Joseph Lin 林以信, violin
https://www.juilliard.edu/music/faculty/lin-joseph

A renowned performer and teacher, Joseph Lin appears regularly throughout the U.S., Asia, and Europe. He was first violinist of the Juilliard String Quartet from 2011 to 2018, and he continues to teach violin and chamber music at the Juilliard School. Lin’s recent projects include a collaboration with Robert Levin featuring Beethoven and Schubert on period instruments, performances of Bartók’s Second Violin Concerto, Beethoven’s late string quartets, and the complete Beethoven Violin Sonatas with Helen Huang at Juilliard.  Marking the 300th year of Bach’s Violin Sonatas and Partitas in 2020, Lin presented complete cycles in Boston and Philadelphia. Recent seasons have included baroque and classical period instrument performances on both viola and violin. In 2025, Joseph Lin presents a special Beethoven program (Op. 95 “Serioso” Quartet, Op. 96 Sonata, and Op. 97 “Archduke” Trio) in numerous cities around the U.S.

From 2007 to 2011, Lin was a professor at Cornell University, where his projects included the inaugural Chinese Musicians Residency, as well as a collaboration with Cornell composers to study Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas and create new works inspired by Bach.

Lin was a founding member of the Formosa Quartet, which won the 2006 London String Quartet Competition. In 1996, he won first prize at the Concert Artists Guild Competition and was named a Presidential Scholar in the Arts. In 1999, he was selected for the Pro Musicis Award and, in 2001, he won first prize at the inaugural Michael Hill Violin Competition in New Zealand. His recordings include the music of Korngold and Busoni with pianist Benjamin Loeb; an album of Debussy, Franck, and Milhaud with pianist Orion Weiss; and the complete unaccompanied works of Bach and Ysaÿe. His recording of Mozart’s A Major Violin Concerto with original cadenzas was released in 2017. With the Juilliard Quartet, he recorded Schubert’s Death and the Maiden and Elliot Carter’s Fifth Quartet, as well as the Quartet’s recent album of Beethoven, Davidovsky, and Bartók. During the summer season, he is a regular artist at the Tanglewood, Ravinia, and Marlboro festivals.

Joseph Lin graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in 2000. In 2002, he began an extended exploration of China, where he studied Chinese music, including the guqin, as a Fulbright scholar.

Claire Bourg, violin
https://www.clairebourg.com/

"Total command of music and instrument with an excellent sense of style and character."
- Maestro Lawrence Rapchak

Violinist Claire Bourg has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician in many of the world’s leading venues, such as Carnegie Hall, Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, Kimmel Center, and Jordan Hall. Most recently, she was a soloist with the Camerata Bern in Hannover, as part of the Joachim International Violin Competition.

Ms. Bourg was granted the 2021 Luminarts Fellowship, awarded second prize at the 2020 Barbash J.S. Bach Competition, and winner of the New England Conservatory Competition. She performs regularly with Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Music for Food, Chameleon Arts Ensemble, Curtis on Tour and currently serves as concertmaster of Symphony in C.

A passionate chamber musician, Claire has attended festivals such as Marlboro, Yellow Barn, Ravinia, Taos, among others. A native of Chicago, Ms. Bourg’s primary teachers have been Miriam Fried, Pamela Frank, Arnold Steinhardt, and Joseph Lin at the New England Conservatory, Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School, where she held a Kovner Fellowship. She is now pursuing her Doctorate at the CUNY Graduate Center with Mark Steinberg. Claire currently performs on a violin by Zosimo Bergonzi of Cremona, c. 1770 on generous loan through Guarneri Hall NFP and Darnton & Hersh Fine Violins, Chicago.

Hsin-Yun Huang 黃心芸, viola
https://www.hsinyunhuang.com/

“Superb artistry…[Hsin-Yun Huang] negotiated each phrase with remarkable agility and expressive acumen.”  – Chicago Tribune

Violist Hsin-Yun Huang has forged a career by performing on international concert stages, commissioning and recording new works, and nurturing young musicians. Ms. Huang has appeared as soloist with leading orchestras in Beijing, Taipei, and Bogota, amongst others. Inspired by authentic folk elements, the focus and highlight of Ms. Huang’s 2022-23 season is the program “Strings of Soul”, in collaboration with composer Lei-Liang and pipa virtuoso Wu Man. Additional performances this season include chamber and solo recitals in New York City, Philadelphia, and more.

She was the first solo violist to be presented in the National Performance Center of the Arts in Beijing and was featured as a faculty member alongside Yo-Yo Ma in Guangzhou. She has commissioned compositions from Steven Mackey, Shih-Hui Chen, and Poul Ruders. Her 2012 recording for Bridge Records, titled Viola Viola, won accolades from Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine. Her most recent release is the complete unaccompanied sonatas and partitas of J.S. Bach, in partnership with her husband, violist Misha Amory.

