THE PROGRAM

Ernő Dohnányi                            Serenade in C Major, Opus 10, for violin, viola and cello
(1877-1960)                                          I. Marcia. Allegro
a                                                        II. Romanza. Adagio non troppo
a                                                        III. Scherzo. Vivace
a                                                        IV. Tema con variazioni. Andante con moto
a                                                        V. Rondo.

Krzysztof Penderecki                Chaconne (in Memory of John Paul II) (string sextet version)
(1933-2020)

INTERMISSION

Felix Mendelssohn                    Octet in E-flat Major for Strings, Opus 20
(1809-1847)                                        I. Allegro moderato ma con fuoco
a                                                       II. Andante
a                                                       III. Scherzo: Allegro leggierissimo
a                                                       IV. Presto

 

THE ARTISTS

CHARLES DIMMICK
CONCERTMASTER

Praised by the Boston Globe for his “cool clarity of expression,” violinist Charles Dimmick enjoys a varied and distinguished career as concertmaster, soloist, and chamber musician. As one of New England’s most sought-after orchestral musicians, he is concertmaster of the Portland Symphony and the Rhode Island Philharmonic, appears regularly as concertmaster of the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, and has served as guest concertmaster for the Winston-Salem Symphony, New Hampshire Music Festival, and Arizona Musicfest. A frequent soloist, Charles has garnered praise, packed houses, and received standing ovations for what the Portland Press Herald has called his “luxurious and stellar performances” and his “technical and artistic virtuosity.” He lives in Melrose, MA with his wife, flutist Rachel Braude, and their daughter Chloe. Charles performs on a 1784 Joseph Gagliano violin.

 

AMY SIMS
ASSISTANT CONCERTMASTER

Los Angeles native Amy Sims is a busy free-lance Classical and Baroque violinist living in Boston, collaborating with musicians from the region in a wide range of musical genres from string quartets and intimate Baroque chamber ensembles to large ensembles including Portland Symphony in Maine, where she is the Assistant Concertmaster. She is a member of Boston Baroque, Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, and Springfield Symphony Orchestra. She plays regularly with Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), Handel and Haydn Society, and Rhode Island Philharmonic. Each August, Ms. Sims returns to the Peninsula Music Festival Orchestra in Door County, Wisconsin as its assistant concertmaster.

Before venturing to New England, Amy was the concertmaster of the Omaha Symphony from 2000-2010. With Bachelor and Masters degrees in Violin Performance from the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music with professor Eudice Shapiro, Ms. Sims held the position of principal second violin of the Pacific Symphony Orchestra from 1994 to 2000 while free-lancing on the west coast, performing and recording newly commissioned works with Southwest Chamber Music as well as studio recording for major motion picture soundtracks and television commercials.

 

SARAH ATWOOD
PRINCIPAL SECOND VIOLIN

Sarah Atwood is the Principal Second Violin of both the Portland Symphony Orchestra and Boston Lyric Opera, and a member of the Boston Ballet Orchestra. She regularly performs with the Boston Symphony and Boston Pops, including international tours to Europe and Asia. She appears in other ensembles such as Emmanuel Music, Odyssey Opera, Monadnock Music, Cantata Singers, A Far Cry, and Boston Modern Orchestra Project. A graduate of New England Conservatory, Sarah has performed solo at Carnegie Hall as First Prize Winner of the American Protege International Piano and Strings Competition, and been featured on BBC Radio.

She has performed and taught throughout the United States, Europe, and Palestine. During the pandemic, Sarah made a project of recording Paganini’s 24 Caprices. This was highlighted by The Strad magazine and French radio, among others. Recently she completed the summer season performing at Tanglewood and in Leipzig at the Bach Festival.

 

SASHA CALLAHAN
ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL SECOND VIOLIN

Violinist Sasha Callahan has established a vibrant and diverse career as a recitalist, chamber and orchestral musician. She has toured extensively throughout North America, Europe, Japan, and Australia, and is a founding member and co-Artistic Director of Sheffield Chamber Players and the Willamette Valley Chamber Music Festival. Chamber music has been one of Sasha’s great loves since she played her first string quartets with her sister Eve and their grandparents. She’s particularly interested in projects that bring audiences and performers closer together to forge connection and community. The Willamette Valley Chamber Music Festival, Sheffield Chamber Players, and the educational string trio All Ears were each formed with this in mind. Sasha is passionate about exploring new music alongside masterpieces of the past, and has worked closely with and premiered works by many composers including Osvaldo Golijov, Joan Tower, Gabriela Lena Frank, Evan Ziporyn, Jessie Montgomery, Kenji Bunch, Lukas Foss, and Gunther Schuller. She can be heard as a member of the Portland (Maine) Symphony, Rhode Island Philharmonic, and New Hampshire Music Festival, as well as with Aperio, Music of the Americas (Houston, TX), the Boston Pops, Boston Symphony, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Boston Lyric Opera, Odyssey Opera, and the Boston Ballet Orchestra. Sasha has performed on multiple Grammy nominated and award winning albums, as well as a recent album of string quartets by Gabriela Lena Frank called Her Own Wings. She recently served as a faculty mentor to emerging composers at the innovative Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music in California. A native of Portland, Oregon, Sasha received her BM degree in violin performance from Rice University and MM from Boston University. Principal teachers include Lucia Lin, Sergiu Luca, Denes Zsigmondy, and Carol Sindell. She currently resides in Boston with her husband Leo Eguchi and daughter Freya.

