An afternoon of clarinet trios of Brahms and Beethoven featuring Ben Baron, clarinet, Lanny Paykin, cello and Christopher Oldfather, piano.
Learn more about the Westchester Philharmonic's season at Westchesterphil.org
This concert is made possible, in part, with the generous support of the Brian Wallach Agency, White Plains, New York. Personal and Commercial Insurance since 1949.
The New York Times praised Benjamin Baron’s performance with the Locrian Chamber Players for “having evoked sounds of nature” and recommended that audiences “listen for the lone clarinet” in the Encores production of The Light in the Piazza. The American Record Guide hailed him as soloist on the Naxos release by Chamber Orchestra of New York for “clean, incisive clarinet playing” and the New York Sun said his Messiaen Quatuor pour la fin du temps was “played with reverence". Following a performance of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto the Sioux City Journal called him a player of “great emotion, skill, and intensity”. Enjoying a career as performer, educator and author, highlights include appearances with the New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic, and Canada's National Arts Centre Orchestra.
Baron served as Principal Clarinet of the Chamber Orchestra of New York, Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas (Sony Classical), New York Symphonic Ensemble with numerous solo appearances of Mozart and Weber concerti throughout tours of Japan, and the Broadway revival of Leonard Bernstein’s On The Town (P.S. Classics). Additional Broadway productions include Sweeney Todd, Parade, The King and I, The Phantom of the Opera, Wicked, My Fair Lady, The Great Comet of 1812, and Mary Poppins. Baron has been guest principal clarinetist with the American Symphony Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, New York City Opera Orchestra and Orchestra Lumos, among many others in the New York City area. The Westchester Philharmonic also featured him as soloist for Paquito D’Rivera’s Danzón as did the New Haven Symphony for John Williams’ Victor's Tale. He appears regularly with the New York City Ballet Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, New York Pops, American Composer’s Orchestra, American Ballet Theater Orchestra, and Orchestra Lumos.
Lanny Paykin was born in New York where he attended the High School of Music and Art. He received his BA from Wesleyan University and the MM in Cello from the Juilliard School. Mr. Paykin maintains a diverse career in the New York area, having appeared with the NYC Ballet and the Metropolitan Opera, in recording studios, and in solo and chamber music concerts. He is a member of Westchester Philharmonic, American Composers' Orchestra, and formerly of the Brooklyn Philharmonic; often performing as Principal for these orchestras, as well as for NYC Opera, Long Island Philharmonic, American Symphony Orchestra and the Adelphi Orchestra. He has toured Asia with New York Philharmonic and performed with them at Avery Fisher Hall. His honors have included the Juilliard Alumni Award and the Paderewski Foundation Award. He has performed at festivals in Paros, Greece, Morocco, St Barts, and at Classical Tahoe in Nevada.
Christopher Oldfather has devoted himself to the performance of twentieth-century music for more than thirty years. He has participated in innumerable world-premiere performances, in every possible combination of instruments, in cities all over America. The Westchester Philharmonic's Principal Keyboardist for twenty-two years, he has also been a member of Boston's Collage New Music since 1979, New York City's Parnassus since 1997, appears regularly in Chicago, and as a collaborator has joined singers and instrumentalists of all kinds in recitals throughout the United States. In 1986 he presented his recital debut in Carnegie Recital Hall, and since then he has pursued a career as a freelance musician. This work has taken him as far afield as Moscow and Tokyo, and he has worked on every sort of keyboard ever made, even including the Chromelodeon. He is widely known for his expertise on the harpsichord, and is one of the leading interpreters of twentieth-century works for that instrument. As a soloist he has appeared with the MET Chamber Players, the San Francisco Symphony, and Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt, Germany. His recording of Elliott Carter's violin-piano Duo with Robert Mann was nominated for two Grammy Awards in 1990. He has collaborated with the conductor Robert Craft, and can be heard on several of his recordings.
Christopher Oldfather was nominated for a 2010 Grammy in the Best Chamber Music Performance category for Schoenberg: String Quartets Nos. 3 & 4 with the Fred Sherry String Quartet.