4pm: Semplice Players with Mark Peskanov Play Mozart and Beethoven

Mark Peskanov, violin– American virtuoso violinist and artistic visionary Mark Peskanov was born in Odessa. Peskanov sang before he could walk or talk, and soon became a star violin student at the famed Stolyarsky school. At fifteen, he emigrated to the United States, where he was immediately accepted at the Aspen Music Festival and the Juilliard School. His phenomenal facility and musicianship won him both the Aspen and Juilliard concerto competitions, bringing him to the notice of Isaac Stern and Mstislav Rostropovich and rocketing him into the top echelons of the music world. Peskanov’s major accolades include the Avery Fischer Career Grant, the first Frederick R. Mann Award, and Carnegie Hall’s first Isaac Stern Award. Peskanov inaugurated Tokyo’s Suntory Hall with Yo-Yo Ma and Stern, and Weill Recital Hall with Stern, Midori and Gil Shaham. Collaborating with these colleagues prompted Peskanov to turn intensively to the chamber music repertoire’s more intimate, complex, and dialogical possibilities. His delight in chamber music, his independent artistic vision, and his desire to mentor promising musicians as he had been mentored, led to Peskanov’s present role. Since 2005, he is president and artistic/executive director of Bargemusic. Peskanov has curated over 3,000 chamber concerts at Bargemusic, encompassing a vast range of genres and styles, presenting over 200 concerts annually to New York audiences. Under his leadership Bargemusic continues to evolve as an innovative, influential, and integral component of New York City’s cultural world.

SEMPLICE PLAYERS In music, the Italian marking “Semplice” means the performance should sound fresh, simple, and satisfying. Semplice Players has taken that approach in close to one hundred concerts in beautiful New York City venues since its founding in 2016. The concerts have attracted listings and critical attention from the New York Times (most recently in the NYT’s “Fall Preview” of must-see music performances for the 2020-21 season in New York and the US), the New Yorker, and the New York Classical Review. Whether playing the great masterworks or a piece written yesterday, expert musicians and emerging artists join together in bringing the always living, evolving tradition of music-making to audiences of every age and walk of life, wherever chamber music can be enjoyed.

Salley Koo, violin- A violinist of great range and energy, Salley Koo has performed internationally as a solo, chamber, and orchestral musician.  Her recent calendar includes engagements as soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, orchestral guest, and faculty in California, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin.  Salley has appeared in concert at the Musikverein in Vienna, Carnegie Hall, Town Hall, Central Park, Music from Salem, the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, the National Cathedral and National Gallery in Washington D.C., Columbia Museum of Art, the Harris Theater in Chicago, the Nasher Series in Dallas, the Peoples Symphony Concerts, the Ojai, Tanglewood, Ravinia, Skaneateles, and Caramoor Festivals, and on tour alongside artists ranging from Bela Fleck to Dawn Upshaw to Gil Shaham.  She soloed with the Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra and recently returned a third time to Lebanon as artist in residence with the IMAGINE Workshop and Concert Series at the Lebanese American University in Beirut, Lebanon.  She is regularly invited as a guest artist with groups such as the Minnesota Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, East Coast Chamber Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the International Contemporary Ensemble, and the Knights.

Chauncey Patterson, viola- is principal violist for Palm Beach Symphony, solo violist for Florida Grand Opera, violist for the Bergonzi String Quartet at the University of Miami, and member of the Nu Deco Ensemble. He has been principal violist of the Denver and Buffalo Symphonies and, for 15 years, was the violist with the Miami String Quartet, an internationally renowned and extensively recorded ensemble. Patterson started playing the viola at age seven in the public school system of Burlington, North Carolina. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and the Curtis Institute, where he studied with Ann Woodward, Robert Vernon, Karen Tuttle, and Michael Tree respectively. He began his professional career at age 23 as assistant principal viola of the Denver Symphony. He was eventually appointed principal viola by Music Director Philippe Entremont. His next post was principal viola of the Buffalo Philharmonic under the direction of Semyon Bychkov. During his stay in Buffalo, Patterson accepted the viola position in the award-winning Miami String Quartet. During his 15-year tenure, the MSQ garnered awards in the quartet competitions of London and Evian and became the first string quartet to win the Concert Artist Guild New York Competition.

Margo Shohl, viola- Founder and Director of chamber music nonprofit Semplice Players, violist /violinist Margo Shohl has curated close to one hundred concerts in New York City since performances began in 2017. Since 2023, she also directs DOROT’s Ullendorff Concert Series. Born into a musical family in Anchorage, Alaska, Margo began playing the viola in the public school system. Her father, a self-taught luthier, made her a viola she proudly played in the Anchorage Symphony and the Anchorage Opera Orchestra from the age of 16. She earned a PhD in Russian literature from Columbia University, where she has taught Russian and Columbia’s foundational critical skills course for undergraduates, Literature Humanities.

Patrick Hopkins, cello- is an active soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player having performed nationally and internationally in venues such as Alice Tully Hall, David Geffen Hall, Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Merkin Hall, and Suntory Hall.  He made his Lincoln Center debut in 2008 as soloist with the Juilliard Pre-College Orchestra and has appeared three times as soloist with the Fairbanks Symphony.  In July 2015, he was soloist/principal cellist with the National Repertory Orchestra and recently appeared as soloist with the New Amsterdam Orchestra of New York.  In 2011, Mr. Hopkins was the Grand Prize winner of the Music Teachers National Association Young Artist Competition and is also a Yamaha Young Performing Artist.  He joined the faculty of South Texas College in the fall of 2018.  Mr. Hopkins was a member of the Wichita (Kansas) Symphony Orchestra and has also served as a lecturer at Rutgers University.

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