Berkshire Chamber Players ConcertSunday, March 29, 2026 at 2 pm This concert is dedicated to the beloved memory of James Daily Robyn Quinnett and Joel Pitchon, violinsEd Gazouleas and Capella Sherwood, violasAnne Fagerburg, cello Edwin Barker, bass Robyn Quinnett was bo......More
Berkshire Chamber Players ConcertSunday, March 29, 2026 at 2 pm This concert is dedicated to the beloved memory of James Daily Robyn Quinnett and Joel Pitchon, violinsEd Gazouleas and Capella Sherwood, violasAnne Fagerburg, cello Edwin Barker, bass Robyn Quinnett was born on the island of Montserrat in the Caribbean and began playing violin at eight years old. She has won several competitions including the National Mariam Hayes and Ruth Kern Competitions.Robyn earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from The Juilliard School studying with Naoko Tanaka and the late Stephen Clapp. In 2019, Robyn completed her DMA from Stony Brook University studying with Hagai Shaham. She has attended the Tanglewood Music Center, Aspen Music Festival, Colorado College Music Festival, and Festival Internacional de Inverno de Campos do Jordão in Brazil. She has performed with ensembles such as the American Symphony Orchestra, Knoxville Symphony, Hudson Valley Philharmonic, Princeton Symphony, Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic, New Haven Symphony, American Ballet Theatre Orchestra, and has recently joined Opera Philadelphia. Currently, Robyn is the violin professor at Smith College. Joel Pitchon is active as a soloist, concertmaster and chamber music player. He has received acclaim for his performances with nationally and internationally renowned ensembles. Pitchon studied with Lewis Kaplan, Oscar Shumsky and Joseph Fuchs, and received his degrees from The Juilliard School. He has served as the concertmaster of numerous orchestras, including the Orquestra Ciutat de Barcelona (Spain), the New York Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra, the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, the New Zealand Symphony (guest), the National Arts Centre Orchestra (Ottawa, Canada, guest) and the EOS Orchestra (NY). He has participated in many concerts in the United States and abroad with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic.Mr. Pitchon also works extensively in chamber ensembles. He has been a member of the Forster String Trio, the Walden Chamber Players and the Kinor String Quartet, among other groups. Each summer he participates in a series of concerts as leader of the New Baroque Soloists. Mr. Pitchon is currently a member of the Sage Chamber Music Society. As a soloist he has performed with the Orquestra Ciutat de Barcelona, Philharmonia Virtuosi, and the EOS Orchestra among others. The New York Times wrote of his playing in the EOS production of Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat “…superb playing by Joel Pitchon….”He has appeared on numerous radio and television broadcasts including WGBH, WNYC and PBS. Mr. Pitchon was featured on the TV3 Catalunya program Cadencia, and has been interviewed about his work for The Strad magazine. Violist Ed Gazouleas has emerged as one of the finest teachers of his generation and his students now populate the viola sections of many orchestras globally. Mr. Gazouleas was a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for 24 years, where he held the Lois and Harlan Anderson Viola Chair and often led the viola section. While in Boston, he was active in orchestra governance, chairing the orchestra’s artistic advisory committee. As a chamber music performer, Mr. Gazouleas has appeared with members of the Fine Arts, Pacifica, Muir, Lydian, and Johannes string quartets, among others. A prize-winner at the Eighth International String Quartet Competition in Evian, France, he has also collaborated with such artists as Christian Tetzlaff, Stephanie Blythe, Roberto Díaz, the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, and the principal string players of the Cleveland Orchestra.Mr. Gazouleas works to expand and promote new works for the viola. In 2019 he performed the North American premiere of Letters from Warsaw by English composer Joseph Phibbs. He has also served on the faculties of Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music as a tenured professor, Boston University College of Fine Arts, Boston Conservatory, Wellesley College, and New England Conservatory. Mr. Gazouleas is a 1984 graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music where he studied viola with Michael Tree and Karen Tuttle. He joined the Curtis faculty in 2017 and was