Program
Ehnes Quartet
James Ehnes, violin
Amy Schwartz Moretti, violin
Che-Yen Chen, viola
Edward Arron, cello
Orion Weiss, piano
Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34
JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833 - 1897)
Allegro non troppo
Andante, un poco Adagio
Scherzo. Allegro - Trio
Finale. Poco sostenuto - Allegro non troppo
INTERMISSION
Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 57
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906 - 1975)
Prelude. Lento
Fugue. Adagio
Scherzo. Allegretto
Intermezzo. Lento
Finale. Allegretto
Ehnes Quartet
“They meshed together like the old friends they are, themes passing seamlessly, unison writing blending perfectly as solo themes emerged, and the ebb and flow managed beautifully.” (The Strad) Hailed as “an important new force in the chamber music arena” with a “dream- team line-up” (Strings), the Ehnes Quartet is comprised of four internationally renowned string musicians: violinists James Ehnes and Amy Schwartz Moretti, violist Che-Yen Chen, and cellist Edward Arron.
Formally established in 2010 at the Seattle Chamber Music Society, where they maintain a yearly residence, the members of the Ehnes Quartet have played chamber music together in various formations for more than 20 years. The quartet’s highly refined, sensitive and expressive performances have delighted audiences and critics across North America, Europe, and Asia, and have made them one of the most sought-after chamber groups performing today.
James Ehnes has established himself as one of the most celebrated violinists on the international stage. Recent concerto appearances include the New York Philharmonic, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, San Francisco Symphony, London Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Munich Philharmonic. His extensive discography of more than 60 releases has won many awards including 2 GRAMMY awards, 2 Gramophone awards, and 11 Junos. He is the Artistic Director of the Seattle Chamber Music Society, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Royal Academy of Music, and a member of both the Order of Manitoba and the Order of Canada. Ehnes plays the “Marsick” Stradivarius of 1715.
Violinist Amy Schwartz Moretti is equally versatile as chamber musician, concertmaster, soloist, and educator. Former concertmaster of the Florida Orchestra and Oregon Symphony, she has been Director of the McDuffie Center for Strings at Mercer University since its inception in 2007, where she holds the Caroline Paul King Chair and has developed and curates the Fabian Concert Series. She has premiered concertos for GRAMMY winner Matt Catingub and her Mercer colleague Christopher Schmitz and has served as guest concertmaster for such symphony orchestras as Atlanta, Houston, and Pittsburgh. She has recorded for Chandos, Harmonia Mundi, Onyx Classics, CBC Records, BCMF/Naxos and Sono Luminus.
Che-Yen Chen is the first prize winner of the 2003 Primrose Viola Competition. As the founding and former member of the Formosa Quartet, he won the first prize in the 2006 London International String Quartet Competition. A professor of music at UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, his previous positions include principal viola of the San Diego Symphony, Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra, and professor of viola at USC Thornton School of Music. He has given masterclasses and appeared as guest principal viola with various major orchestras across North America. As an avid chamber musician and educator, he frequently participates in major music festivals across North America and Asia.
A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, cellist Edward Arron made his New York recital debut in 2000 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and has since appeared in recital, as a soloist with major orchestras, and as a chamber musician throughout North America, Europe and Asia. He is the artistic director of the Performing Artists in Residence series at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts. In January of 2021, his recording of Beethoven’s Complete Works for Cello and Piano with pianist Jeewon Park was released on the Aeolian Classics label. A graduate of the Juilliard School, Mr. Arron has served on the faculty at University of Massachusetts Amherst since 2016.
One of the most sought-after soloists and chamber music collaborators of his generation, Orion Weiss is widely regarded as a “brilliant pianist” (The New York Times) with “powerful technique and exceptional insight” (The Washington Post). With a warmth to his playing that outwardly reflects his engaging personality, Weiss’s “delicate, even fingerwork” (Washington Classical Review) and “head-spinning range of colors” (Chicago Tribune) have dazzled audiences around the world. He has performed with all of the major orchestras of North America, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the New York Philharmonic.
