THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY College of Music presents
Faculty Recital of
Jonathan Holden, Clarinet
Gregory Sauer, Cello
Read Gainsford, Piano
Monday, September 16, 2024
7:30 p.m. | Longmire Recital Hall
Sonata in B-flat for Piano and Cello, Op. 8
PROGRAM
Ernst von Dohnányi
Allegro ma non troppo (1877–1960)
Scherzo: Vivace assai
Adagio non troppo
Tema con Variazioni: Allegro moderato
Off Pist
Trio in A Minor for Clarinet, Cello, and Piano, Op. 114
Svante Henryson (b. 1963)
Johannes Brahms
Allegro (1833–1897)
Adagio
Andantino grazioso
Allegro
To Ensure An Enjoyable Concert Experience For All…
Please refrain from talking, entering, or exiting during performances. Food and drink are prohibited in all concert halls. Recording or broadcasting of the concert by any means, including the use of digital cameras, cell phones, or other devices is expressly forbidden. Please deactivate all portable electronic devices including watches, cell phones, pagers, hand-held gaming devices or other electronic equipment that may distract the audience or performers.
Recording Notice: This performance may be recorded. Please note that members of the audience may at times be included in this process. By attending this performance you consent to have your image or likeness appear in any live or recorded video or other transmission or reproduction made in conjunction to the performance.
Florida State University provides accommodations for persons with disabilities. Please notify the College of Music at (850) 644-3424 at least five working days prior to a musical event to request accommodation for disability or alternative program format.
Jonathan Holden is Associate Professor of Clarinet at Florida State University, Principal Clarinetist of the West Michigan Symphony and a member of the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra. A frequent guest of numerous orchestras, he has performed with ensembles such as the Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Baton Rouge and Lansing symphony orchestras, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, the Mobile Symphony and the Sarasota Orchestra. He is a founding member of the Vireo Ensemble (clarinet, violin, cello, piano) and the Argot Trio (clarinet, violin, piano).
Holden is an ardent soloist and chamber music collaborator. He has made guest appearances with ensembles such as the Degas, Ciompi and Voxare string quartets and has performed as a soloist and chamber musician by invitation of the British Clarinet Congress, Oklahoma Clarinet Symposium, College Music Society, Music Teachers National Association, Festival South, Festival Contempoaneo (Brazil), Alfredo de Saint Malo Festival (Panama), Chamber Music Wilmington, American Music Festival and Saugatuck Chamber Music Festival. He has given performances, clinics and masterclasses at collegiate establishments in the US and overseas including Vanderbilt, Michigan State University, the national conservatories of Panama and Paris and the universities of Memphis, Florida, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Alabama, Tennessee, Texas and Rio de Janeiro.
A proponent of new chamber music, Holden’s latest work with the Argot Trio has yielded notable fundraising success and the commissioning of several new trios included on the CD, Made in Mississippi, featuring works inspired by the birthplace of America’s music. Contributing composers include Luigi Zaninelli, Michael Burns, Alan Theisen and James Sclater. The Argot Trio’s recording of a new work by Steven Holochwost was released in 2013 on the Albany label. Holden has also prepared and performed works for composers Bright Sheng, Peter Sculthorpe, Ricardo Tacuchian and Judith Zaimont.
Holden received the DMA degree from Michigan State University where he studied with eminent soloist and chamber musician Dr. Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr, as well as Nathan Williams and Theodore Oien. He received BM and MM performance degrees from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama under Joy Farrall, Andrew Webster and celebrated recording artist Dame Thea King.
Professor of Cello Gregory Sauer joined the College of Music in 2006. A native of Davenport, Iowa, Sauer attended the Eastman School of Music and the New England Conservatory. His principal teachers included Ada Marie Snyder, Charles Wendt, Paul Katz, Laurence Lesser, Bonnie Hampton and Colin Carr. For eleven years prior to his arrival at FSU Sauer taught at the University of Oklahoma, where he was named Presidential Professor (2005).
