A Living Tribute to Jens Nygaard: Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players... It's Out of This World

A chamber music series to acknowledge and perpetuate the legacy of conductor Jens Nygaard, continuing a marvelous journey through the universe of music that includes works from the standard repertoire and the rarely-performed, and featuring outstanding musicians.

Join Us For Our 2025-2026 Season!

Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players

“This was music-making of a very high order”
“at the Jupiter concerts, there is always so much about which to be enthusiastic.”
“the rarities glittered like jewels”

Fred Kirshnit, The New York Sun
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Pencil study of Jens Nygaard by Michael McNamara for an oil painting
Pencil study of Jens Nygaard
by Michael McNamara for an oil painting

Greetings

Celebrate our 25 years!
Let’s bring on cheers
for another 25 of revelry
in fabulous music brilliantry.
Be curious, not furious,
for musical rarities glorious
and known gems victorious.
Performed at Good Shepherd,
its fine acoustics heralded.
We thank all—big and small—
gifts, fans, newcomers, musicians.
See y’all in 25–26 at the church hall.

Tho’ you may be Rolls Royceless,
Could you spare a gift?
For music making finesse.
All gifts are tax deductible. Thanks so much,
Meiying

You’ll continue to have:

HEPA-filter air purifiers in operation
Ventilation—as much as possible
Spaced-apart seating for better sight lines

Affordable ticket prices at $17 and $25

Ticket reservations are advised

Jupiter's name: When Jens Nygaard named his orchestra Jupiter, he had the beautiful, gaseous planet in mind—unattainable but worth the effort, like reaching musical perfection. Many, indeed, were privileged and fortunate to hear his music making that was truly Out of This World. Our Players today seek to attain that stellar quality.

View Our NEW Season Calendar

Click on the dates for 2025-2026 program details:

September 8 ~ Fishy Waters
September 15 ~ Mozart’s Admirers

September 29 ~ South American Swing
October 13 ~ Ties to Beethoven
October 27 ~ Colored by Brahms
November 3 ~ English Beauties
November 17 ~ Schumann Charms
December 1 ~ Philly Specials
December 15 ~ Loving Bach
January 5 ~ Out of Russia

January 19 ~ Magyar Émigrés
February 2 ~ Remarkable Gems
February 16 ~ Beethoven’s Sway
March 2 ~ Greatest Wunderkinder
March 16 ~ Russian Milestones
March 23 ~ Paris Dazzles
April 6 ~ Military Veterans
April 20 ~ In Mahler’s World
April 27 ~ Mighty Windy
May 11 ~ Grand Finale

more details here...

View Our Printable Calendar and Ticket Order Form (pdf)

Take a look at our guest artists for this season.
Find out more about the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players.

Join us for our next concerts...

Roman Rabinovich, piano
Julian Rhee, violin
Emad Zolfaghari, viola
Gaeun Kim, cello
Nina Bernat, double bass
Sooyun Kim, flute
Vadim Lando, clarinet

Monday, October 27 2 PM & 7:30 PM
Colored by Brahms
Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church
152 West 66 Street (west of Broadway)

Limited Seating

Tickets: $25, $17 ~ Reservations advised
Call (212) 799-1259 or email admin@jupitersymphony.com
Pay by check or cash (exact change)​​​

Roman Rabinovich piano
Winner of the Rubinstein, Animato and Arjil competitions, the Mezzo and Salon de Virtuosi awards, and the Vendome Prize ~ “admirable interpretations...performed with a rich, full-blooded sound, singing lines and witty dexterity.” The New York Times

Julian Rhee violin
Won First Prize at the 2020 Elmar Oliveira International Violin Competition, First Prize at the 2018 Johansen Competition, First Prize at the 2018 Aspen Violin Concerto Competition, Second Prize at the 2018 Irving Klein competition, 2018 Presidential Scholar in the Arts, Gold Medals at the Fischoff and M-Prize competitions, and First Prize at the 2018 Barnett and 2018 Rembrandt chamber music competitions (playing both violin & viola)

Emad Zolfaghari viola
First ever Canadian to win first prize and audience prize at the 2024 Primrose Competition, he won1st prize at the Irving Klein and Morningside Music Bridge competitions, 2nd prize at the Johansen, 3rd and special prizes at the Tokyo, and 3rd and audience prizes at Montreal’s Concours OSM. Hailed as one of CBC music’s “30 under 30 hot classical musicians,” he was also awarded a Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant in 2024 ~“An enthralling young viola soloist overflowing with imagination and conviction” Violin Channel

Gaeun Kim cello
Among her honors are the 2023 New York Young Artist Award, first prize and Pablo Casals special award at the 2022 Irving Klein competition, first and audience prizes at the 2022 Washington competition, first prize at the 2015 David Popper and 2014 Liezen competitions, and first prize and special award at the 2012 Antonio Janigro Competition

