Live on YouTube and literarymusic.org/watch, also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Program;

Franz Liszt - Dante Sonata

Selections from Divine Comedy

With violinist Alex Goldberg, featuring pianist Po-Wei Ger

Premiering on YouTube, Spotify Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, and literarymusic.org/watch

Program:

Schumann: Violin Sonata No. 1 in A minor, Mvt. 1

Paganini: Caprice No. 23

Goethe: Excerpts from Faust

Alex Goldberg, 22, is currently completing his Master’s degree with renowned violinist Ani Kavafian at the Yale School of Music. He graduated from Yale College with a Bachelor’s degree in philosophy. While at Yale, he also won the Joseph Lentilhon Selden award for “verve, idealism and constructive interest in music and the humanities” and the Head of College Cup for “outstanding scholarly achievement and creative promise.” He recently played the Brahms violin concerto with the Yale Symphony after winning Yale’s William Waite concerto competition and performed as a soloist with the Yale Philharmonia.

Alex previously studied with Donald Weilerstein at the New England Conservatory of Music. He attended and performed at the Sarasota Music Festival, the Heifetz International Music Institute, the Accademia Musicale Chigiana, the Aspen Music Festival, and Music@Menlo, where he received a merit scholarship, and also attended the Taos School of Music. He has had masterclasses with artists including Pinchas Zukerman, Ben Zander, Fang Lei, Merry Peckham, Jorja Fleezanis, the Pacifica Quartet, and Gilles Apap.

Alex made his debut as a soloist with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra playing Vivaldi’s Spring at age eight. His Carnegie Weill Hall debut was at age eleven, and he also performed in Boston’s Jordan Hall for NPR’s From The Top. He has performed as a soloist with numerous orchestras in the Boston area, including the Concord, Brockton, and Quincy symphony orchestras. 

An avid chamber musician and recitalist, Alex is very passionate about combining concerts with lectures on music, art, and literature. Recent projects  include a lecture-recital on the links between Goethe, Brahms, and Romanticism in literature and music and a live-streamed recital on the concept of motion in Plato, Euripides, Bach, and Ysaÿe. 

Premiering live on YouTube, Spotify Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, and literarymusic.org/watch

Program:

J.S Bach - Aria from Goldberg Variations

Hafiz - “The Sun Never Says”

Artist: Natalie Vargas Nedvetsky

(Performed live on 3.17 at Stiftung Kulturpalast Hamburg).

Artists: Tristan Siegel, violin; Natalie Vargas Nedvetsky, piano

Program:

Francesco Geminiani: Violin Sonata in C minor, Op. 4

Johann Sebastian Bach: Partita No 3 in E Major for solo violin

Sergei Rachmaninoff: Prelude in B minor, Op. 32 No. 10

Richard Strauss: Violin Sonata in E-Flat Major, Op. 18

Virgil: Selections from Aeneid

Artist Biographies:

Born in New York City, violinist Tristan Siegel, 27, is traveling the world earning a reputation as a new exciting young classical musician. As an avid and active chamber musician, Tristan recorded chamber works by Beethoven in the Spring of 2019 on the NAXOS Label as part of their 250th Anniversary Collection of Complete Beethoven Works. In addition, Tristan performed Schoenberg’s 4th Quartet in collaboration with Jorja Fleezanis and Stephen Wyrczynski in their renowned “Embraced by the Second Viennese School” series at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is also a member of the Apex Ensemble (formerly the Montclair Orchestra), and has played with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. Tristan has participated in numerous festivals and chamber music series including the Gstaad Menuhin Festival Academy, Taipei Music Academic Festival, Pacific Music Festival, the Sarasota Music Festival, the Music Academy of the West, Round Top, the New York String Orchestra Seminar, The Alexander Schneider Series at the Mannes School of Music. Tristan has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in numerous New York venues including Steinway Hall, Merkin Hall, Alice Tully Hall, WMP Concert Hall, and Weill, Zankel and Perelman Stages at Carnegie Hall. Tristan was a semi-finalist in the 2016 Stulberg International String Competition.

In addition to his extensive performing résumé, Tristan is an active violin teacher with a full-time studio comprised of students of all levels. He held a teaching post at the Elisabeth Morrow School in Englewood, NJ and is a teacher in the Elizabeth Faidley Studio based in Englewood Cliffs, NJ. As an undergraduate, Tristan studied violin pedagogy and taught under the tutelage of Dr. Brenda Brenner and Mimi Zweig in collaboration with the IU String Academy. Tristan is Suzuki Certified and part of the Suzuki Association of America.

Tristan is currently pursuing a Masters of Music at the Yale School of Music where he studies with Tai Murray. Tristan graduated from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University with a BM and PDSP in Violin Performance studying with Alex Kerr. He also graduated with a BA in Chinese with a focus in business and political science. Tristan was awarded a full Graduate Tuition scholarship, maintained a spot on the Dean’s List for the entirety of his studies, and graduated Magna Cum Laude. This balance of teaching, performing, and studying of non-musical pursuits is what Tristan believes should be the aim of every musician, to be a well-rounded and flexible member of society. The more dynamic and adaptive a musician can be, the better person they can become.

Tristan has been generously granted extended use of a 1945 Arturo Fracassi violin by the Chimei Museum in Tainan, Taiwan.

______

Natalie Vargas Nedvetsky is a pianist, poet, and communicator dedicated to the intertwining of words and music through creative mediums. Originally from Chicago, she studied piano performance at The Juilliard School with Joseph Kalichstein and creative writing at Columbia University in the City of New York and has just obtained her masters degree at The Johns Hopkins University/Peabody Institute, studying with Steven Spooner and Richard Goode. She has been a laureate of several major international piano competitions, and has performed across the US and Europe, in halls such as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Concert Noble Brussels, and more. In each of her solo piano performances, she combines poems and piano repertoire, creating a rich and surprising artistic journey for her audience.

