6th Street and Maine Avenue, SW
Washington, D.C.
(Across from Arena Stage, where Maine Avenue turns into M Street SW.
Click HERE to see a map.)
Admission free, donations accepted to benefit Waterfront Village.
(Across from Arena Stage, where Maine Avenue turns into M Street SW.
Click HERE to see a map.)
Admission free, donations accepted to benefit Waterfront Village.
On the program will be complete readings of Schubert’s Arpeggione and Franck’s violin sonatas (moved, respectively from viola and violin to cello); and evocative movements of Beethoven’s Archduke Trio and Brahms’ G Major violin sonata.
Sophie Shao, a most versatile and passionate visitor from New York, has a pedigree a country mile long. A native of Houston, Texas, she began playing the cello at age six as a student of Shirley Trepel, then passing through heavy-duty studies at Curtis and Yale, and followed by an apprenticeship with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Winner of the prestigious Avery Fisher career grant and top prizes at the Rostropovich and Tchaikovsky competitions, she graduated into a worldwide career; in fact, a phone call a few mornings ago was frim Paris. Her travels have taken her literally around the globe, producing performances the New York Times has noted as “eloquent, powerful” and the Washington Post called “deeply satisfying.”
Not only has she appeared as soloist to critical acclaim throughout the United States, from New York to California; she’s played to star-struck audiences from Lucerne, Switzerland; to the BBC Concert Orchestra in the UK; to Suntory Hall in Tokyo. And premiered Howard Shore’s cello concerto and Richard Wilson’s “The Cello Has Many Secrets” with the American Symphony.
While she rates among her great loves the complete Bach Cello Suites and the Beethoven Triple Concerto from the standard repertoire, Sophie’s dedication to music of our time leads her to promote the music of little-known composers such as Adolphus Hailstork, Tan Dun, and Shih-Hui Chen, which she performs with her “Sophie Shao and Friends” chamber groups which have toured from Vermont to Arizona.
Currently, she’s on the faculty of University of Connecticut and plays on a cello made by Honore Derazey from 1855 once owned by Pablo Casals.
A seasoned performer and arts professional, Danielle DeSwert Hahn has collaborated as a chamber musician and opera pianist throughout the United States and Europe. Formerly principal pianist of the Baltimore and Washington Concert Opera companies, she’s also worked with the Washington National, New Orleans, Kentucky, Indianapolis, Chautauqua, Portland, and Sarasota Opera companies, and plays regularly as a member of the North Carolina Symphony and has recorded with New Music Raleigh.
Ms. Hahn’s latest project, the Living Art Collective Ensemble (LACE), is a fluid group of musicians committed to bridging the gap between the visual and performing arts, and bringing issues of cultural relevance to light within the context of engaging performances.
Luke Wedge is principal second violinist with the Air Force Strings of the United States Air Force Band. Originally from Hutchinson, Kansas, his Air Force career began in 2003, and he currently serves as music director for the Air Force Strolling Strings. A graduate of the University of Kansas, he received his Master of Music from Northwestern, where his primary instructors included Ben Sayevich, David Perry, and Gerardo Ribiero. He’s performed with the National Symphony, Chicago Sinfonietta and the Ravinia Festival Orchestra, in concert in Washington, Chicago, Kansas City, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina.
David Ehrlich, the director, learned the piano at the age of six from his father, Richard. Though his life’s work was in the retail business, he never lost touch with performing music, as both pianist and singer. Today he polishes his skills annually at the chamber music workshop in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; he also sojourned in Spartanburg, South Carolina; Lexington, Virginia; and Lyndonville, Vermont.
The Southwest Chamber Players is a loose aggregation of dedicated amateur musicians who have performed at Saint Augustine’s Episcopal Church in Southwest Washington, D.C., for the past twenty-five years. These concerts mark our second return to the performing stage from a five-year exile resulting from the demolition of the old church, and the scourge of the coronavirus.
Formed in March 1997, SWCP has presented concerts of fine chamber music nearly each month since. Including every one of the orchestra’s instruments as well as singers of every voice range, our repertoire extends from Bach and Telemann through Prokofiev and Barber, with heavy emphasis on the works of the great composers of the classical and romantic eras.
None of the performers are paid -- we’re all virtual amateurs, and no required dollars change hands for these concerts.
This website, www.southwestchamberplayers.org, lists a fair sampling of past concert programs as well as biographies of many of the performers. We’re happy to welcome new friends, and to that end, we encourage you to entrust us with your e-mail addresses by sending a message to david@southwestchamberplayers.org.
For more information,or to add your address to our postal mailing list, email David Ehrlich at david@southwestchamberplayers.org or call him at (202) 484-6354.
