Five Points Piano Trio - Amanda Brin, violin, Jonathan Brin, cello, Dan Saunders, piano
$15/10/5. This event is part of the Stephen Parsons Music Series.
AMANDA BRIN, a native of Rochester, New York, is a founding member of the Hyperion String Quartet. Her playing has been praised for its “lusciousness and great pathos” by Classical Voice of North Carolina and as a member of the quartet, she won first prizes at the Coleman, Music Teachers National Association and Green Lake chamber music competitions.
She has performed as a soloist with the Glens Falls Symphony Orchestra in New York and has also appeared at festivals including the Strings in the Mountains Festival, Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival and SummerFest La Jolla. Amanda has collaborated with renowned artists including Anthea Kreston, Eugenia Zukerman, Anne-Marie McDermott, Stephen Taylor, Stewart Rose, Jennifer Frautschi, Benny Kim, Toby Appel, Sophie Shao, Melvin Chen, Raman Ramakrishnan and the Miró and Rossetti string quartets. She currently spends her summers performing as Assistant Concertmaster of the Lake Placid Sinfonietta in New York.
Dedicated to teaching, Amanda has served on the faculty at the Hartt School Community Division, Connecticut College, SUNY Adirondack, Skidmore College and currently teaches at The College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York.
Amanda holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and Kent State University. Her principal violin teachers include Ilya Kaler, Timothy Ying, Sandy Yamamoto, Ivan Chan and Cathy Meng Robinson and she studied viola with Chauncey Patterson. Other mentors include Virginia Wensel, Betty Haag and David Updegraff. She currently performs on a J.B. Ceruti violin on generous loan.
She is married to cellist, Jonathan Brin, and they have three children, Annabelle, Elliott and Oliver.
JONATHAN BRIN is the founding cellist of the Hyperion String Quartet. With the quartet, he won prizes at the Coleman, Fischoff, Green Lake, and Music Teachers National Association chamber music competitions. As a soloist, he was awarded the first place Arden J. Yockey Scholarship for Strings in the Tuesday Musical’s 2003 Competition in Akron, Ohio.
He has appeared as a soloist with the Onondaga Civic Orchestra, the Syracuse University Summer Festival Orchestra and the Kent State University Orchestra. Jonathan has also served as guest cellist with the Miró Quartet and has been guest principal cello with Orchestra New England. As a sought after chamber musician, he has appeared at festivals including La Jolla Chamber Music Society’s Summerfest, Penderecki QuartetFest, Bravo Vail Valley Festival and Strings in the Mountains. He has collaborated with many artists including Benny Kim, Toby Appel, Sophie Shao, Melvin Chen, Stewart Rose, Stephen Taylor, Anthea Kreston and with members of the Miró, Penderecki and Rossetti string quartets. He is currently a member of the Lake Placid Sinfonietta, the Vermont Symphony Orchestra and is principal of the Glens Falls Symphony Orchestra.
As an educator, Jonathan has served on the faculty at the NSOA-ASTA Conference at SUNY Fredonia, the Hartt School Community Division, Connecticut College, and the Lake George Chamber Music Workshop, and is currently on faculty at The College of Saint Rose, Skidmore College and SUNY Adirondack in upstate New York. He completed his undergraduate studies at the Eastman School of Music with high honors and earned his Master of Music degree from Kent State University as a teaching assistant to the Miró and Miami string quartets. His principal teachers were Einar Holm, Steven Doane, Joshua Gindele and Keith Robinson. Other mentors include William Stokking, Rosemary Elliott, and Kathleen Kemp.
Jonathan lives in Saratoga Springs with his wife, violinist Amanda Brin and their children Annabelle, Elliott and Oliver.
As a pianist, Dan Saunders has performed in concert throughout the world with many leading singers and instrumentalists including Jessye Norman, Kiri TeKanawa, Elisabeth Soderstrom, Kathleen Battle, Tatiana Troyanos, Marilyn Horne, Dimitri Horostovsky, and Thomas Allen; more recently with Sonya Yoncheva, Susanna Phillips, Latonia Moore, Isobel Leonard, Jamie Barton, Nathan Gunn, Gerald Finley and Luca Pisaroni, as well as violinists Eugene Fodor and Jennifer Gilbert.
Dan performed with Jessye Norman at the White House, Avery Fisher Hall Lincoln Center, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, San Francisco Opera, and Tokyo’s Bunka Kaikan and with Marilyn Horne at Paris’ Bastille.
Mr. Saunders has also been featured on national television with Ms. Norman, Dimitri Horostovsky and Gary Lakes. A frequent guest on WQXR’s Listening Room, he has performed with such artists as Danielle De Niese, Lisette Oropesa, and Luca Pisaroni.
New York Times live streams have included appearances with Angel Blue, Angela Meade and Golda Schultz.
He has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, Paris Bastille and Salle Gaveau, London’s Wigmore Hall and on the South Bank. Festivals include the Mostly Mozart Festival,
the Salzburg, Tanglewood, Ravinia and Caramoor Festivals, as well as Japan’s Matsumoto Festival.
Recordings include Kathleen Battle, Soprano on SONY Video, Estrellita with violinist Tomoko Kato on the Denon Label and with violinist Eugene Fodor on Newport Classics.
During his tenure at the Met, Dan has also been heard as harpsichordist on Metropolitan Broadcasts for productions including Le Nozze di Figaro, Cosi fan Tutte, Don Giovanni, Idomeneo and La Clemenza di Tito.
For the past seven summers, Saunders has served as pianist for the Met’s Summer in the Parks series in Central Park and Brooklyn Bridge Park. He also has collaborated with the Lindemann young artists for their summer concert series throughout the city.
He studied piano at Wheaton College, continuing with Carl Friedberg protégé William Browning at the American Conservatory in Chicago. Subsequently, he spent four years of study with Pianist Geoffrey Parsons in London.
