Clarinet & Piano Performance by Chester Brezniak and Lois Shapiro

Sunday, April 6, 2025

2:00pm – 3:30pm

Wakelin Room

Join us for an afternoon of music with Chester Brezniak, clarinet, and Lois Shapiro, piano, performing music by Schumann, Bartok, Bagdasarian, Stravinsky, and Brahms.

American clarinetist, Chester Brezniak, received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Bard College and his Master of Music degree from the New England Conservatory of Music. He studied with Gino Cioffi, BSO Principal Clarinet; Charles Russo, Principal Clarinet, New York City Opera and master classes with Robert Marcellus and Stanley Drucker. Brezniak debuted with the Vermeer String Quartet to critical acclaim in 1972. Since then a sampling of his live performances includes the Fromm Foundation Series for Contemporary Music, Harvard University; US West Coast tour with soprano Benita Valente of Earl Kim’s Exercises En Route; Frick Fine Arts Series, University of Pittsburgh; Duo Recital with pianist, Richard Goode; Entree des Artistes Summer Series, Orliac, France; guest artist with the Raphael Trio Chamber Series, Ouray, CO; guest appearances with Alea 111, Boston, MA In 1977, Mr. Brezniak joined Robert Stallman, flutist, as a founding member of the Cambridge Chamber Players/ Marblehead Summer Music Festival in Massachusetts (CCP), where for twenty years a unique series of chamber music concerts, broadcast regularly on WGBH and PBS, was presented. The CCP’s 1986 Merkin Concert Hall’s concert was critically acclaimed in the New York Times. As a sought after clarinetist, Mr. Brezniak’s orchestral experience includes the Atlanta Ballet Orchestra, Sao Paulo Symphony, Boston Pops Orchestra, Czech Radio Symphony, Hanover Chamber Orchestra, Bridgeport Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra; and most recently the Boston Orchestra for the Andrea Bocelli concert at TD Garden in Boston, the 2019 Weird Al Yankovic New England Summer Tour. Recordings include Zemlinsky’s Op. 3 Trio in D Minor (Northeastern Records) and “Clarinet Now” (Centaur Records). In an Alea 111 performance of Gunther Schuller’s Sonata for clarinet and bass clarinet, with bass clarinetist Katherine Matasy, he can also be heard in the documentary film, “The Past is in the Present—At home with Gunther Schuller”.

Lois Shapiro is warmly acknowledged for her imaginative and insightful performances (“Shapiro produces and inspires musical magic”; “Lois Shapiro conjures enchantment”, Boston Globe; “…

Lois Shapiro’s amazingly opinionated and fresh traversal of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 has to be the highlight of the current concert season.” The Jewish Advocate), Lois Shapiro has performed as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the US and abroad. A winner of the prestigious Concert Artists Guild Award, and a finalist in the Affiliate Artists Competition, she has recorded on Bridge, Afka, MLR, MSR, Centaur, Channel Classics, Pierrot, and the MLAR labels. Indeed, her CD with cellist Rhonda Rider for Centaur  was chosen by The Boston Globe as One of the Best Recordings of 1996.

As an expression of her abiding interest in bringing the musical experience to underserved populations, she was recently awarded an Alumni Ventures grant from Yale University to create and offer innovative interdisciplinary music programs in the Boston public schools.

Always seeking to inspire music-lovers of all ages, Ms. Shapiro created an intergenerational orchestra and, in collaboration with the Longy School of Music Dalcroze Department, she co-produced a series of engaging and highly popular family programs  in which she  performed as narrator and pianist.

She received her musical training at the Peabody Institute (BM), Yale University (MM), the New England Conservatory (AD).

Ms. Shapiro is a retired member of the Triple Helix Piano Trio, and currently a founding member of the Eleuthera Piano Trio. She teaches piano and chamber music at Wellesley College and Rivers Conservatory School in Weston, MA.

No registration required.

Sponsored by the Friends of the Wellesley Free Libraries.

Presented by:

Chester Brezniak and Lois Shapiro