Nina Bernat double bass
Won First Prize at the 2019 International Society of Bassists Solo Competition; recipient of the 2019 Keston MAX Fellowship

Sooyun Kim flute
Winner of the Georg Solti Foundation Career Grant and a top prize at the ARD flute competition, she has been praised for her “vivid tone colors” by the Oregonian and as a “rare virtuoso of the flute” by Libération

Vadim Lando clarinet
Winner of the CMC Canada, Yale and Stonybrook competitions ~ “consistently distinguished...vibrant, precise, virtuosic playing” The New York Times

Max REGER  Serenade in D Major Op. 77a
   ~ light and bright with catchy tunes and joyful musical figures—for flute, violin, and viola

At the beginning of June 1904 Reger wrote, “It is absolutely clear to me that what our present age lacks is a Mozart,” and announced that the “first fruit of that realization” would be a Flute Serenade (Op. 77a). For Reger, Mozart was a completely Rococo musician and the epitome of compositional fluency and musicianly enthusiasm, and would be the antidote to the modernism of Reger’s time. While rooted in Romantic traditions, the Serenade flirts with its artful harmonic language.

In his life of only 43 years, Reger achieved prominence as a pianist, organist, conductor, teacher, and composer noted for his organ works. Born in Bavaria in 1873, his father made sure that Max learned to play the piano and string instruments. Together, they also rebuilt a scrapped school organ for use at home, and this was the instrument on which Reger first explored harmonic effects. He studied with Adalbert Lindner, the town organist of Weiden; and from 1890 to 1893, with Hugo Riemann in Sondershausen and Wiesbaden. About this time he became friends with Busoni, Eugen d’Albert, and Karl Straube, who was a devoted interpreter of his organ music. By 1901, despite strong opposition to his traditional methods from the Neudeutsche Schule, he established himself in Munich as a composer and pianist. Before long, he got tired of the bickering in Munich and accepted, in 1907, a post as professor of composition and director of music at Leipzig University, which brought him international renown. In 1911, Duke George II of Saxe-Meiningen appointed him conductor of the court orchestra at Meiningen. After returning from a tour in the Netherlands, he died from a heart attack at the hotel Hentschef in Leipzig in 1916. Reger’s prodigious output from his complex creative mind, produced in 26 years, is unparalleled among leading contemporaries. At once Baroque and Romantic, he was influenced by Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms most strongly; and Chopin, Mendelssohn, Liszt, and Wagner impressed him as well. In turn, his music influenced Alban Berg, Paul Hindemith, Arthur Honegger, Franz Schmidt, and Arnold Schoenberg.

Hans PFITZNER  Sextet in G minor Op. 55
   ~ his penultimate serenade-like work in the spirit of Schumann and Brahms, appreciated by his contemporaries, including Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler—for the unusual combination of clarinet, single strings, and piano

Music writer Scott Morrison views the Sextet by the avowed Romantic as “a little masterpiece, a jolly divertimento.... The first movement is a sonata-allegro with especially winsome themes.... The Quasi-Minuetto is almost a classical-era miniature.... The Rondoletto is an outdoor-piece that could almost have been written by Schubert except for its startlingly effective modulations and its creative changes of instrumental combinations. The fourth movement, Semplice misterioso, is in strophic songform, with varying intermezzi between stanzas. It leads without pause into the finale, Comodo, which alone among all the movements features a number of double bass solos...and it builds to a joyful conclusion.”

Pfitzner, a man with a quick, penetrating mind and quizzical humor, was born in 1869 into a family of musicians in Moscow. When he was two, the family returned to his father’s hometown of Frankfurt. From 1886 to 1890 he studied at the Hoch Conservatory, where his piano teacher was James Kwast. He later married Mimi (Kwast’s daughter and a granddaughter of Ferdinand Hiller) against her parents’ wishes and after she had rejected the advances of Percy Grainger. He worked at some low-paying jobs before his appointment as opera director and head of the conservatory in Strasbourg in 1908. His most important work, the musical legend Palestrina, was completed in 1915. In 1925 he was made a knight of the Pour le Mérite and a senator of the German Academy in Munich, but his activities diminished after his wife died in 1926. “In 1934 Pfitzner, in poor health though still mentally active, was relieved of his ‘life’ post in Munich; he spent the years of Nazi rule, which he detested, as a conductor and accompanist. Though his sight grew weaker he continued to compose. When his home was destroyed in an air raid, he moved to...Vienna, then to Garmisch-Partenkirchen and finally, in 1946, to an old people’s home in...Munich. All of his possessions had been lost: Reger’s widow gave him a piano. He was buried with honor in the Vienna Zentralfriedhof [New Grove Dictionary].” His work was championed by Bruno Walter.

