Maine Mountain Chamber Music

Saturday, 6/1, 7:30 Nordica Auditorium, Merrill Hall, University of Maine at Farmington- Maine

Mountain Chamber Music in concert. Laurie Kennedy, violist and co-director of MMCM

will be joined by cellists Katie Kennedy and Hyun-Ji Kwon, and violinist Sarah

Washburn. Suggested Adult ticket price is $20.

The first part of the program is devoted to works of women composers - Chantar for solo cello (around 1175) by Beatriz de Dia; A Baroque Suite for solo cello, attributed to an Austrian Benedictine Nun (1680s); and duos by Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre (early 1700s) and Rebecca Clark (early 1900s).

 

After intermission, all four musicians join together for the soulfully Russian Quartet in A Minor by Anton Arensky, composed in 1894 in memory of his friend Tchaikovsky. Sarah Washburn, violin Maine native Sarah Washburn is an active chamber and orchestral musician, and a dedicated teacher to students of all ages. She is on the faculty at The Hartt School Community Division, where she has served as the Chair of the String Department. Chamber music has always been her passion. She is a founding member of the West End and Azul String Quartets and has taught chamber music at Wesleyan University. Sarah has participated at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, SoundFest on Cape Cod, Hartford New Music Festival, and The Arts Institute of Western Maine, now ArtsFarmington. She performs with the Hartford, New Haven, and Vermont Symphonies, New Hampshire Music Festival, and in the pit at Hartford Stage, and Goodspeed Opera House. A strong proponent of contemporary music, she has premiered works by many composers throughout the northeast. 

 

Laurie Kennedy, viola

Laurie Kennedy, Principal Viola of the Portland Symphony, retired in 2022 after 40 seasons. She began her career in the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and later served as Principal Viola with the Vancouver Symphony and the Buffalo Philharmonic. She performed every summer from 1977 to 2021 at Sebago-Long Lake Chamber Music Festival. As Music Director for many of those years, Laurie created “some of the most

evocative programming on the Maine summer scene” (Portland Press Herald 2011). She is highly regarded as an educator, designing and narrating “Music for Kids” at SLLMF, and “Kinderkonzerts” for the PSO, and teaching for many years in the Dixfield/Farmington area.

Katie Kennedy, cello

Katie Kennedy, cellist, serves on the faculty at Connecticut College and Central Connecticut State University. She is the Artistic Director of Music Adventure, a summer chamber music program in Italy now entering its 14th season. She has commissioned and premiered dozens of new works and is recorded on the New World and Ravello labels. She has been featured as a cello soloist with Hartford Chorale, Concora, and Voce, and in concert with Ola Gjeilo. She has given recitals and performances across the northeastern US and Europe. Katie graduated from Oberlin College Conservatory and furthered her studies at the Liszt Academy in Budapest. Her primary teachers were Peter Rejto and Csaba Onczay.

Hyun-ji Kwon, cello

Hyun-Ji Kwon maintains an active schedule as soloist, chamber musician, and educator. She is on the faculty at Colby College, Phillips Exeter Academy and the Project STEP. She has also taught at Boston University as a Lecturer, Boston University Tanglewood Institute (BUTI) as a co-Director of the Cello Workshop and as a cello coach at BUTI’s Young Artist Orchestra Program. She is cellist of the Meadowlark Trio, Echo Bridge Cellos, Convergence Ensemble, and frequently performs with Boston Ballet Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), and Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra. She played the solo cello part in the revival of the Broadway musical 1776 on the national tour in 2023.