“ultra-impassioned, vividly detailed”- Gramophone; "revelatory, stunning" - Fanfar
Elmira Darvarova Ronald Carbone Samuel Magill Linda Hall
Photo by Yui Kitamura
“ultra-impassioned, vividly detailed”- Gramophone; "revelatory, stunning" - Fanfar
Photo by Yui Kitamura
A concert violinist since the age of 4, and acclaimed by American Record Guide as "marvelous in the Heifetz tradition", Elmira Darvarova is an award-winning recording artist (Gold Medal at the Global Music Awards in 2 consecutive years - 2017 and 2018), nominated for Latin Grammy®, and a multiple-Grammy® winner (as a former concertmaster of The Metropolitan Opera). Darvarova caused a sensation, becoming the first ever (and the only, as of 2026) female concertmaster in the history of the Metropolitan Opera. With the MET Orchestra she toured Europe, Japan and the United States, and was heard on the MET's live weekly international radio broadcasts, television broadcasts, CDs and laser discs on the Sony, Deutsche Grammophon and EMI labels. At the Metropolitan Opera (where her tone in opera solos was compared to Francescatti's sound) she has worked with the greatest conductors of our time, including the legendary Carlos Kleiber. She studied with Yfrah Neaman at the Guildhall School in London (as a British Council scholar), with Josef Gingold at Indiana University in Bloomington (as one of his assistants), and, privately, with Henryk Szeryng. She can be heard on numerous CDs (50 to date), recorded for a number of labels (notable album releases include the world-premiere recording of Vernon Duke's violin concerto with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, and a CD with world-premiere recordings of chamber music by René de Castéra, named by Music-Web International a Record of the Year). Her albums have entered the Billboard Charts, most recently at the No. 3 position, and have won critical acclaim in prestigious publications, such as The Strad, Gramophone, American Record Guide, Fanfare, BBC Music Magazine, Klassic Heute, Ritmo. She has appeared in recitals and as soloist on 5 continents, on the world’s most prestigious stages (including at Carnegie Hall, as soloist with orchestra). She has partnered for chamber music performances with James Levine, János Starker, Gary Karr, Pascal Rogé, Vassily Lobanov, Fernando Otero, Octavio Brunetti, David Amram, and with the superstar of the Sarod - Amjad Ali Khan, with whom she recorded a trilogy of CD albums, based on traditional Indian Ragas (released in the United States, and separately, on the Indian sub-continent, home to 1.9 billion people). Their album "Masterpieces for Sarod & Violin" entered the Billboard Classical Charts at No. 3 and was lauded as one of the best "East Meets West" collaborations in a tradition which includes also Yehudi Menuhin and Ravi Shankar. Not specializing in any particular music genre, Elmira Darvarova instead chooses to be a top interpreter in a vast variety of styles and epochs, not only strictly-classical, but also in the realm of jazz, blues, tango, folk music. Having performed internationally with the world's most renowned double bassist Gary Karr, Elmira Darvarova recorded with him 2 CDs of Baroque music. She has recorded 4 albums of music by Piazzolla, two of them with the Argentine-born tango pianist Octavio Brunetti (named by the New York Philharmonic "the inheritor of Piazzolla's mantle"). Darvarova's rendition of Kodály's Duo (recorded live with the legendary János Starker) elicited an avalanche of sensational reviews hailing it as "the epitome of two powerful musicians as absolute equals". For the Naxos label she recorded 4 albums, including the world-premiere recordings of the entire chamber music oeuvre of Franco Alfano, whose string quartets earned praise as "one of the best recent Naxos releases", "wondrously fervent", "with tiger-like ferocity". Darvarova has participated in high-profile world-premiere performances of chamber music by Nikolai Kapustin and David Baker, and in the American premiere of György Ligeti's newly-discovered Duo for Violin & Piano. Darvarova was among the first violinists to record Amanda Maier's Violin Sonata and to perform it at Stockholm's Konserthuset in Amanda Maier's country of birth. Darvarova's recital at Béla Bartók's memorial house in Budapest was broadcast live throughout Europe. Her