Chelsea Music Festival Records’s second album, 200° Due Clara, features live recordings from our 2019 Festival in New York City.

The album includes recordings of World Premiere performances by five female contemporary composers—

Helen Grime, Binna Kim, Aigerim Seilova, Nicky Sohn, & Augusta Read Thomas. 

2019 marked both the 200th birthday of the pioneering artist Clara Schumann and the 10th season of the Chelsea Music Festival.
In light of the Festival’s commitment to expand the canon of classical music by shining a light on underrepresented composers, this album features works by female composers commissioned by Chelsea Music Festival and inspired by composer and pianist Clara Schumann.

Featured Composers

Scottish composer Helen Grime writes music that has been praised for the precision of its instrumental colour and wide-ranging expression. Her works, which include everything from large orchestral canvasses to intimate chamber settings, often take the visual arts and literature as their starting point. www.helengrime.com | www.musicsalesclassical.com 

Binna Kim is a composer from Seoul, Korea. Her work has been commissioned and performed in the United States, Korea, and Europe by various ensembles and music festivals including the New Fromm Players, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Tanglewood Music Festival and Santa Fe Music Festival. www.binnakimmusic.com  

Aigerim Seilova is a Kazakh composer based in Hamburg, Germany. Seilova composes for solo instruments, chamber music ensembles and orchestras. Her works have been performed in Germany, France, Israel, Kazakhstan, Russia and USA. www.aigerimseilova.com 

From ballet to opera to Korean traditional-orchestra, the wide-ranging talent of composer Nicky Sohn is sought after across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Characterized by her jazz-inspired, rhythmically driven themes, Sohn’s work has received praise from international press for being “dynamic and full of vitality” (The Korea Defense Daily) and for its “elegant wonder” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), among many others. www.nickysohn.com 

Grammy winning composer, Augusta Read Thomas’s impressive body of works embodies unbridled passion and fierce poetry. The New Yorker Magazine called her "a true virtuoso composer." Thomas was the longest-serving Mead Composer-in-Residence for Daniel Barenboim and Pierre Boulez with the Chicago Symphony from 1997 through 2006, a residency that culminated in the premiere of Astral Canticle – one of two finalists for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Music. www.augustareadthomas.com

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Featured Musicians

  • I. Stacked Emotions

    II. The Best Thing In The World

    III. The Cry Of The Children


    Piano | Andrea Lam

    Choir | Ghostlight Chorus directed by Dr. Evelyn Troester DeGraf

    Violin | Natsumi Tsuboi, Chloe Fedor, Mariella Haubs, Chloe Kiffer, Soo Yeon Kim, Jocelyn Zhu, Hasse Borup, Ryosuke Suho

    Viola | Maiko Takimoto, Jeremy Kienbaum, Jesus Rodolfo

    Cello | Jonathan Butler, Angela Lee

    Double Bass | Mariya Andonova, Kaden Henderson

    Conductor | Ken-David Masur

  • Soprano | Marisa Karchin

    Piano | Melinda Lee Masur

  • Soprano | Marisa Karchin
    Piano | Robert Fleitz
    Flute | Xue Su 
    Clarinet | Yumi Ito 
    Violin | Mariella Haubs 
    Viola | Vladimir Babeshko 
    Cello | Jonathan Butler 
    Conductor | Ken-David Masur

  • Piano | Robert Fleitz 

    Violin | Jocelyn Zhu, Chloe Fedor,Mariella Haubs, Chloe Kiffer, Soo Yeon Kim, Natsumi Tsuboi, Hasse Borup, Ryosuke Suho 

    Viola | Maiko Takimoto, Jeremy Kienbaum, Jesus Rodolfo 

    Cello | Jonathan Butler, Angela Lee, Tatsuki Sasanuma 

    Double Bass | Mariya Andonova, Kaden Henderson 

    Conductor | Ken-David Masur

  • Violin I | Minglun Liu, Hasse Borup, Mariella Haubs, Natsumi Tsuboi, Ryosuke Suho - Violin II | Yeajin Kim, Chloe Fedor, Soo Yeon Kim, Chloe Kiffer, Jocelyn Zhu

    Viola | Guanliang Zong, Jeremy Kienbaum, Jesus Rodolfo, Maiko Takimoto

    Cello | Brandon Xu, Angela Lee, Jonathan Butler, Tatsuki Sasanuma

    Double Bass | Mariya Andonova, Kaden Henderson

    Conductor | Ken-David Masur

Thank you to the following donors whose generosity made this album possible—

  • Deborah & Philip Edmundson

  • Anonymous

  • Kyoko & Hatsuhiko Kageyama

  • Ruth & Roy Lee

  • Tomoko Masur in memory of Fusae Sakurai

  • The Chelsea Music Festival Board


With gratitude to Festival partners— Steinway & Sons and Sennheiser

Recorded Live at the 10th Season of the Chelsea Music Festival, June 7-12, 2019
Chief Audio Engineer : Brett Leonard

Check out our previous releases—