Lincoln Center Brings Chamber Music Series to Michigan

The cellist David Finckel was so impressed by St. Cecelia’s Music Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan, while performing there in 2008 as a member of the Emerson String Quartet that he is returning to the heartland with a major chamber-music series. As the co-director with his wife the concert pianist Wu Han of the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, Finckel is starting a three-year project to bring world-class chamber musicians to the Michigan city. “While many people in Grand Rapids have heard of Lincoln Center, not many of my musical colleagues have heard of St. Cecilia,” Finckel said in a pre-recorded video announcement. “This is an incredibly inspiring story of American culture.”

Finckel and Han, joined by Emersons violinist Phillip Setzer, will perform November 29 to open the 2012–13 St. Cecilia Chamber Series with piano trios by Johannes Brahms and Antonin Dvorak. Next season’s three-concert series in February 2013 will include an appearance by violinists Ani and Ida Kavafian, and pianists Gil Kalish and Anne-Marie McDermott in a program of works by Richard Strauss, Cesar Franck and Ned Rorem. The third and final program on April 11, with musicians yet to be announced, will include performances of Dvorak’s Terzetto for two violins and viola; Carl Maria von Weber’s Clarinet Quintet; and Ernst von Dohnayi’s Serenade in C major for violin, viola, and cello.