 

WILLINE THOE
ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL VIOLA

Willine Thoe was raised in Hong Kong and started her musical career studying piano with her mother at the age of three.  Beginning violin at six and viola at eleven, she attended the highly selective Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts Junior Division and attained the LTCL Performance Diploma from the Trinity College London (UK) in both piano and viola as a teenager.  She received her Bachelor of Music in Viola Performance with high distinction from the Eastman School of Music, her Master of Music with honors from the New England Conservatory of Music, and her Doctorate of Musical Arts from Boston University.  Her principal teachers were John Graham, James Dunham, and Steve Ansell, and she has performed in master classes of Yuri Bashmet, Kim Kashkashian and Karen Tuttle.

She has been the Assistant Viola Principal of the Portland Symphony since 2009. She is also a member of the Rhode Island Philharmonic, and can also be seen performing with various other ensembles in the area, such as the Boston Ballet, Boston Landmarks Orchestra, Boston Lyric Opera and Boston Modern Orchestra Project.

Willine maintains a private studio where she teaches viola, violin and piano.  Her students are often selected to perform in ABRSM Honors recitals. She resides in the Boston area with her husband and two sons.

 

MATTHEW CONSUL
VIOLA

Currently based in North Yarmouth, Maine, Matt Consul holds a Bachelor’s degree in Viola Performance and a Master’s in Contemporary Improvisation on mandolin and violin from Boston’s New England Conservatory of Music.  He is the 3rd chair violist of the Portland Symphony Orchestra, serves as a substitute musician with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston Pops, and has previously performed with the Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra, the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, Shattered Glass ensemble, and as acting principal viola of the New Orchestra of Washington.  Matt was formerly the principal violist of Boston’s highly-acclaimed (but, sadly, now defunct) chamber orchestra Discovery Ensemble.  A lifelong lover of chamber music, Matt has been an artist at the Birdfoot International Chamber Music Festival in New Orleans, the SOTA festival in Hyderabad, India, and has attended such festivals as The Taos School of Music and Kneisel Hall. He has also appeared as guest violist with the Portland String Quartet and coaches chamber music at the Pineland Suzuki School in Manchester, Maine. Matt was a co-founder/director of For The Love Of Music, an educational initiative that provided free interactive performances and workshops for children in uptown Manhattan, and currently presents educational workshops for kids in Portland public elementary schools through the Portland Symphony’s Explorers program. Active in a variety of musical circles outside the classical world, Matt is a member of jazz composer/bandleader Miho Hazama’s Grammy-nominated ensemble m_unit and was formerly a member of the alt folk outfit the Laura Grill Band. He has appeared multiple times as a member of the on-stage band (mandolin/violin/vocals) for the 2022 Relentless Award-winning musical How the White Girl Got Her Spots and Other 90s Trivia written by Shayok Misha Chowdhury and Laura Grill Jaye.  He has performed, toured, and recorded with artists as diverse as jazz vocalist Kurt Elling, rock groups The Dear Hunter and Bent Knee, and ska band Streetlight Manifesto. In addition to performing, Matt maintains a small private studio teaching viola and violin.

 

BRENT SELBY
PRINCIPAL CELLO

Raised on a farm in the small town of Bath, North Carolina, cellist and teacher Brent Selby spent his childhood assuming he would end up farming crops like his father. It wasn’t until he saw Yo-Yo Ma perform on PBS at age eleven that he found an interest in music, specifically in learning to play the cello. Luckily a retired violin teacher from New Jersey, Doris Hamilton, had recently moved to the area and agreed to teach him until she could find him a cello teacher.

Selby eventually went on to study with Wendy Bissinger at thirteen, and Emanuel Gruber at seventeen. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the New England Conservatory studying under Natasha Brofsky, then went on to bookend his studies with yet another violinist, Mela Tenenbaum. He currently teaches his own studio of cellists at Dartmouth College.

In 2018, Selby joined the Rhode Island Philharmonic’s cello section, and in 2021 he was appointed assistant principal cellist of the Portland Symphony Orchestra. In 2022, he was appointed principal cellist of the Rhode Island Philharmonic, and in 2024 he was appointed principal cellist of both the Boston Lyric Opera and the Portland Symphony.

Although he never took up farming, his wife Jackie, who is also a cellist, often ropes him into weeding her ever expanding garden.

 

WILLIAM ROUNDS
CELLO

A cellist with the Portland Symphony since 1988, William Rounds is also an extra player with the Boston Symphony and member of the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra. With the Pops he has performed many hundreds of concerts, made recordings and TV tapings, been on 40 tours throughout the United States, Canada and Asia and played annually on live national television for their Fourth of July broadcast. As an extra with the Boston Symphony, throughout the last three decades he has performed with many of the major conductors and soloists of the day and toured throughout the world.

Originally from Rapid City, South Dakota, Mr. Rounds studied at Boston University with world renowned cellist-pedagogue George Neikrug. He received fellowships for study at the Hollywood Bowl with the LA Philharmonic, and at the Tanglewood Music Center with the Boston Symphony, as well as being one of two American string players selected for the exclusive Villa Musica in Germany.

While a member of the Artaria String Quartet, Mr. Rounds performed throughout the United States and Germany, as well as toured with pop superstar John Denver. He currently performs with Ensemble Chamarre, a group dedicated to exploring the Quartet for the End of Time by Oliver Messiaen; other recent affiliations include the West Stockbridge Chamber Players and the Orlando Chamber Soloists. As a soloist, he has appeared throughout the United States, both in recital and with numerous symphony orchestras.

In addition to his classical career Mr. Rounds has recorded for Aerosmith, performed on the soundtracks for numerous movies, including the Oscar winning soundtrack to Schindler’s List, and has appeared as back-up to a wide range of popular artists from David Byrne to Jerry Vale. A committed teacher, Mr. Rounds is in demand for giving clinics and master classes, is on the faculties of Boston University and the University of Southern Maine, and has maintained a long affiliation with the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras.