Faculty

Robert McDonald, Artistic Director & Pianist

Pianist Robert McDonald has played extensively as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and South America. He has appeared with major orchestras in the United States and Latin America, and was the recital partner for many years to Isaac Stern, as well as other celebrated instrumentalists. Mr. McDonald has also performed with the Takács, Vermeer, Juilliard, Brentano, Borromeo, American, and Shanghai string quartets, and in tours with Music from Marlboro.

His discography includes recordings for Sony Classical, Bridge, Vox, Musical Heritage Society, ASV, and CRI, and Mr. McDonald's prizes include the Gold Medal at the Busoni International Piano Competition, the William Kapell International Competition, and the Deutsche Schallplatten Critics Award. He has studied with Theodore Rehl, Seymour Lipkin, Rudolf Serkin, Mieczyslaw Horszowski, Beveridge Webster, and Gary Graffman, and holds degrees from Lawrence University, The Curtis Institute of Music, The Juilliard School, and the Manhatten School of Music.

A member of the piano faculty at the Juilliard School since 1999, Mr. McDonald joined the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in 2007. In addition to coaching piano at Taos School of Music, he is also the school's artistic director. This will be his twenty-ninth summer in Taos.
 

Borromeo String Quartet
www.borromeoquartet.org

Nicholas Kitchen, Kristopher Tong, violins; Mai Motobuchi, viola; Yeesun Kim, cello.
Considered “Simply the best there is” by the Boston Globe, the critically acclaimed Borromeo String Quartet is one of the most sought after string quartets in the world, each season performing over 100 concerts. Audiences and critics alike have praised the Borromeo's revealing explorations of Beethoven, Brahms, Bartok, Schoenberg, Shostakovich, and Ligeti, and its affinity for making challenging repertoire approachable.
The quartet's musicians serve as artists-in-residence at the New England Conservatory of Music, and the Borromeo continues long-standing residencies at the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum in Boston, the Tenri Cultural Institute in New York, and the Dai-Ichi Semei Hall in Tokyo. Awards include Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal Award and Chamber Music America’s Cleveland Quartet Award, as well as top prizes at the International String Quartet Competition in Evian, France. In 2006 the Aaron Copland House honored the Borromeo’s commitment to contemporary music by creating the Borromeo Quartet Award, an annual initiative that premieres the work of important young composers.
The quartet made classical music history in 2003 with its pioneering record label, the Living Archive Recorded Performance Series, making it is possible to order DVDs and CDs of many of its concerts, providing listeners the chance to explore in greater depth the music they have just heard live and explore new and rarely performed works.
This is the Borromeo's sixth season with Taos School of Music.
 

Brentano String Quartet
www.brentanoquartet.com

Mark Steinberg, Serena Canin, violins; Misha Amory, viola; Nina Lee, cello.

Since its inception in 1992, the Brentano String Quartet has established itself as one of the world's top quartets, labeled by a London newspaper as "an ensemble of exceptional insight and communicative gifts." As the Philadelphia Inquirer reported in a performance review, "The concert made it clear that these players could well be the best of the latest generation. Their level of individual technique was superb, while musical dialog necessary for rich chamber music was evident from first to last."

The quartet's many awards include the Cleveland Quartet Award, the Naumburg Chamber Music Award, and the Martin E. Segal Award. The Brentano was chosen by The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center to participate in the inaugural season of Chamber Music Society Two, and in 1997 the quartet capped a triumphant European tour in London with a Wigmore Hall debut for which it won Britain’s Royal Philharmonic Music Award.

Recent and upcoming appearances include the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland, the Bath Festival in England, Chamber Music New Zealand, the San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival, Caramoor International Music Festival, plus performances in Australia, France, Luxembourg, and Switzerland. The Brentano is known for its inspiring performances of works by Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart, and other masters of classical music, but also has a strong commitment to contemporary composers. It has commissioned and premiered works of Milton Babbitt, Chou Wen-chung, Charles Wuorinen, Bruce Adolphe, and Steven Mackey, and their recordings include CDs of works by Mozart, Adolphe, Mackey, and Haydn. This is the quartet's seventh season in Taos.

Shanghai Quartet
www.shanghaiquartet.com

Weigang Li, Yi-Wen Jiang, violins; Honggang Li, viola; Nicholas Tzavaras, cello.

 The Shanghai Quartet is renowned for its passionate musicality, impressive technique, and multicultural innovations. Its elegant style of melding the delicacy of Eastern music with the emotional breadth of Western repertoire allows it to traverse musical genres, from traditional Chinese folk music and masterpieces of Western music, to cutting edge contemporary works. The quartet is ensemble-in-residence at Montclair State University and holds the esteemed title of visiting guest professors of the Shanghai Conservatory and the Central Conservatory in China.