named the Gie and Lisa Liem Artistic Director in 2021 and Provost in 2022. Mr. Gazouleas was recently named the Director of The Tanglewood Music Center. Originally from Vancouver Island in Canada, violist Capella Sherwood has enjoyed performing with many professional orchestras in Toronto including the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Esprit New Music Orchestra. Because she loves adventure, Capella also lived in Ireland for 4 years while her violist husband (now a Baystate doctor) studied medicine at the University College of Cork. While living in Ireland, Capella played viola with the Cork Fleischmann Symphony Orchestra and the Cork Concert Orchestra. She currently lives in Northampton and performs with the Springfield Symphony Orchestra. Capella holds a Masters Degree in Viola Performance from the New England Conservatory in Boston, a Concours Premier Prix form the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal and a Bachelors Degree in Viola Performance from McGill University in Montréal. Her main viola teachers were Kim Kashkashian and André Roy. When she isn’t playing or teaching music, Capella enjoys finding treasures at thrift stores and also taking her family of 3 boys on fun outdoor adventures in their giant green canoe. Cellist Anne Fagerburg was a member of the St Louis Symphony from 1980-2019 and the Sun Valley Summer Symphony from 1996-2014 as associate principal . Anne received her Bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College and her Master’s degree and performers certificate from Eastman School of Music. Her teachers have included Andor Toth Jr., Paul Katz and Leonard Rose. An avid chamber musician, she has toured the United States with the Ellicottpiano trio, Carmel quartet and the Ilex trio. At present she enjoys painting watercolors and hiking in the Berkshires with her beloved Lab mix, Ziggy. Recently retired BSO principal bass Edwin Barker has concertized in North America, Europe, and the Far East. He has performed and recorded with the BSO, the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, the contemporary music ensemble Collage, and is a frequent guest performer with the Boston Chamber Music Society. Barker gave the world premieres of James Yannatos’ Concerto for Contrabass and Chamber Orchestra — which was written especially for him — and of Theodore Antoniou’s Concertino for Contrabass and Chamber Orchestra. He was similarly the featured soloist in the New England premiere of Gunther Schuller’s Concerto for Double Bass and Chamber Orchestra. Barker graduated with honors in 1976 from New England Conservatory, where he studied double bass with Henry Portnoi. That same year, at age 22, while a member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, he was appointed principal double bass of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. His other double bass teachers included Peter Mercurio, Richard Stephan, Angelo LaMariana, and David Perleman. Barker inaugurated the BSO’s 100th anniversary season with performances of Koussevitzky’s Concerto for Contrabass. Other solo engagements have included appearances at Seiji Ozawa Hall, Carnegie Recital Hall, and major universities and conferences throughout the world, as well as concerto performances with the Boston Classical Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Boston and Europe. In July 1995 he was chosen by the late Sir Georg Solti to lead the bass section of the United Nations’ Musicians of the World, an ensemble made up of prominent musicians from the world’s finest orchestras. Barker is an associate professor at Boston University College of Fine Arts, where he teaches double bass, orchestral techniques, and chamber music. His other major teaching affiliations include the BSO’s Tanglewood Music Center where he is chairman of instrumental and orchestral studies, and at the National Orchestral Institute at the University of Maryland. His solo CDs include “Three Sonatas for Double Bass” James Yannatos’ “Variations for Solo Contrabass,” and “Concerti for Double Bass,” which includes concertos by Gunther Schuller and Theodore Antoniou. Program: Handel/ HalvorsenArranged: Frank Proto Passacaglia for violin and double bass (1894) LargamenteAndantePiu mossoMolto energicoAllegro con fuocoAdagio Mozart Quintet in C for 2 violins, 2 violas, cello, K 515 (1787) AllegroMenuetto. Allegretto-trioAndanteAllegro I N T E R M I S S I O N Dvorak Quintet in G for 2 violins, viola, cello, bass, Op. 77 (1875) Allegro con fuocoScherzo. Allegro vivaceTrio-l’istesso-tempo quasi allegrettoPoco andanteFinale-Allegro assai
