Current Season

Les Délices (pronounced Lay day-lease) delights, inspires, educates, and expands audiences for music on period instruments through innovative programming and world class performances. Founded by baroque oboist Debra Nagy in 2009, Les Délices has established a reputation for unique programs that “can’t help but get one listening and thinking in fresh ways” (San Francisco Classical Voice). The New York Times observed that “Concerts and recordings by Les Délices are journeys of discovery” while UK Classical Source added, “The centuries roll away when the members of Les Délices bring this long-existing music to communicative and sparkling life.”

Les Délices made its New York debut before a sold-out audience at the Frick Collection in May 2010. Recent and upcoming performances for the ensemble include Music Before 1800 (New York City), the Boston Early Music Festival, Da Camera Society (Los Angeles), Houston Early Music Society, Early Music Hawaii, Morrison Chamber Music Center at San Francisco State University, Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, San Francisco Early Music Society, the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments, and Columbia University’s Miller Theatre. In addition to touring engagements, Les Délices presents its own annual four-concert series in Northeast Ohio. Les Délices has been featured on WCPN, WCLV and WKSU in Ohio, WQXR in New York, and NPR’s syndicated Harmonia and Sunday Baroque. Their debut CD was featured as part of the Audio guide for a special exhibit at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (Watteau, Music, and Theater).

Debra Nagy will bring Boise a special touring program called “Arcadian Dreams,” with music of the High Baroque, including a Scarlatti harpsichord sonata, an ensemble (baroque oboe feature) of Corelli’s La Folia, and a small bevy of French cantatas (Rameau, Lefebvre, and Bourgeois) with soprano Hannah De Priest, “a fearless performer of a wide range of lyric soprano repertoire.” Hailed a “breakout artist” (Boston Globe) with “a voice that is theater itself” (Classique News), recent credits include her Kennedy Center debut (Opera Lafayette, La serva padrona), European debut at the Innsbruck Early Music Festival, and multiple productions with Boston Early Music Festival.

In September of 2005, the Alexander String Quartet arrived in Boise for the first time, offering their signature Shostakovich and Mozart double features. They returned in 2007, 2013, and most recently for our 25th anniversary celebration in 2016 (which was a bit late, but we had a composer and a commissioned work to deal with). We look forward to their performance of a new version of our commission, Tarik O’Regan’s Gradual, which has undergone some tightening into one continuous movement. We welcome two new players who have joined since the Alexanders’ last visit: Yuna Lee, violin and David Samuel, viola.

The Alexander String Quartet stands among the world's premier ensembles, having performed in the major music capitals of five continents. The quartet is a vital artistic presence in its home base of San Francisco, serving since 1989 as Ensemble in Residence of San Francisco Performances. Widely admired for its interpretations of Beethoven, Mozart, and Shostakovich, the quartet's recordings have won international critical acclaim. Founded in New York City in 1981, the ensemble quickly captured attention, initially winning the Concert Artists Guild Competition in 1982, and then becoming the first American quartet to win the London (now Wigmore) International String Quartet Competition in 1985.

The Alexander String Quartet has performed at Lincoln Center, the 92nd Street Y, the Metropolitan Museum, Jordan Hall, the Library of Congress, and appeared as guests at universities including Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Lewis & Clark, UCLA, and many more. Numerous overseas tours include the U.K., the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, France, Greece, the Republic of Georgia, Argentina, Panamá, and the Philippines. Their visit to Poland's Beethoven Easter Festival is beautifully captured in the 2017 award-winning documentary, Moto: The Alexander String Quartet.

Recording for the Foghorn Classics label, the Alexander String Quartet's extensive recording catalogue includes complete string quartet cycles by Bartók, Beethoven, Brahms, Kodály, and Shostakovich. Their most recent release is the third installment of a Mozart chamber music project, “Apotheosis Volume 3,” featuring the string quintets of Mozart with violist Paul Yarbrough. Apotheosis Volumes 1 & 2, released in 2018 and 2019, featured the late string quartets and piano quartets (with Joyce Yang) of Mozart. Other major recordings include the 2020 release of the Mozart and Brahms clarinet quintets (with Eli Eban) and the 2019 release, “Locale,” featuring Dvořák's “American” quartet and piano quintet (with Joyce Yang). Their recording catalogue also includes the Mahler Song Cycles in transcriptions for mezzo-soprano (with Kindra Scharich) and string quartet by the Quartet's first violinist, Zakarias Grafilo.

The Neave Trio returns after their first concert here in the fall of 2019. Since forming in 2010, GRAMMY®–nominated Neave Trio–violinist Anna Williams, cellist Mikhail Veselov, and pianist Eri Nakamura–has earned enormous praise for its engaging, cutting-edge performances. New York's classical music radio station WQXR explains, "'Neave' is actually a Gaelic name meaning 'bright' and 'radiant,' both of which certainly apply to this trio's music making." Gramophone has praised the trio's "taut and vivid interpretations," while The Strad calls out their "eloquent phrasing and deft control of textures" and BBC Music Magazine describes their performances as balancing "passion with sensitivity and grace."

Neave has performed at many esteemed concert series and at festivals worldwide, including Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 92nd Street Y, Rockport Chamber Music Festival, Norfolk and Norwich Chamber Music Series (United Kingdom), and the Samoylov and Rimsky Korsakow Museums' Chamber Music Series in St. Petersburg (Russia). The trio has held residency positions at Brown University, University of Virginia, Longy School of Music of Bard College, San Diego State University as the first-ever Fisch/Axelrod Trio-in-Residence, and the Banff Centre (Canada), among many other institutions. Neave Trio was also in residence at the MIT School of Architecture and Design in collaboration with dancer/choreographer Richard Colton. During the 2023-24 season, the Neave Trio became the inaugural Ensemble-in-Residence at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Their Boise program, “Origin Story,” features four composers whose heritages and musical influences are heard in their work. Of her Four Folk Songs, composer Gabriela Lena Frank says the work “loosely draws inspiration from the melodic motifs and rhythms of my mother’s homeland, Perú.” Josef Suk presented his piano trio to Dvořák in a composition masterclass, who made recommendations that influenced the final work we hear today. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Five Negro Melodies for Piano Trio works are based on African and African American melodies from several geographical regions. In the year of Smetana’s 200th birthday, the Neave Trio concludes by celebrating with his only piano trio, highlighting the influence of Chopin, Liszt, and Schumann.