Myths and Sacred Tales: An Evening of Chamber Music and Poetry at the KF Washington, DC

You are warmly invited to an evening of chamber music on June 6 at 7:00 PM at the Kosciuszko Foundation Washington, DC Center.

This special concert features a distinguished string quintet:

• Devree Lewis, cello
• Susanna Mendlow, cello
• Agata Miklavc, violin
• Holly Nelson, violin
• Ting-An Wei, viola

They are joined by Jason Solounias, piano.

Program

Mythes, Op. 30 by Karol Szymanowski
I. La fontaine d’Arethuse (The Fountain of Arethusa)
II. Narcisse (Narcissus)
III. Dryades et Pan (Dryads and Pan)

With accompanying poetry:

• Arethusa by Percy Shelley
• Narcissus by John Keats
• Hymn to Pan by Aleister Crowley

Performed by:
Susanna Mendlow, reader
Agata Miklavc, violin
Jason Solounias, piano

Intermission

String Quintet in C major, D.956 by Franz Schubert
I. Allegro ma non troppo
II. Adagio
III. Scherzo. Presto – Trio. Andante sostenuto
IV. Allegretto

Tickets: $35 General Admission / $25 KF Members
Purchase tickets HERE

Hors d’oeuvres and wine will be served.

We look forward to sharing this inspiring evening of music and poetry with you.

The event is co-sponsored by the Sylvan and Eugenia Bobinski Fund.

Devree Lewis, cello

Devree Lewis, cellist, is a prolific performer, arranger, and concert producer based in Washington, D.C. Founding member of Cello, World and Trifilio Tango Trio, she has freelanced in cross-genre and classical music across the U.S. East Coast since 2009. Internationally, Devree has toured with Trifilio Tango Trio, Pan American Symphony, and UNSCA String Quartet to various venues in Argentina, Cuba, Peru, Lebanon, and Austria. Devree performs in cello sections for Richmond Symphony, Annapolis Symphony, Lancaster Symphony, New Orchestra of Washington, and Post-Classical Ensemble. She played side-by-side with Cleveland Orchestra and with the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in Vienna, Austria.  Devree provides studio sessions in other cross-over genres and arranges music for musical theater, string quartet, tango small ensemble, and string orchestra. The National Symphony of Cuba premiered her arrangement of “Ni Pelota: Milonga” by E. Trifilio. Her arrangements have also been performed by the Hubbard Quartet at venues including San Francisco New Music Center and Tanglewood Music Festival, by the Invoke Quartet in Austin, TX, by members of the NSO in salon concert, and Manhattan Chamber Music. A dedicated educator, Devree created curriculum for and directed D.C.’s first youth tango orchestra, is on faculty at Cellospeak, and has taught private piano and cello lessons at Opal Music Studio.  Devree co-founded and performed in Trifilio Tango Trio and their composition “Milonga de la Ausencia”, was nominated as best original score at Milan’s 2016 MOFF Film Festival. Along with several U.S. and international tours, Trifilio Tango Trio released three albums, recorded and produced in Argentina. Devree’s most recent project is Cello, World, formed with Susanna Mendlow in 2019; they perform their own arrangements of world and classical music for two cellos, voice, and percussion. In 2022 Cello,World performed free neighborhood concerts across 5 wards of D.C., funded through DCCAH’s Artist Fellowship Grant.  Devree lives in Baltimore, MD with her husband and son. 

