ROCKPORT –- Bay Chamber concerts returns to a tradition this week with several familiar artists for two concerts that will kick off their three week residency in Rockport. Geoff Nuttall (violin/viola), Livia Sohn (violin), Christopher Costanza (cello), James Austin Smith (oboe), and Pedja Muzijevic (piano/harpsichord) have long been a part of Bay Chamber Concerts.

Thursday, Aug. 7 at 7:30 p.m. they will take the stage and deliver a stunning program including Mozart, Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Carl Nielsen. On Friday, Aug. 8 at 9 p.m. Union Hall will open its doors for a concert featuring the works of Couperin, Berio, and Mozart. Both evenings boast diverse programs, featuring artists of incredible talent and virtuosity.

Geoff Nuttall has been hailed by the New York Times as "intensely dynamic" with "stunning technique and volatility." He began playing the violin at the age of eight and went on to study at The Banff Centre, the University of Western Ontario, and the University of Toronto. In 1989 he co-founded the St. Lawrence String Quartet and as first violinist of this world-renowned foursome, he has performed well over 1,500 concerts. He has played at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum, and at the White house for President Clinton and guests. Geoff Nuttall is now on faculty at Stanford University and the St. Lawrence @Quartet has served as graduate ensemble-in-residence at the Julliard School, Yale University, and currently at Stanford.

Livia Sohn, hailed by Opus Magazine as "a stunning musician," has performed widely on the international stage as a concerto soloist, recitalist, and festival guest in Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa, and New Zealand. The Strad Magazine described her as possessing "a remarkably lithe and transparent tone of exceptional purity. Even when under the most fearsome technical pressure at high velocity, every note rings true with pinpoint accuracy." Livia gave her first public performance at age eight. In 1989, at the age of 12, she won First Prize in the Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition. She attended the Juilliard Pre-College Division from the age of seven, at which time she began her studies with Dorothy DeLay and Hyo Kang. She continued under their tutelage at the Juilliard School, where she also studied chamber music with the legendary Felix Galamin.

Livia plays on a J. B. Guadagnini violin crafted in 1770 and a Samuel Zygmuntowicz made in 2006. She has been on faculty at the music department of Stanford University in California since 2005.

For over two decades cellist Christopher Costanza has enjoyed a varied and exciting career as a soloist, chamber musician, and teacher. A winner of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions and a recipient of a prestigious Solo recitalists grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Costanza has performed to wide critical acclaim all over the world. Costanza joined the St. Lawrence String Quartet in 2003, and tours extensively with that ensemble, performing over 100 concerts annually throughout the world. As a member of the St. Lawrence, he is an Artist in Residence at Stanford University, where he teaches cello and chamber music and performs a wide variety of formal and informal concerts each season, from the stages of the University's concert halls to student dormitories and lecture halls. He is privileged to perform on an early 18th century Venetian cello once owned by the great cellist Emmanuel Feuermann.

Praised for his "virtuosic" and "brilliant" performances (The New York Times), oboist James Austin Smith performs equal parts new and old music across the United States and around the world. Smith received his master’s degree in music in 2008 from the Yale School of Music and graduated in 2005 with bachelor of arts (political science) and bachelor of music degrees from Northwestern University. He spent a year as a Fulbright Scholar in Leipzig, Germany at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater "Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy" and is an alumnus of Ensemble ACJW, a collaboration of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, the Weill Music Institute and the New York City Department of Education.
And finally, hailed by critics as a thinking musician with engaging stage presence and a gratifying combination of virtuosity and eloquence, pianist Pedja Muzijevic has defined his 36 year career with creative programming, unusual combinations of new and old music, and lasting collaborations with other artists and ensembles. The London Financial Times eloquently sums him up as "a virtuoso with formidable fingers and a musician with fiercely original ideas about the music he plays." Together these artists will create a musical landscape that will leave viewers in awe of both their talent and their passion.

