PMP ALUMNI SPECIAL PERFORMANCE
Nicholas Tavani, violin; Rachel Shapiro, violin; Caitlin Lynch, viola; Jia Kim, cello
with Peter Dugan, piano
AEOLUS Quartet
Sunday, April 13, 2025 | 4-5 pm
Outdoor concert and youth program
The Bay Park (Oval)
Bring a chair
1055 Boulevard of the Arts, Sarasota, FL 34236
FREE!
Tuesday, April 15, 2025 | 7:30 pm
Aeolus Quartet Special Performance with Peter Dugan, pianist
LEC – Harvest House
3650 17th Street, Sarasota, FL 34235
Tickets: $30 General Admission | $40 VIP (front rows)
New! $10 Youth Ticket (under 21)
All ticket purchases are final sales and cannot be refunded.
About Aeolus Quartet
With performances acclaimed for both “high-octane” excitement (Strad) and “dusky lyricism” (New York Times), the Aeolus Quartet has been awarded prizes at nearly every major competition in the United States and performed across the globe with showings “worthy of a major-league quartet” (Dallas Morning News). Formed in 2008, Mark Satola of the Cleveland Plain Dealer writes, “The quartet has a rich and warm tone combined with precise ensemble playing and an impressive musical intelligence guided every technical and dramatic turn.” The Aeolus Quartet has performed in venues ranging from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Lincoln Center’s Great Performers Series to Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, to Dupont Underground, a subterranean streetcar station in DC’s Dupont Circle.
The Aeolus Quartet has released several critically acclaimed albums of classical and contemporary works through Naxos and Azica labels which are available on iTunes, Amazon, and major retailers worldwide. The Quartet’s Many-Sided Music initiative has produced two albums in an ongoing effort to promote works by American composers. The latest of these, Ariel and Other Poems, was recorded with Azica Records and released in July 2021.
The Aeolus Quartet’s numerous honors include First Prize at the Coleman International Chamber Ensemble Competition, as well as Grand Prize at both the Plowman Chamber Music Competition and the Chamber Music Yellow Springs Competition. They were also prizewinners at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and the International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition in New England. The Austin Critics’ Table named the Aeolus Quartet their 2016-17 “Best Touring Performance” for Rambunctious, a collaboration with Spectrum Dance Theater.
The Quartet has performed across North America, Europe, and Asia in venues such as Alice Tully Hall, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Reinberger Recital Hall at Severance Hall, The Library of Congress, Renwick Gallery, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, and the Shanghai Oriental Arts Center. In addition, the quartet was featured on the hit Netflix miniseries, The Defenders.
Thanks to the generosity of the Five Partners Foundation, the four members play on a set of instruments by famed Brooklyn luthier Samuel Zygmuntowicz. The Quartet is named for the Greek god Aeolus, who governed the four winds.
Nicholas Tavani, first violin
Nicholas Tavani was born in Arlington, VA, and debuted in Washington, D.C.’s Gaston Hall at the age of eight. The Cleveland Plain Dealer recently praised him as “an alert and sensitive artist, with beautiful tone and exquisite phrasing,” and the Washington Post has hailed his “brilliant musicianship.” Mr. Tavani has performed to critical acclaim around the world. As first violinist of the Aeolus Quartet, he has won the Plowman International Chamber Music Competition, the Yellow Springs Chamber Music competition, and the 2009 Coleman International Chamber Music Competition.
A passionate advocate of new music, Mr. Tavani has premiered and recorded several works by living composers, including Samuel Adler, Alexandra Bryant, Christopher Theofanidis, Missy Mazzoli, and Dan Visconti. His discography includes four albums with the Aeolus Quartet in wide release on the Azica, Naxos, and Innova labels. He has soloed with the St Paul Chamber Orchestra, Arlington Symphony, Aspen Festival Orchestra, and many others. Collaborations include Renee Fleming, Peter Salaff, Jon Kimura Parker, Daxun Zhang, and Michael Tree.
As a committed educator, Mr. Tavani has served on the faculties of the George Washington University School of Music, Point CounterPoint Music Festival, the MasterWorks Festival, and the University of Maryland High School Music Academy. He served as teaching assistant to the Juilliard Quartet at the Juilliard School, where he studied with Joseph Lin and Ronald Copes, and the Aeolus Quartet was 2013-2015 Graduate Quartet in Residence.
Mr. Tavani completed a doctorate under the mentorship of David Salness at the University of Maryland. An alumnus of the Cleveland Institute of Music, Nicholas studied violin with William Preucil and chamber music with Peter Salaff and the Cavani Quartet.
Rachel Shapiro, second violin
Brooklyn-based violinist Rachel Kitagawa Shapiro began playing violin at age four in her hometown of Reading, PA. She has since performed in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, and across the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Norway, Germany, the Czech Republic, the United Arab Emirates, India, China, South Korea, and Japan.
A founding member Aeolus Quartet, her playing has been praised by Mark Satola of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, “in a beautifully balanced interlude wherein the second violin dances attendant to a heartfelt melody… Rachel Shapiro [was] outstanding here.” Collaborations include a performance on the Metropolitan Opera stage alongside Renée Fleming, as well as appearances with Michael Tree, Jon Kimura Parker, the Juilliard Quartet, and the Miró Quartet. She has performed with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic.
