Ancramdale, N.Y. — Clarion Concerts is holding their annual benefit performance at a private location in Ancramdale, N.Y., on Saturday, June 8, at 3 p.m. Nicholas Canellakis, cello, and Michael Stephen Brown, piano, will perform works by Clara Schumann, Lukas Foss, Edvard Grieg, Michael Stephen Brown, and others.
Canellakis and Brown refer to their repertory as “a soulful, virtuosic, and downright fun selection of music.” The attitude behind such language is commendable: Both of these guys are composers, and they like to support new music with commissions. But they also know what audiences want to hear, and, as it turns out, Canellakis and Brown want to hear the same things we do: what they refer to as “the meat and potatoes of the cello-piano repertoire.” So they play the masterpieces of the romantic era interspersed with lesser-known gems, along with their own compositions. They perform recitals together throughout the U.S., including recent appearances at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, the Four Arts in Palm Beach, New Orleans Friends of Chamber Music, the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, and Wolf Trap.
Nicholas Canellakis comes from a prominent New York City musical family. (His sister Karina Canellakis has conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra on a number of occasions.) A soloist, chamber musician, curator, filmmaker, and composer/arranger, Nicholas made his Carnegie Hall concerto debut in 2015 with the American Symphony Orchestra and has made recent concerto appearances with the Virginia, Albany, Delaware, Stamford, Richardson, Lansing, and Bangor Symphonies; the Erie Philharmonic; The Orchestra Now; the New Haven Symphony as Artist-in-Residence; and the American Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall.
An artist of the Chamber Music Society (CMS) of Lincoln Center, Canellakis performs regularly with CMS in Alice Tully Hall and on tour internationally, including London’s Wigmore Hall, the Louvre in Paris, the Seoul Arts Center in Korea, and the Shanghai and Taipei National Concert Halls. He has appeared at such festivals as Santa Fe, Ravinia, Music@Menlo, Bard, Bridgehampton, La Jolla, Hong Kong, Moab, Chamberfest Cleveland, and Music in the Vineyards. Nicholas is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and New England Conservatory, where he studied with Orlando Cole, Peter Wiley, and Paul Katz.
Pianist and composer Michael Stephen Brown received the 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant and the 2018 Emerging Artist Award from Lincoln Center after winning the Concert Artists Guild Competition in 2010. He has performed as soloist with the Seattle, Grand Rapids, North Carolina, Maryland, and Albany symphony orchestras at such venues as Carnegie Hall, Caramoor, the Smithsonian, Alice Tully Hall, and the Gilmore Festival. Mr. Brown is an artist at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and was formerly a member of CMS Two (now known as The Bowers Program).
Hear Nicholas Canellakis, cello, and Michael Stephen Brown, piano, on Saturday, June 8, 3 p.m., at a private location in Ancramdale, N.Y. Tickets are available here.
