Piano Quintets, Henry J. Bruman Summer Chamber Music Festival

Program

Ottorino Respighi (1879–1936)
Piano Quintet in F Minor

I. Allegro
II. Andantino
III. Vivacissimo

César Franck (1822–1890)
Piano Quintet in F Minor

I. Molto moderato quasi lento – Allegro
II. Lento con molto sentimento
III. Allegro non troppo ma con fuoco

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The Henry J. Bruman Summer Chamber Music Festival is being held this summer in Lani Hall, a 133-seat auditorium located in the Schoenberg Music Building on the UCLA campus. All concerts are free of charge, and no reservations are required. Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis. Lot 2 is the closest campus parking lot; click here for full details on UCLA visitor parking, including campus parking maps and rates.

This year’s Festival will be livestreamed on the Center’s YouTube Channel. Please subscribe to our channel to be notified when the concerts go live.

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Piano Quintets
Ambroise Aubrun, violin
Katrin Stamatis, violin
Virginie d’Avezac, viola
Jonathan Ruck, cello
Zachary Deak, piano

Ambroise Aubrun
Hailed as a “marvelous violinist” (France Musique) with “sensitive tone” (Pizzicato Magazine) and “tremendous ease, suppleness, and beauty of sound” (Nice-Matin), violinist Ambroise Aubrun enjoys a career as a soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician. He has performed extensively on three continents and has conducted master classes in North America (Québec, California, Oregon, New York, Wisconsin, Nevada, Utah, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico), France, Italy, Australia, and New Zealand.

His albums for Editions Hortus and Navona Records have embraced a wide range of repertoire from J.S. Bach to Eric Tanguy (b. 1968), and received praise of the highest caliber (five stars in Pizzicato Magazine, “coup de coeur” by France Musique, and a nomination for the 2021 International Classical Music Awards). His performances and albums have been broadcast on CBS, ABC, WFMT Chicago, France Musique, 3MBS Melbourne (Australia), Klara Radio (Belgium), KPFK Los Angeles, KNCJ Nevada, WTUL New-Orleans, and KUSC Los Angeles.

He has served as guest concertmaster of the Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra, the Las Vegas Philharmonic, and the International Chamber Orchestra of Puerto Rico, and is a regular guest of the Los Angeles Philharmonic violin sections.

Aubrun graduated at age nineteen from the Paris National Superior Conservatory, and then studied at UCLA (D.M.A.) and at the Colburn Conservatory of Music (Artist Diploma). He is a winner of the Charles Oulmont Prize of the Fondation de France, a laureate of the Langart Foundation in Switzerland, and a recipient of the UNLV Barrick Scholar Award for outstanding achievement in Creative Activities and a CSUN Faculty Achievement Award. Currently Associate Professor of Violin at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Dr. Aubrun previously taught at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music and UC Santa Barbara. He is the artistic director of the Henry J. Bruman Summer Chamber Music Festival at UCLA. Dr. Aubrun plays a Matteo Goffriller violin, on generous loan from the Langart Foundation.

Katrin Stamatis
Violinist Katrin Stamatis maintains an active musical career that includes performance, research, and pedagogy. Performances have taken her all over the world, including Fontainebleau, France; Venice, Italy; Leipzig, Germany; and throughout Puerto Rico. She has also performed extensively in her native New York City, at venues such as Weill Recital Hall, the Tenri Institute, Museum of Arts and Design, and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

Katrin has played in the Albany Symphony Orchestra, the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, and the Chelsea Symphony, with which she was featured as soloist in the Brahms Double Concerto. For the past ten years, Katrin has been principal second violin of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic.

A devoted pedagogue, Katrin has been on the faculty of the Calhoun School in New York City, the Larchmont Music Academy, and was a visiting professor of violin and viola at Drake University in 2009-10. She has taught at the Fresno Orchestra Summer Academy in Fresno, CA, and is a founding member of the Summer String Academy at the University of Oklahoma. Currently, she maintains a private studio in Norman, OK and performs regularly with the Brightmusic Chamber Ensemble in Oklahoma City.

Katrin received degrees from Barnard College (BA), Mannes College of Music (MM), and the University of Oklahoma (D.M.A.). She lives in Norman, OK with her husband, cellist Jonathan Ruck, and their two daughters, Arianna and Galia.

Virginie d’Avezac
The French violist Virginie d’Avezac has performed with prominent orchestras across Europe and North Africa, such as the National Orchestra of Bordeaux, the National Orchestra of Radio-France, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Morocco, and the National Orchestra of Tunis. In 2010, Virginie was admitted to the prestigious ProQuartet chamber music program, where her string quartet was mentored by internationally acclaimed musicians from the Alban Berg Quartet, the Danel Quartet, and the Prazak Quartet.

