Springtime in Europe: Rossini + More

Colin Gatwood was born in Cleveland, Ohio but grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where his father was principal oboist with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and his mother, a violinist, was a freelance musician and teacher. He began his musical studies on the piano at age 5, but by the time he was nine, he had begun taking oboe lessons from his father.

Gatwood is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio. His first orchestra job was with the Pittsburgh Symphony, playing second oboe for four years. From there, he went on to join the Guadalajara Symphony Orchestra in Mexico, and in 1991, he won the position of second oboe with the Houston Symphony.

Christian Schubert joined the Houston Symphony as Second Clarinetist in 1996, appointed by then music director Christoph Eschenbach. A native of Burbank, California, Mr. Schubert studied with Kalman Bloch (Principal Clarinet, Los Angeles Philharmonic) for seven years before moving to Chicago to study with Robert Marcellus at Northwestern University, where he received both his undergraduate and graduate degrees in music performance. As a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Mr. Schubert also studied with Larry Combs of the Chicago Symphony.

Prior to arriving in Houston, Mr. Schubert played extensively with numerous Chicago area ensembles including the Lyric Opera Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Ravinia Festival Orchestra, The Chicago Ensemble, as well as performing commercial jingle session work in the Chicago studios. He also served as the second clarinetist and E-flat clarinetist with the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago for 17 seasons between 1991 and 2016. Active as a chamber musician as well as a recitalist, he has been a featured performer at the Schlesswig Holstein Musik Festival, the Mainly Mozart Festival, the Grand Teton Music Festival and the Tanglewood Music Festival.

Well known for his success in teaching young people, he has served on the music faculties of North Park College in Chicago and the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music. He is also the co-founder of Houston Clarinet Camp and has presented masterclasses across the country. A dedicated pedagogue, he has maintained a private instruction studio at home every year of his professional career as well as serving as a lead teacher in several music education initiatives sponsored by the Houston Symphony.

In his time away from performing and teaching, Mr. Schubert owns and operates a recording engineering company, Schubert Recording Services, specializing in the quality digital recording of classical music.

Mr. Schubert exclusively performs and records on Buffet clarinets, and on D’Addario Reserve Classic reeds, and has been a Performing Artist & Clinician for both companies since 2016.

Associate principal bassoonist Isaac Schultz, a native of Exeter, New Hampshire, earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, where he studied with Benjamin Kamins. While at Rice, Isaac was a fellow at the Music Academy of the West and the Aspen Music School. In 2015, he was a prize winner at the Fischoff International Chamber Music Competition and a finalist at the Coleman Competition. Away from music, he enjoys rock climbing and other outdoor activities.

Critics have described American cellist Brinton Averil Smith as a “virtuoso cellist with few equals,” hailing him as “a proponent of old-school string playing such as that of Piatigorsky and Heifetz.” Gramophone praised Brinton in his debut recording of Miklós Rózsa’s Cello Concerto as a “hugely eloquent, impassioned soloist,” writing “The sheer bravura of Smith’s reading is infectious.” BBC Music magazine wrote of his recent Naxos recording of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco's Cello Concerto, “his is a cast iron technique of verve and refinement put entirely at the service of the music... The artistry on display here is breathtaking,” while David Hurwitz of Classics Today wrote, “Smith plays the living daylights out of it. His full tone, impeccable intonation, and fleet passage work–never for a moment ungainly or stressed–lets the music soar.” Gramophone also wrote of Smith’s most recent Naxos recording, Exiles in Paradise, which explores the rich legacy of the émigré composers who gathered in Hollywood in the mid-20^th century, “Smith plays the bejesus out of it, making child’s play of the rapid-fire spiccatos and almost impossible-to-control harmonics. …and teems with old-school elegance and just the right dose of schmaltz.”