Thursday evening will feature the works of Mozart, Schumann, Carl Nielsen, and Mendelssohn. Beginning with an oboe Quartet in F Major, written in 1781, a pivotal year in Mozart's life. . Reflecting his growing adulthood, the quartet was his first really mature piece of chamber music. Mozart keeps the oboe part primarily in the instrument's upper register, avoiding, except for a few contrasting passages, the instrument's lower notes. Following the quartet is Schumann's Violin Sonata No. 2. The violinist Joseph Joachim, who played in the pieces first public performance in October 1853, wrote to a friend: "To me it is one of the finest creations of modern times, in the wonderful unity of its feeling and the significance of its themes. It is full of a noble passion -- almost harsh and bitter in its expression -- and the last movement might almost remind one of a seascape, with its glorious waves of sound."

The music of Carl Nielsen has long been a concert staple in his native Denmark -- in fact, his portrait appears on the Danish hundred-kroner note. His music has also been popular in the other Nordic countries as well as in Britain. In more recent years, thanks to the pioneering efforts of such conductors as Eugene Ormandy, Leonard Bernstein and Herbert Blomstedt, his music has become more frequently heard in the United States. Of his work "Two Fantasy Pieces for Oboe and Piano " Nielsen himself wrote The two oboe pieces are a very early opus. The first - slow - piece gives the oboe the opportunity to sing out its notes quite as beautifully as this instrument can. The second is more humorous, roguish, with an undertone of Nordic nature and forest rustlings in the moonlight." The Thursday program will finish with Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No. 1. Written in xxx in Frankfurt, the trio has been recognized as some of the most important works of their kind and Robert Schumann, a close friend of Mendelssohn, described the piece as an "exceedingly fine composition, which will gladden our grandchildren and great-grandchildren for many years to come."

The Friday evening program is shorter and features the work of only three composers, Couperin, Berio, and again, Mozart. Opening the program is Couperin's Concerts Royaux in D Major. Written for Louis XIV and his court at Versailles, the piece has no specified instruments and can be played either by solo harpsichord or a small ensemble. It was meant to "soften and lighten the King's melancholy" as Couperin describes it. Following this piece is a work by a more contemporary composer Luciano Berio, born in 1925. Sequenza VII for Oboe was written in 1969. The piece explores the vast possibilities for the oboe, both technically and emotionally.

The evening ends with a shift back to the traditional, with a return to Mozart and his Piano Quartet No. 1. At the time it was written the piano was still in its infancy. With the minor exception of Johann Schobert, a Silesian composer who had died in Paris in 1767, no one before had written a work with a keyboard part of concerto difficulty balanced by three equally prominent string instruments. The piece is incredibly difficult to play, and according to one critic it allows no room for mediocrity, such is its complexity. The program, rich and distinct, promises to inspire played as it is by artists of such technical skill and undeniable brilliance.

Tickets for these concerts can be purchased in advance by calling (207)236-2823 or by stopping by Bay Chamber Concerts and Music School at 18 Central St. Rockport. Tickets are also available in limited quantities at the door prior to concerts. To avoid the five dollar order fee that applies, tickets are available online at www.baychamberconcerts.org.

Based in Rockport, Bay Chamber is dedicated to transforming lives through high-quality concert programs, music education and community outreach. Bay Chamber acknowledges the importance of all musical languages and encourages people of all ages and abilities to explore them both in concerts and in the classroom.
Bay Chamber Concerts presents music year-round at a variety of venues in Midcoast Maine. The annual Summer Music Festival in July and August and Performing Arts Series from October to May both showcase a variety of classical, jazz, world music, dance and film events. Pre-concert talks and post-concert receptions provide audiences unique opportunities that enhance the concert experience through interaction with the musicians and insights about each performance.
A 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization, for over 50 years, Bay Chamber also awards annual prizes to young Maine Musicians. Bay Chamber Music School offers private instruction, group classes, orchestral opportunities and other music education to local musicians and community members of all ages and abilities. Bay Chamber's Music School located in downtown Rockport and houses state-of-the-art facilities for 16 professional faculty members.