Richard STRAUSS  Piano Quartet in C minor Op. 13
   ~ a superb homage to Brahms—rich and dark in sound, and bursting with exuberance and ingenuity at age 20

Strauss began composing the Piano Quartet in the spring of 1884 and completed it later that year. It reveals the fusion of the gravity and grandeur of Brahms with the fire and impetuous virtuosity of Strauss at age 20. At its premiere in Weimar on 8 December 1885, Strauss was the pianist. The next year, it won first prize (among 24 entrants) in a piano quartet competition sponsored by the Tonkünstlerverein of Berlin. Almost 2 decades after its creation, following a performance with the Mannes Quartet in Mendelssohn Hall, a review in the New York Times appeared on 19 March 1904: “It is admirably written for the four instruments, which are treated with great independence…. The work is not without some foreshadowings of what was to come later; there are strains of ‘Till Eulenspiegel’ in the vivacious and tricky Scherzo, which is full of delightful touches and complex rhythms. The andante has a marked kinship with some of Dr. Strauss’s sustained and deeply felt songs, such as ‘Allerseeien.’ It is a work of uncommon interest and value…. Dr. Strauss showed himself to be an extremely skillful and resourceful pianist in his playing...not as a virtuoso and not through seeking the effects of a virtuoso, but with the truly musical insight of a composer. [The piece is] technically difficult...but his mastery of all the problems presented by his own music was unquestionable, and he put great fire and spirit into the performance…. There was an audience of considerable size that showed much interest and enthusiasm in the performance.”

Strauss (1864–1949) came from a musical family (his father was principal horn of the Munich Court Orchestra for 49 years) and spent much time and effort on music in his early years, composing more than 140 pieces by the time he matriculated from the Ludwigsgymnasium at age 18. In August 1882, he entered the University of Munich, where he read philosophy, aesthetics, history, art, and literature; but in 1883, at the age of 19, he moved to Berlin to concentrate on music. He also discovered Brahms in Berlin and got hooked on playing cards, a lifelong addiction.

Drew Petersen, piano
Stefan Milenkovich, violin
Maya Kilburn, violin
Torron Pfeffer, viola
Gaeun Kim, cello
Roni Gal-Ed, oboe
Vadim Lando, clarinet
Erik Ralske, horn

Monday, November 3 2 PM & 7:30 PM
English Beauties
Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church
152 West 66 Street (west of Broadway)

Limited Seating

Tickets: $25, $17 ~ Reservations advised
Call (212) 799-1259 or email admin@jupitersymphony.com
Pay by check or cash (exact change)​​​

Drew Petersen piano
Recipient of the 2018 Avery Fisher Career Grant and 2017 American Pianists Awards, 2015 Leeds (4th prize), Kosciuszko-Chopin competitions, Jan Gorbaty Award, and Artist-in-Residence at the University of Indianapolis ~ “Thrilling piano playing wedded to astute quite astonishing musicianship.” East Hampton Star

Stefan Milenkovich violin
Winner of the Indianapolis, Paganini, Tibor Varga, Queen Elisabeth, Yehudi Menuhin, and Young Concert Artists competitions ~ “a stunning virtuoso.” Strings ~ “Milenkovich’s recital at the Kennedy Center was so disarmingly magical that it is not easy to describe its glories. This is not so much a matter of a dazzling virtuosity (though he has it all) as of searching musicianship.” The Washington Post

Maya Kilburn violin
Winner of numerous competitions at the regional and national levels, including 3rd prize at the Eisemann International String Competition ~ currently studying with Donald Weilerstein and Catherine Cho at Juilliard on a Kovner Fellowship

Torron Pfeffer viola
Associate Principal Viola of Symphony in C, currently pursuing a master’s degree at Juilliard, where he studies with Paul Neubauer and Cynthia Phelps on a Jerome Greene Fellowship; Torron has played in numerous film and television scores, including the soundtracks for Barbie, Don’t Worry Darling, Till, Only Murders in the Building, and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

Gaeun Kim cello
Among her honors are the 2023 New York Young Artist Award, first prize and Pablo Casals special award at the 2022 Irving Klein competition, first and audience prizes at the 2022 Washington competition, first prize at the 2015 David Popper and 2014 Liezen competitions, and first prize and special award at the 2012 Antonio Janigro Competition

Roni Gal-Ed oboe
First Prize winner of the Lauschmann Oboe Competition in Mannheim ~ “Outstanding” The New York Times ~ “Expressive, wonderful player” German SZ Magazine

Vadim Lando clarinet
Winner of the CMC Canada, Yale and Stonybrook competitions ~ “consistently distinguished...vibrant, precise, virtuosic playing” The New York Times

Erik Ralske horn
Principal Horn of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestr
a, currently on the faculty of Juilliard, Manhattan School of Music, and Mannes

Sir Edward ELGAR  Andante and Allegro
   ~ charming early work written for his younger brother Frank

The manuscript, held in the British Library, is undated but 1878 is considered a likely year of composition. The oboe part of the manuscript is curiously labeled “Xmas Music.” Arranged for oboe and piano from the original for solo oboe, violin, viola, and cello.