Brinton's North American engagements have included performances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and recital and concerto engagements throughout the country, while his broadcast performances include CBS's Sunday Morning and regular appearances on NPR’s Performance Today and Symphonycast. He has appeared regularly as a soloist with the Houston Symphony since joining the orchestra as principal cellist in 2005. Prior to this, he was the first musician chosen by Lorin Maazel to join the New York Philharmonic and the principal cellist of the Fort Worth and San Diego Symphony Orchestras. His live concert performances on YouTube have been viewed more than one million times, including more than 250,000 views of a live encore of Paganini's 24^th Caprice. Devoted to expanding the cello repertoire, Brinton performs a wide variety of violin, piano, and vocal transcriptions, and gave the North American premiers of rediscovered cello works of Jean Sibelius and Alexander Zemlinsky as well as the world premiere of Castelnuovo-Tedesco's Sonata for violin and cello. He also gave the first professional performance of Castelnuovo-Tedesco's cello concerto since its 1935 premiere with Arturo Toscanini and Gregor Piatigorsky.

An active chamber musician, Brinton has collaborated with violinist Gil Shaham on numerous occasions, including Carnegie Hall's Gil Shaham and Friends series. He has also collaborated with cellists Yo-Yo Ma and Lynn Harrell; pianists Yefim Bronfman, Emanuel Ax, Jeffrey Kahane, and Kirill Gerstein; violinists James Ehnes, Cho-Liang Lin, and Sarah Chang; soprano Dawn Upshaw; and members of the Beaux Arts Trio; and the Guarneri, Emerson, Juilliard, Cleveland, and Berg quartets. He has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Marlboro Music Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, the Sarasota Music Festival, the Seattle Chamber Music Society, the Mainly Mozart Festival, the Brevard Music Festival, and the Texas Music Festival. Brinton is currently an associate professor at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University and a faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival.

The son of a mathematician and a pianist, Brinton Averil Smith was admitted to Arizona State University at age 10, where he took courses in mathematics and German and, at age 17, completed a B.A. in mathematics. He then became a student of Eleonore Schoenfeld at the University of Southern California, where he was also a teaching assistant in the mathematics department, and completed work for an M.A. in mathematics at age 19. He subsequently studied with the legendary cellist Zara Nelsova at The Juilliard School. While there, he was a prize winner in several consecutive Juilliard concerto competitions and the Leonard Rose International Cello Competition and received a doctor of musical arts degree, writing on the playing of Emanuel Feuermann. Brinton lives in Houston with his wife, the pianist Evelyn Chen, and their enormous but benevolent dog. Their daughter, Calista, is a soprano studying at Northwestern University. His cello was made by Gaetano Pasta in Brescia, c.1710.

Robin Kesselman was appointed Principal Bass of the Houston Symphony Orchestra in 2014. He has performed as Guest Principal Bass with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, and the Israel Philharmonic, travelled internationally with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic, and appeared with the National, Atlanta, and Baltimore symphonies.

Kesselman has appeared multiple times as soloist with the Houston Symphony, in subscription performances of the Koussevitzky Concerto for Double Bass, Missy Mazzoli’s concerto Dark with Excessive Bright, and Bottesini’s Gran Duo Concertante with Gil Shaham. Previous season highlights include Krzysztof Penderecki’s Duo Concertante during the composer’s Carnegie Hall residency in collaboration with the Curtis Institute and Bottesini’s Concerto No. 2 with the Houston Civic Symphony. Recent festival engagements include leading the bass sections of the Grand Teton, Mainly Mozart, Arizona Musicfest and Aspen Festival orchestras.

Kesselman frequently performs as a soloist and chamber musician and presents recital programs and masterclasses at the Nation’s top universities. He has also served as faculty for the National Youth Orchestra – USA, Curtis Institute’s Summerfest, the Richard Davis Bass Conference, and the summer residency of the Youth Philharmonic of Colombia. He recently released Bow Speed Geography, a method book and video series dedicated to the improvement of legato and sustain from the standpoint of bow speed. Kesselman holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Southern California and an Artist Diploma from the Curtis Institute of Music. His primary teachers have included David Allen Moore, Harold Robinson, Edgar Meyer, Paul Ellison, Chris Hanulik, and Virginia Dixon.

Yoonshin Song was appointed as Concertmaster of the Houston Symphony in August 2019. Prior to that she has held the same position with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra for seven seasons. In Europe, Yoonshin has served as guest concertmaster of the Budapest Festival Orchestra under Iván Fischer for several years, and she has led the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra under numerous top-tiered conductors, such as Sir Simon Rattle, Klaus Mäkelä, Daniel Harding, Mikhail Pletnev, and Antonio Pappano. She also served as guest concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the KBS Symphony Orchestra.