Susanna Mendlow, cello

Susanna Mendlow, cellist, “commands attention, drawing our ears and eyes to her playing.” (TheatreMania) A versatile performer, arranger, and educator, she is half of the multi-genre duo Cello, World and a member of the classical ensemble Kassia Music.  As both a soloist and chamber musician, she has performed extensively throughout the United States, Europe, Mexico, South America, and Central Asia. Susanna’s various projects have brought her to such venues as Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Recital Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Miller Theatre, Symphony Space, Le Poisson Rouge, the Verizon Center, the National Gallery, the Kennedy Center, and the National Cathedral. She has played with the Washington Concert Opera, the American Pops Orchestra, Richmond Symphony, and Post-Classical Ensemble. She has collaborated with numerous artists, including Colin Carr, Phil Setzer and Larry Dutton (Emerson Quartet), and Nicholas Cords (Brooklyn Rider Quartet). She also has worked with composers Kaija Saariaho, Marc Neikrug, Julia Adolphe, Frank Stemper, Stacy Garrop, Judith Shatin, and Noam Faingold.  Susanna holds degrees from Columbia University, Michigan State University and SUNY Stony Brook (DMA). During her time in Michigan, Susanna played in Moyindau, an experimental jazz and ethnic folk quartet. Moyindau performed throughout the contiguous US before touring Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic as part of a project to build cross-cultural connections through music.  Susanna is a member of Kassia Music, where she has premiered several works and reintroduced lesser-known classical works to audiences. From 2015 to 2023, she toured as a member of QuinTango, spreading the love and artistry of tango both domestically and abroad. In 2019, she and cellist Devree Lewis formed the stylistically diverse duo Cello World, which performs dynamic programs of music adapted for two cellos.  In 2020 and 2021, Susanna earned an artist fellowship from the DC Commission for the Arts and Humanities as well as an Emergent Seed Award. In addition to performing, Susanna serves on faculty at George Washington University and Washington Adventist University.

Agata Miklavc, violin

Violinist Agata Miklavc began her musical journey at the age of three in Ljubljana, Slovenia where she made her public debut at the age of five at the Great Hall of Cankar Center. Her performance career has taken her around Europe and the United States, with appearances at the Kennedy Center, Carnegie hall, Slovenian Philharmonic (SLO), Sarajevo National Theater (BiH), The Gaillard Center, Musikverein Wien (AU), Mozarteum Salzburg (AU), Rector’s Palace in Dubrovnik (HR), The Meyerson Symphony Center, and Winspear Opera House. An avid chamber musician, Agata has shared the stage with world-renowned artists such as Andrés Cárdenes, Aaron Boyd, Andres Diaz, Rafael Figueroa, Paul Coletti, Wendy Chen, the Escher Quartet, Yuriy Bekker, Julian Schwarz, Michael Klotz, and Gerald Robbins. In 2023, she was appointed as concertmaster of Georgetown Chorale in Washington, D.C. She also serves as a concertmaster and artistic director of Georgetown Chamber Players. She regularly performs in a duo with critically acclaimed Greek-American pianist Jason Solounias. The duo’s most recent recital tour “Myths, Tales and Fantasies” saw success in Florida, South Carolina, D.C, Maryland, Virginia and New York. Their upcoming tour “Intermezzo Romantique” will become the duo’s debut album. Ms. Miklavc has served as faculty, artistic liaison and guest artist at festivals such as The Gingold International Chamber Music Festival (FL), Puerto Piano & Strings (PR), and Music On The String (BiH). Ms.Miklavc has been a passionate educator ever since her first appointment as a teaching assistant to the studio of Violeta Smailović-Huart at University of Sarajevo in 2013. She has since assisted Emanuel Borok at Southern Methodist University and Andrés Cárdenes at Carnegie Mellon University. She is currently a faculty member at Levine Music in Washington D.C. Agata’s principal teacher is Andrés Cárdenes who remains her trusted mentor, advisor and friend. She also studied with Emanuel Borok, Aaron Boyd and Violeta Smailović-Huart.

Holly Nelson, violin

Violinist Holly Nelson has appeared as a soloist, chamber and orchestral musician throughout the United States, Europe, and China. As former concertmaster of the Pan-American Symphony Orchestra, she was a soloist at the Kennedy Center and Wolf Trap. Other solo appearances include Piazzolla’s Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas with the Peabody Symphony Orchestra and Florence Price’s Violin Concerto No. 2 with the Durham Symphony Orchestra in NC. In 2024, she had the honor of giving the Maryland premiere of John Williams’ violin concerto at the Peabody Institute with the composer himself in attendance.  Ms. Nelson received the Peabody Institute of Music’s Presser Award, which “is designed to encourage and support the advanced education and careers of truly exceptional graduate music students who have the potential to make a notable contribution to the field of music.” In 2023, she was awarded a Fulbright Research Grant to study tango music performance practice and pedagogy in Buenos Aires.  Ms. Nelson has held residencies at Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Orchestra Now, and was a member of the Chamber Orchestra of New York and the Binghamton Philharmonic Orchestra.  She was a featured artist at the opening of the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Biennial in New York City and has appeared as a recitalist at New York University, the Fox Performing Arts Theater in El Paso, TX, National Sawdust in Brooklyn, NY and at the Atlantic Music Festival.  Other festival appearances include Britten Pears in England, Banff and Domaine Forget in Canada and The Lucerne Festival and Tibor Varga Academy in Switzerland.  Holly Nelson received her doctorate from the Peabody Conservatory as a Dean’s Doctoral Fellow in the studio of Vadim Gluzman, her Master of Music from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, where she was the teaching assistant to Giora Schmidt, and her Bachelor of Music degree from the Mannes College of Music in New York City. Her other notable professors include Kurt Sassmannshaus, Ann Setzer, Daniel Phillips and Garrett Fischbach. She has taught at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, and has held artist residencies and presented music workshops at Duke University, UNC Chapel Hill, and Fordham University.

