Brahms Sextets in Sanford

The DaPonte Quartet is joined by violist Marcus Thompson and cellist Scott Kluksdahl in a delightful evening dedicated to the two gorgeous sextets of Johannes Brahms.

Marcus Thompson has appeared as viola soloist, recitalist and chamber
music player in series throughout the Americas, Europe and the Far East.
He was featured as soloist with the Symphony Orchestras of Atlanta,
Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Saint Louis, and the Czech National
Symphony. He has recorded the Bartok Viola Concerto and the Bloch
Suite with the Slovenian Radio Symphony and the Tibor Serly Concerto,
Jongen Suite and Francaix Rhapsodie with the Czech National Symphony,
both conducted by Paul Freeman. Mr. Thompson has received critical
acclaim for performances of the John Harbison Viola Concerto with the
Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and with the Chicago Sinfonietta, and for
performances of the Penderecki Viola Concerto in Boston and London. His
solo repertoire includes the recent, Ligeti, Overton, Schnittke, as well as
the exotic with works by Ariosti, Vivaldi and Hindemith performed on the
viola d’amore. He has been a guest of the Audubon, Borromeo, Cleveland,
Emerson, Jupiter, Muir, Orion, Shanghai, and Miami String Quartets, the
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; and a frequent participant in
chamber music festivals in Amsterdam, Anchorage, Dubrovnik, Montreal,
Seattle, Sitka, Los Angeles, Okinawa, Portland and Vail. Mr. Thompson,
who is a member of the Boston Chamber Music Society, earned the
doctorate degree at The Juilliard School following studies with Walter
Trampler. He is an alumnus of Young Concert Artists, Inc. Born and raised
in The Bronx, N.Y.C., he currently lives in Boston where, as the Robert R.
Taylor Professor of Music and a Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow, he
founded and leads programs in chamber music and performance study at
MIT, and serves on the viola faculty at New England Conservatory of
Music.

Cellist Scott Kluksdahl has performed for nearly four decades as chamber musician, recitalist and soloist in the United States, Europe, Israel, and Central and South America.

Following a daring New York debut program of cutting-edge modern works at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, Strings Magazine identified Scott Kluksdahl as “a simply superb cellist, playing with consummate technical ease, a beautiful sound, total conviction, authority and dedication to the music.”  Scott Kluksdahl’s devotion to the works of current composers is widely regarded, and he is known for his close affiliations with Nicolas Bacri, Richard Brodhead, David Del Tredici, Robert Helps, Gunther Schuller, Augusta Read Thomas and Richard Wernick, whose works he has commissioned, studied, and recorded.  He has also collaborated with Benjamin C.S. Boyle, Tamar Diesendruck, Philip Lasser, Eric Moe, Laura Elise Schwendinger and Scott Wheeler, and he has worked closely with American legends Leonard Bernstein, Elliott Carter, Andrew Inbrie, Donald Martino, and Ralph Shapey.  As cello soloist with the Boston Pops Orchestra, Kluksdahl premiered Philip Lasser’s Vocalise for Cello and Orchestra at Symphony Hall, and he has made acclaimed recordings of many of these composers’ works on the CRI, Centaur, Triton, Pierian, Nimbus, Crystal, and Albany labels.

Scott Kluksdahl presented his solo debut with the San Francisco Symphony, and since then he has performed a broad gamut of his instrument’s repertory throughout the entire United States and in the major musical centers of New York City, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.   Kluksdahl has been heard in Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Kennedy Center, BargeMusic, Dame Myra Hess Series, Phillips Collection and Tanglewood Music Festival, and continues to perform the complete cycle of Bach Suites for cello, notably at the Oregon and Philadelphia Bach Festivals.  He has been a frequent a guest chamber artist at the Martha’s Vineyard Chamber Music Society, Music from Salem, Killington Music Festival, Craftsbury Chamber Players, Lancaster Music Festival, and Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music.  Scott Kluksdahl was a founding member of the Lions Gate Trio for two decades.  He also performed as cellist of the Veronika String Quartet, and he has been a guest artist with numerous ensembles including DaPonte, Miami and Pacifica String Quartets.

Scott Kluksdahl serves as Professor of Cello at the University of South Florida, where he is a designated Theodore and Venette Askounes-Ashford Distinguished Scholar, and he has presented master classes in such institutions as Eastman School of Music, Indiana University, Boston Conservatory, Northwestern University, and San Francisco Conservatory of Music.  He teaches summers at the Brancaleoni International and the ARIA International Summer Festivals, as well as at the Cello Seminar at the Brown Farm in Salem, New York.