Redeemer Concert Series

Tiny Bach is back to invite you to the concert at Redeemer Friday at 7:30 pm. It will be quite the variety of his original music and transcriptions of his works. There’s something for everyone!

Wow! What a concert Nathaniel Gumbs gave on Friday night. If you missed it, you can watch here, but only for a limited time, as the video will come down after this week.

Prior Services on Vimeo Worship services from Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, Atlanta GA USA for the past two months. ww.Redeemer.org

Meet the cellist for Sunday's program: David Cunliffe began studying at the age of nine in his native England. Three years later he was chosen to receive a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London. In 1984 Mr. Cunliffe went on to study at the Royal Northern College of Music where he founded the Argyll String Quartet and was the recipient of the Terrance Weill and Leonard Hirsch Quartet prizes and the Lady Barbirolli Chamber Music Award.

His teachers included Margaret Moncreiff, Moray Welsh, William Pleeth, Christopher Bunting and Ralph Kirshbaum. He completed his studies at the International Yehudi Menuhin Music Academy in Switzerland where he studied with Radu Aldulescu and toured throughout Europe with Yehudi Menuhin and the Camerata Lysy.

In 1995 he was asked to join the Balanescu Quartet, touring extensively to Australia, Europe and the United States appearing frequently on radio and TV, including featured performances on NPR and the BBC. He has served as Principal cello with the RNCM Chamber and Symphony Orchestras and for performances with BBC Philharmonic, BBC Scottish and Royal Scottish Symphony Orchestras. Mr. Cunliffe can be heard on various recording labels including Enja, DMD, Albany and Cedille.

A founding member of the Virtuosi Chicago Chamber Orchestra, Mr. Cunliffe is currently on the faculty of the Music Institute of Chicago and is a member of the multi-GRAMMY nominated Lincoln Trio.

String Trio, Henri Tomasi, Black Oak Ensemble, Ruhstrat, Pederzoli, Cunliffe, Cedille Records HENRI TOMASI (1901–1971) Trio à cordes en forme de divertissement (1938) “Pour les frères Pasquier”. "Avant l'orage" - Cedille Records Recorded July 9-21, 2...

Meet the violist for Sunday's concert: French-born violinist Aurélien Fort Pederzoli has quickly risen to be known as one of Chicago’s most creative and sought-after collaborators. Aurelien is a graduate of the Paris Conservatory, where he studied with world-renowned teacher Jean Lenert. He then attended the Bern Hochschule, Switzerland, where he was in the master class of Prof. Monika Urbaniak and received guidance from Prof. Igor Ozim.

In 2002, he was invited to study in Chicago with Shmuel Ashkenasi. He received a Master’s Degree in Violin Performance studying under Ilya Kaler as well as Marc Zinger. In 2008, Aurelien founded the Anaphora Ensemble, a chamber music ensemble, which appeared frequently on national radio and performed in eclectic places, from the green mill to symphony hall. From 2008 to 2012, Mr. Pederzoli was first violinist of the Corky Siegel Chamber Blues band and toured nationally and internationally with them.

From 2009 until 2014, Aurelien was one of the violinists, and founding member, of the Spektral Quartet, in residence at the University of Chicago. Aurélien Fort Pederzoli started teaching when he was eleven and has kept teaching privately throughout his career. His students are graduates of the Paris and Lyon Conservatoires, Yale university, University of Michigan as well as the Cleveland institute of music. He has coached chamber music privately and at the university of Chicago and teaches at New Music School since 2013.

Jean Cras, String Trio, Black Oak, Desirée Ruhstrat, Aurelien Pederzoli, David Cunliffe, Cedille JEAN CRAS (1879-1932) Trio pour violon, alto et violoncelleIII. Animé (4:20)From Avant l'orage - French String Trios 1926-1939 - Cedille RecordsRecorded Sept...

Meet Desirée Ruhstrat, the violinist for Sunday's upcoming concert:
Praised for her "Intensive fire, sleepwalking assuredness and deeply grounded musical personality" violinist Desirée Ruhstrat made her professional debut at age 12 with Lukas Foss and the Milwaukee Symphony. Ruhstrat has appeared as a soloist with orchestras throughout the world, including the Berlin Radio Symphony, Radio Suisse Romande, Gottingen Symphony, Philharmonia Da Camera, Symphonica Auguescalientes Mexico, Colorado Symphony, Oregon Symphony, Concerto Soloists Of Philadelphia, Utah Symphony, Debut Orchestra of Los Angeles and National Repertory Orchestra. In the summer of 2024 Desirée made her solo debut at the RAVINIA Festival performing Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
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She has worked with such renowned conductors as Eric Kunzel, Max Rudolph, William Smith, Rico Saccani, Brian Priestman, JoAnn Falletta, Victoria Bond, Carolyn Kuan, Carl Topilow, and Mats Liljefors among others. Ruhstrat has won numerous awards including first prize at the National Young Musicians Debut Competition in Los Angeles, where she was also lauded a special award for a young performer with extraordinary talent. She became the youngest prize winner at Switzerland's Tibor Varga International Competition and also won the award for best interpretation of the commissioned contemporary composition. She went on to earn top prizes at the Carl Flesch, Julius Stulberg, and the Mozart Festival Violin Competitions.​

