Sedona News – For the next concert of its 42nd season, Chamber Music Sedona is thrilled to welcome the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (CMS) to the stage on Sunday, March 23, 2025 at 3 p.m. Recognized as the foremost chamber music organization in North America, CMS has influenced and shaped the chamber music world for over 50 years. Headlined by pianist and Co-Artistic Director Wu Han, the group will perform a rich program centered around Schubert’s Trout Quintet, one of the most beloved masterpieces in the repertoire. The concert will take place at the Sedona Performing Arts Center, 995 Upper Red Rock Loop Rd., Sedona, Ariz. 86336.
A recipient of Musical America’s Musician of the Year Award, Wu Han enjoys a multi-faceted musical life that encompasses artistic direction, performing and recording at the highest levels. Her recent concert activities have taken her to the most important concert halls in the United States, Europe and Asia. In addition to countless performances of virtually the entire chamber repertoire, Han’s concerto performances include appearances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony and the Aspen Festival Orchestra. Among other leading roles, she is the Founder and Artistic Director of ArtistLed, classical music’s first artist-directed, internet-based recording label, which has released her performances of the staples of the cello-piano duo repertoire with her husband, cellist David Finckel.
The March 23 concert will also feature cellist Sterling Elliott, double bassist Anthony Manzo, violist Paul Neubauer, and violinists Julian Rhee and Arnaud Sussmann. Sterling Elliott is a 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient and winner of the Senior Division 2019 National Sphinx Competition. He has appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Dallas and Detroit symphonies, and performs at several leading chamber music festivals.
Anthony Manzo’s vibrantly interactive and highly communicative music-making has made him a ubiquitous figure in the upper echelons of classical music. In addition to appearing regularly with CMS, he serves as the solo bassist of San Francisco’s New Century Chamber Orchestra and as a guest with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and A Far Cry. He is a regular guest with the National Symphony Orchestra, the Smithsonian Chamber Society and the Baltimore Symphony. Manzo is also an active performer on period instruments, with groups including the Handel & Haydn Society of Boston (where his playing was lauded as “endowed with beautiful and unexpected plaintiveness” by the Boston Musical Intelligencer), Philharmonia Baroque in San Francisco and Opera Lafayette in Washington, D.C.
Paul Neubauer has been called a “master musician” by the New York Times. He recently made his Chicago Symphony subscription debut with conductor Riccardo Muti, and also gave the U.S. premiere of the newly discovered “Impromptu” for viola and piano by Shostakovich with Wu Han. Appointed principal violist of the New York Philharmonic at age 21, he has appeared as soloist with over 100 orchestras worldwide. A two-time Grammy nominee, he has recorded on numerous labels and has been featured on CBS’s Sunday Morning and A Prairie Home Companion, as well as in various publications.
Praised for his “sophisticated, assured tone, superb intonation, and the kind of poise and showmanship that thrills audiences,” (The Strad) Julian Rhee is the Silver Medalist of the 11th Quadrennial International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, winner of Astral Artists’ National Auditions and the first-prize winner of the 2020 Elmar Oliveira International Competition. He made his Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra debut at age eight, and has gone on to perform with orchestras across the U.S., as well as at several music festivals.
Winner of a 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Arnaud Sussmann has distinguished himself with his unique sound, bravura and profound musicianship. A thrilling musician capturing the attention of classical critics and audiences around the world, he has recently appeared as a soloist with the Vancouver Symphony and the New World Symphony. As a chamber musician, he has performed at leading venues around the world, and has been presented in recital in Omaha on the Tuesday Musical Club series, in New Orleans by the Friends of Music and at the Louvre Museum in Paris. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, Sussmann is Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach and Co-Director of Music@Menlo’s International Program.
For more information and to purchase concert tickets, visit https://chambermusicsedona.org/2025-the-chamber-music-society-of-lincoln-center/.