Haunting Harmonies
Casual Concert: October 26th, 2025 @ 7 PM
Avoca Coffee Roasters (Foch St. Store), Fort Worth
Avoca Coffee Roasters (Foch St. Store), Fort Worth
Musicians
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Nikayla Kim joined the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra in the summer of 2023. She began her studies in violin at the age of 6 in South Korea, where she won accolades in competitions such as the Nanpa National Music Concours, The Journal of Music Concours, and the Korean National Concours of Culture and Art. After moving to Pennsylvania, she attended the Juilliard Pre-College Division in 2015. She is also a former prize winner of the Juilliard Pre-College Violin Concerto Competition and the Kenneth Symphony Competition.
As an active chamber musician, Ms. Kim has been featured in masterclasses conducted by the Emerson and Aizuri Quartets. During her studies at Juilliard, she was selected as a member of the Juilliard Honors Chamber Program and won the WDAV Young Chamber Musicians Competition. She had the privilege of learning chamber music from esteemed musicians including Samuel Rhodes, Laurie Smukler, Natasha Brofsky, Roger Tapping, Darrett Adkins, Jerome Lowenthal, and Janet Sung. Nikayla graduated from the Juilliard School with a Bachelor's Degree, studying under the guidance of Masao Kawasaki. She recently completed her Master’s Degree at DePaul University School of Music, graduating under the tutelage of I-Hao Lee, and also served as a graduate assistant during her time there. |
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Sarah Kienle began her viola studies at age seven in her hometown of Kalispell, Montana. After graduating in 2007 from the Walnut Hill School for the Arts in Natick, Massachusetts, she received her Bachelor of Music from the Colburn School in Los Angeles, California, in 2011, where she studied with Paul Coletti. In 2013, Kienle received her Master of Music from Indiana University in Bloomington, where she studied with Atar Arad. Kienle was a fellow with the New World Symphony, an orchestral academy in Miami Beach, Florida, for its 2013/14 and 2014/15 seasons.
In 2015, Kienle moved to Dallas, Texas, where she performed as a freelancer with both the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and the Houston Symphony. She then joined the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, beginning as Associate Principal Viola in 2017 and assuming the position of acting Principal Viola in 2019. Kienle especially enjoys chamber music. At the 2008 Festival Amadeus in Whitefish, Montana, she performed J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 with Coletti as a soloist. She has played at Bravo! Vail, the Colburn Chamber Music Society, the Sanibel Music Festival and the Aspen Music Festival, with performances alongside Augustin Hadelich and Anne-Marie McDermott. Kienle spends her summers in Durango, Colorado, hiking and performing at the Music in the Mountains festival. |
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Allan Steele, principal cellist with the Fort Worth Symphony, is a performer, composer, and teacher. Mr. Steele has premiered several works in chamber or orchestral settings by composers such as Mark Antony Turnage and Stephen Cohn, as well as performing the world premiere of Henri Lazarof's Fifth Cello Concerto. He frequently collaborates with the Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth and the Olmos Ensemble of San Antonio and maintains an active string quartet with FWSO colleagues known as Sedici Strings.
Mr. Steele enjoys teaching tremendously and has held positions at Texas Christian University, University of North Texas, and Eastern Music Festival, and is always open to offering private lessons to students. He will soon be a published contributor for Carus Books, and he spends his free time designing video games and composing music. |
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An "eloquent" clarinetist with "incredible artistry” Russian-born Stas Chernyshev has established a versatile career as an orchestral musician, soloist, chamber musician, and educator (Dallas Morning News, Theater Jones). Principal clarinetist of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Mr. Chernyshev has performed at such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall in New York, Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., as well as in Switzerland, Spain, Germany, Russia, South Korea and Japan. A devoted chamber musician, Mr. Chernyshev has collaborated with Grammy-winning ensembles Eighth Blackbird and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, commissioned new works for his instrument. He has been featured on WQXR -New York’s classical music station and WHYY’s television program - On Stage at Curtis. He is the founder and artistic director of Fort Worth Performances for Autism, and a co-founder of Opus Nova Chamber Music Series. Mr. Chernyshev holds a Bachelor’s degree from the Curtis Institute of Music, and a Master’s degree from St. Petersburg Conservatory.
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Ann Hung, born in Taipei, Taiwan, began her musical studies at a young age, starting with piano at age five and clarinet at age nine. Dr. Hung is an active performer in the Dallas and Fort Worth area who regularly performs in the realms of both the orchestral and chamber music. She has shared the stage with the Fort Worth Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the members of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the faculty of the Juilliard School. Dr. Hung is always pushing the boundaries of her repertoire and skills, such as collaborating with jazz musicians and commissioning new composers. As a proponent of new music, she has avidlycommissioned new works including a wind quintet with her quintet Opus Now premiering in Symphony Space in NYC. One of the new works that Dr. Hung commissioned is included in a recently released album “Stained Glass Story” by Eldad Tarmu. Dr. Hung is currently teaching in Lewisville ISD, Burleson ISD as private lesson instructor and often plays with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. She is the associate director of the Fort Worth Performances for Autism and co- founder of Opus Nova Chamber Music Series.
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Program Notes
Many listen to classical music to feel relaxed and soothed—but its range of characters and moods is tremendous. Some of the greatest, most innovative works express curiosity toward more challenging emotions: vulnerability, darkness, and fear. What better week than Halloween to explore the side of classical music that unsettles our hearts and invites us to face the unknown?
Claude Debussy’s Syrinx (1913) is one of the earliest and most influential solo works for the modern flute. In just three minutes, it creates an entire sound world out of a single melodic line. Debussy drew inspiration from Greek mythology: Syrinx, a nymph pursued by the god Pan, escapes by transforming into reeds—out of which Pan fashions the first flute.
The music feels spontaneous, as if it were being discovered in real time. Its winding phrases, subtle shifts of color, and moments of silence give it a dreamlike quality. Mysterious and intimate, Syrinx has become a classic for its haunting beauty and timeless simplicity. In this performance, you’ll hear it in a special arrangement for clarinet, which adds its own unique color and resonance to Debussy’s miniature masterpiece.
Maurice Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Cello (1920–1922) was dedicated to the memory of his friend Claude Debussy and remains one of his most daring works—spare, transparent, and striking in its counterpoint. By stripping away lush harmonies, Ravel highlights rhythm, texture, and dialogue, creating the illusion of a much larger ensemble.
The opening Allegro is muscular and intense, its angular lines and bold rhythms testing the limits of the two instruments. The Très vif that follows offers a vivid contrast—quick, mischievous, and full of witty exchanges that sparkle with rhythmic precision. Together, these movements reveal Ravel at his most inventive, balancing clarity and restraint with dazzling expressive power.
Ludwig van Beethoven’s Trio in C minor, Op. 9 No. 3 (1798) stands at the height of his early chamber music and anticipates the boldness of his later quartets. The work bursts with intensity and contrast: the Allegro con spirito drives forward with restless rhythms, sudden dynamic turns, and daring harmonic shifts.
Though written for only three instruments, the trio achieves remarkable depth and orchestral power. Here we hear the young Beethoven already pushing boundaries, transforming classical balance into something personal and electrifying.
Francis Poulenc’s Sonata for Two Clarinets (1918) sparkles with wit and imagination. Scored for one B-flat and one A clarinet, it plays with color and contrast, as if the two voices are engaged in lively banter. Across its three short movements, Poulenc combines humor, tenderness, and a touch of melancholy—all underpinned by his unmistakable sense of clarity and charm. This sonata, both playful and elegant, stands as a miniature jewel of the 20th-century wind repertoire.
Zoltán Kodály’s Intermezzo (1905), written while the composer was still a student, offers an early glimpse of his lyrical voice. The music is graceful and charming, blending the warmth of late Romantic harmony with light, folk-tinged rhythms and a hint of humor.
Though modest in scope, it reveals Kodály’s gift for melody and texture—qualities that would later define his mature works. The Intermezzo feels like a brief but radiant conversation among friends, full of ease and gentle wit.
American composer Missy Mazzoli is celebrated for her inventive, genre-blurring music that draws from classical, folk, and contemporary influences. About her piece Lies You Can Believe for string trio, she writes:
“Lies You Can Believe In, for string trio, was commissioned by Milwaukee-based ensemble Present Music. The 'lies' in the title are not untruths, but rather an old-fashioned word for an improvised and embellished story. This type of lie is not malicious; the process of invention and the telling of the tale are ultimately more important than the truth behind the account. In this piece I created my own 'lie,' an invented and embellished urban folk music. The strings tell an improvisatory tale, touching upon the violence, energy, mania and rare moments of calm one finds in a city. This piece is inspired as much by modern gypsy music, punk, and electronica as it is by traditional Bulgarian and Romanian folk music.”
Bohuslav Martinů’s Serenade (1932) brims with rhythmic vitality and radiant energy. The final movement opens with a brief, introspective Lento before bursting into an Allegro full of bright, dance-like motion.
True to Martinů’s style, the music fuses Czech folk spirit with neoclassical clarity, creating a sound that is both earthy and exuberant. The Serenade ends in a flourish of joy—a fitting close to a program that celebrates music’s power to move, surprise, and thrill.