Winsor Music Presents: Helen Grime Premiere; John Harbison conducting Bach cantata; Rafael Popper-Keizer, cello; Gabriela Diaz, violin; Kendra Colton, soprana and more!

Winsor Music Presents Helen Grime Premiere

Don’t miss this feast of sound and musical reunion on March 25!  The program will include the world premiere of the Oboe Quartet, composed by critically acclaimed Scottish composer Helen Grime and commissioned by Winsor Music.  A performance of a Bach cantata to be conducted by Boston’s superstar composer John Harbison will also be featured. The connection: Mr. Harbison was Ms. Grime’s teacher in 2008 at the Tanglewood Music Center, where she was the recipient of a Leonard Bernstein Fellowship.

Mr. Harbison was so impressed with the quality of Helen Grime’s music that he recommended her to Peggy Pearson, Winsor Music’s Artistic Director, as a commissioning partner.  “Describing Helen Grime's music in terms of its maturity, generosity, even its frequent gravity, would be accurate. But you might think her a sober, mid-career composer, which she is not. Her music is also fresh, bold and appropriately rambunctious; she is a young composer of brilliant accomplishment with much more to come,” says Harbison. The result is the Oboe Quartet, which will be featured in the Winsor Music concert of March 25, 2012 at 7:30 pm, at St. Paul’s Church in Brookline. Mr. Harbison will give a pre-concert talk at 6:45 pm.

Born in 1981, Helen Grime is a multiple-award-winning composer and a graduate of the Royal College of Music.  Her music combines complexity with an emphasis on the importance of melody. She is the 2010 recipient of the Lili Boulanger Memorial Fund and Associate Composer of The Hallé Orchestra for the 2011/12 season.  An oboist herself, she has won several prizes for her Oboe Concerto, which she performed with the Meadows Chamber Orchestra and the Royal College of Music Sinfonietta.

Ms. Grime’s music has been performed by some of the finest orchestras and ensembles including the London Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.  Recent commissions include a work for clarinet and ensemble for the Tanglewood Music Center and Virga for the London Symphony Orchestra.

Also on the March 25th concert will be the Brahms Liebeslieder Waltzes Op. 52 and the Bach Cantata BWV 99 “Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan,” conducted by John Harbison. In keeping with Winsor Music’s tradition of using talented young artists in its concerts, the vocal quartet for the Brahms and the Bach works will include tenor Daniel McGrew, a freshman at Oberlin Conservatory. Daniel was a participant in the 2012 Bach Institute, a program established in 2011 to study in depth the cantata arias of J. S. Bach. The institute is a collaboration of Winsor Music, Emmanuel Music and Oberlin Conservatory.

St. Paul’s Church is located at 15 St. Paul Street in Brookline, accessible from the Longwood stop on the D train of the MBTA’s Green Line. Tickets will be available at the door, by visiting www.winsormusic.org, or by calling 781-863-2861. A reception will follow the concert.

EVENT: Winsor Music Presents Helen Grime Premiere
TIME: Sunday, March 25, 2012 at 7:30 pm (Pre-concert talk by John Harbison at 6:45 pm)
VENUE: St. Paul’s Church, 15 St. Paul Street, Brookline
PROGRAM: Brahms: Liebeslieder Waltzes Op. 52; Grime: Oboe Quartet; Bach: Cantata BWV 99
PERFORMERS: Kendra Colton, soprano; Katherine Growdon, mezzo-soprano; Daniel McGrew, tenor; Andrew Garland, baritone; Ann Bobo, flute; Peggy Pearson, oboe and oboe d’amore; Gabriela Diaz, violin; Katherine Winterstein, violin; Wenting Kang, viola; Rafael Popper-Keizer, cello; Tony D’Amico, bass; Megan Henderson, piano and organ; John McDonald, piano
TICKETS: $20 regular; $15 senior; age 9-18 free
INFORMATION: www.winsormusic.org