Ms. Huang regularly appears at festivals, including Marlboro, Spoleto, Ravinia, Santa Fe, and Music@Menlo, among many others. Huang was the gold medalist in the 1988 Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition, the top-prize winner in the ARD International Competition in Munich, and was awarded the highly prestigious Bunkamura Orchard Hall Award. A native of Taiwan, she received degrees from the Yehudi Menuhin School, the Curtis Institute of Music, and The Juilliard School. She now serves on the faculties of Juilliard and Curtis.

Raman Ramakrishnan, cello
https://www.bard.edu/faculty/details/?id=3239

Cellist Raman Ramakrishnan enjoys performing chamber music, old and new, around the world. For two decades, as a founding member of the Horszowski Trio and the Daedalus Quartet, he toured extensively through North and South America, Europe, and Asia, and recorded for Bridge Records and Avie Records, including the complete piano trios of Robert Schumann and the complete string quartets of Fred Lerdahl. Mr. Ramakrishnan is currently an artist member of the Boston Chamber Music Society, and is on the faculty of the Bard College Conservatory of Music.

[Text Wrapping Break]Mr. Ramakrishnan has given solo recitals in New York, Boston, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., and has performed at Caramoor, at Bargemusic, with the Chicago Chamber Musicians, and at the Aspen, Bard, Charlottesville, Four Seasons, Kingston, Lincolnshire (UK), Marlboro, Mehli Mehta (India), Oklahoma Mozart, Portland, Skaneateles, and Vail Music Festivals.  He has toured with Musicians from Marlboro and has performed, as guest principal cellist, with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. As a guest member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, he has performed in New Delhi and Agra, India and in Cairo, Egypt.  He has served on the faculties of the Kneisel Hall, Norfolk, and Taconic Chamber Music Festivals, as well as in the Music Performance Program of Columbia University.

Mr. Ramakrishnan was born in Athens, Ohio and grew up in East Patchogue, New York.  His father is a molecular biologist and his mother is the children's book author and illustrator Vera Rosenberry.  He holds a Bachelor’s degree in physics from Harvard University and a Master’s degree in music from The Juilliard School.  His principal teachers have been Fred Sherry, Andrés Díaz, and André Emelianoff.  He lives in New York City with his wife, the violist Melissa Reardon, and their son.  He plays a Neapolitan cello made by Vincenzo Jorio in 1837.

Helen Huang 黃海倫, piano
https://www.pcmsconcerts.org/artist/helen-huang-piano/

Born in Japan of Taiwanese parents, Helen Huang has enjoyed to date a multi-faceted career as a soloist and chamber music player and has appeared with such orchestras as the Cleveland Orchestra, the National Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Saint Louis Symphony, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Montreal Symphony, the Colorado Symphony, and the Fort Worth Symphony. Abroad she has appeared with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France, the London Philharmonic, the Israel Philharmonic, the Israel Chamber Orchestra, and the Vienna Chamber Orchestra. Helen developed a close relationship with Maestro Kurt Masur upon winning the Young People's Competition, resulting in engagements with the New York Philharmonic and a recording contract with the Teldec record label. Known for immaculate technique and eloquent sensitivity, Helen is one of the youngest recipients of the Avery Fisher Career Grant. She especially enjoys chamber music, and has appeared at the Marlboro Music Festival, La Jolla SummerFest, and Ravinia's Steans Institute For Young Artists. She co-founded the Formosa Chamber Music Festival with the vision of bringing the art of chamber music playing to students in Taiwan.

Helen has several recordings with Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic, including Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1, Mozart's Piano Concertos K. 488 and K467, Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 1 and Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 2. She also recorded an album titled "For Children" of works inspired by the theme of children. She collaborated with Cho-Liang Lin on a recording of the works of Georg Tintner released on the Naxos label as well as a recording of the music of Zhou Long with Cho-Liang Lin and Hai-Ye Ni, released on the Delos label.

Helen received the Arthur Rubinstein Prize upon graduating from the Juilliard School in 2004, where she was a student of Yoheved Kaplinsky. She went on to pursue her Master's degree from Yale, where she studied with Peter Frankl. A dedicated teacher, she served on the faculty of the Juilliard PreCollege until 2022. She currently resides in New Jersey with her husband and two daughters.

