133 Old Church Road
Claremont, NH 03743, Claremont
NH 03743
Join us in welcoming back the Apple Hill String Quartet with pianist and friend Sally Pinkas. This concert will benefit the WCCMA, and is by donation.
Called “dashing and extraordinary” by The Strad Magazine, the Apple Hill String Quartet are the Artistic Directors and resident musicians at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, winner of the CMAcclaim award from Chamber Music America. The Quartet serves as the Music Directors for Apple Hill’s Summer Chamber Music Workshop in Nelson, New Hampshire, cultivating connection and understanding among people of diverse backgrounds, cultures, playing levels, and ages through music performance and education centered around the values of acceptance, inclusivity, creative expression, and encouragement.
The Quartet’s concert programs reflect the diversity of Apple Hill: pieces amplifying new voices, views, and backgrounds in classical music; compositions from places representing the Quartet’s global travels and the summer workshop community; and music from the historic canon and new commissions, especially from renowned alumni.
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About Sally Pinkas
Following her London debut at Wigmore Hall, Israeli-born pianist Sally Pinkas has garnered universal praise as an eloquent and ardent performer. Among highlights are appearances with the Boston Pops, the Aspen Philharmonia and New York’s Jupiter Symphony, and at the festivals of Marlboro, Rockport (USA), Pontlevoy (France), Havana (Cuba) and HCMC Conservatory (Vietnam). A first-ever performance of Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto in Bandung (Indonesia’s 2nd largest city), premieres of George Rochberg’s monumental Circles of Fire for two pianos in Russia, Israel and Nigeria, and a revival of rarely-heard 19th-century Filipino Salon Music in its birth city Manila, all exemplify Pinkas’ wide-ranging repertoire. Through her travel she shares it generously with enthusiastic audiences and young pianists.
Equally at home in a recording studio, Sally’s discography features works by Mozart, Schumann, Fauré, Debussy, Gaubert, Martinů, Rochberg, Shapiro, Pinkham and Wolff, released on the MSR, Centaur, Naxos, Toccata Classics and Mode labels. Her most recent CD release of Sonatas by Shostakovich and Bridge was hailed as “…A mandatory purchase for all pianophiles: two major works, in performances of utter power… ideal melding of strength and emotional pliancy…” by Fanfare Magazine. A CD featuring Piano Quintets by Miguel del Aguila (with Cuarteto Latinoamericano) is forthcoming on Urtext Digital Classics.
Pinkas tours regularly as member of Ensemble Schumann and the Hirsch-Pinkas Duo (with her husband pianist Evan Hirsch), and collaborates frequently with the Adaskin String Trio, the Apple Hill String Quartet and Cuarteto Latinoamericano. Recent travel took her to Madrid and Barcelona, where she presented solo recitals, and to Rio de Janeiro, where the Hirsch-Pinkas Duo made its Brazil debut in the famed Cecília Meireles Hall. She will be returning to China with Ensemble Schumann in 2023.
Pinkas holds performance degrees from Indiana University and the New England Conservatory of Music, and a Ph.D. in Composition from Brandeis University. Her principal teachers were Russell Sherman, George Sebok, Luise Vosgerchian and Genia Bar-Niv (piano), Sergiu Natra (composition), and Robert Koff (chamber music). Pianist-in-residence at the Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College, she is Professor of Music at Dartmouth’s Music Department.