Formed at the Shanghai Conservatory in 1983, the Shanghai Quartet has worked with the world’s most distinguished artists and regularly tours the major music centers of Europe, North America and Asia. The quartet has made regular appearances at Carnegie Hall, including the world premiere of Takuma Itoh’s Concerto for Quartet and Orchestra in 2006.

Performances at many of the most distinguished festivals and concert halls highlight the Shanghai Quartet’s 25th anniversary season, including appearances at the Ravinia, Tanglewood, and Ottawa International Festivals, and the world premiere of Krzysztof Penderecki’s String Quartet No. 3 at a concert in Poland honoring the composer’s 75th birthday.

The quartet has an extensive discography of over 25 recordings. Recent releases include the Mendelssohn Octet and Zhou Long’s “Poems from Tang” for Quartet and Orchestra. In 2003, the Quartet released its most popular disc: a 24-track collection of Chinese folk songs titled Chinasong, featuring music arranged by Yi-Wen Jiang reflecting his childhood memories of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Current projects include the complete Beethoven string quartets, a seven-disc project to be completed this year.

The Shanghai Quartet has appeared in films and television, ranging from a cameo appearance in the Woody Allen film “Melinda and Melinda” playing Bartok’s String Quartet No. 4, to PBS’s Great Performances series. Other film credits include an appearance by violinist Weigang Li in the documentary “From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China,” and the family of cellist Nicholas Tzavaras’ as the subject of the 1999 film “Music of the Heart,” starring Meryl Streep. 

Thomas Sauer, Pianist

Pianist Thomas Sauer is highly sought after as soloist, chamber musician, and teacher. A frequent collaborator with the renowned instrumentalists Midori and Colin Carr, some of Mr. Sauer’s recent appearances include concerto performances with the Quad-City Symphony and Greenwich Village Orchestra; solo performances at Carnegie Hall (Stern Auditorium), Merkin Concert Hall, and St. John’s College, Oxford; performances at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society; duo recitals with Colin Carr at the Holywell Music Room, Oxford, the Musikgebouw (Amsterdam), Bargemusic (New York City), and Princeton University; duo recitals with Midori at the Philharmonie in Berlin and the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels; performances with members of the Juilliard String Quartet at the Library of Congress; and numerous concerts with the Brentano String Quartet.
Mr. Sauer has performed at many leading festivals in the United States and abroad, including Marlboro, Caramoor, El Paso Pro Musica, and the Chamber Music Festivals of Portland, Seattle, Taos, Four Seasons (North Carolina), Salt Bay (Maine); as well as Lake District Summer Music (England) and Festival des Consonances (France).
Mr. Sauer’s varied discography includes a recording of five Haydn piano sonatas for MSR Classics; a disc of Hindemith sonatas with violist Misha Amory (Musical Heritage Society); music of Britten and Schnittke with cellist Wilhelmina Smith on Arabesque; music of Ross Lee Finney with violinist Miranda Cuckson on Centaur Records; and violin sonatas of Mozart with Aaron Berofsky on Blue Griffin Recordings. In recent seasons, Mr. Sauer has premiered works by Philippe Bodin, Robert Cuckson, Sebastian Currier, Keith Fitch, David Loeb, Donald Martino, and David Tcimpidis.
A member of the piano faculty of the Mannes College and the music faculty at Vassar College, Mr. Sauer is the founder and director of the Mannes Beethoven Institute.

Michael Tree, Guest Violist

Violist Michael Tree, who made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1954, was a scholarship student at the Curtis Institute of Music where he studied with Efrem Zimbalist, Veda Reynolds, and Lea Luboshutz. He has appeared as violin and viola soloist with the Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Baltimore, New Jersey, and other major orchestras, and has also participated in leading music festivals, including Marlboro, Tanglewood, Casals, Spoleto and Israel.

As a founding member of the Guarneri Quartet, Mr. Tree has played in major cities throughout the world, and, in 1992, New York City Mayor Ed Koch presented the Guarneri Quartet with the city's Seal of Recognition. Mr. Tree was also a founding member of the Marlboro Trio, and served as president of the First American String Quartet Congress presented by the University of Maryland and the Smithsonian Institute.

Presently Mr. Tree holds the Misha Elman Chair at the Manhattan School of Music and serves on the faculties of the Curtis Institute of Music, Rutgers University, The Juilliard School, and the University of Maryland. Among the most recorded musicians in America, he has recorded over 95 chamber music works, including 10 piano quartets and quintets with Arthur Rubenstein, and two complete Beethoven quartet cycles. This will be his seventeenth summer with the Taos School of Music.