Cali School of Music Faculty Perform at Carnegie Hall

As part of Carnegie Hall’s city-wide celebration of Art and Music during the Weimar Republic, three John J. Cali School of Music faculty members performed on March 6, 2024. They include David Witten, Professor, and two Adjunct Music Professors, Michael Roth (violin) and Christine Lamprea (cello). Additionally, flutist Sue-Ellen Hershman-Tcherepnin played in the concert.

The Weimar Republic saw an outpouring of energy and activity in concerts and music composition. In 1921, in southwest Germany, the Donaueschingen Music Festival was established, the first European festival devoted to new works by contemporary composers. On July 26, 1925, during the festival’s fifth season, two works received their world premieres: Igor Stravinsky’s Piano Sonata and Alexander Tcherepnin’s Concerto da Camera for flute, violin, and chamber orchestra. Nearly a century later, both works will be performed on the same program, alongside piano compositions by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, his Greeting Cards honoring five musicians who had significant careers in Germany in the 1920s before they escaped the Nazis and started new careers in the United States.

David Witten

Pianist David Witten’s international career has included numerous concert tours in Ireland, Finland, Russia, Ukraine, Europe, Mexico, and South America. As the recipient of a 1990 Fulbright Scholar award, Witten spent five months teaching and concertizing throughout Brazil, and he is frequently invited back to give concerts and masterclasses. Witten’s involvement in music has not been limited to performance. He is the editor of Nineteenth-Century Piano Music: Essays in Performance and Analysis (Garland Publishing, 1997), which includes his landmark analytical study of the Chopin Ballades.

Michael Roth

Michael Roth’s past work on Broadway and his current work at the Ballet and Mostly Mozart has given him a large range of experience in different styles of music. He is interested in the nitty gritty of technique as it relates to excerpts, but also in style and music.

Christine Lamprea

Cellist and Sphinx Medal of Excellence winner Christine Lamprea is an artist known for her emotionally committed and intense performances. Hailed a “firebrand” (IncidentLight.com) and noted for her “supreme panache” (The Boston Musical Intelligencer), she made her Carnegie Hall debut as soloist in 2013, and has since returned to Carnegie, the Kennedy Center, as well as performed with orchestras such as the Costa Rica National Symphony, Charlotte Symphony, Detroit Symphony, National Symphony of the Dominican Republic, Houston Symphony, National Symphony of Michoacan, New Jersey Symphony, Reno Chamber Orchestra, San Antonio Symphony, Santa Fe Pro Musica, and toured with the Sphinx Virtuosi across the United States.