Tenor Karim Sulayman joins the series for this program, performing the iconically beautiful song cycle On Wenlock Edge, composed during a time when Vaughan Williams was studying in Paris under Ravel, but still unmistakably British in his interests, choosing to set an idyllic set of poetry by Englishman A.E. Housman. Leonard Bernstein’s Mass is a work of musical theater commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy for the opening of the Kennedy Center, tracing the Catholic mass and interspersed with texts in English and Hebrew, punctuated by instrumental “Meditations,” of which this is the first. The series’ annual ode to Beethoven’s iconic string quartets concludes the program.

Karim Sulayman, Voice
Yoojin Jang, Blake Pouliot, Violin
Melissa Reardon, Viola
Raman Ramakrishnan, Cello
Amy Yang, Piano

Sterling Elliott, Cello
Pedja Mužijević, Piano

Yoojin Jang, David McCarroll, Violin
Ayane Kozasa, Viola
Paul Wiancko, Cello