Almost entirely self-taught, Elgar learned to play the piano, violin, and a variety of other instruments at a young age. (He and his 6 siblings were raised in a vibrant musical environment as they lived above his father’s music shop in Worcester.) He had hoped to study at the Leipzig Conservatory, but his father, an organist and music dealer, could not afford this luxury. After leaving school at age 15, he earned a living in Worcester teaching piano and violin. He also worked as a clerk for a local lawyer, a job he soon abandoned to accept a post conducting the Worcester and County Lunatic Asylum attendants’ band in Powick, just outside Worcester. He also composed dances for the gallimaufry of instruments in the band. In addition, since he was a member of the Worcester Glee Club (as was his father), he wrote and arranged works, played the violin, accompanied singers, and conducted for the first time. The Andante and Allegro may have been written for performance at the Worcester Glee Club, which met at the Crown Hotel. It was composed for Frank, his younger brother who played the oboe and bassoon, and was involved in various musical activities in Worcester, including performing with “Ted” (Edward) in a wind quintet. Frank took over the family music shop, Elgar Brothers, after their father’s death in 1906 and managed it until his own death in 1928.

Elgar, the first English composer of international stature since Purcell, liberated England’s music from its insularity. He was born in the small village of Broadheath in 1857 and died in Worcester in 1934. After his marriage in 1889, the couple moved to London, but in 1891 they returned to Malvern, where he had met his wife, and he began to establish a reputation as a composer. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s his experience grew and his style matured as he conducted and composed for local musical organizations. When he died 1934, “He left to younger composers the rich harmonic resources of late Romanticism and stimulated the subsequent national school of English music. His own idiom was cosmopolitan, yet his interest in the oratorio is grounded in the English musical tradition. Especially in England, Elgar is esteemed both for his own music and for his role in heralding the 20th-century English musical renascence [Encyclopedia Britannica].” Elgar was knighted by King Edward VII in 1904, which pleased his wife, especially.

Frederick DELIUS  Violin Sonata No. 2 RT viii/9
   ~ shimmering post-Romanticism, its lyrical melodies sing with nostalgia and melancholy in his unique voice

The Sonata was recorded by Yehudi Menuhin and Eric Fenby on piano in 1978. Fenby, Delius’s amanuensis in his last 6 years, is credited with helping Delius, who was debilitated by syphilis, compose a number of works that would not otherwise have been realized.

Delius was one of the most distinctive figures in the revival of English music at the end of the 19th century. Sir Thomas Beecham, a livelong devotee of his music and his finest interpreter, called him “the last great apostle in our time of beauty and romance in music.” Elgar described him as “a poet and a visionary.” Born in Bradford in 1862 into a large mercantile family headed by a stern father, Delius played the piano from an early age and had violin lessons (he became an excellent violinist). On leaving school he entered the family wool firm, yielding to his father’s wishes. In 1884 he managed to persuade his father to lend him enough money to set up as an orange grower in Florida. This gave him longed-for freedom and enabled him to start composing seriously. He settled at Solano Grove near Jacksonville, neglected the oranges, and found a friend and music teacher in Thomas Ward. The luxuriant natural environs was conducive to nurturing his musical vision. He particularly loved the songs of the African-Americans living in nearby plantations. At this time, it is alleged that he fathered a son with his lover, an African-American woman. It is said that he later returned to look for her and the son. Delius left Florida in 1886 for Leipzig, where he studied with Carl Reinecke at the Conservatory and befriended Edvard Grieg, who encouraged him to continue composing. Two years later he went to live in Paris. Although he led a bohemian life for a while, his Paris years were musically productive. From 1897 he made his home at Grez-sur-Loing, near Paris, with the painter Jelka Rosen, whom he married in 1903. After the Great War, he manifested symptoms of syphilis, which gradually developed into blindness and paralysis. In his final years, Delius continued composing, working with an amanuensis, Eric Fenby. He died in 1934 and was reburied a year later at St Peter’s Church in Limpsfield, Surrey, attended by “Sixty People Under Flickering Lamps.” In the opinion of musicologist Anthony Payne, “the strength of Delius’s character is too evident in a less purely musical way.… Delius’s music deals with the pristine romance of his formative experience—the sound of [African-American] songs over the still air of Solano Grove, his first knowledge of total love…. Such things are obsessively relived in his music; it may be that his style matured only when he recognized the impossibility of recapturing them in reality [New Grove Dictionary].”