 
Program notes by Joseph Lin 林以信

This occasion to celebrate Beethoven by exploring three wonderful works together with friends has rekindled my fascination with time: lived time, historical time, and how music shapes and is shaped by time. These three pieces—his self-titled “Serioso” Quartet; 10th and last sonata for piano and violin; and his last trio for piano, violin, and cello, known as the “Archduke”— were given consecutive opus numbers when published in 1816. All were composed a few years earlier: the quartet (Op. 95) in fall 1810, the trio (Op. 97) in early 1811, and the sonata (Op. 96) in late 1812. From the perspective of history, these pieces offer vivid and dynamic snapshots of a certain period in Beethoven’s life. Entering his 40s, Beethoven was already firmly established in European cultural circles; had these been his final works, they would have been culminating statements of grandeur, passion, tenderness, and playfulness capping a remarkable life in music. Placed in the context of what was yet to come, however, we sense in these pieces the complexity and potency of an artist still evolving.

For music that was brewing around the same time, these three works have remarkably different ways of treating time. The quartet and the trio seem almost diametrically opposed in that respect; the former is terse in its materials and compact in form, while the latter unfolds its noble narrative over a span of 40 minutes. The sonata takes a cue from both—little seeds of minimalist material are hidden in an expansive, lyrical arc. Was Beethoven experimenting with both extremes and somehow synthesizing the two? Listening to the different ways Beethoven manipulates time in his music, one feels him rebelling against time itself.

That rebellion emerges harmlessly enough as the sonata begins with a delicate trill evoking a bird call in nature. It is a lovely yet lonely ornament, almost out of time; trill figures are suspended over bar lines while harmony and pulse are fluid as both instruments gently rise and weave together in a celestial dance. When the music finally lands, it does so fitfully, seeming to prefer its lighter incarnation. Such a weightless opening could not be further in concept and mood from the fiery unison of voices firmly establishing F Minor at the start of the quartet. And yet if the sonata is built on small ornaments strung together, we find Beethoven consumed similarly with compact elements in the quartet, its first theme delivered in a single measure, followed by that most emphatic punctuation mark: silence. Moreover, though one cannot imagine a more densely packed sound than the opening gut-punch of Op. 95, an upward pull is quickly felt in a shocking yet tender move to G-flat Major, followed by rising arpeggios in the cello that push the ensemble ever higher.

In the sonata, one may lose track of time in a florid stream of consciousness, but in the quartet, time is marked in small units punctuated by silence. Having explored the powerful duality of sound versus silence in the quartet, Beethoven turns to another mode of dramatic tension in the trio: the pull of desire versus patience. Bold, tender, and playful gestures come to life on a large canvas of classical proportions. Throughout the piece, we hear some of Beethoven’s most expansive themes; the opening of the first movement is particularly nuanced and far reaching in its melody, with numerous motives giving rise to further themes. Time is filled and shaped by probing explorations of thematic material. Through extended variations, pointillistic pizzicati, and lengthy codas, the experience is a study in patience, happily rewarded at the end.

There is another related sense in which the “Archduke” Trio might be a study, one that builds upon the Op. 96 sonata and sheds light on Beethoven’s relationship with the dedicatee of both pieces: Rudolph, the Archduke of Austria. The archduke was one of Beethoven’s most loyal patrons, sustaining him financially for nearly two decades; 14 compositions were dedicated to him, a testament to Beethoven’s enduring gratitude. Not only a patron, however, the archduke was also an accomplished student of Beethoven’s, and this fact may help us understand the nature of the pieces dedicated to him.

Beethoven composed the Op. 96 Sonata knowing that it would be first performed by Archduke Rudolph, together with the visiting French violinist Pierre Rode. One can hear a certain instructional spirit at times in the sonata, not only in its many scales and arpeggios, but also in the “brain teaser” passages that seem like good-natured challenges from teacher to student. While the sonata was written to be played by the archduke, the Op. 97 Trio was premiered by Beethoven, who gave the first private and public performances with Ignaz Schuppanzigh (violin) and Joseph Linke (cello). With its grand piano part and large-scale form, the trio does not feel pedagogical in the same sense as the sonata. Yet in composing and performing the trio himself, Beethoven was perhaps modeling an aspirational goal for his student, with the nature of the music suggesting the patience needed to reach such heights of artistry.

Consequential turning points are often ironic: Beethoven’s performances of the “Archduke” Trio turned out to be his last as a pianist. His hearing loss had become too debilitating, and the decline in Beethoven’s playing was sadly apparent to those present at these performances. Faced with this painful reality, Beethoven’s compositional output also slowed in the years following 1812. He would not compose any more violin sonatas or piano trios, and after the “Serioso,” he did not return to string quartets for more than a decade. The spirit of patience that Beethoven imparted in the “Archduke” Trio was perhaps something that he, too, needed to learn. It would take time, but coming to terms with his tragic hearing loss would eventually lead Beethoven to a place of both profound solitude and newfound artistic freedom. The prayerful voice we hear singing, tiptoeing, and dancing gently in the quiet moments of Op. 95, 96, and 97 would emerge even more powerfully a decade later, transcending the passionate individual and reaching outward toward humanity.