Praised for his versatility, Sauer performs in many different musical arenas. He has appeared in recital at the Old First Concert Series in San Francisco, the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, the Brightmusic Concert Series in Oklahoma City, at universities and schools of music such as the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt, the Shepherd School at Rice University, the University of Iowa and the University of Tennessee, among many others. Sauer was a prizewinner in the Hudson Valley Philharmonic and Ima Hogg National competitions and has performed concertos with the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, the Houston Symphony, the New American Chamber Orchestra, the Quad City Symphony, Oklahoma City Philharmonic, the
Columbus (GA) Symphony, the Tallahassee Symphony, and the Missoula Symphony, among others.
Sauer joined the Carpe Diem String Quartet in 2019, playing concerts in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Siena, Italy, and in the group’s first China tour. Along with his brother, Thomas Sauer, he serves as co-Artistic Director of Chamber Music Quad Cities in their hometown of Davenport, Iowa. Other chamber music ventures have resulted in appearances at the Austin Chamber Music Center, the Snake River Music Festival, the Victoria Bach Festival, the Texas Music Festival, the Colorado Music Festival, and the Garth Newel Music Center. As a member of the Fidelio Quartet, a prizewinning group in the London International String Quartet Competition, he performed concerts in the UK, Germany, Italy, and the Tanglewood and Aspen Music Festivals.
Sauer was appointed to the music faculty at Florida State University in 2006. Prior to that he taught eleven years at the University of Oklahoma, where he was named Presidential Professor. Other teaching/performing positions have been a visiting professorship at the University of California at Los Angeles, summer programs such as the Texas Music Festival, the Duxbury Music Festival, the Foulger International Music Festival, the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, Red Lodge Music Festival, and the Hot Springs Music Festival.
Sauer has recorded for MSR Classics, Harmonia Mundi, Albany, and Mark Records.
Sauer attended the Eastman School of Music and the New England Conservatory. His teachers included Ada Marie Snyder, Charles Wendt, Paul Katz, Laurence Lesser, Bonnie Hampton, and Colin Carr.
A native of New Zealand, Read Gainsford began full-time music study with top piano teachers, Janetta MacStay and Bryan Sayer, before receiving a grant from the Woolf Fisher Trust and the top prize in the Television New Zealand Young Musician of the Year. Gainsford then relocated to London, where he studied privately with Brigitte Wild, a protégée of Claudio Arrau, before winning a place in the Advanced Solo Studies course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he studied with Joan Havill, graduating with the prestigious Concert Recital Diploma (premier prix).
Gainsford has performed widely in the USA, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa as solo recitalist, concerto soloist and chamber musician. He has made successful solo debuts at the Wigmore Hall and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, and has performed in many other venues, including the John F. Kennedy Center, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Barbican Centre, Fairfield Halls, Birmingham Town Hall and St-Martin-in-the-Fields. He has recorded for the Amoris label, BBC Radio Three, Radio New Zealand’s Concert Programme, and has broadcast on national television in New Zealand, the UK and Yugoslavia.
Gainsford moved to the United States in 1992 to enter the doctoral program at Indiana University, where he worked with Karen Shaw and Leonard Hokanson. Since that time he has been guest artist for the American Music Teachers Association and has also given numerous recitals, concerto performances and master-classes. He has appeared at the Gilmore Keyboard Festival and the Music Festival of the Hamptons, spent several summers at the Heifetz International Music Institute, is a member of the contemporary music group Ensemble X, and the Garth Newel Chamber Players. Gainsford has also enjoyed working with such musicians as Jacques Zoon, William Vermuelen, Roberto Diaz, Eddie vanOosthuyse and Luis Rossi. Formerly on the faculty of Ithaca College, where he received the college-wide Excellence in Teaching Award in 2004, Gainsford joined the piano faculty at Florida State University in 2005.