Curtis on Tour | The Nina von Maltzahn Global Touring Initiative of the Curtis Institute of Music
Curtis on Tour is the global touring initiative of America’s most selective conservatory, the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Cellist Nicholas Canellakis leads this program centered around the Dohnányi Sextet for the unique combination of piano, violin, viola, cello, clarinet, and horn. Canellakis and emerging artists will open the program with virtuosic duos by Schumann and Halvorsen (variations on a theme by Handel) and the lyrical Brahms Clarinet Trio. The program concludes with Dohnányi’s gorgeous, expansive Sextet for winds, strings, and piano.
Program
*This program will run approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes, including a 15-minute intermission
Adagio and Allegro, Op. 70, for horn and piano by Schumann
Sarabande con Variazioni on a Theme by George Frideric Handel, for violin and viola by Halvorsen
Trio in A minor, Op. 114, for clarinet, cello, and piano by Brahms
Sextet in C major, Op. 37, for piano, violin, viola, cello, clarinet and horn by Dohnányi
Nicholas Canellakis, cello
Leading this program is cellist Nicholas Canellakis. His recent concert highlights include concerto appearances with the Virginia, Albany, Delaware, Stamford, Richardson, Lansing, and Bangor symphonies, the Erie Philharmonic, The Orchestra Now, the New Haven Symphony as artist-in-residence, and the American Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall. He performs recitals throughout the United States with his longtime duo collaborator, pianist-composer Michael Stephen Brown, and recent appearances have included Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, the Four Arts in Palm Beach, New Orleans Friends of Chamber Music, the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, and Wolf Trap near Washington D.C.
Mr. Canellakis is an artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, with which he performs regularly in Alice Tully Hall and on tour internationally, including London’s Wigmore Hall, the Louvre in Paris, the Seoul Arts Center in Korea, and the Shanghai and Taipei National Concert Halls. He is also a regular guest artist at many of the world’s leading music festivals, including Santa Fe, Ravinia, Music@Menlo, Bard, Bridgehampton, La Jolla, Moab, Chamberfest Cleveland, and Music in the Vineyards. He was recently renewed as the artistic director of Chamber Music Sedona in Arizona, where he has made a major impact through his dynamic programming and educational and community outreach.
Mr. Canellakis’ latest album (b)romance, featuring some of his original compositions and arrangements, was released by First Hand Records in 2023 and has received over one million streams on Apple Music.
Filmmaking and acting are special interests of Mr. Canellakis. He has produced, directed, and starred in several short films and music videos, including his popular comedy web series Conversations with Nick Canellakis. His latest films Thin Walls and My New Cello were nominated for awards at many prominent film festivals and are currently available to stream online.
A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music (’06) and New England Conservatory, his teachers included Orlando Cole, Peter Wiley, and Paul Katz, and he was a student of Madeleine Golz at Manhattan School of Music Pre-College.
Mr. Canellakis plays an outstanding cello by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, from 1840. He joined the Curtis Institute of Music faculty in 2024.