In February of 2025, Weiss released Arc III, the final album in his recital trilogy, on First Hand Records. Weiss’s 24-25 performance schedule includes engagements with violinist James Ehnes, who joins Weiss for a return to London’s Wigmore Hall and for performances of the complete Beethoven Violin Sonatas in Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, and Seattle. Among numerous engagements with U.S. orchestras, Weiss makes his David Geffen Hall debut in New York with the American Symphony Orchestra. He performs Bach's Goldberg Variations at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and Newport Classical in Rhode Island, among other recitals. He is featured in performances at Italy’s Teatro Marrucino Biglietteria and in the Great Artists Series at Washington University in St. Louis, on a tour with Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and at LaMusica Chamber Music Festival in Sarasota, Florida. Weiss also tours Japan, playing the complete Brahms Violin Sonatas with Akiko Suwanai and performs the complete Grieg Sonatas with James Ehnes in Bergen, Norway. Over the last year, Weiss made his return to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, led by Michael Tilson Thomas, and debuted with the National Symphony Orchestra, led by Ken-David Masur. He also toured the United States and Asia with violinist Augustin Hadelich and performed at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music, and Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall.
Known for his affinity for chamber music, Weiss performs regularly with Augustin Hadelich, as well as fellow violinists William Hagen and James Ehnes; pianists Michael Brown and Shai Wosner; and the Ariel, Parker, and Pacifica Quartets. As a recitalist and chamber musician, Weiss has appeared at venues and festivals including the Ravinia Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, Tanglewood, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the Mariinsky Theatre (St. Petersburg), the Edinburgh International Festival, the Schubert Club, Hong Kong Premiere Performances, Seattle Chamber Music Festival, the Lucerne Festival, Denver Friends of Chamber Music, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center’s Fortas Series, the 92nd Street Y, and at summer music festivals including Bard, Santa Fe, Bridgehampton, Bravo! Vail, Sunriver, and Grand Teton, among many others.
Other highlights from Weiss’s recent seasons include a live-stream with the Minnesota Orchestra; a performance of Beethoven's Triple Concerto with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; the release of his recording of Christopher Rouse’s Seeing, the first two installments of his critically acclaimed Arc recital trilogy; a recording of Korngold’s Left Hand concerto and other works with Leon Botstein and TON; and recordings of Gershwin’s complete works for piano and orchestra with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and JoAnn Falletta.
Weiss can be heard on the Naxos, Telos, Bridge, First Hand, Yarlung, and Artek labels on recordings such as The Piano Protagonists with The Orchestra Now, led by Leon Botstein; a disc of Scarlatti Sonatas for Naxos; a solo recital disc of Bartók, Dvorák, and Prokofiev; Brahms Sonatas with violinist Arnaud Sussmann; a solo recital album of J.S. Bach, Scriabin, Mozart, and Carter; and a recital disc with cellist Julie Albers. In March 2022, First Hand Records released the first album of Weiss’s Arc Trilogy – Arc I: Granados, Janáček, Scriabin – a recording exploring the omens and tension of the period preceding World War I. Gramophone Magazine praised the album as “expansive, colorful, and texturally varied.” Arc II, featuring the music of Ravel, Brahms, and Shostakovich, was released in November 2022. Arc III, featuring works by Brahms, Schubert, Debussy, Dohnányi, Ligeti, and Talma, was released in February 2025 and called a “a worthy successor to the distinguished predecessors” by Gramophone. Over recent years, Weiss has also raised his profile through video, assembling a broad and growing YouTube videography that includes Bach’s Goldberg Variations, the Op. 39 Rachmaninoff etudes, and Grieg’s Lyric Pieces, among many others.
In the summer of 2011, Weiss made his debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood as a last-minute replacement for Leon Fleisher. In recent seasons, he has also performed with the San Francisco Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and in summer concerts with the New York Philharmonic at both Lincoln Center and the Bravo! Vail Valley Festival. In 2005, he toured Israel with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Itzhak Perlman.
Weiss’s list of awards includes the Classical Recording Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year, Gilmore Young Artist Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Gina Bachauer Scholarship at The Juilliard School, and the Mieczyslaw Munz Scholarship. He won the 2005 William Petschek Recital Award at Juilliard and made his New York recital debut at Alice Tully Hall that April. Also in 2005, Weiss made his European debut in a recital at the Musée du Louvre in Paris. From 2002-2004, he was a member of Lincoln Center’s The Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two). A native of Lyndhurst, Ohio, Weiss attended the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Young Artist Program through high school, where he studied with Paul Schenly, Daniel Shapiro, and Sergei Babayan. His other teachers include Joseph Kalichstein, Jerome Lowenthal, Kathryn Brown, and Edith Reed. In February 1999, Weiss made his Cleveland Orchestra debut performing Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1. The next month, with less than 24 hours notice, Weiss stepped in to replace André Watts for a performance of Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and was immediately invited to return for a performance of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto that October. In 2004, he graduated from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Emanuel Ax.