Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s
Front Row: National
Gilbert Kalish, pianist

The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Front Row: National virtual concert collection features beautifully shot, full-length HD performance videos from the society’s archive, curated by organization Artistic Directors David Finckel and Wu Han.

The series was created to provide a new way for audiences to experience chamber music in a meaningful and innovative way—from the virtual “front row,” in the comfort and safety of listeners’ homes.

This episode of the recorded digital series includes three works featuring pianist Gilbert Kalish, who performed at Schwab Auditorium in a 2017 Center for the Performing Arts presentation that also featured Sō Percussion and Dawn Upshaw.

The program:

George Crumb: Three Early Songs for voice and piano (featuring Tony Arnold, soprano)
Franz Schubert: Der Hirt auf dem Felsen for soprano, clarinet, and piano, D. 965, Op. 129 (featuring Lisette Oropesa, soprano, and David Shifrin, clarinetist)
Johannes Brahms: Quartet No. 3 in C minor for piano, violin, viola, and cello, Op. 60 (featuring Nicolas Dautricourt, violinist; Paul Neubauer, violist; Torleif Thedéen, cellist)

Download program notes.

Kalish, pianist of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players for three decades, has a discography of more than 100 recordings embracing classical, twentieth century, and contemporary repertoire. A professor of piano and director of performance activities at the State University of New York Stony Brook, Kalish has been an artist of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 2006. 

The pianist is especially known for his thirty-year partnership with mezzo-soprano Jan DeGaetani and his ongoing collaborations with Upshaw and cellists Timothy Eddy and Joel Krosnik. In 1995, the University of Chicago presented Kalish with the Paul Fromm Award for distinguished service to the music of our time.

A conversation among Han, Finckel, and Kalish follows the performances.

Finckel and Han previously performed at the Center for the Performing Arts as a duo in 2005, and with violinist Philip Setzer in 2017 and 2018 for the Beethoven Piano Trios. Finckel also performed at Penn State as a member of Emerson String Quartet in 1990, 2002, and 2009.

The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center is one of eleven constituents of the largest performing arts complex in the world, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts—which includes the New York Philharmonic, New York City Ballet, Lincoln Center Theater, and The Metropolitan Opera. With its home in Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, the society is known for the extraordinary quality of its performances and its programming, and for setting the benchmark for chamber music worldwide.