2024-2025 Signature Series
Now in its 25th season, the Signature Series is Four Seasons’ flagship initiative. Comprising six sets of concerts throughout the year, the Signature Series features classical music’s preeminent performers and personalities in thrilling performance – in both Greenville and Raleigh!
The 25th Anniversary Signature Series kicks off in truly spectacular fashion when an all-star cast of nearly twenty musicians takes the stage for selections from Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and Astor Piazzolla’s companion work, The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires. The season also features iconic works by Johannes Brahms, Ernest Chausson, Antonín Dvořák, Edward Elgar, César Franck, Robert Schumann, and Dmitri Shostakovich, and the Cooperstown Quartet’s return for a “Behind the Scenes” concert featuring soul-stirring quartets by W.A. Mozart and Felix Mendelssohn. As always, this season’s performers – who hail from the world’s finest stages and ensembles – are brought together by founder & artistic director Ara Gregorian in new, never-before-seen combinations. Featuring can’t-miss performances by beloved musicians from throughout our quarter-century history, Four Seasons’ 25th Anniversary Season promises to be our best one yet!
Four Seasons Plays Four Seasons
Raleigh Concert – Sun, Sept 29 @ 3:00 PM
We open our 25th Anniversary Season with a true musical extravaganza! Dazzling violin soloist Hye-Jin Kim and a chamber orchestra of nearly twenty take the stage to perform a sensational pairing of selections from Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons alongside Astor Piazzolla’s Argentinian companion work, the sultry, tango-inspired Four Seasons of Buenos Aires. Two short movements from Edward Elgar and Antonín Dvořák complete the conductor-less orchestra’s portion of the concert. Rounding out the program is an example of the intimate and dramatic chamber music for which we’re known: Ernő Dohnányi’s stunning Piano Quintet in C Minor. Featuring some of history’s most iconic music, this concert is not-to-be-missed!
Echoes of Places Past
Raleigh Concert – Sun, Oct 20 @ 3:00 PM
Our 25th Anniversary Season continues with a concert featuring two works that evoke a clear sense of place. Although it was written amidst what he described as the “lovely hot hot days” of summer, Edward Elgar’s Piano Quintet in A Minor is anything but summery. Inspired by an ominous grove of bare trees in the English countryside, this work is by turns eerie, achingly nostalgic, and, eventually, jubilant. Equally rustic in inspiration is Antonín Dvořák’s String Quintet in E-flat Major, a work that resulted from a summer stay in Spillville, Iowa. This vibrant quintet, dubbed the “American,” combines Dvořák’s signature Czech style with plenty of new world influence. These monumental works are complemented by a pair of beloved miniatures by Elgar and Dvořák in a concert featuring pianist Sahun Sam Hong, violinists Xiao-Dong Wang and Stephanie Zyzak, violinist/violist Ara Gregorian, violist Hsin-Yun Huang, and cellist Marcy Rosen.
Combinations
Raleigh Concert – Sun, Nov 10 @ 3:00 PM
Join Four Seasons as three unique combinations of musicians take the stage to perform works by W.A. Mozart, Sergei Prokofiev, and Dmitri Shostakovich. Clarinetist Alan Kay, violinists Yura Lee and Jesse Mills, violist Ara Gregorian, and cellist Peter Stumpf join forces for Mozart’s iconic Clarinet Quintet, while the strings unite with pianist Ieva Jokubaviciute for Shostakovich’s fierce Piano Quintet. All six musicians – a rare musical combination indeed – are featured in Prokofiev’s Overture on Hebrew Themes.
Behind the Scenes with the Cooperstown Quartet
Raleigh Concert – Sun, Feb 16 @ 3:00 PM
The Cooperstown Quartet returns for their much-beloved yearly journey into the minds and music of some of history’s greatest composers. This season, we present a Valentine’s Day treat as the quartet – itself made up of two husband-wife duos – takes us “Behind the Scenes” with an intriguing trio: W.A. Mozart, Felix Mendelssohn, and Anton Webern. Following the thread of works united by fierce, passionate emotion, this concert is a rich tapestry of moving music and captivating stories.
Tours de Force
Raleigh Concert – Sun, Mar 23 @ 3:00 PM
Exceptional achievement, stroke of genius, “it” factor – define it how you will, this concert features two breathtaking works that exemplify the tour de force. Ernest Chausson’s Concerto for Violin, Piano, and String Quartet is chamber music at its most soaring and virtuosic, with a bravura piano part and astounding expressivity in the violin from start to finish. The A Major Sonata for Violin and Piano of Chausson’s teacher and close friend, César Franck, is equally astounding. This intensely dramatic and majestic work requires virtuoso fireworks from both violinist and pianist; Ara Gregorian and Adam Neiman are sure to wow audiences in these roles. These two formidable artists are joined by the equally captivating Terra String Quartet in the Chausson.
Two Beginnings
Raleigh Concert – Sun, May 4 @ 3:00 PM
Our 25th Anniversary Signature Series season concludes with beginnings. Gabriel Fauré’s Piano Quartet No. 1 in C Minor and Johannes Brahms’s Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor are both works that not only marked their composers’ first forays into the world of the piano quartet, but also date from early in their compositional careers. Fauré’s extraordinary quartet is vast, with a soundworld encompassing everything from melancholy to virtuosic exuberance. Brahms’s quartet, particularly its famous final movement, is dazzling from start to finish. Pianist Gilles Vonsattel, violinists/violists Ara Gregorian and Daniel Phillips, and cellist Colin Carr join forces as these Two Beginnings bring our Signature Series season to its thrilling conclusion.
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