Sir Charles Villiers STANFORD  Piano Trio No. 3 in A minor “Per aspera ad astra” Op. 158
   ~ “through suffering to the stars”—achieved by its rich Brahmsian textures and melodies, tinged with both sadness and optimism

The Trio was composed during the final months of the First World War and dedicated to the memory of the two sons of Alan Gray, Stanford’s successor as organist of Trinity College and conductor of the Cambridge University Music Society. The young men were killed in the war. The earliest recorded use of the Latin phrase is by the ancient Roman writer Seneca.

Born to a musical family, Stanford left Dublin in 1870 at the age of 18 for Cambridge, where he distinguished himself as a choral scholar, organist, conductor, and classics student. He also studied in Leipzig (with Reinecke) and in Berlin (with Friedrich Kiel, at the urging of Joachim) between 1874 and 1876. An illustrious career then ensued; he composed prolifically, conducted, and taught at the Royal College of Music, which he cofounded. Among his pupils were Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, John Ireland, and Frank Bridge, to name a few. He also was director of the Leeds Festival and conducted the London Bach choir. Stanford loved music of the German-Austrian tradition; he especially admired Gluck and Schumann and often programmed the music of Brahms and Beethoven in concert. The New Grove Dictionary summarized his achievements and influences: “First, he swept away the empty conventions and complacencies which had debased English church music since Purcell.... Second, he set a new standard in choral music with his oratorios and cantatas.... Third, in his partsongs, and still more in his solo songs with piano he reached near perfection both in melodic invention and in capturing the mood of the poem.... [Fourth, he] exercised the most powerful influence on British music and musicians, that of the paramount teacher of composition....” Stanford was knighted in 1902; he died in 1924 and his ashes were buried in Westminster Abbey.

Gerald FINZI  Interlude Op. 21
   ~ ominous beauty imbued with passion, vigor, and an almost orchestral sonority alongside the shadowed lyrical grace that captures the bucolic contentment and elegiac loneliness of England, in his mellow voice for oboe and string quartet

The haunting Interlude may have been intended as part of a larger work, possibly a concerto. It looms as an embodiment of his view of music as a confessional for his innermost thoughts and feelings. Melodically and harmonically, Finzi was influenced by Elgar and Vaughan Williams. Composed for Sylvia Spencer, the Interlude was first performed at Wigmore Hall in London on 24 March 1936. The oboist Léon Goossens (the dedicatee) played it with the Menges String Quartet. Goossens came from a celebrated musical family; all 5 children were virtuosi, and Léon became a household name worldwide. Spencer, a pupil of Goossens, was among England’s best oboists who worked tirelessly to promote new works.

An agnostic and pacifist of Orthodox Jewish descent, Finzi composed unmistakably British music. Born in 1901 in London, he was the son of a successful shipbroker, who died when Gerald was 7 years old. He studied music with Ernest Farrar (Stanford’s pupil in composition) from 1914 till 1916, when Farrar joined the army, and  then with Edward Barstow. Finzi was shocked when Farrar was killed on the Western Front in 1918. The deaths of his father, all 3 of his brothers before the age of 18, and Farrar, instilled in him an intense awareness of the fragility of life. This sense of transience became the most profound aspect of his artistry in his later works. In 1922 he moved to the Cotswolds and worked in tranquility and isolation. The countryside also deeply affected his life and music. When the isolation became oppressive, he returned to London in 1926 and began to study counterpoint with Reginald Owen Morris. He also became acquainted with Vaughan Williams, whose influence he was always to acknowledge and who, in 1928, conducted Finzi’s Violin Concerto. In 1930 Finzi obtained a teaching appointment at the Royal Academy of Music, but gave up the post in 1933 after he married the artist Joy Black and settled in the Wiltshire countryside. Some of his best song cycles were written during this period. Additionally, he devoted himself to growing apples, saving a number of rare English apple varieties from extinction. An avid reader of English prose and poetry, Finzi also amassed an extraordinary literary library of some 3000 volumes, and a fine collection of about 700 printed scores, manuscripts, and books of 18th-century English music (now in university libraries in Reading and St. Andrews). In 1939 the Finzis moved to Ashmansworth in Hampshire, where Gerald founded the Newbury String Players. The group revived 18th century string music and  premiered works by his contemporaries. During World War II, he worked for the Ministry of War Transport and lodged German and Czech refugees in his home. After the war, he wrote his best known work in 1949, the Clarinet Concerto. In 1951, Finzi was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and given less than10 years to live. He managed to continue composing in his quiet, conscientious manner. In 1956 he and Vaughan Williams went on a walking tour in Gloucester. They paused for tea at the local sexton’s cottage, where Finzi contracted chicken pox from the children. His immune system weakened, he died soon after of shingles, complicated by encephalitis, at age 55.

