Hop@Home: Sally Pinkas and Friends
Classical Salon Series

Sally Pinkas & Friends

A Soirée of Duets
July 15, 2020

This event occurred as part of the 20/21 Hop@Home season. This is an archived view.

Join us for intimate classical duets with the Hop's musical mavens.

2020/21 Hop@Home

Missed the live stream?

Watch the Video

This series of romantic and evocative living room concerts features beloved Hop artists Sally Pinkas, Pianist-in-residence, along with her husband and fellow pianist Evan Hirsch. Cozy up to the silvery and graceful flute, the warm and dark viola, and the salon favorite, the piano duet.

In our first episode, Sally and Evan are joined by violist Lila Brown and flutist Melissa Richmond. Works will include that of Robert Schumann, Carl Reinecke, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Lili Boulanger, Daniel Pinkham and Ross Lee Finney.

After the show, Hop Director Mary Lou Aleskie chats with Melissa Richmond, who is also the Founder and Executive Director of the West Claremont Center for Music and the Arts, about the Center's growth and evolution. Feel free to submit your questions in the live chat!

Presented in partnership with the WCCMA.

For technical assistance accessing the YouTube event, please call the Box Office at 603.646.2422, available on the night of the event.

Sally Pinkas and the Hirsch-Pinkas Piano Duo

The Hirsch-Pinkas Piano Duo was launched at a warmly-received Valentine's Day concert at Dartmouth College. Already married though pursuing separate careers, Pinkas and Hirsch followed with a European debut at the Officina Scotese in Italy, and have since continued to tour widely, garnering critical acclaim and forging a strong rapport with audiences and students alike. Among performance highlights are concerts at Boston's Jordan Hall, the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia in Rome, the Gnessin Academy in Moscow, the Muson Center in Lagos, the French Institute in Bandung, and the Cultural Center of the Philippines in Manila. Most recently they had their Brazilian debut at the famed Sala Cecilia Meireles in Rio de Janeiro, and were presented by Rio's Música no Museu and Teresópolis' UniFeso. Music festival credits include the Apple Hill Center and Monadnock Music in New Hampshire, Kfar Blum in Israel, Pontlevoy in France and PpIANISSIMO in Bulgaria.

The Duo's extensive repertoire features many of the masterpieces for the genre, including works by Mozart, Schubert, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Ravel, Messiaen, Milhaud, Copland and Bartók. They have commissioned and recorded the works of American composers Daniel Pinkham, Peter Child, Thomas Oboe Lee, Harold Shapero and Kui Dong for the Arsis, Albany, Toccata Classics and Otherminds labels. Seasoned and passionate educators, Sally and Evan have conducted masterclasses at the Rice School of Music in Houston, Washington University in St. Louis, the China Conservatory in Beijing, and the Conservatories of St. Petersburg, Xian, and Ho Chi Minh City. Pinkas and Hirsch hold teaching positions at Dartmouth College and Brandeis University, and live in Medford, Massachusetts. In 2021 they will be returning to China for an extensive tour.

Melissa Richmond

Recognized as an innovative leader and arts professional, flutist Melissa Richmond is an experienced nonprofit executive leader, music educator, and performer. In 2008 Melissa founded the Summer Concert Series at Union Church, which has since expanded into the West Claremont Center for Music and the Arts (WCCMA). She is also the Music Director for Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park, curating programing and venue coordination with the National Park Service for 10 concerts per year. As Executive Director of WCCMA and SGM, Melissa maintains a performing arts program hosting local, national, and internationally recognized musicians. In 2015 she was awarded the Governor's Arts Award for Distinguished Arts Leadership for her work.

Melissa graduated from Dalhousie University with a Bachelor of Music Degree as a flute/piccolo major, and from New England College with an MS Management Degree in Non-Profit Leadership. During her music degree years she studied flute with Elizabeth Dubois McCarthy, flute/piccolo with Christine Feierabend, conducting with Dr. Dinuk Wijeratne, composition/arranging with Dr Jérôme Blais, and music history and musicology with Dr. David Schroeder. Melissa has a passion for collaboration, inspiring music makers and youth, and an abiding commitment to access. Among her favorite partnered projects to date were the commissioning and world premiere performance of Kinan Azmeh's Concerto for Flute and Orchestra (soloist), and the public art sculpture "Our Hands Then and Now" by Ernest Montenegro, both completed in 2014 in honor of Claremont's 250th Anniversary.

Lila Brown

Violist Lila Brown is co-founder and artistic director of Music from Salem (founded in 1986), and cofounder of the MfS Viola Seminar. A graduate of the Juilliard School, Brown was a member of the Boston Symphony from 1982-84. She moved to Austria in 1985 to study with Sandor Vegh and to play as principal violist of his Camerata Academica Salzburg. As a member of the Ensemble Modern, the renowned German ensemble for new music, Brown premiered works by Ligeti, Kurtag, Adams, Reich, Rhim, Zappa, and Lachenmann among others. She has played chamber music tours of England with the International Musicians Seminar in Cornwall, England, and has been a frequent guest artist at the Martha's Vineyard Chamber Music Society, Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, the Boston Artists Ensemble, and Horten Kammermusikfest in Norway. For the past several years she has taught and performed at the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival.

Lila Brown has been an assistant professor at the Vienna Hochschule, professor at the Robert Schumann Musikhochschule in Duesseldorf, and returning to the US in 2009, joined the faculty of The Boston Conservatory where she received a "Distinguished Music Faculty of the Year" award in 2012 and is now a professor.

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