Ting-An Wei, viola

Ting-An Wei is a violist, educator, and arts administrator based in Baltimore, MD. She currently serves as a section violist with the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra and as the principal violist with the Georgetown Chamber Orchestra. Over the past eight years she has performed with various other orchestras, including the Amarillo Symphony Orchestra and the Charleston Symphony Orchestra. Expanding beyond her practice as an orchestral performer, Ting-An has recently begun pursuing an interest in pushing the boundaries of viola performance. She has commissioned composer Michael Mills to write a multi-movement work for solo viola and electronics to be premiered in the spring of 2025.

Beyond her work as a performer, Ting-An is a deeply devoted music educator. In addition to teaching privately, she has taught violin and viola at numerous institutions and programs, including Camp Encore/Coda, the Amarillo Youth Orchestra, and Baltimore and Howard County public schools. Since 2019, she has been an integral part of the Bridges Music Program, a non-profit organization committed to providing high-quality string instruction to underserved students in Baltimore City, regardless of financial circumstances. Through this program, Ting-An has taught in multiple public elementary schools as a violin and viola instructor where she fosters development through a warm and supportive learning environment for her students. After three years of teaching for the program, her passion for nurturing a love of music led her to become the program director in 2021. In this role, she supervises program teachers, oversees educational content, fosters strategic relationships, and manages instrument inventory, among many other responsibilities. Ting-An is currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts in Viola Performance at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, where she studies under the guidance of Professor Victoria Chiang. She previously earned both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Viola Performance at Peabody, studying under Choong-Jin Chang.

Jason Solounias, piano

Praised by the American Record Guide as “…a superb musician”, Jason Solounias has performed across the United States and Europe, including performances at the Kennedy Center, Kosciuszko Foundation New York City, the Lincoln Theater Washington D.C., Covent Gardens London, and Duomo di Amalfi, Italy. Recent highlights include Wintergreen Music Festival, Puerto Piano & Strings, St. Ann’s Concert Series, Dumbarton Concerts, Pilgrim Players in Chicago, and Georgetown Chamber Players. He has been featured on Classical WETA Washington, WQED Pittsburg, and was a soloist for Shigeru Kawai at the National Piano Technicians Guild Conference. He has collaborated with many prominent musicians including Andrés Cardénes, Amit Peled, Steve Honigberg, William Hagan, Gary Levinson, Elizabeth Hill, and María del Carmen Gil. He has appeared as a soloist with the National Opera Orchestra, The Georgetown Chamber Orchestra, Trinity Chamber Orchestra, the Susquehanna Symphony Orchestra and the Pan American Symphony Orchestra. Solounias also performs regularly in a duo with Slovenian violinist, Agata Miklavc. Solounias began his studies with Irene Yeakel and went on to complete his Bachelors of Arts at Shepherd University with Scott Beard. He received his Masters of Music and Doctorate of Musical Arts from the Catholic University of America under the direction of Jim Litzelman and Jose Ramos Santana. He has also worked with other distinguished pianists including Emanuel Krasovsky, John Perry, and Leon Fleisher.  His debut album featuring the piano music of Heitor Villa-Lobos was featured at the Museum of Modern Art in their Sul Moderno Exhibition.  Solounias was a featured artist at the Experiencing Villa-Lobos festival at Virginia Commonwealth University and gave presentations on Latin American Music at NYU and the Hartt School. Solounias is the executive director of the Puerto Rico International Piano Festival, the co-director of the Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Competition in Washington D.C., and assistant to the Tureck International Bach Competition in New York City.  Solounias is currently a faculty member at Levine Music in Washington D.C.