Concert III - Heroes and Anti-heroes

featured musicians

Christopher Krueger - Flute

A graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music, Christopher Krueger was a student of James Pappoutsakis. He has performed as principal flutist with the Boston Symphony, the Boston Pops and Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Opera Company of Boston, Boston Ballet, Boston Musica Viva, and Cantata Singers, among other organizations, and was a founding member of the Emmanuel Wind Quintet, winners of the 1981 Walter W. Naumburg Award for Chamber Music.  Currently he is a member of Collage New Music, Emmanuel Music, and performs frequently as principal flutist with Cantata Singers and other organizations in Boston

In the mid-1970’s, Mr. Krueger became interested in historical performance.  His career as a Baroque flutist has taken him throughout the United States, Europe, Eastern Europe, and Australia.  He has been a soloist on the Great Performers Series and Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center, the Philadelphia Bach Festival, Tanglewood, Ravinia, the Berlin Bach Festival, the City of London Festival, and the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music, as well as in France, Belgium, Italy, and Poland. He is a member of the Bach Ensemble and the Aulos Ensemble, and is principal flutist with the Handel and Haydn Society and Boston Baroque.

Christopher Krueger has conducted and been a soloist with the Handel and Haydn Society and Emmanuel Music, and his recordings can be heard on Sony, DG, Decca, EMI, Nonesuch, Pro Arte, CRI, Telarc, Koch, and Centaur.  Mr. Krueger has served on the faculties of the New England Conservatory of Music, Boston University, Wellesley College, the Longy School of Music, Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute, and the Akademie für Alte Musik in Brixen/Bressanone, Italy and. He is a Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Catherine French - Violin

Canadian violinist Catherine French, a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra since 1994, has established herself as a versatile and accomplished soloist and chamber musician in addition to her distinguished orchestral career. Ms. French garnered the grand prize at the Canadian Music Competition, the C.B.C. Radio Competition and the National Competitive Festival of Music,Canada’s three major music competitions. She has performed as soloist with many leading Canadian orchestras and given recitals throughout North America andArgentina. Ms. French was featured with the Juilliard Orchestra and James de Preist, the Boston Pops and John Williams, and at Carnegie Hall in her debut with David Gilbert.

Lauded for her “superbly lyric” playing and her “amazing level of artistry” by Strad Magazine, Ms. French is a dedicated member of the Calyx Piano Trio and Collage New Music. Her avid interest in chamber music has led to performances at the Marlboro, Banff, Pórtland and Carolina chamber music festivals, quartet tours of Germany and China and annual concerts as part of the Prelude series at Tanglewood and the Curtisville Consortium. Ms. French has recorded for Albany Records and is featured in Donald Sur’s Berceuse for Violin and Piano with pianist Christopher Oldfather.

Catherine French began Suzuki violin at age four then continued her studies under the esteemed Canadian pedagogue Dr. Lise Elson. Ms. French graduated from Indiana University with a Bachelor’s of Music degree and a Performer’s Certificate, then earned a Master’s degree from the Juilliard School. Her teachers were Miriam Fried, Felix Galimir and Joel Smirnoff. Ms. French has played with Collage New Music since the mid-nineties.

Christopher Oldfather - Piano

Christopher Oldfather has devoted himself to the performance of contemporary music for over twenty years. He has participated in innumerable world premiere performances, featuring every possible combination of instruments, in cities all over America. He has been a member of Collage New Music since 1979 and New York City’s Parnassus since 1997. He also performs with the Met Chamber Ensemble and is keyboard chair of the American Composers Orchestra. He appears regularly in Chicago and has joined singers and instrumentalists of all kinds in recitals throughout the United States. In 1986 he presented his recital debut in Carnegie Recital Hall, which then closed immediately for renovations. Since then he has pursued a career as a freelance musician, which has taken him as far afield as Moscow and Tokyo and has seen him play virtually every sort of keyboard ever made, including the Chromelodeon. He is widely known for his expertise on the harpsichord and is one of the leading interpreters of contemporary works for that instrument. As a soloist Mr. Oldfather has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, the New World Symphony, and Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt, Germany. He has collaborated with the conductor Robert Craft and can be heard on several of his recordings. His recording of Elliott Carter’s violin-piano Duo with Robert Mann was nominated for two Grammy Awards in 1990.