Ralph VAUGHAN WILLIAMS  Quintet in D Major
   ~ sort of Anglicized Brahms, delightful and charming with playful touches—for clarinet, horn, violin, cello, and piano

The Ralph Vaughan Williams Society described the Quintet as “felicitous and fresh…. The piece fairly overflows with exuberance and confidence in its writing for all five players.” It was written in his mid-20s (the year after his marriage) for the chamber concerts of clarinetist George Clinton. After its premiere in the Queen’s (small) Hall on 5 June 1901, it was not performed again until 20 February 2001 (upon his widow’s acquiescence) at the British Library Conference Centre. In 1897 Vaughan Williams had married the gifted cellist and pianist Adeline Fisher, a first cousin of Virginia Woolf. His mother, Margaret, was one of three daughters born to Josiah Wedgwood III and Caroline Darwin. Thus, Charles Darwin was his great-uncle and Josiah Wedgwood was his great-great-grandfather, founder of the pottery at Stoke-on-Trent.

Vaughan Williams (1872–1958) is one of the most important composers of the 20th century—an intuitive composer with a career that spanned more than 6 decades. A major accomplishment was his revival of English music, influenced by English folk song and Tudor polyphony. Vaughan Williams studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, and at the Royal College of Music under Charles Villiers Stanford and Hubert Parry. In 1897–1898 he studied in Berlin under Max Bruch, and in 1909 in Paris under Maurice Ravel. About 1903 he began to collect folk songs. “All assessments of Vaughan Williams have emphasized his Englishness. This is a matter of temperament and character no less than of musical style and may be felt to have permeated everything he did…. That he re-created an English musical vernacular, thereby enabling the next generation to take their nationality for granted, and did much to establish the symphony as a form of central significance for the English revival is historically important; but his illumination of the human condition, especially though not exclusively in his works commonly regarded as visionary, is a unique contribution” wrote Hugh Ottaway for the New Grove Dictionary. Vaughan Williams was offered and refused a knighthood, but the Order of Merit was conferred upon him in 1935.

Jupiter 2025 - 2026 Season
20 Mondays at 2:00 PM & 7:30 PM

Good Shepherd Church ♦ 152 West 66 Street

View Our Season Calendar

Tickets: $25, $17 ~ Reservation advised
Call (212) 799-1259 or email admin@jupitersymphony.com
Pay by check or cash (exact change)​​

Please visit our Media Page to hear Audio Recordings from the Jens Nygaard and Jupiter Symphony Archive

Concert Venue:
Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church
152 West 66 Street (west of Broadway), New York

Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church

one of the most refined and intelligent church spaces in New York~ The New York Times

Built in 1893 by Josiah Cleveland Cady, architect of the old Metropolitan Opera House and the American Museum of Natural History

Office Address:
JUPITER SYMPHONY
155 West 68th Street, Suite 319
New York, NY 10023

admin@jupitersymphony.com
(212) 799-1259

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Jupiter in the News

ConcertoNet
knocked the socks off this listener...It was wondrous chamber music. And the three artists gave it the deserving excitement, volition and imagination.” 
Harry Rolnick, ConcertoNet   more...

The New York Times
the performers were top notch
The homey church where these concerts take place, nestled on West 66th Street in the shadow of Lincoln Center, is an intimate and acoustically vibrant place for chamber music.”
Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times   more...

Strad Magazine
A finely forthright, fluent and expressive account of Haydn's Divertimento in E-flat major opened this programme of miscellaneous chamber music in a series known for adventurous programming.
Dennis Rooney, Strad Magazine   more...

ConcertoNet
Mr. Nygaard’s cadenza flowed down Mozart lanes and paths, each with beautiful backgrounds. And at the very end, Mr. Nygaard brought forth that martial major theme, like an unexpected gift.” 
Harry Rolnick, ConcertoNet   more...

 

As promised, here are the videos of John Field’s Divertissement No. 1 and Sir Hamilton Harty’s Piano Quintet. Fortuitously, our Jupiter musicians had the good sense to record the rehearsal in an impromptu decision, literally minutes before pressing the record button. Pianist Mackenzie Melemed (replacing Roman Rabinovich at the last minute) learned the music in 2 days! Bravo to him.

Both works are Irish rarities that were scheduled for the March 16 performances which had to be canceled because of the coronavirus epidemic. Even though the entire program could not be recorded because of technical issues, we are pleased to be able to share with you the 2 musical gems. Enjoy.

John FIELD  Divertissement No. 1 H. 13
  ~ simply delicious piano quintet, alternately titled Rondeau Pastoral and better known in its version for solo piano, Twelve O’clock Rondo, on account of the 12 “chimes” at the end ~ by the creator of the Nocturne, which had a major influence on Chopin

We thank the University of Illinois (Champaign) for a copy of the Divertissement music.

