Past Concerts

As a kid growing up on Long Island in the ’50s, my dream was to play first base with the New York Yankees. For some reason, I never did receive a call from the Yankee brass. Though I still haven’t given up hope, it became necessary in the meantime to make a living. So at the age of eight I started playing the violin, studying with an inspirational Juilliard-trained teacher, Amadeo William Liva. In 1966 I began four years of private lessons with the legendary Ivan Galamian until graduating Westbury High in 1970. While in public school I was concertmaster of the Long Island Youth Orchestra, conducted by Martin Dreiwitz. Not only was it a terrific orchestra, Mr. Dreiwitz, a professional travel agent, schlepped the orchestra on international tours every summer. What an experience as a teenager to perform the Saint Saens “Havanaise,” Bruch “Scottish Fantasy,” and Mozart Symphonie Concertante on four continents! This no doubt accounts for my lifetime wanderlust.

In 1969 I attended the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, beginning a relationship with Tanglewood that has lasted to this day. In the same year I was selected to participate in the very first New York String Seminar, led by the inimitable Alexander Schneider. With soloists Isaac Stern and Jean Pierre Rampal, this experience opened my eyes to a lofty new world of ensemble playing. After two wonderful years at the Oberlin College Conservatory, where my teachers were David Cerone and Christopher Kimber, I transferred to Yale to study with the renowned concertmaster of the Boston Symphony, Joseph Silverstein. During my college days I attended Norfolk Chamber Music Festival where I was coached by members of the Guarneri String Quartet and Claude Frank, the Sarasota Music Festival, and the Tanglewood Music Festival. I received a Bachelor of Arts degree (cum laude) from Yale College simultaneously with a Master of Music from the Yale University School of Music in 1975.

Still not having heard from the Yankees, I auditioned for and won a position with the Boston Symphony, joining that august ensemble at the age of twenty-two, and remained a member of the violin section for thirteen years. I performed as soloist with the Boston Pops under Arthur Fiedler and John Williams, was a member of the renowned Elias/Lefkowitz Violin Duo (or, as my partner recalls it, the Lefkowitz/Elias Violin Duo), and of the Andover Trio.

In 1986–87, I took a sabbatical leave from the BSO and divided the year between Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, where I performed, taught, and conducted. My wife, Cecily, and I took our two children, Kate and Jacob, who were 28- and 8-months old when we departed, and provided them with an early world view. Some of Jake’s first solid food, in fact, was ground-up sushi. Another part of the adventure was being called upon to conduct a fully staged performance of La Traviata at the Innisfail (Australia) Opera Festival on short notice.

It was westward ho for my family in 1988, after I won the audition for Associate Concertmaster of the Utah Symphony. The move to Utah turned out to be providential, offering extensive performance, teaching, and eventually conducting opportunities. I performed concertos with the orchestra, was a faculty member of the University of Utah, was the founding first violinist of the Abramyan String Quartet, had several of my compositions receive their first performances, and became music director of the Vivaldi By Candlelight chamber music series in 2004.

Many other positive things came my way as well, one of which was a re-connection with the BSO, where I’ve regularly performed with the orchestra during the summer at Tanglewood. Another development was the establishment of an ongoing relationship with music-making in Peru and Ecuador, where I had numerous opportunities to conduct, perform, and teach, and with a Fulbright grant in 2008, I was a guest professor of the National Conservatory in Lima.

In 1997 a second sabbatical leave, this one from the Utah Symphony, took our family to Umbria, Italy. It was a great year of eating, drinking, exploring the Umbrian countryside, and immersing ourselves in the culture and history of Italy.

But it wasn’t all fun and games. I did a lot of composing, and significantly, I wrote my first book, Devil’s Trill. The ensuing years brought innumerable rewrites, but eventually I found an agent, Josh Getzler, at Writer’s House in New York, who ultimately found me a publisher, St. Martin’s Press. Devil’s Trill, a murder mystery which takes place in the classical music world (go figure!) was published in 2009, and has been followed by seven more installments of the series. (Please click HERE to see more details about the Daniel Jacobus mystery series and other books I've written.)