Since her arrival in the USA in 2016, Virginie has performed with the LA Master Chorale, the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, the New West Symphony, the Bakersfield Symphony, and the Downey Symphony. She has participated in chamber music series such as the Henry J. Bruman Summer Chamber Music Festival at UCLA, the Mason Concerts, the Concerts in the Dome, Sundays Live at LACMA, and the South Pasadena Public Library Concert Series. She is currently an Adjunct Professor at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA. She is a proud contributor to the Grammy-winning album Mythologies (2022).

Jonathan Ruck
American cellist Jonathan Ruck maintains a multifaceted career as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral musician, and pedagogue. Praised for his “virtuosic command” and “full-bodied tone,” he has performed throughout North America, Europe, Australia, and the Caribbean. Festival appearances include recent engagements at the Oregon Bach Festival, Sanibel Island Festival, OK Mozart, Unruly Music, and as principal cellist of the International Chamber Orchestra of Puerto Rico. Jonathan currently serves as the principal cellist of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic.

An avid chamber musician, Jonathan Ruck is a core member of Brightmusic, Oklahoma City’s resident chamber music ensemble. He has performed as a guest cellist with the American Chamber Players and Penderecki String Quartet and given recent world-premiere performances of chamber works by Christopher Theofanidis and Sydney Corbett. As a founding member of the Dubinsky String Quartet, Jonathan was a prizewinner in the Fischoff and Coleman national chamber music competitions.

Jonathan joined the University of Oklahoma School of Music faculty in 2006. Previous appointments include serving as the teaching assistant to both Janos Starker and Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, and as a visiting professor at the DePauw University School of Music. During the summer, he has enjoyed teaching on the faculties of the Fresno Summer Orchestra and Opera Academy (FOOSA), the Zodiac Festival in Southern France, and the Indiana University Summer String Academy. In 2018, he founded the University of Oklahoma Summer String Academy and continues as its director. Graduates of Jonathan Ruck’s cello studio have been accepted to continue their studies at schools such as Juilliard, Indiana University, Eastman, Oberlin, and the Cleveland Institute of Music, and can be found in ensembles and on college and pre-college faculties throughout the world.

Jonathan Ruck currently lives in Norman, Oklahoma with his wife, violinist Katrin Statmatis, and their two daughters, Arianna and Galia.

Zachary Deak
Pianist Zachary Deak has appeared in recital as a soloist and chamber musician in the United States, France, Morocco, Portugal, Moldova, and the United Kingdom. He has concertized at renowned venues such as the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, the Cité de la Musique and Salle Cortot in Paris, the Casa de Musica in Porto, and the Institut français in Agadir, Morocco. Recent highlights include a performance of Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the ODU Symphony Orchestra, a lecture recital titled “Claude Debussy: The Search for an Authentic French Style” in El Paso, Texas, the performance of “Peace” for clarinet and piano by acclaimed composer Jessie Montgomery at the Virginia Arts Festival, and chamber music performances in the Masters in the Chapel concert series in Venice, CA, and the Henry J. Bruman Summer Chamber Music Festival at UCLA. The recipient of numerous awards, Zachary received the Hopkinson silver medal at the prestigious Chappell Medal Piano Competition in London in 2012. In 2013, he had the privilege to work intensively with the eminent pianist Maria João Pires in Paris and Brussels.

A graduate of the École Normale de Musique de Paris and the Royal College of Music in London, Zachary received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano Performance from the University of Southern California. In addition to his performance career, Zachary is deeply committed to music education. He has taught at Cal State University Los Angeles and Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo, and currently serves as Assistant Professor of Piano and Musicology and Director of Keyboard Studies at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. Through his online piano school, “Piano with Zachary Deak,” he extends his passion for teaching to students worldwide via the ArtistWorks learning platform.

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About The Henry J. Bruman Summer Chamber Music Festival

Ambroise Aubrun, D.M.A., Artistic Director

The festival was founded in 1988 by Professor Henry J. Bruman (1913–2005), who sought to introduce new audiences to chamber music at informal concerts on the UCLA campus. The festival is made possible by the Henry J. Bruman Trust, Professors Wendell E. Jeffrey and Bernice M. Wenzel, by a gift in memory of Raymond E. Johnson, and with the support of the UCLA Center for 17th-& 18th-Century Studies.

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Photos courtesy of the artists.