Martin Chalifour, concertmaster for Los Angeles Philharmonic, to perform “The Four B’s” Sept. 22

Program to feature music of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and Bartok

Celebrated violinist Martin Chalifour, principal concertmaster for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, will join musicians from Washington University and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra for a chamber music recital at 7 p.m., Monday, Sept. 22.

Martin Chalifour
Martin Chalifour

The performance — sponsored by the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences and the Symphony Orchestra’s Community Partnership program — is free and open to the public and will take place in the 560 Music Center’s E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall. A dessert reception with the performers will immediately follow.

The 560 Music Center is located at 560 Trinity Ave., at the intersection with Delmar Boulevard. For more information, call (314) 935-9226 or email jgartley@artsci.wustl.edu.

Titled “The Four B’s,” the concert will open with Chalifour and pianist Seth Carlin, professor of music in Arts & Sciences, performing Beethoven’s “Spring” sonata. Next Chalifour will perform Adagio and Fugue in G minor, a solo from Sonata No. 1 of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas. Chalifour then will join violinist Taras Gabora, professor emeritus at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, for a set of Bartok duos.

The program will conclude with Brahms’ Piano Quartet in C minor. Performers will include Chalifour and Carlin as well as Jonathan Vinocour, principal violist of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, and Bjorn Ranheim, a cellist with the orchestra.

Seth Carlin
Seth Carlin

Born in Montreal, Chalifour began playing violin at age four and graduated from the Montreal Conservatory — where his teachers included Gabora — at age 18. He then studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and began his orchestral career in 1984 as associate concertmaster for the Atlanta Symphony. In 1986 he won a Certificate of Honor at the 1986 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and the following year was a laureate of the Montreal International Competition.

In 1990 Chalifour left Atlanta for the Cleveland Orchestra and in 1995 was named concertmaster for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He has performed chamber music with YoYo Ma, Emmanuel Ax and Yefim Bronfman, among others, and has appeared as soloist with conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Andrew Davis, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, Neville Marriner and Esa-Pekka Salonen. Internationally he has appeared as a soloist with the Auckland Philharmonic, the Montreal Symphony, the Queensland Symphony (Australia), the National Orchestra of Taiwan, the Hong Kong Philharmonic and the Malaysian Philharmonic.

Taras Gabora
Taras Gabora

Chalifour also currently serves as a professor at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music. His daughter, Stephanie Chalifour, is a junior majoring in anthropology at Washington University.

Carlin has performed with orchestras around the world and with conductors such as Nicholas McGegan, Leonard Slatkin and Roger Norrington. In 1991-92 he performed the complete Schubert fortepiano sonatas in New York City — concerts that were broadcast nationally on National Public Radio. More recently he appeared as soloist with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra in Beethoven’s “Triple” Concerto as well as with San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque, the period-instrument orchestra.

Jonathan Vinocour
Jonathan Vinocour

Gabora has performed widely as a soloist and chamber musician and is a founding member of “Trio Tre Musici” in Milan, Chamber Music Chicago, Le Groupe Baroque de Montréal, the Vienna Academy String Quartet and the Gabora String Quartet. In addition to Oberlin and the Montreal Conservatory, he has taught at McGill University, the St. Louis Conservatory of Music and the Vancouver Academy of Music.

Vinocour joined the Saint Louis Symphony in 2007 and previously served as guest principal of the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig and of the Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa in Japan. An active solo performer, in 2006 he won First Prize in the Holland America Music Society Competition and recorded his first solo album.

Ranheim joined the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra in 2005 and also holds the principal chair of the Colorado Music Festival in Boulder. He previously served as associate principal cellist of the Fort Worth Symphony and has held principal and assistant principal cello positions with the New World Symphony, the National Repertory Orchestra, the Aspen Festival Orchestra and Quebec City’s critically acclaimed Les Violons du Roy.

Bjorn Ranheim
Bjorn Ranheim

Calendar Summary

WHO: Martin Chalifour, principal concertmaster for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, with Seth Carlin, Taras Gabora, Jonathan Vinocour and Bjorn Ranheim.

WHAT: “The Four B’s,” music of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and Bartok

WHEN: 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 22

WHERE: E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall, 560 Music Center, 560 Trinity Ave., near the intersection of Trinity and Delmar Boulevard

COST: Free and open to the public

SPONSORS: Washington University’s Department of Music in Arts & Sciences and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra Community Partnership Program.

INFORMATION: (314) 935-9226 or email jgartley@artsci.wustl.edu..