St. Ann DC Concert Series 2024-2025

DOWNLOAD THE PERFORMANCE PROGRAM HERE

Church of Saint Ann

Wisconsin Avenue at Tenley Circle, N.W.

City of Washington

Presents

Sunday, December 15, 3 PM

Mount Vernon Virtuosi 

Amit Peled, Conductor 

“Mozart In Jeans”

Free-will offering greatly appreciated.

St. Ann’s Church is located one block south of the Tenleytown/AU Metro Station Red Line on Wisconsin Avenue, N.W. 202.966.628

Sunday, December 15, 3 PM

Program

“Mozart In Jeans”
 an all-Mozart program

 Sinfonia Concertante

featuring principal players CJ Chang 
 and Juliette Kang of the Philadelphia Orchestra

 Symphony No. 29

Mount Vernon Virtuosi 

Founded in 2018 by internationally renowned cellist Amit Peled, Mount Vernon Virtuosi is a chamber orchestra based in Baltimore, Maryland. Comprised of seventeen string players, our mission is to provide a place of artistic growth for the young musician on the brink of their professional career. By providing a platform for our musicians to continue developing their skills, we encourage their personal growth by engaging with audiences of all ages through exceptional performances and community engagement activities throughout the Baltimore and Washington DC region.

The Mount Vernon Virtuosi regularly performs at three venues in Maryland—the Pratt Library in Baltimore, Spencerville Seventh-day Adventist Church in Silver Spring, and the Bender JCC in Rockville. Through the generous contributions of dedicated individuals, all regular season performances are presented free of charge. We continue to develop meaningful partnerships with community organizations throughout the Baltimore area, with concerts and education initiatives in schools, prisons, hospitals, hospice, and in collaboration with local venues that expand our reach and provide easy access to community members.

Beyond regular season concerts in the Baltimore/Washington area, Mount Vernon Virtuosi has toured throughout the East Coast and records exclusively for the CTM Classics recording label. The orchestra’s first recording, “Mozart Live” was released in 2019.

Amit Peled, Conductor
 Praised by The Strad magazine and The New York Times, internationally renowned cellist Amit Peled is acclaimed as one of the most exciting and virtuosic instrumentalists on the concert stage today. Having performed in many of the world’s most prestigious venues, including Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center in New York, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C., Salle Gaveau in Paris, Wigmore Hall in London, and the Konzerthaus Berlin, Peled has released over a dozen recordings on the Naxos, Centaur, Delos, and CTM Classics labels. A professor since 2003 at the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University, he has performed and presented master classes around the world including at the Marlboro and Newport Music Festivals and the Heifetz International Music Summer Institute in the U.S., the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival in Germany, International Musicians Seminar Prussia Cove in England, and Keshet Eilon in Israel. Peled performs on a cello made by Carl Becker, Sr., from 1931. He is represented worldwide by CTM Classics. For more information, visit 
 amitpeled.com.

CJ Chang, Viola

A native of Seoul, Korea, Choong-Jin (C.J.) Chang has been principal viola of The Philadelphia Orchestra in 2006, having joined the ensemble in 1994 as associate principal. He made his performance debut at age 12 with the Seoul Philharmonic. In 1981, at age 13, he moved to the United States to attend the Juilliard School of Music. He later studied at Temple University’s Esther Boyer College of Music and the Curtis Institute of Music, earning degrees in both violin and viola under the tutelage of Jascha Brodsky and former Philadelphia Orchestra Principal Viola Joseph dePasquale.

Mr. Chang made his solo recital debut at Carnegie Hall in 2007 and has since performed in numerous recitals across the United States and South Korea. In 2008 he was a featured soloist with The Philadelphia Orchestra during its Asian Tour, performing in Seoul and Shanghai, and at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center.

Mr. Chang was one of the founding members of the Johannes String Quartet, which debuted to critical acclaim at Philadelphia’s Ethical Society and Carnegie Hall. Since 1997 the Quartet has performed extensively over two decades across the United States, premiering works such as Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Homunculus and William Bolcom’s Double Quartet with the Guarneri Quartet.

In addition to his performing career, Mr. Chang is a respected educator in both violin and viola. His former students include members of The Philadelphia Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra, as well as winners of major competitions. He currently serves as a viola professor at Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Conservatory of Music and is an artist/faculty member at the Aspen Music Festival and School during the summer.
 

Juliette Kang, Violin

Appointed first associate concertmaster of The Philadelphia Orchestra in 2005, Canadian violinist Juliette Kang enjoys an active and varied career. Previously assistant concertmaster of the Boston Symphony and a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Ms. Kang’s solo engagements have included the San Francisco Symphony, l’Orchestre National de France, the Baltimore Symphony, the Boston Pops, the Omaha Symphony, the Syracuse Symphony, and every major orchestra in Canada. Internationally she has performed with the Czech Philharmonic, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, the Singapore Symphony, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and the KBS Symphony in Seoul. She has given recitals in Philadelphia, Paris, Tokyo, and Boston. In 1994 she won first prize of the 1994 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis and was presented at New York’s Carnegie Hall in a recital that was recorded live and released on CD. She has also recorded the Schumann and Wieniawski violin concertos with the Vancouver Symphony for CBC Records.

In 2012 Ms. Kang was again a featured soloist at Carnegie Hall for the visit of her hometown orchestra, the Edmonton Symphony, and that season she made her Philadelphia Orchestra subscription debut with guest conductor Gianandrea Noseda.

After receiving a Bachelor of Music degree at age 15 from Curtis as a student of Jascha Brodsky, Ms. Kang earned a Master of Music degree at the Juilliard School under the tutelage of Dorothy Delay and Robert Mann. She was a winner of the 1989 Young Concert Artists Auditions, and she subsequently received first prize at the Menuhin Violin Competition of Paris in 1992. She serves on the Central Board of Trustees at Philadelphia’s Settlement Music School, one of the oldest and largest community schools of the arts in the country, founded in 1908 and having served more than 300,000 students since. She lives in Queen Village with her husband and two daughters.