First...Enjoy This Q & A with Violist Helena Baillie

London-born Helena Baillie was hailed by The Strad magazine for her “brilliance and poignance,” and stands apart for a rare ease on both violin and viola. Helena will join Adam Golka, piano, Itamar Zorman, violin, Yehuda Hanani, cello, and Michael Wise, narrator, for our October 20th season premiere, "Drama and Melodrama—The Schumanns." One of her first memories of playing chamber music is of playing Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet with her parents and two siblings! Read Helena's full bio here.

1. You were born in England. How did you come to the US, and what made you decide to study here? I came to the US as a 15 year old to attend boarding school at Milton Academy in Massachussetts. My classmates used to joke that I’d inverted the norm of going to England for boarding schools! Milton happens to be just outside Boston, and I was incredibly lucky to enroll at a fantastic pre-college music program nearby, the New England Conservatory Prep Division. The musical education I received at NEC Prep shaped my path to the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia.

2. You come from a family of musicians. Your father is a prominent cellist, your siblings are musicians. What was it like to grow up in a family of all players? Do you carry on that tradition with your own family? How do you instill a love -- and necessity -- for music in young children; and what part do you think family plays in cultivating this? I’m told that as a small child I assumed every kid played the violin, I would even ask other children where their violins were! It took a while to register that music was a choice my family had made, that it would be a part of our DNA. The most memorable element of having a family where everyone played an instrument is that it brought us into a vibrant hub of social activity that I might never have experienced otherwise, through concerts, festivals, summer courses and rehearsals at our home for my father’s work. Now that I have my own children, my goal foremost is to cultivate and build community through music. Rather than try to mold the next international virtuoso, I’m introducing music to them as a binding social fabric that is full of joy, community, and with the hope that it will be an elevating and replenishing force in their lives whichever path they follow. 

3. It appears you are equally comfortable on violin as on viola. Being able to adapt quickly on both directions is fairly rare. How do you manage this? I took my first viola lessons while studying violin at the Curtis Institute and absolutely relished the chance to work with the great violist Joseph de Pasquale, who had succeeded his mentor and teacher, William Primrose in the teaching position at Curtis. Mr. De Pasquale was incredibly gracious and open-hearted about having a violinist ‘interloper’ join his class, and he filled our lessons with vivid stories about Primrose’s exploits as an amateur boxer, his unassailable artistry and innovations in viola technique. After Curtis I was fortunate to work with the great Pinchas Zukerman, whose complete mastery of both violin and viola seemed effortless and utterly natural. Like Mr. De Pasquale, whose pedagogical lineage reached back to Eugène Ysaÿe via Primrose, Zukerman taught an elliptical method of bow technique, with a circularity that could generate enormous resonance from any instrument. Even from the most recalcitrant viola, which is a famously stubborn and unyielding instrument because of its awkward proportions! 

5. Are there any particular composers that you are currently championing? I recently had the opportunity to perform a work for solo violin by an incredibly gifted young composer, Cashel Day-Lewis. The piece reads as a love letter to the violin, with flashes of virtuosity mixed with introspective lyricism and Bachian counterpoint. I especially relished its folk inflected themes, drawing on Cashel’s deep love of traditional fiddle music. Now I’m working on another piece by Cashel for viola and piano, called Foxglove Elegy. It is an evocation of folk legends set in the bewitching Irish countryside.

6. Finally, do you have any special affinity for the Schumann’s? My first memories of playing chamber music are Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet with my parents and two siblings. We were a boisterous lot, and as kids we somehow had to learn to try and capture the moments of inward restraint along with the festive and rhythmically driven movements. All while taking directions from our parents!

Close Encounters With Music's 2024-2025 Season sparkles and vibrates with brilliant performers and thought-provoking themes October through June.

It's our 33rd year of presenting outstanding chamber music with lively commentary! Close Encounters With Music once again offers a wide swath of genres, styles, composers and instruments—and of course, the great performers who share their brilliant artistry, including pianists Adam Golka, Max Levinson, Michael Chertock and Cliburn Competition laureate Alexander Shtarkman; violinists, Xiao-**** Wang, Itamar Zorman, Helena Baillie and Grace Park; clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein; Metropolitan Opera soprano Danielle Talamantes, The Dali String Quartet and distinguished cellist Colin Carr, who joins Yehuda Hanani in a traversal of the sublime Six Unaccompanied Bach Suites.

Most concerts are at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center; "6 Unaccompanied Bach Suites" on February 23rd is at Saint James Place.

- October 20: Drama and Melodrama—The Schumanns

- December 15: Vivace Chamber Orchestra: Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Boccherini, Barber

- February 23: 6 Unaccompanied Bach Suites for Cello with Colin Carr and Yehuda Hanani

- March 23: "Rite of Spring"—Rachmaninoff/Stravinsky

- April 20: Classical Roots, Latin Soul—The Dalí String Quartet

- May 18: A Tale of Two Salons—Winnaretta Singer and Marcel Proust

- June 8: L'Amour Toujours and A World Premiere

- And don't forget our Annual Luncheon Musicale to raise funds for our Commissioning Projects, taking place at a private club on Sunday, May 4. Learn more about our Commissioning Project here.

We invite you to join us on The Mahaiwe stage for Afterglow Receptions where you will meet the artists and enjoy bits and bites from Authentic Eats by Oleg.

All Concerts

Season Subscriptions

Season subscriptions are available at cewm.org: Regular $280 and Early Bird $250 (by October 1) for the series of 7 concerts. We also offer a "select-your-own" option (call CEWM 800-843-0778; email [email protected]). Single Tickets, $55 (Orchestra and Mezzanine), $30 (Balcony) and $15 for students, are available through Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center or call 413-528-0100. Virtual subscriptions and viewing of individual programs are also available at cewm.org.

Season Subscribers are able to watch our 2024/25 performances one week after each concert via an email link sent one week after each performance.

Grand Opening

Drama and Melodrama—The Schumanns

Sunday, October 20th 2024 at 4PM

Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center

The ever-fascinating and intimate triangle—Robert and Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms—will be brought to new light with seldom-heard works that highlight the musical cross-references and spiritual bond that united them. Predating accompaniment to silent film by decades, Robert’s melodrama, Schön Hedwig is a forerunner to soap-opera sentimentality with a happy ending. His Piano Quartet in E-flat Major (premiered with Clara as pianist), marries Romantic lyricism with baroque counterpoint and sonic flamboyance in one of the masterpieces of the chamber music repertoire. Also featured are Clara Schumann’s piano concerto composed with a daring slow movement, a love duet between the piano and a single cello, as well as her Three Romances for Violin and Piano. Brahms’ greatest set of piano variations Op. 9, written after Schumann was committed to an asylum, spells out the name CLARA in its theme, in a work tender, boisterous and touched with heartfelt brilliance.

Adam Golka, piano; Itamar Zorman, violin; Helena Baille, viola, Yehuda Hanani, cello; Michael Wise, narrator.

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