In May of 2011, I bid a fond farewell from full-time symphony playing. However, I’ve continue to concertize, publish, and compose. There have been more books, more concerts, and more exciting challenges. One very exciting development has been a recent recording I made of the Opus 1 Violin Sonatas by the Baroque violinist-composer Pietro Castrucci, to be released in early 2022 by Centaur Records. Not only is the music exquisite, it’s the first complete recording of these 12 sonatas ever!

In 2021, I relocated to Seattle, where I have begun to connect with multifaceted cultural scene, performing on a Baroque violin in addition to a beautiful violin my son, Jacob, made for me, and meeting with book clubs and doing book events. I look forward to continue to expand my music and literary horizons both in Seattle and in our little cottage in the woods in western Massachusetts.

This biography is taken from Gerald Elias' website.

Alice Spatz has an MFA in music composition from Bennington College and is a classical free-lance double bassist who teaches double bass, music theory and composition at the Berkshire Music School. Spatz has composed for chamber ensembles, concert band, orchestra, chorus, music theater, voice and solo instruments.

Her compositions have been performed widely throughout the US, Canada, Germany, and in Vienna, Austria. Her works have been broadcast on television and public radio, and are published by Shawnee Press, W.W. Norton, ASTA, Audubon Music, Sheetmusicplus and Amati Productions. Her music has been recorded by Gary Karr, and for Centaur Records by the Linden Trio, with Robert J. Lurtsema as narrator.

She is the recipient of many commissions (including from the Atlantic Sinfonietta, the Walden Chamber Players and the Karr Lewis Duo), and awards from the American Music Center, ASCAP, ASTA, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and Meet the Composer.

She also composes for, sings, plays mandolin and bass, and performs widely with Wintergreen, a traditional and contemporary folk trio. Her home is in Lanesborough, Massachusetts.

Born Jeanne-Louise Dumont in Paris, she was the daughter of Jacques-Edme Dumont, a successful sculptor, and sister to Auguste Dumont, also a sculptor. She began piano studies at an early age with Cecile Soria, a former student of Muzio Clementi. When it became clear that she had the ability to become a professional pianist she was given lessons by such masters as Ignaz Moscheles and Johann Nepomuk Hummel, and, given the talent she showed as a composer, her parents decided to let her, in 1819 at the age of fifteen, study composition with Anton Reicha, the composition teacher at the Conservatoire de Paris. However, she was taught through private lessons as women were forbidden to enroll in the traditional composition classes at that time. In 1821 she married Aristide Farrenc, a flute student ten years her senior, who performed at some of the concerts regularly given at the artists' colony of the Sorbonne, where Louise's family lived. Following her marriage, Farrenc interrupted her studies to give concerts throughout France with her husband. He, however, soon grew tired of the concert life and, with her help, opened a publishing house in Paris, which, as Éditions Farrenc, became one of France's leading music publishers for nearly 40 years.

In Paris, Farrenc returned to her studies with Reicha, after which she re-embarked on a concert career, briefly interrupted in 1826 when she gave birth to a daughter, Victorine, who also became a concert pianist but who died in 1859 aged thirty-three. In the 1830s, Farrenc gained considerable fame as a performer and her reputation was such that in 1842 she was appointed to the permanent position of Professor of Piano at the Paris Conservatory, a position she held for thirty years and one which was among the most prestigious in Europe. In fact, Farrenc was the only woman to hold the esteemed position and rank at the Paris Conservatory throughout the 19th century. Accounts of the time record that she was an excellent instructor, with many of her students graduating with first prizes and becoming professional musicians. Despite this, Farrenc was paid less than her male counterparts for nearly a decade. Only after the triumphant premiere of her nonet, at which the famous violinist Joseph Joachim took part, did she demand and receive equal pay. [from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Farrenc]

Louise Farrenc's Nonet in E flat Major, Op.38 for flute, oboe, B flat clarinet, E flat horn, bassoon, string trio and bass dates from 1849. It is ironic that of all her chamber music, the work which achieved the most popular success was a piece without piano of which she was a virtuoso. It was this Nonet which made whatever name she had as a composer during her lifetime. It may, in part, have been due to the tremendous popularity of the young and dashing Joseph Joachim—one of Europe’s leading violinists, for it was Joachim who, in 1850, participated in the public premiere of the Nonet in front of a large audience. The Nonet shows the influence of her teacher Anton Reicha.

