Concert Program
Johann Sebastian Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 6
Margaret Brouwer Viola Concerto
Johannes Brahms Serenade No. 2 in A major, Op. 16
About the Featured Musicians
Originally from Cleveland, OH, Lorenzo Lopez is an accomplished musician and conductor known for his dynamic leadership and passionate musicianship. He has served as a lecturer for Purdue University’s Symphonic and String Orchestras and as a Conducting Fellow for the Indianapolis Youth Orchestra. Lopez has collaborated with distinguished conductors such as Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Cristian Macelaru, Marin Alsop, and James Ross.
Lopez is a winner of The Respighi Prize with The Chamber Orchestra of New York, marking his Carnegie Hall debut, and was a National Finalist in the American Prize in Conducting. In addition to conducting, he is a pianist and tenor vocalist. Lopez strives to inspire his students and colleagues to discover the purity of sound and to connect deeply with music and the community. He is also dedicated to encouraging Latin and other historically marginalized communities to pursue classical music as a means to promote a more unified community.
Eliesha Nelson joined the viola section of The Cleveland Orchestra at the beginning of the 2000-2001 season. She is the first former member of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra to be appointed a member of The Cleveland Orchestra, having played violin in the Youth Orchestra for three seasons, from 1989 to 1992, and serving as concertmaster of the ensemble for the 1990-91 and 1991-92 seasons. Raised in North Pole, Alaska, Eliesha Nelson joined the Young Artists Program at the Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM) and began attending Hathaway Brown School at age 15. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from CIM and an artist diploma from the Royal Academy of Music in London. After switching to viola, Ms. Nelson studied with Robert Vernon (principal viola of The Cleveland Orchestra) while pursuing her master’s degree at CIM. Her violin teachers included David Russell, György Pauk, and Linda Cerone.
Prior to her appointment with The Cleveland Orchestra, Ms. Nelson served as acting principal viola of both the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra and the Florida Grand Opera Orchestra. She has appeared as a soloist with the Florida Philharmonic and the San Antonio Symphony and in Northern Ohio with the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra, Lakeside Symphony Orchestra, and Ohio Chamber Orchestra. Ms. Nelson’s honors include the Dr. Jerome Gross Prize in Violin (CIM) and the Marjorie Haywood Violin Recital Prize from the Royal Academy of Music. In September 2009, Ms. Nelson released a recording of the complete viola music of Quincy Porter.
Margaret Brouwer is celebrated as a leading figure in contemporary American composition, praised for her richly lyrical and emotionally resonant music. “Brouwer’s gift for melody, and her ability to weave together contemporary idioms with lines that allow the instruments to sing, make her a composer for whom chamber musicians (and listeners) should be grateful.” (EarRelevant)
Brouwer's dedication to musical innovation has garnered her numerous awards and accolades, including the Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Meet The Composer Commissioning/USA award, Guggenheim Fellowship, Ohio Council for the Arts Individual Fellowship, and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Ford Foundation and John S. Knight Foundation. Reviewing Brouwer’s 2014 Naxos CD called “Shattered”, Jordan Borg from NewMusicBox wrote, "From the relentless, primal energy of 'Shattered Glass' to the naked beauty of 'Whom do you call angel now,” Brouwer’s music represents just how uniquely diverse the output and voice of a single composer can be."
The Music Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center established a Margaret Brouwer Collection, which houses invaluable resources for scholars and performers. Throughout her career, she has held esteemed positions, including Head of the Composition Department at the Cleveland Institute of Music and residencies at the MacDowell Colony where she has been a Norton Stevens Fellow and at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center.
Brouwer's compositions have been performed worldwide, including by the symphonies of Detroit, Dallas, Seattle, Liverpool, Rochester, Anchorage, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Birmingham UK, Halle UK, Cabrillo, Canton, Columbus, American Composers Orchestra, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and at such venues as Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, Symphony Space, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Kennedy Center, the Corcoran Gallery, Philips Gallery, as well as venues throughout Asia and Europe.
Recordings of Brouwer’s music can be found on the Naxos, New World, CRI, Crystal, Centaur, and Opus One labels. In 2024, Marin Alsop and the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra recorded an album featuring five of Brouwer’s orchestral works for release by Naxos.