Jolidon Concert Series: Fader Gendron Haas Trio with Melody Fader, piano; Emilie-Anne Gendron, violin; Michael Haas, cello. This trio comprises three of Musical Club’s former High School Competition winners, now all professional musicians. They met when Melody was invited to play with the Momenta Quartet, of which Emilie-Anne and Michael have been members since 2009, and have continued to perform together since discovering their Musical Club connection.

Admission $10.

The Musical Club of Hartford enthusiastically welcomes back to Hartford three winners of past Musical Club competitions who have come together years later in their professional careers to form a new piano trio: the Fader Gendron Haas Trio.  Funding for the concert on October 27th in West Hartford is provided by the Jolidon endowment, a legacy to the Musical Club of Hartford from the estate of Majorie Jolidon, a former president of the club.

The Fader Gendron Haas Trio was conceived in 2015 when Melody Fader, pianist, was invited to play with the Momenta Quartet, of which Emilie-Anne Gendron, violinist, and Michael Haas, cellist, had been members since 2009. During the rehearsals for Melody’s first performance with Momenta, the talk turned to the musicians’ backgrounds, and they learned that Melody, Emilie-Anne and Michael were all Hartford-area natives and all recipients of awards from the Musical Club’s competitions.

Melody Fader (originally from Bloomfield) won First Place in the Musical Club's Piano Competition in 1993.  Emilie-Anne Gendron (originally from Glastonbury) won First Place in Strings in 2001.  Michael Haas (originally from Windsor), as a high school freshman, received an honorable mention in 1998 in Strings..  They began planning how to return home for a concert and are delighted now to have the opportunity to perform together for the Musical Club on October 27th. Today they are accomplished professional musicians with impressive careers living in New York City and performing throughout the country and beyond.

The concert will consist of Mozart’s Piano Trio in B-flat Major, K.502, Maurice Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Piano, and the Ravel Piano Trio.  Composed between 1923 and 1927 when American jazz music and dance could be experienced in Paris, the sonata is known for its jazz influences, especially in the second movement entitled “Blues.”  The Piano Trio which has Basque influences due to Ravel’s heritage was written rapidly for completion before the composer could enter the French army in 1914 as a nurse’s assistant.

Their bios follow:

Pianist Melody Fader is a soloist, chamber musician, vocal accompanist, and interdisciplinary collaborative artist in New York City and around the United States, performing as a soloist and chamber musician in such New York venues as Alice Tully Hall, The Joyce Theater, The New York Times Center, and Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall. Her performances in those venues have been well reviewed, including by The New York Times, which has called her work “sumptuous” and “stirring” and commented that she “plays with elegance.”

Her newest project, “Melody and Company Chamber Series,” began in 2015 with three chamber music concerts at Spectrum, in New York City’s Lower East Side, as well as a sold-out international performance in Sainte-Ode, Belgium.

Miss Fader is a resident musician with the New Chamber Ballet, which performs regularly at New York’s City Center Studios. She has performed as a concerto soloist with the Farmington Valley Symphony Orchestra as well as the Aspen Conductor’s Orchestra. Miss Fader has also collaborated and toured with Dance Theatre of Harlem, as well as played with the Buglisi Dance Theater and the Dankmeyer Dance Company, performing at The Joyce Theater and St. Mark’s Church. Other performances include a U.S. embassy-sponsored recital tour of Chile with Soprano Elisa Cordova and chamber music concerts presented by the Chopin Foundation in Florida. Miss Fader was recently commissioned by playwright Richard Curtis to record music for his play “The Tutu Trilogy,” performed at Manhattan Repertory Theater in 2015.

Miss Fader is a Coleman Chamber Ensemble competition prizewinner, and an Aspen Concerto competition prizewinner. She has performed internationally in Chile, Italy, Belgium, England, Spain, Canada, Korea, and Israel, as well as at the Spoleto Festival in Italy, Aspen Music Festival, Chautauqua, International Festival Institute at Round Top, and the Scotia Festival of Music.

While earning her Bachelor’s in Music in piano performance from the Eastman School of Music, Miss Fader performed concertos with student orchestras, played solo recitals, and appeared numerous times on Buffalo Public Radio’s “Opus Classics Live” broadcast series.  Miss Fader earned her Master’s in Music in Collaborative Piano at the Juilliard School, where she studied with Margo Garrett. She has been selected to perform numerous times in Alice Tully Hall’s “Wednesdays at 1”, and “Evening of Chamber Music” series, as well as the Juilliard Vocal Honors recital. Miss Fader performed at the International Musician’s Seminar in Prussia Cove, England. Before working on her Master’s, Miss Fader was a resident artist at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada.