Berlin recital with the Brahms Sonatas was attended by superstar conductor Christian Thielemann, and her Brahms Sonatas album was defined by Ritmo Magazine as an “exceptionally-expressive flight to the heights of classic interpretations of music which was born to be understood this way”, while her interpretation of the Brahms Horn Trio (recorded together with the former Principal Horn of the New York Philharmonic Philip Myers) has been applauded as belonging in the same league as the iconic 1960s Myron Bloom recording. Her Mozart interpretation was lauded by Igor Oistrakh in the most eminent Russian musical publication, while the Chicago Tribune reviewed her Mozart performance in a write-up under the title "A Night to Remember". The New York Times extolled her affinity for Debussy and Ravel in performances with the distinguished French pianist Pascal Rogé, with whom she recorded music by Poulenc. Darvarova's recording of Ysaÿe's "Ballade" was reviewed as "breathtaking" and "among the best". Praised by Gramophone Magazine for her "ultra-impassioned performances", and in The Strad for her “intoxicating tonal beauty and beguilingly sensuous phrasing" and "silky-smooth voluptuous tone”, she was featured in Gramophone Magazine with an interview about her world-premiere recording of Vernon Duke's violin concerto (written for Heifetz) with the Vienna Radio Symphony. Darvarova performs in a duo with Grammy®-winner, pianist & composer Fernando Otero (who dedicated to her 6 compositions for solo violin) and she is a founding member of the New York Piano Quartet, the Delphinium Trio, the Quinteto del Fuego and the Amram Ensemble. She is Jury President of several international chamber music competitions in Europe, and she is Artistic Director of the New York Chamber Music Festival. Recently WFMT, one of the most acclaimed classical music radio stations, dedicated to Darvarova its 2-hour long program "The Art of Elmira Darvarova".
Violist Ronald Carbone has had a diverse musical life encompassing chamber music, orchestral and solo performances, as well as recording. He has been Principal Violist of the American Ballet Theatre Orchestra, an Associate Member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and a member of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. He is the founder and music director of the Canaan Chamber Music Festival. He performs with the New York Piano Quartet and the Omni Piano Quartet, and is a frequent guest violist with the renowned concert series Spectrum Concerts in Berlin, Germany. Ronald Carbone has been a member of the Composer’s String Quartet, the Portsmouth Chamber Ensemble, the Lexington Trio and the Griffes String Quartet. Mr. Carbone has been on the faculties of Vassar College and Smith College. His recordings have been released on many record labels including Naxos, CRI, Albany, Reference-Records, Affetto, Azur Classical and Urlicht Audiovisual. The recipient of the Martha Baird Rockefeller Grant for Music Award, he has been awarded two Artists International Awards. He was a member of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, has performed extensively with The New York Philharmonic and was Assistant Principal Violist of the Barcelona City Orchestra. A student of Boston Symphony’s concertmaster Richard Burgin and the eminent violin soloist Ruth Posselt, Mr. Carbone received his master’s degree from Yale School of Music. Involved in a multitude of performing and recording projects, Ronald Carbone has participated in numerous important premiere performances, including the New York premiere of Eugène Ysaÿe’s String Trio No. 1, Op. 33, a.k.a. “Le Chimay”, the American premiere of the “Rhapsodie” by Joseph Marx, and the New York premiere of Charles-Marie Widor’s Piano Quartet Op. 66 (a performance hailed in the press as “revelatory, stunning”). Ronald Carbone has recorded a number of works for solo viola by contemporary composers, including the world-premiere recordings of viola pieces by David Amram, José Serebrier, Garth Knox. Ronald Carbone was the first violist to record Eugene Ysaÿe's recently-discovered "Introduction for Solo Viola", and he also participated, together with Elmira Darvarova and Samuel Magill, in the world-premiere recordings of Ysaÿe's String Trios Op. 33 and 34, in their recently-discovered finalized versions.