Mackenzie Melemed piano
Abigel Kralik violin
Dechopol Kowintaweewat violin
Sarah Sung viola
Christine Lamprea cello

Sir Hamilton HARTY  Piano Quintet in F Major Op. 12
  ~ in a lyrical Romantic idiom, with a distinct, breezy Irish-salted voice

Andrew Clements of the Guardian proclaimed the beautiful Quintet “a real discovery: a big, bold statement full of striking melodic ideas and intriguing harmonic shifts, which adds Brahms and Dvořák into Harty’s stylistic mix, together with Tchaikovsky in some passages.” There’s folk music charm as well, reminiscent of Percy Grainger—notably in the Scherzo (Vivace) with its folksy quirks and nonchalance, and the winding, pentatonic melody in the Lento.

Our gratitude to the Queen’s University Library in Belfast, Northern Ireland, for a copy of the autograph manuscript of the music. Much thanks, too, to Connor Brown for speedily creating a printed score and parts from Harty’s manuscript.

Mackenzie Melemed piano
Abigel Kralik violin
Dechopol Kowintaweewat violin
Sarah Sun viola
Christine Lamprea cello

I Allegro 0:00
II Vivace 10:43
III Lento 14:44
IV Allegro con brio 23:59

FEb 8 2021 HAYDN  Sonata No. 1 in G Major
​​​​​​Oliver Neubauer violin, Mihai Marica cello, Zoe Martin-Doike viola

FEb 8 2021 HOFFMEISTER Duo Concertante No. 1 in G Major
Sooyun Kim flute, Zoe Martin-Doike viola

Feb 8 2021 MOZART Piano Quartet No. 2 in Eb Major
Oliver Neubauer violin, Janice Carissa piano
Mihai Marica cello, Zoe Martin-Doike viola

Feb 8 2021 KREUTZER  Quintet in A Major
Sooyun Kim flute, Vadim Lando clarinet, Janice Carissa piano
Mihai Marica cello, Zoe Martin-Doike viola

Video Viewing ~ Classical Treats
February 8, 2021 Jupiter Concert

Greetings! Three months ago, our musicians brought warmth and joy with their wonderful music making on a cold, winter’s day with Classical Treats. The viewing is offered for $25, and we hope to cover the costs of production. Thanks so much for viewing the video of this concert, and for supporting Jupiter with gifts as well! MeiYing

View the video for $25

You will be automatically directed to the video page once payment is made. If not, click on the “return to merchant” link after checkout. Please go through the checkout process only once and do not use the back button or reload the page while making the purchase. If there are any problems, contact jupiternews@jupitersymphony.com.

Viewers comments of previous videos:

“Oh I thoroughly enjoyed the concert. Good to see Maxim and his dad. Familiar faces to me. I enjoyed the notes about the players. Till the next time...”

“Great playing and really nice camera work. Probably better than being there!

“We so enjoyed the concert. The pianist was outstanding as was the musical selection.

“It was wonderful. Thank you.

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Musicians

Janice Carissa piano
Young Scholar of the Lang Lang Foundation, recipient of the 2018 Salon de Virtuosi Grant, winner of the 2014 piano competition at the Aspen Festival, and a top prizewinner of the IBLA Foundation’s 2006 piano competition (at age 8)

Oliver Neubauer violin
Recipient of the Gold Award at the 2018 National YoungArts Competition and winner of the 2017 Young Musicians Competition at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

Zoë Martin-Doike viola
Member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, top prizewinner of the Primrose and Lenox competitions on viola and violin, respectively and founding violinist of the Aizuri Quartet

Mihai Marica cello
Winner of the Irving Klein, Viña del Mar, Salon de Virtuosi and Dotzauer competitions ~ “Mihai is a brilliant cellist and interpreter of music. His playing is spellbinding.” Mitchell Sardou Klein

Sooyun Kim flute
Winner of the Georg Solti Foundation Career Grant and a top prize at the ARD flute competition, she has been praised for her “vivid tone colors” by the Oregonian and as a “rare virtuoso of the flute” by Libération

Vadim Lando clarinet
Winner of the CMC Canada, Yale and Stonybrook competitions ~ “consistently distinguished...vibrant, precise, virtuosic playing” The New York Times

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Program

HAYDN  Sonata No. 1 in G Major Hob XVI:40 ▪ 1784
  ~ sophisticated and subtly wrought, the Sonata is from a set of 3, arranged for string trio from the original for keyboard and published by Johann André in 1790

The sonatas were written for Princess Marie, the new bride of Prince Nicholas Esterházy, grandson of Haydn’s employer, Prince Nicholas I. Cramer’s Magazin der Musik, in its review in 1785, observed that they were “more difficult to perform than one initially believes. They demand the utmost precision, and much delicacy in performance.” In 2 contrasting movements, the pastoral Allegretto innocente is followed by a gleeful zany romp.

