2024 Music Series

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2024 Flagler Museum Music Series

Tickets $75

Series Ticket $350 (all five concerts)

Gates open at 7:00 pm, concerts begin at 7:30 pm

Free for Museum Members at the Visionary and Legacy level

Regularly featured on "Performance Today!" and National Public Radio, the Flagler Museum Music Series brings acclaimed musicians to the finest chamber music venue in South Florida. Audience members experience chamber music as it was intended, in a gracious and intimate setting.The Flagler name has long been associated with great music. Henry and Mary Lily Flagler frequently hosted musical performances in Whitehall's Music Room equipped with a 1,249 pipe J.H. & C.S. Odell & Co. organ. Flagler's son, Henry Harkness Flagler, was instrumental in the organization of the New York Symphony Society, serving also as its president. Jean Flagler Matthews, founder of the Flagler Museum and Henry Flagler's granddaughter, restored Whitehall's elaborate Odell organ and brought the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Leonard Bernstein, to South Florida for a Museum benefit concert in 1969. Music Series audience members not only enjoy beautiful chamber music but also enjoy the rare opportunity to meet the musicians during a champagne and dessert reception following each concert.

The 2024 Music Series features performances by, the Ulysses Quartet, Elissa Lee Koljonen with Robin Arrigo, the Beo String Quartet, the Aznavoorian Sisters, and the Black Oak Ensemble.

The Flagler Museum Music Series is sponsored by:

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Ulysses Quartet

February 6, 2024
7:30 p.m.

The Ulysses Quartet has been praised for their “textural versatility,” “grave beauty” and “the kind of chemistry many quartets long for, but rarely achieve” (The Strad), as well as their “avid enthusiasm ... [with] chops to back up their passion” (San Diego Story), “delivered with a blend of exuberance and polished artistry” (The Buffalo News).

Founded in the summer of 2015, the group won the grand prize and gold medal in the senior string division of the 2016 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and first prize in the 2018 Schoenfeld International String Competition. In 2017, the quartet finished first in the American Prize and won second prize at the Osaka International Chamber Music Competition. They were winners of the Vietnam International Music Competition in 2019. Ulysses garnered a career development grant in the 2016 Banff International String Quartet Competition.

The group’s name pays homage to Homer’s hero Odysseus and his 10-year voyage home. Additionally, the quartet’s members live in close proximity to the resting place of former U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant in Upper Manhattan. The Ulysses String Quartet believes intensely in the power of music to inspire, enlighten and bring people together.

Elissa Lee Koljonen

February 13, 2024
7:30 p.m.

Recognized as one of the most celebrated violinists of her generation, Elissa Lee Koljonen has thrilled audiences and critics in more than one hundred cities throughout the world. Ms. Koljonen received international acclaim when she became the first recipient of the prestigious Henryk Szeryng Foundation Award and the silver medalist of the Carl Flesch International Violin Competition. Her playing has been hailed by the Helsingin Sanomat (Helsinki) as “sparkling, sensual and personal,” and the Chicago Tribune has said she displays “boundless technique and musicianship.”

Ms. Koljonen has performed with such orchestras as the Boston Pops, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Royal Philharmonic, as well as the symphony orchestras of Bilbao, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Dallas, Detroit, Oregon, Pittsburgh, Helsinki, and Seoul. She garnered critical acclaim for her appearance with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo in a special concert celebrating the 700th anniversary of the Grimaldi Dynasty. She has collaborated with such noted conductors as Matthias Bamert, Dirk Brossé, JoAnn Falletta, Lawrence Foster, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Neeme Järvi, James Judd, Andrew Litton, José-Luis Novo, the late James DePreist, and the late Bryden Thomson.

Ms. Koljonen has performed in some of the world's most venerated concert venues, including the Musikverein in Vienna, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Barbican Centre and Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, Konzerthaus Berlin, the Seoul Arts Center, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York City, Symphony Hall in Boston, and the Academy of Music and Kimmel Center in Philadelphia. An avid chamber musician, Ms. Koljonen appears regularly at festivals throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.

Ms. Koljonen is a protégée of the late Aaron Rosand, with whom she studied at the Curtis Institute of Music. Incorporating his influence, she carries on the legacy and tradition of Leopold Auer and his legendary school of violin playing.

Elissa Lee Koljonen will be accompanied by pianist Sheng-Yuan.

Beo String Quartet

February 20, 2024
7:30 p.m.