Cellist Samuel Magill has been called "a world-class artist” in the press, and his first Naxos CD, of Vernon Duke’s 1945 Cello Concerto, was lauded as “flat-out magnificent” by the American Record Guide. After a concert, conductor Lorin Maazel hailed Magill’s playing as “well-nigh perfect.” The Strad Magazine raved about Magill’s “sumptuous tone” in his 2014 recital at New York’s Bargemusic series, in which he and Beth Levin played the rarely heard Czerny arrangement of Beethoven’s "Kreutzer" Violin Sonata. This led to their 2016 Navona CD which includes the Kreutzer, the Solo Cello Sonata by Artur Schnabel, and the Ballade by Emanuel Moór. Writing in Classics Today, Jed Distler said “…Magill’s superb technique, range of color, and intelligent pacing make a compelling case (for the Schnabel)”. Among Magill’s 20 CDs, his and his colleagues' (Elmira Darvarova, Craig and Mary Ann Mumm, and Scott Dunn) three volume survey of the complete chamber music of Franco Alfano, for Naxos, is a stand-out. Mr Magill has appeared as soloist throughout Japan and the U.S., including performances of both the Schumann Concerto and the Brahms Double Concerto in Tokyo’s famed Suntory Hall, and the Brahms and the Haydn D Major Concerto in Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. During nine tours of Japan, Magill performed, besides the above works, the concerti of Dohnanyi, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, and the Triple Concerto of Beethoven. He has partnered with the pianists Oxana Yablonskaya, Pascal Rogé, and the late Grant Johannesen, and presented annual recitals from 1994 until 2019 at Lincoln Center’s New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. He is a co-founder, with flutist Lucian Rinando and harpist Grace Ludtke, of the flute, cello, and harp trio Sono Auros. They made their New York debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Hall to critical acclaim, with Strings Magazine declaring them “masters of their instruments.” Magill is also a founding member of the New York Piano Quartet (Elmira Darvarova, violin; Ronald Carbone, viola; and Linda Hall, piano). Festivals Mr. Magill has participated in include the Tanglewood, Aspen, Tahoe, Castleton, and the Festival Albert Roussel in France and Belgium, for which he and pianist Diane Andersen played recitals in Bruges and Paris. A pupil of the late Zara Nelsova, Mr. Magill also studied with Laurence Lesser at the Peabody Institute and with Shirley Trepel at Rice University. He is the former Associate Principal Cello with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, former member of the Houston Symphony, and a former member of the Pittsburgh Symphony. In his 43 years as a member of these orchestras, Magill worked with conductors Muti, Levine, Rattle, Bernstein, Ozawa, Maazel, Thielemann, Rozhdestvensky, Leinsdorf, Rudolf, Barenboim, Luisi, and Santi, among many others. Mr. Magill is originally from Chapel Hill, NC and attended the University of North Carolina School of the Arts for high school. There he was a student of the late Irving Klein, who was a pupil of Emanuel Feuermann, as were Ms. Trepel and Ms. Nelsova.
A long-time Assistant Conductor at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Linda Hall has prepared some of the most challenging operatic masterpieces (including works of Schoenberg, Berg, Strauss, Britten and world-premieres of operas by Corigliano, Harbison, Bolcom, and Picker). She also performs as part of the MET Orchestra, and has appeared regularly with the MET Chamber Ensemble at Carnegie Hall. In addition to her work with the MET, she collaborates with many singers and instrumentalists in concerts throughout the United States, in Europe, the Middle East and the Far East. At age 5 she performed Chopin on the radio, and at 13 was piano soloist with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. Having received degrees from Oberlin, Juilliard and the Salzburg Mozarteum, Linda Hall has taught in Israel, Mexico, Japan and China. She has also been performing and recording with the New York Piano Quartet. Her recordings include discs on the Neuma label with flutist Patricia Spencer, an album with MET Orchestra principal cellist Jascha Silberstein for the Heritage label, a CD on the Capriccio label, recordings for the French label Azur Classical, and albums with the New York Piano Quartet for Urlicht AudioVisual.
"Ultra-impassioned, vividly detailed" -Gramophone
"Revelatory, stunning" -Fanfare
Comprised of Metropolitan Opera musicians (violinist Elmira Darvarova, violist Ronald Carbone, cellist Samuel Magill and pianist Linda Hall), The NEW YORK PIANO QUARTET is the core ensemble of the New York Chamber Music Festival, appearing at prestigious venues, including Carnegie Hall. Their performances have been called “revelatory” and “stunning” by Fanfare Magazine, while their recordings were praised as “ultra-impassioned, vividly detailed” by Gramophone Magazine. Their recording of Alfred Schnittke's "Piano Quartet after Mahler" was hailed as the definitive version, and they have championed works by Gustav Mahler, Erich Korngold, Joseph Marx, Charles-Marie Widor, Amanda Maier, David Amram, Gernot Wolfgang, Wang Jie and José Serebrier (among many others), presenting a multitude of world premieres, American premieres and New York premieres. A CD album with world-premiere recordings of chamber works by René de Castéra (released by the French label Azur Classical), on which three of the New York Piano Quartet members appear, was selected by Music-Web International as Recording of the Month, and among the Records of the Year. The string players of the group - Elmira Darvarova, Ronald Carbone and Samuel Magill - participated in an album of José Serebrier's chamber music for which they recorded a number of never-before released works, and they also registered, for a different album, the world-premiere recordings of Eugene Ysaÿe's String Trios Op. 33 and 34, in their recently-discovered finalized versions.
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