Seraph Brass

Seraph Brass

Tuesday, September 30, 2025

Pacifica Quartet

Tuesday, November 18, 2025

Pacifica Quartet

Ji Su Jung, Marimba and Timothy Chooi, Violin

Thursday, February 19, 2026

Ji Su Jung, Marimba, and Timothy Chooi, Violin

Inon Barnaton, Pianist

Monday, April 13, 2026

Inon Barnatan, Pianist

Tryon Concert Association 71st Season2025-2026  Concert Series

We are proud to offer another outstanding Tryon Concert Association subscription series for 2025-2026. We know that you will share our enthusiasm for these concerts which represent a variety of musical talents and styles of international repute. As usual, this season’s concerts will be held at the Tryon Fine Arts Center. Our membership is limited to the 315-seat capacity of that performance hall. We expect that the 2025-2026 season tickets will be in great demand and encourage you to buy your subscription early.

Seraph Brass

Tuesday, September 30, 2025
7:30 pm

“The high caliber of the playing is often staggering.”
(Textura)

Seraph Brass, now in its 12th season, has been praised for its “beautiful sounds” (American Record Guide) and “fine playing” (Gramophone). Founded by trumpet soloist Mary Elizabeth Bowden, the ensemble has highlighted the emergence and excellence of women brass musicians. Seraph Brass is the winner of the American Prize in Chamber Music.

The ensemble members perform as an ensemble, as soloists with orchestras and wind bands, and in collaboration with other chamber artists. Appearances with esteemed orchestras include the London Symphony Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Highlights of recent seasons include performances with the Cusco Symphony Orchestra in Peru, 78th Midwest Band & Orchestra Clinic in Chicago, the Jeju Festival in South Korea, and Pro Music Joplin, Missouri.

Seraph Brass has been highly praised for music that is both “bright and warm” (KnoxTNToday) and for “musical talent and prowess” (The Diamondback) that has continued to impress audiences. One reviewer noted that “walls continue to crumble in the classical world” by the women musicians of Seraph Brass.

Seraph Brass

Pacifica Quartet

Tuesday, November 18, 2025
7:30pm

“The real thing, a truly first-class — in fact top-of-the-line — string quartet”
(Terry Ross, Oregon Arts Watch)

The Pacifica Quartet is known for the impeccable, stylish, and precise playing characteristic of individual and group artistry. Formed in 1994, the ensemble won the 1998 Naumburg Chamber Music Award, the Chamber Music America’s Cleveland Quartet Award, appointment to Lincoln Center’s The Bowers Program, and, in 2006, an Avery Fisher Career Grant.

The quartet has performed string quartet cycles, including the Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Carter, and Shostakovich cycles, to audiences around the world. Also ardent advocates of contemporary, the ensemble has commissioned and performed works by Keeril Makan, Julia Wolfe, and Shulamit Ran. Pacifica has appeared on prestigious stages across the United States, in Australia, England, and Japan.

Critics and audiences have praised the group’s artistry in both live performances and recordings. Their 2008 release of Elliott Carter’s Quartets Nos. 1 and 5 won a Grammy award, and their Shostakovich cycle, according to the Daily Telegraph, was “nothing short of phenomenal.” The ensemble has recorded with Marc-André Hamelin, the late Menahem Pressler, and clarinetist Anthony McGill. They are the quartet-in-residence at the Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music.

Seraph Brass

Ji Su Jung, Marimba, and

Timothy Chooi, Violin

Thursday, February 19, 2026
7:30pm

Ji Su Jung, Marimba

“Her performance was dazzling”
(Conductor JoAnn Falletta)

Ji Su Jung is the first solo percussionist to receive an Avery Fisher Career Grant and has established herself as a first-rate soloist. She has performed with leading orchestras and conductors such as the Baltimore Symphony with Marin Alsop, the Houston Symphony with Daniel Hege, the Aspen Festival Orchestra with Michael Stern, and the Colorado Springs Philharmonic with JoAnn Falletta. As an acclaimed soloist, recitalist, and collaborative artist, she has won numerous prizes and awards. She serves on the faculties of the Curtis Institute of Music and the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University.

Ji Su Jung

Timothy Chooi, Violin

“So sensitive and intelligent is his playing”
(WordPress)

Timothy Chooi is recognized as an internationally acclaimed violinist. He has appeared with the Toronto Symphony, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Montreal Symphony, and London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and at venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Royal Albert Hall, and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. His awards and prizes include the Joseph Joachim International Violin Competition, the Queen Elisabeth International Competition, and the Yves Paternot Prize. He is noted for his electrifying performances, passionate renditions, and extensive repertoire. Currently he serves on the faculty at the University of Ottawa.

Ji Su Jung

Inon Barnatan, Pianist

Monday, April 13, 2026
7:30pm

“A player of uncommon sensitivity”
(The New Yorker)

Inon Barnatan has performed as soloist with many of the most prestigious orchestras and conductors. He was Artist-in-Association with the New York Philharmonic and has appeared with the BBC Proms, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, to name a few. Mr. Barnatan serves as music director of the La Jolla Summerfest and has partnered with Renée Fleming and Alisa Weilerstein as well as with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Acclaimed for his recordings as well as performances, he has released Rachmaninoff Reflections, a collection of the composer’s most-revered pieces, a set of Beethoven’s piano concertos, Time-Traveler, an album that merged Baroque, Classical, and Romantic compositions, and works by Schubert, Chopin, and Messiaen.

Born in Tel Aviv, Mr. Barnatan began his piano studies at age three, made his orchestral debut at eleven, and went on to study with illustrious pianists and teachers. From the beginning of his career, he has been known for his “impeccable musicality and phrasing” (Le Figaro) and his stature as “a true poet of the keyboard: refined, searching, unfailingly communicative” (The Evening Standard).

Inon Barnatan
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