Manhattan Chamber Players
Monday, February 24, 2025
Engelman Recital Hall
Baruch Performing Arts Center
6:30 PM: Doors Open
7 PM: Pre-Concert Talk
7:30 PM: Concert

Program:

W.A. Mozart (1756 – 1791)
String Quartet in Eb major, K. 428 (1783)

Seth Grosshandler (b. 1958)
Suite for Clarinet Quintet (2023) – New York Premiere Performance

Intermission

W.A. Mozart (1756 – 1791)
Clarinet Quintet in A major, K. 581 (1789)

Manhattan Chamber Players

Mark Dover, Clarinet
Grace Park, Violin
Brendan Speltz, Violin
Luke Fleming, Viola
Brook Speltz, Cello

The Manhattan Chamber Players are a chamber music collective of New York-based musicians who share the common aim of performing the greatest works in the chamber repertoire at the highest level. Formed in 2015 by Artistic Director and violist Luke Fleming, MCP is comprised of an impressive roster of musicians who all come from the tradition of great music making at the Marlboro Music Festival, Steans Institute at Ravinia, Music@Menlo, Yellow Barn Chamber Music Festival and Perlman Music Program, and are former students of the Curtis Institute, Juilliard School, Colburn School, and the New England Conservatory.

MCP has been praised in Strings Magazine for “A fascinating program concept…It felt refreshingly like an auditory version of a vertical wine tasting.” The article went on to applaud MCP for “an intensely wrought and burnished performance…Overall, I wished I could put them on repeat.” At the core of MCP’s inspiration is its members’ joy in playing this richly varied repertoire with longtime friends and colleagues, with whom they have been performing since they were students. As stated by The Boston Music Intelligencer: “This ensemble’s nature and practices constitute proof against complacency and stagnation. They achieved as precise ensemble as you’d ever want to hear.”

Its roster allows for the programming of the entire core string, wind, and piano chamber music repertoire—from piano duos to clarinet quintets to string octets. While all its members have independent careers as soloists and chamber musicians, they strive for every opportunity to come together and again share in this special collaboration, creating “a mellifluous blend of vigorous intensity and dramatic import, performed with enthusiasm, technical facility and impressive balance, relishing distinctions…a winning performance.” (Classical Source)

Members of MCP are current and former members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Ensemble Connect, and the Aizuri, Attacca, Dover, Escher, Vega, and Ying Quartets, the Aletheia, Appassionata, and Lysander Piano Trios, and Imani Winds. They are top prizewinners in the Banff, Concert Artists Guild, Fischoff, Melbourne, Naumburg, Osaka, Primrose, Queen Elisabeth, Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky, Tertis, and Young Concert Artists Competitions, and are some of the most sought after solo and chamber performers of their generation. The Manhattan Chamber Players have been featured multiple times on NPR’s Performance Today, and is the Ensemble-in-Residence at both the Festival de Febrero in Mexico and the Crescent City Chamber Music Festival in New Orleans. In addition to its numerous concerts across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, MCP regularly tours in Asia and the Middle East, and has led chamber music residency programs at institutions throughout the U.S. and abroad.

Manhattan Chamber Players is represented by Arts Management Group.

Manhattan Chamber Players is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.

manhattanchamberplayers.com

To donate to MCP online via PayPal, please click on the icon below:

Support is encouraged at the following levels,
and will be noted in our concert programs:

Philanthropists of the Arts: $10,000 and above
Ambassadors of Chamber Music: $1,000 – $9,999
Artists Circle: $500 – $999
Composers Circle: $250 – $499
Patron: $100 – $249
Friend: $50 – $99
Supporter: $25 – $49

To donate by mail, please mail a check made out to “Manhattan Chamber Players” to:

Manhattan Chamber Players
330 Wagner St.
New Orleans, LA 70114

2024 – 2025 Season MCP Supporters

Philanthropists of the Arts ($5,000 and above)

Robin Shoemaker
Anonymous

Ambassadors of Chamber Music ($1,000 and above)

Luke Fleming

Artists Circle ($500 – $999)

Jacquelin S. Grant
Anonymous

Composers Circle ($250 – $499)

Anonymous

Patron ($100 – $249)