Violinist Emilie-Anne Gendron, lauded by The New York Times as a “brilliant soloist" and by France’s ClassiqueInfo for her “excellent technical mastery” and “undeniable sensitivity,” enjoys a dynamic freelance career based in New York. A deeply committed chamber musician, Ms. Gendron is a member of the Momenta Quartet, two-time recipient of the prestigious Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation commission grant; the Toomai String Quintet, specializing in innovative educational outreach and community engagement; and the G-Sharp Duo with pianist Yelena Grinberg. She regularly joins the rosters of the Marlboro Music Festival and the touring Musicians From Marlboro, as well as the Gamut Bach Ensemble, Argento Chamber Ensemble, IRIS Orchestra, A Far Cry, New York Chamber Soloists, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Talea Ensemble, Ensemble Échappé, and the conductor-less Sejong Soloists, with whom she recently recorded the Mendelssohn Octet with Gil Shaham.

Recent performances include collaborations with artists such as Richard Goode, Leon Fleisher, and members of the Guarneri, Juilliard, Pro Arte, and Johannes Quartets; and under the auspices of such venues as the Louvre, Guggenheim Museum, Freer Gallery, Cadogan Hall, Salle Gaveau, Library of Congress, Seoul Arts Center, Avery Fisher Hall, Kennedy Center, and the Mariinsky Theater. Ms. Gendron’s performances have been broadcast over radio and television in the U.S., U.K., Switzerland, New Zealand, Canada, Denmark, Japan, and South Korea. Especially notable is her solo performance with Sejong Soloists on the popular KBS-TV arts program “Classical Odyssey," which aired across South Korea. She is a past winner of the Stulberg String Competition and took 2nd Prize and the Audience Prize at the Sion-Valais International Violin Competition.

Ms. Gendron was trained at the Juilliard School where her principal teachers were Won-Bin Yim, Dorothy DeLay, David Chan, and Hyo Kang. Ms. Gendron holds the distinction of being the first person in Juilliard’s history to be accepted simultaneously to its two most selective courses of study, both the Doctor of Musical Arts and the Artist Diploma. She holds a B.A. in Classics, magna cum laude and with Phi Beta Kappa honors, from Columbia University as a graduate of the Columbia-Juilliard joint-degree program, and a Master of Music degree and the coveted Artist Diploma from Juilliard.

Cellist Michael Haas performs in New York City and around the world. In a recent performance his playing was noted as "refined and attractive" by The New York Times. Leading a varied musical life, Michael is equally at home performing chamber music and orchestral repertoire both old and new. He has recently appeared performing at Symphony Space, the New York Live Arts Theater, Le Poisson Rouge, as well as for Tertulia, a new series bringing chamber music to intimate settings around New York City. In addition to his work with the Momenta Quartet, Michael has been a member of the New Haven Symphony since 2008. He regularly performs with the Princeton Symphony and in New York with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. Michael holds degrees from the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School studying with David Soyer, Peter Wiley, Joel Krosnick, and Darrett Adkins.. He is a member of the  Momenta Quartet: the plural of momentum – four individuals in motion towards a common goal. This is the idea behind the Momenta Quartet, whose eclectic vision encompasses contemporary music of all aesthetic backgrounds alongside great music from the recent and distant past.  The New York City-based quartet has premiered over 100 works, collaborated with over 120 living composers and was praised by The New York Times for its “diligence, curiosity and excellence.” In the words of The New Yorker’s Alex Ross, “few American players assume Haydn’s idiom with such ease.”

Marjorie Jolidon was Musical Club president from 1995 to 1997.  She received music degrees from New York University and taught music at the elementary and high school levels for 38 years in Suffield and Bloomfield.  She also served as organist at numerous Baptist churches in the area.  With no children and no family members remaining, Marjorie left her residual estate to a number of music organizations, including the Musical Club of Hartford, which has designated her gift to support the Jolidon Concerts, Musical Club concerts that feature guest artists.

This concert is the fourth in the Musical Club’s 2016-2017 season and takes place on October 27, 2016 at 10:00 a.m. at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 2080 Boulevard, West Hartford.  Admission is free for members of the Musical Club and $10 for members of the general public who are warmly welcome.

The Musical Club of Hartford’s mission is to develop the musical talent of its members and to encourage the study and appreciation of music through programs, lectures and concerts.  In addition, the Club gives financial assistance to promising young artists and aid to musical projects in the community.