"Their vast technical prowess and deep musical sensibilities were palpable from the first note to the last."
Three-time Grammy-nominated cellist Seth Parker Woods, Grammy-winning classical vocalist Ariadne Greif and acclaimed pianist Conor Hanick join musical forces for a powerful and genre-spanning collaboration that brings together some of the most distinctive voices in contemporary music. The program weaves together music by Nina Simone, George Gershwin, and Maurice Ravel, alongside a new work by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Tania León, creating a vivid dialogue between classical, jazz, and American song traditions. With artistry that moves fluidly across genres and eras, this compelling collaboration highlights both the emotional depth and the expansive possibilities of modern chamber performance.
PROGRAM
Maurice Ravel: Nahandove from Chansons Medecasses
Nina Simone: Four Women
Tania Léon: Oh Yemanja (Mother’s Prayer) from Scourge of Hyacinths
Salvatore Sciarrino: Ultime Rose from Vanitas
Tania Léon: New Work (premiere 2026)
George Walker: Sonata for cello and piano (1957)
Interval
John Tavener: Akhmatova Songs (selection)
André Previn: It’s Good To Have You Near Again
George Gershwin: Love Walked In from The Goldwyn Follies
André Previn: Four Songs for cello, piano, and soprano
Program subject to change
This performance will have a pre-performance lecture, more information coming soon!
PERFORMANCE TIME
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2027 – 2 PM
HANNAFORD HALL, PORTLAND
RUNTIME: Coming soon
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ACCESS SERVICES & SENSORY INFORMATION
Click here to learn more about accessibility at Hannaford Hall.
Wheelchair accessible. Ear protection available upon request. Click here to request access services.
ASL interpretation available upon request.
Assistive Listening Devices available.
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Seth Parker Woods has established a reputation as a versatile artist and innovator across multiple genres. According to The New York Times, “Woods is an artist rooted in classical music, but whose cello is a vehicle that takes him, and his concertgoers, on wide-ranging journeys.” A prominent champion of contemporary composers, Woods has premiered numerous concertos written specifically for him. As a recitalist and chamber musician, Woods has appeared at Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, the Kennedy Center, Konzerthaus Dortmund, and Harvard University, among many others. He has curated and performed in tributes to the music of Julius Eastman at Lincoln Center and to the chamber music of George Walker at The Phillips Collection. Since 2022, Woods has served on the faculty of the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California and was appointed the Robert Mann Chair in Strings and Chamber Music in 2024. Woods is also recognized for his distinctive personal style, having appeared on Best Dressed lists in Vanity Fair, Variety, Texas Monthly, and the OC Register.
Ariadne Greif, praised for her “luminous, expressive voice” (NYTimes), her “elastic and round high notes” (classiqueinfo), and her “mesmerizing stage presence” (East Anglian Daily Times), began her opera career as a ‘boy’ soprano in the Los Angeles area and at the LA Opera, eventually making an adult debut singing Lutoslawski’s Chantefleurs et Chantefables with the American Symphony Orchestra. She starred in roles ranging from Therese/Tirésias in Poulenc’s Les Mamelles de Tirésias, singing a “thoroughly commanding and effortless” run at the Aldeburgh Festival, a “sassy” Adina in The Elixir of Love with the Orlando Philharmonic, to Sappho in Atthis by Georg Friedrich Haas, for which the New York Times noted her “searing top notes,” and “dusky depths,” calling it “a solo high-wire act for Ms. Greif,” “a vehicle for Ms. Greif’s raw, no-holds-barred performance,” “one of the most searingly painful and revealing operatic performances in recent times.”
Pianist Conor Hanick is regarded as one of his generation’s most inquisitive interpreters of music new and old whose “technical refinement, color, crispness and wondrous variety of articulation benefit works by any master.” (New York Times) A fierce advocate for the music of today, Hanick has premiered over 200 pieces and collaborated with composers ranging from Pierre Boulez, Kaija Saariaho, and Steve Reich, to the leading composers of his generation, including Nico Muhly, Caroline Shaw, Tyshawn Sorey, Marcos Balter, and Samuel Carl Adams, whose piano concerto, No Such Spring, he premiered in 2023 with Salonen and the San Francisco Symphony. Hanick is the director of Solo Piano at the Music Academy of the West and serves on the faculty of The Juilliard School, the CUNY Graduate Center, and Mannes College at The New School. He is a graduate of the Juilliard School and lives with his family in the Hudson Valley.