Natalie is the founder and artistic director of Literary Music Series, a performing arts organization that advocates for the intertwining of art forms through live-streamed weekly performances/discussions and promotes their integration into the way we think and live our lives.

As part of this organization, she champions intimate 19th century salon style performances, and authors a monthly essay series entitled Literary Thoughts.

With a following of over 260k+ on Tiktok, Natalie creates videos championing music, music education, and spoken word. In February 2023, she was featured in her own segment and interviewed on Fox 5 Good Day New York.

Her first poetry collection, “I quiet the world”, was released in August 2020. Her next book will be published in November 2024 from Cider Press Review.

Pianist Spencer Klymyshyn shares poetry and performs Liszt’s Vallée d’obermann.

Live on YouTube and our website

Biography:

Named by the Canadian Broadcast Corporation in 2020 as one of Canada’s 30 top classical musicians under 30, pianist Spencer Klymyshyn is known for his beautiful and nuanced sound. Spencer has won numerous awards and recognitions in national competitions. In 2019, Spencer was the national winner at the Federation of Canadian Music Festivals (FCMF) National Music Competition. He was also, in both 2017 and 2018, a national first place award winner at the Canadian Music Competition. 

Spencer is a scholarship student at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, UK, where he is working with Ronan O’Hora, Martin Roscoe and Charles Owen in pursuit of his Artist Masters in Performance. He is a graduate of the Schulich School of Music, McGill University, where he completed his Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance with Distinction, studying with Dr. Ilya Poletaev. Spencer holds an ARCT in Piano Performance from the Royal Conservatory of Music. He looks forward to returning to the Guildhall School as an Artist Diploma student in the fall of 2023. 

Spencer has participated in masterclasses with Richard Goode, André Laplante, John Perry, Paul Roberts, Charles Owen and many others. He has also had the pleasure of working with Boris Berman, Robert McDonald, Jacques Rouvier, Boris Slutsky, Anton Nel and more. As a chamber musician and collaborative pianist Spencer has enjoyed working with coaches Julius Drake, Ralph de Souza (Endellion Quartet), Michael McMahon, Carole Presland, Matthew Jones, Marie-Ève Scarfone, and Maestro Alexis Hauser.

In April 2022, Spencer completed a tour with the Symphony New Brunswick performing the Schumann Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54 in Saint John, Fredericton and Moncton, New Brunswick under the baton of Holly Mathieson.

This summer, Spencer performed three recitals at The International Holland Music Sessions (TIHMS) in Bergen, Alkmaar, and Enkhuizen where he also studied with Boris Berman, Jacques Rouvier and Boris Slutsky. As well, in July he enjoyed studying with Paul Roberts, Charles Owen and James Kreiling at the Music at Chateau d’Aix summer school in Saux, France. 

Spencer is the recipient of numerous scholarships and awards from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and various arts organizations. Spencer is grateful to be supported by Talent Unlimited, the Jeunesses Musicales Canada Foundation AIDA Fund, and The Worshipful Company of Carmen Benevolent Trust. 

James Carrabino, piano

Live on YouTube, FB, and our website.

Biography:

James Carrabino is a British pianist whose performances and education have taken him across the United Kingdom, the United States of America and mainland Europe. Growing up in London, he has presented solo performances in numerous venues including the Royal Festival Hall, Cadogan Hall and St Martin-in-the-Fields.

After attending the Royal College of Music (RCM) from 2015 – 2016, James pursued his Bachelor of Arts degree at Yale University, where he studied piano with Professor Wei-Yi Yang. In 2017, James became the first student in nearly a decade to win the Yale Symphony Orchestra’s William Waite Concerto Competition in his first year at the university, and in 2019 he was awarded the Joseph Lentilhon Selden Award for an outstanding third-year student “whose verve, idealism and constructive interests in music and the humanities exemplify those qualities for which Selden is remembered.” Upon graduating cum laude from Yale in 2020, James returned to the Royal College of Music and completed his Master of Music degree with Distinction. He is currently pursuing an Artist Diploma at the RCM and his principal study professors include Norma Fisher, Ian Jones and Dmitri Alexeev.

James has performed in public RCM masterclasses for pre-eminent artists including Imogen Cooper and Alexander Kobrin. In October 2022, James was a semi-finalist and recipient of the Rosalía de Castro prize at the International Piano Competition “Cidade de Vigo” in Vigo, Spain and in the same month he was named as a winner of the 2022 London International Concerto Competition.

James is also enthusiastic about poetry and he is very grateful to Natalie Nedvetsky for the opportunity to take part in this unique event, exploring the relationship between poetry and music.

Literary Music Series goes live! Through a partnership with Good Shepherd-Faith Presbyterian Church in New York City,  we are excited to introduce Literary Music Series Salons. Salon No. 1 on December 16th at 7pm will feature violinist Tristan Siegel and pianist Natalie Vargas Nedvetsky. Free admission! RSVP here: https://www.eventcreate.com/e/lmssalonseries.

This event will also be streamed the following day (12/17) at 7pm ET on YouTube, FB, and our website.

Anna Akhmatova - Requiem (Intro and first 3 stanzas)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Lacriomsa, from Mozart’s Requiem in D minor (piano rendition).

Presented by Natalie Vargas Nedvetsky

Pianist and poet Natalie Vargas Nedvetsky explores the intertwining of Brahms’ Ballade Op. 10 no. 1 in D minor and traditional Scottish murder ballad “Edward”, categorized by Francis James Child.

Live on Facebook, YouTube, and archived on YouTube following the performance.