Beyond her first chair duties, Yoonshin has performed as a soloist with many orchestras around the world, including the Houston Symphony, Budapest Festival Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Utah Symphony, the New Mexico Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, the Paul Constantinescu Philharmonic Orchestra, the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, and the KBS Symphony Orchestra, among many others.

She has also participated as a soloist and a chamber musician in various roles in leading music festivals, including the ones in Verbier, Lucerne, Samos and Bayreuth in Europe, the Marlboro, Great Lakes, and Deer Valley in the United States.

Yoonshin has earned many prestigious prizes throughout her career, including top prize awards in the Lipizer International Violin Competition, the Lipinski and Wieniawski International Violin Competition, the Henry Marteau International Violin Competition, and first prize at the Stradivarius International Competition in the United States.

She studied under the tutelage of Donald Weilerstein at the New England Conservatory and with Robert Mann, Glenn Dicterow, and Lisa Kim at the Manhattan School of Music.

Critics have praised clarinetist Mark Nuccio for both his solo and chamber appearances,  describing him as “the evening’s highlight”, full of “mystery and insight” and “shaping his phrases beautifully with a rich, expressive tone.” (New York Times)

Mr. Nuccio is currently the Principal Clarinetist of the Houston Symphony since 2016.  Prior to that, he was a member of the New York Philharmonic having joined in 1999 as Associate Principal and Solo  E-flat Clarinetist. During Nuccio’s 17 years in the NYP, he served as Acting Principal Clarinet for four years from 2009-2013. Prior to his service with the Philharmonic, he has held positions with orchestras in Pittsburgh, Denver, Savannah, and Florida working with distinguished conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Mariss Jansons, Riccardo Muti, Zubin Mehta, Erich Leinsdorf, Alan Gilbert, Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Chailly, André Previn, Christoph von Dohnányi, Valero Gergiev, Charles Dutoit, Gustavo Dudamel, Esa Pekka Salonen, Andres Orozco Estrada, and Juraj Valcuha. Additionally, Mr. Nuccio has toured extensively with the Houston Symphony, the New York Philharmonic and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and in numerous countries, recorded with all three orchestras, and performed regularly with the Philharmonic on the award-winning series, Live from Lincoln Center, broadcast on PBS. Recent highlights include the Philharmonic’s historic and newsworthy visits to North Korea and Vietnam.

An active solo and chamber musician, Mr. Nuccio has been featured with various orchestras in the United States and made multiple appearances as a featured performer at the International Clarinet Association conventions. He made his subscription solo debut with the Houston Symphony in 2018 with several other appearances since then, with the subscription solo debut with the New York Philharmonic on Feb. 10, 2010 and returned to perform the Copland Concerto with the NY Philharmonic under the baton of Alan Gilbert on May 31 and June 1 of 2013. Other highlights include a New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall in 2001, his Japanese recital debut in 2002. He continues to regularly perform recitals in  Asia and Europe as well as across the United States and in New York, he can often be heard at Merkin Concert Hall, 92nd Street Y, Carnegie Hall, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Mr. Nuccio also participates in the chamber music series at the Strings Music Festival in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, performs/teaches at Festival Napa Valley, and teaches at ARIA Music Festival, among others.

As a studio musician, Mr. Nuccio is featured on numerous movie soundtracks, including Failure To Launch, The Last Holiday, The Rookie, The Score, Intolerable Cruelty, Alamo, Pooh’s Heffalump, Hitch, The Manchurian Candidate, as well as various television commercials, Super Bowl music and the Master’s Golf Tournament. Additionally he has performed on the Late Show with David Letterman and on the 2003 Grammy Awards. His own debut album featuring the clarinet quintets of Mozart and Brahms, Opening Night, was released in November 2006.

A Colorado native, Mr. Nuccio was recently awarded the “Distinguished Alumni Award” from his alma mater, the University of Northern Colorado. He also holds a master’s degree from Northwestern University where he studied with renowned pedagogue Robert Marcellus. Beyond his active performing schedule, Mr. Nuccio is committed to training the next generation of musicians and currently serves as music faculty for Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music in Evanston, IL.  He also teaches masterclasses in the U.S. and abroad. Mark Nuccio is a D’Addario Advising Artist & Clinician and a performing artist/clinician for Buffet Music Group.