The first of its four movements, Adagio—Allegro, begins with a majestic introduction. The beautiful opening theme of the Allegro is full of potential and the second subject is also very good. The part writing is uniformly good with excellent integration of the strings and winds. This is tasteful, good-natured and genial music.

The second movement, Andante con variazione, begins with a very attractive theme introduced by the violin. The first variation features the oboe by itself in a lyrical, syncopated and serene episode. The viola joins in toward the end and the mixed timbre of the two instruments is exquisite. In the second variation, the violin is given an etude like series of runs. The viola, flute and clarinet are brought in for cameo appearances. Then comes the bassoon who plays primus inter pares within a woodwind quintet. The horn is given a turn in the fourth variation, charmingly accompanied by a series of triplets in the minor by the strings. All participate in the Allegretto coda, even the bass is suddenly exposed to the light of day for a brief second. This is an absolutely first rate movement which serves to showcase Farrenc’s compositional skills.

The third movement, Scherzo vivace begins with great originality as the strings quietly strum the exciting opening theme, which sounds of the chase. The winds restate it and the music then takes off. It is in the tradition of grand and exciting scherzi, complete with wonderful chromatic passages. The second theme, actually more of a long trio section, is first played by the winds in their upper registers, a dreamy, children’s nursery song. When the strings briefly take over, the melody becomes very lyrical. Again we have a little gem. Everything is perfect: the thematic material and the part writing. It shows great creativity and verve.

The finale, Adagio-Allegro, begins with an introduction which creates a sense of expectation, especially as the oboe’s cadenza brings it to an end and horn sounds a four measure “call to attention”. The opening theme to the allegro is then introduced by the violin. It is at once beautiful and replete with forward motion. This work, in my opinion, it is unquestionably in the front rank of nonets. [from R.H.R. Silvertrust writing in The Chamber Music Journal]

Amy Marcy Cheney Beach (September 5, 1867 – December 27, 1944) was an American composer and pianist. Her "Gaelic" Symphony, premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1896, was the first symphony composed and published by an American woman. She was one of the first American composers to succeed without the benefit of European training, and one of the most respected and acclaimed American composers of her era. As a pianist, she was acclaimed for concerts she gave featuring her own music in the United States and in Germany. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Beach]

Beach's Gaelic Symphony was the first symphony by an American woman composer to gain public attention, written at a time when American composers of either gender were a relative rarity on the international scene.

Her Gaelic Symphony was Beach's response to Bohemian composer Antonín Dvořák's call for American composers to explore their musical roots. Known for his own nationalist style, Dvořák had traveled to the U.S. in 1892 to lead the National Conservatory of Music in New York City. He suggested that a distinctly American sound might include Native American and African American elements. Beach, who lived in Boston — which had a large Irish immigrant population — instead turned to Irish melodies, attracted by what she described as "their simple, rugged, and unpretentious beauty."

The first movement of the symphony begins with much energy, borrowing a melody from "Dark Is the Night," one of Beach's own art songs. The lively second movement has a graceful theme that reappears in varied form in the movement’s middle section. For the third movement, Beach sets two melancholy Irish themes in counterpoint, so that they are heard simultaneously. In the final movement, she returns to the melody of the first movement, though here given even more dramatic expression.

[Betsy Schwarm, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Gaelic-Symphony]

Summer Concert Series Is a Salute to Women Composers (Berkshire Edge, August 2023)

Stockbridge Sinfonia’s summer concert series features Lanesborough composer Alice Spatz’s ‘Berkshire Triptych’ (Berkshire Eagle, August 2023)