The eclectic and highly polished Beo String Quartet, founded in 2015, has created a niche for itself as a daring, genre-defying ensemble. Rigorously trained in the classical tradition, violinists Jason Neukom and Andrew Giordano, violist Sean Neukom, and cellist Ryan Ash also know their way around contemporary expression, including the use of electronics, live sound processing, and spatial audio manipulation. Their performances of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, or Shostakovich have been compared to those of the best among 21st century international string quartets.

With an astonishing 65 world premieres to its credit and 140 concert works played throughout the United States, South America, and Europe, the iconoclastic Beo String Quartet does what it loves best: performing, teaching, outreaching, composing, recording, and having fun with music from the iconic (Beethoven) to today’s most exciting composers (Gabriela Ortiz, Missy Mazzoli) to popular styles. Beo has built its own recording studio and launched its own recording label, NeuKraft Records.

The name “Beo” derives from Latin, meaning “to make happy."

Aznavoorian Sisters

February 27, 2024
7:30 p.m.

The Aznavoorian sisters' first public performance was at the ages of 4 and 8 at their Armenian church in Evanston, IL. They won First Prize in the Illinois Bell Young Performers Competition, resulting in a live performance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on PBS.

Since then, they have toured France, Armenia, and Finland, performed at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, and presented countless programs in their hometown of Chicago including a major fundraiser for the Armenian earthquake in 1988. This season, the Aznavoorian Duo embarks on a tour of California, and the Seattle Chamber Music Society presents them in a winter residency.

The Aznavoorian Sisters went on to win the National Foundation for the Arts Award, leading to their appointment as Presidential Scholars in the Arts and performances at The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. and at The White House, where Ani met President Bill Clinton and Marta met President George H. W. Bush.

In 2022, the Aznavoorian Sisters released their début album, Gems from Armenia, on the Cedille Label. The CD features Armenian music and a world premiere recording written for the duo by composer Peter Boyer and Vache Sharafyan. The CD has been receiving rave reviews in the press.

Ani Aznavoorian is in demand as a soloist and chamber musician with some of the most recognized ensembles, and she has appeared with many of the world’s leading orchestras. Ani studied with Aldo Parisot at the Juilliard School, where she won First Prize in the Concerto Competition, the youngest cellist in the history of the competition to do so. This season marks her fifteenth year as Principal Cellist with Camerata Pacifica.

“A pianist of exceptionally finished technique and purity of musical impulse” (Boston Globe), Marta Aznavoorian is known for her inspiringly spirited playing and vast emotional reach. The multi Grammy-nominated artist made her professional début at the age of 13 performing Mozart Piano Concerto No. 24 with the Chicago Symphony at the invitation of Sir Georg Solti.

Black Oak Ensemble

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March 5, 2024
7:30 p.m.

The Black Oak Ensemble’s latest CD release, “Avant l’orage,” a double album of French string trios, reached #1 in the Billboard Classical Charts in July 2022 and was featured as Album of the week on Symphony Hall Sirius XM and in November nominated for a 2022 ICMA International Chamber Music Award. Since then it has been lauded in the U.S. and International press, including Canada, Finland, The Netherlands and Germany. Fanfare Magazine said, “the players fully inhabit the spirit of whatever work they are playing at the moment, performing each one with as ardent a flame as if they had written it themselves.”

Praised for its “insightful, committed and masterful performances” (Classics Today 10/10) and “fierce eloquence” (London Times), the Black Oak Ensemble is one of the most innovative and exciting chamber ensembles on the international stage.

Recent international tours have taken the Black Oak Ensemble to Amsterdam, Geneva (a special performance dedicated to human rights), the Everlasting Hope Festival in Terezin, (in honor of composers persecuted and murdered by the Nazis during the occupation of Prague), Paris, Grenoble, Lyon, Rennes, Corsica, Prague, and Athens. In the summer of 2022, the ensemble collaborated with violinist Rachel Kolly and cellist Nadege Rochat for sold out performances at the Schubertiade in Fribourg, Switzerland.

In the U.S. they have appeared at the Newport Music Festival, Music at the Morgan, Ravinia Festival, New York University, Chicago Cultural Center, Art Institute of Chicago, Latino Music Festival (Chicago), University of Oregon and many other venues.

The Black Oak Ensemble consists of violinist Desirée Ruhstrat and cellist David Cunliffe, members of the GRAMMY-nominated Lincoln Trio, and violist Aurélien Fort Pederzoli, a founding member of the ground-breaking, GRAMMY-nominated Spektral Quartet. They are currently ensemble-in-residence at New Music School in Chicago.