Conradin KREUTZER  Quintet in A Major ▪ between 1810 and 1820
  ~ in the late Classical–early Romantic style, the charming Quintet is written for the unusual combination of piano, flute, clarinet, viola, and cello with the piano as primus inter pares, first among equals—each movement a winner bearing a variety of melodic gifts and revealing a lively feeling for rhythm and color

Born in Messkirch to a respected Swabian burgher, Kreutzer (1780–1849) is considered a minor master of the Biedermeier epoch. He studied law in Freiburg before turning entirely to music after his father died in 1800. In 1804 he went to Vienna, where he met Haydn and probably studied with Albrechtsberger, one of Beethoven’s teachers. His active career included tours in Europe and several posts in Vienna, Stuttgart, Cologne, and other German cities, all the while composing numerous operas. Some of his music is not entirely forgotten—his settings for male chorus to Ludwig Uhland’s poems long remained popular with German and Austrian choirs; Das Nachtlager in Granada used to be revived occasionally in Germany; and his score for Der Verschwender continues to be performed in Austria.

Franz Anton HOFFMEISTER  Duo Concertante No. 1 in G Major ▪ [1790]
flute and viola

1st movement ~ Allegro
  ~ by Mozart’s friend and his principal publisher

MOZART  Piano Quartet No. 2 in Eb Major K. 493 ▪ 1786
  ~ a flawless masterpiece of utmost lightness and charm, with heavenly melodies

Mozart was under contract with the publisher Franz Anton Hoffmeister to write 3 piano quartets, a virtually new genre of his own invention. When the first (K. 478 in G minor) did not sell because of its difficulty for amateurs, Mozart was released from his obligation. Nine months later, which was two months after the completion of Le Nozze di Figaro, the second piano quartet (K. 493 in Eb Major) was published by Artaria. A little easier than the first, Alfred Einstein viewed it as “bright in color, but iridescent, with hints of darker shades.”

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Harry Munz audio engineer
Marc Basch videographer

For more about the musicians: guest artistsplayers
For further notes on the music: calendar

Jupiter featured on Our Net News

American program opener on March 18, with grateful thanks to Michael Shaffer of OurNetNews.com for recording the matinee concert, and making available the Horatio Parker Suite video for our viewing pleasure.

Horatio Parker Suite in A Major, Op. 35, composed in 1893
Prelude

Stephen Beus piano
Stefan Milenkovich violin
David Requiro cello

 

More video from this performance can be viewed on our media page

Jupiter on YouTube
featured in a short documentary on artist Michael McNamara

NEW YORK CANVAS : The Art of Michael McNamara is a video portrait of the artist who has painted iconic images of New York City for more than a decade, capturing the changing urban landscape of his adopted city. Our Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players provide the music from Brahms’s Piano Quartet in G Minor, underscoring the inspiration the artist has drawn from Jens Nygaard and the musicians. Michael was also our Jupiter volunteer from 2002 to 2010.

Here is a video of the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players performance of the Rondo alla Zingarese movement:

 

The producer-director, Martin Spinelli, also made the EMMY Award-winning “Life On Jupiter: The Story of Jens Nygaard, Musician.

For more information, visit our media page

Emmy Award-winning “LIFE ON JUPITER - The Story of Jens Nygaard, Musician” available on DVD with bonus music. More Info...

If you wish to purchase your own copy to remember Jens by or for more information visit www.lifeonjupiter.com

The New York Sun Review
by Adam Baer
--The Jupiters Play On--

“Some great musicians get a statue when they pass away. Some get their name imprinted on the roof of a well-known concert hall. But the late conductor Jens Nygaard has a living tribute: an entire ensemble of musicians and a concert series to go along with it...

It is one of the city’s cultural jewels...

In the end, if Mr. Nygaard was known for anything, it was unmitigated verve. That’s what the audience regularly returned for, and that’s what they got Monday afternoon. To have a grassroots community of musicians continue to celebrate Mr. Nygaard with indomitable performances like these week after week, even without the power of world-famous guest soloists, is proper tribute. And with more large orchestras and ensembles needing more corporate sponsorship year after year, I, for one, hope the Jupiter’s individual subscriber-base remains strong.

New York’s musical life needs the spirit of Jens Nygaard, and Mei Ying should be proud she’s keeping it alive.”

Read the complete article on our reviews page.

Please send any correspondence to

office address:
JUPITER SYMPHONY
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admin@jupitersymphony.com
For information or to order tickets, please call:
(212) 799-1259

MeiYing Manager
Michael Volpert Artistic Director

All performances, except where otherwise noted, are held at:
Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church
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The Box Office at the Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church
will be open 20 minutes prior to each concert.

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