Ms. Shapiro is an adjunct Professor of Violin at Montclair State University and has previously served as Professorial Lecturer at the George Washington University. She has recorded for Naxos and Azica record labels and on a recent album by The National. Ms. Shapiro holds an Artist Diploma from the Juilliard School, a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Maryland, a Master of Music from the University of Texas at Austin, and a Bachelor of Music from the Cleveland Institute of Music. She is also a writer and has been published in Strings magazine.
Ms. Shapiro performs on a 1991 Samuel Zygmuntowicz violin graciously on loan to her through the Five Partners Foundation.
Caitlin Lynch, viola
Violist and Grammy Award recipient Caitlin Lynch has performed across the globe in collaboration with artists from Itzhak Perlman to Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood. She is violist of the Aeolus String Quartet, and a member and co-Artistic Director of the conductor less chamber orchestra A Far Cry. Ms. Lynch’s performances as a chamber and orchestral musician, soloist with orchestra, and recitalist have spanned fourteen countries across five continents – from Carnegie Hall to the Sydney Opera House to the United Nations – and include appearances with members of the Tokyo, Cleveland, Juilliard, and Guarneri String Quartets.
Passionate about collaborations with other art forms, she enjoys performing with dancers (Mark Morris Dance Group, Wendy Whelan), artists from other musical genres (Bjork, The National), and on film (Darren Aronofsky’s Mother!). Ms. Lynch is the founder and Artistic Director of Project Chamber Music: Willamette Valley, a nonprofit organization that supports public school music programs and provides funds for private instrumental lessons for students for whom the cost would be otherwise prohibitive. She was an Artist in Residence at Cleveland’s Judson Manor senior living community, an intergenerational relationship that continues today and has been celebrated by CBS and NBC News, The Plain Dealer, and the New York Times.
Recent and upcoming highlights include performances at the Chamber Music Society at Lincoln Center and Lincoln Center’s Great Performers Series with the Aeolus Quartet, the Kennedy Center with A Far Cry, and BAM’s Next Wave Festival. Ms. Lynch performs on an 18th century viola made by English luthier William Forster, and thanks to the generosity of the Five Partners Foundation, a viola by Samuel Zygmuntowicz.
Jia Kim, cello
Korean-American cellist Jia Kim, recipient of the prestigious 2017 career award from the Leonore Annenberg Foundation for Performing and Visual Arts, leads a dynamic musical life as a performer, educator, and a passionate advocate for the Arts. She has appeared on stages across the United States, South America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East with performances broadcasted on WQXR, PBS, KMZT Classical, and acclaimed by the New York Times. An avid chamber musician, Ms. Kim has performed at Tanglewood, Ravinia, Caramoor, Carnegie Hall, Disney Hall, Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, the 92Y, and joined Itzhak Perlman on a tour across Toronto, Mexico City, Virginia Beach, Miami and New York City.
Ms. Kim has been invited as Visiting Artist at the University of Hawaii, American Academy of Jordan, College of William and Mary, Grand Valley State University, and served as a Tone Judge for the Violin Society of America’s 2016 International Competition.
Currently she is on Faculty at The Juilliard School Precollege Division, The Perlman Music Program, and New York Youth Symphony’s Chamber Music Program. As Artistic Director of Central Chamber Series in NYC and Spruce Peak Chamber Music Society in Stowe, VT, she is committed to connecting with a wider audience through the powerful language of Chamber Music, both through education and performance.
Ms. Kim is evermore grateful to her mentors and teachers Ronald Leonard, Itzhak &Toby Perlman, and to Joel Krosnick, with whom she studied at the Juilliard School for a Bachelor and Master Degree in Music. Ms. Kim performs on a Testore cello made in 1748.
Peter Dugan, piano
Pianist Peter Dugan’s debut performances with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony were described by the Los Angeles Times as “stunning” and by the San Francisco Chronicle as “fearlessly athletic.” He is heard every week across America as the host of National Public Radio’s beloved program From the Top. In 2020, he joined acclaimed violinist Joshua Bell for At Home With Music, a national PBS broadcast and live album release on Sony Classical. This season Mr. Dugan continues his collaboration with Bell, touring internationally with recitals at London’s Wigmore Hall, Taipei’s National Theater and Concert Hall, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.
Mr. Dugan’s latest album with baritone John Brancy – The Journey Home: Live from the Kennedy Center – was released on Avie Records in 2021 along with an accompanying documentary film from WNET’s AllArts. Brancy and Dugan have given recitals at Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, and the Kennedy Center, and together won first prize at the 2018 Montreal International Music Competition. Mr. Dugan’s latest project with violinist Sean Lee was PaganiniXSchumann, a digital EP release that accompanied a live performance at Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Mr. Dugan appeared as the piano soloist in Charles Ives’ 4th Symphony with the Houston Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony, and on an album with Michael Tilson Thomas.
Mr. Dugan advocates for a classical music culture that is inclusive and welcoming to all, from a community’s concert halls and theaters, to its schools and hospitals. As a founding creator of Operation Superpower, a superhero opera for children, he has travelled to dozens of schools in the greater New York area, performing for students and encouraging them to use their talents – their superpowers – for good. He is head of the Artist in Residence program at pianoSonoma and a founding faculty member of the Resonance and Soundboard Institutes at Honeywell Arts Academy.
Mr. Dugan holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from The Juilliard School, where he studied under Matti Raekallio. He resides in New York City and is a Yamaha Artist.
Thank you to the sponsor of the Aeolus Quartet Special Performance with Peter Dugan, pianist
