received the Stephen Sitarski Leadership Award and served as a Co-Concertmaster. In 2019, she was a member of the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival and was also a substitute violinist at the Millenium Symphony in Seoul, South Korea, the SFK Euro Symphony and the Kärnten Symphony Orchester in Klagenfurt, Austria.Diane made her debut with Cathedral Bluffs Symphony Orchestra performing Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. Diane has received numerous awards and scholarships from the Kiwanis Music Festival, Ontario Music Festival, North York Music Festival, TSYO Honour Award and Don Banks Music Award in Canada. She has received 1st prize in the Young Artist Competition - Burlington Symphony, the International Competition Giovani Musicisti - Città di Treviso, Lazlò Spezzaferri International Music Competition in Verona, Italy. Diane graduated from the Glenn Gould School's Bachelor of Music program, studying under Paul Kantor and Barry Shiffman. She received her master’s degree at the Gustav Mahler Privat Universität, studying under Sae Won Suh. Currently, she is pursuing an Artist Diploma program at the Glenn Gould School under Min Jeong Koh and Marie Berard.
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Lynn Sue-A-Quan, viola, co-director
Violist Lynn Sue-A-Quan, born in Toronto, Canada, is currently a member of the Jacksonville Symphony. She has also performed with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic As a soloist, she has collaborated with numerous orchestras across North America, including the Aspen Music Festival Orchestra, Niagara Symphony, Guelph Symphony Orchestra, and Oakville Chamber Orchestra, among others. Her festival appearances include Lucerne Music Festival, Tanglewood Music Center, and the Verbier Festival. In addition to her performing career, Sue-A-Quan is deeply committed to teaching. She runs a private studio and was honored as a recipient of the Morse Teaching Artists Fellowship at Juilliard, where she had the opportunity to teach music to students in New York City public schools. Sue-A-Quan is a graduate of the Juilliard School, holding a bachelor’s and a master’s degree.
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Matthew Christakos, cello
Originally from Toronto, cellist Matthew Christakos has most recently been appointed as the new Associate Principal Cello of the New York Philharmonic, starting in January 2024. He studied at the Curtis Institute of Music and served as principal cello of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, National Youth Orchestra of Canada, and Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra. He has received a number of honors and distinctions within Canada, including the 2019 Canada Council for the Arts’s Michael Measures Prize, second prize in the Canadian Music Competition’s 2019 Stepping Stone, and first prize in the 2017 Toronto Kiwanis Music Festival President’s Trophy Competition. Christakos was named on CBC Music's "30 Hot Canadian Classical Musicians Under 30" list for 2019. Christakos completed his early studies in Toronto, at the Royal Conservatory of Music’s Phil and Eli Taylor Performance Academy for Young Artists. During this time, he was the winner of the concerto competition and was a featured soloist with the Academy Chamber Orchestra. He has also appeared as a soloist with the National Youth Orchestra of Canada during the ensemble's 2019 tour.
A special thank you to Youthful Vengeance and Glad Day Lit for their creative support, allowing us to play in their space, and introducing us to their community.