​Ruhstrat's distinguished career as a chamber musician includes performances throughout the U.S. as a member of the GRAMMY-nominated Lincoln Trio. Highlights include Carnegie Weil Hall, Lincoln Center, Ravinia Festival, Indianapolis Symphony Beethoven Series, Poisson Rouge and a tour of Colombia South America performing the Beethoven triple Concerto with the Filarmónica Joven de Colombia. In addition to the Lincoln Trio, Ruhstrat founded Black Oak Ensemble with cellist David Cunliffe and violist Aurélien Fort Pederzoli in 2015. Their debut album, Silenced Voices, on the Cedille label, garnered numerous accolades including Chicago Tribune's TOP 100 Recordings of 2019, FANFARE Magazine "want list" and New York's WQXR Top 100 Best Classical Recordings of 2019. Black Oak Ensemble's latest CD release, Avant l'orage, was nominated for a 2023 International Classical Music Award and reached #1 on the BILLBOARD Classical Music Charts.

Ruhstrat has also appeared as guest artist of the Chamber Music Series of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Colorado Symphony, Apollo Chamber Ensemble, the Colorado Chambers Players, Sebago-Long Lake , the University of Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Tennessee, and Northwestern University Midwinter Series with Jorge Federico Osorio and Ani Kavafian, as well as collaborations with Shmuel Ashkenasi, Ilya Kaler, Rachel Kolly d'Alba, Roberto Diaz, Roger Chase and the Pacifica Quartet. Festival appearances include the Aspen Music Festival, Peninsula Music Festival, Laurel Festival of the Arts, the Breckenridge Music Festival, Green Lake, University Of Wisconsin, Utah Music Festival, ARIA International Summer Academy, Curtis Institute of Music Young Artist Program and Ascent International Music Festival and the Heifetz Institute which she is currently on Faculty.
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A champion of new music, Ruhstrat has worked with some of the worlds leading composers, Carl Orff, George Crumb, William Bolcom, Jennifer Higdon, Shulamit Ran, Augusta Read Thomas, Joan Tower, Chen Yi, Zhou Long, and Laura Elise Schwendinger who composed a movement dedicated to Desirée in "Violinists In My Life."

Ruhstrat was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and began her studies at Milwaukee Conservatory of Music. Her distinguished pedagogues include Betty Haag, Harold Wippler and Josef Gingold. Desirée is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music where she studied with the reknowned violinist Aaron Rosand.

Ruhstrat's impressive discography includes the Stamitz Duo for Violin and Viola for Centaur Records, the Ravel Duo for Violin and Cello for Albany Records, a 2013 GRAMMY nominated NAXOS release Annelies, based on the Diary of Anne Frank and multiple recordings with the Black Oak Ensemble and Lincoln Trio including 2017 GRAMMY nominated "Trio's From our Homelands" and the 2024 LATIN GRAMMY nominated "Fantasies of Buenos Aires."
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A passionate teacher, Ruhstrat's students are prize winners of national and international competitions and members of professional orchestras worldwide. Ruhstrat has been on Faculty at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, and currently is on the Violin Faculty of Northwestern's Bienen School of Music. In 2014, Ruhstrat was awarded the American String Teachers Association Illinois Outstanding Studio Teacher Award. ​
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Ruhstrat plays on a 1685 Goffredo Cappa violin on generous loan.

We are excited to announce that the September 21 concert will include the Southeastern premiere of "Making Hay," a piece by Errollyn Wallen commissioned by the Black Oak Ensemble. Errollyn Wallen CBE is a multi award-winning Belize-born British composer named as one of the world’s top twenty most performed living classical composers. Her prolific output includes over twenty operas and a large catalogue of orchestral, chamber and vocal works, which are performed and broadcast throughout the world.

We're pleased to announce our 2025-26 season, so please save these dates:
Sunday, September 21 - 2:30 pm. The Black Oak Ensemble
Saturday, October 25 - 5:30 pm. PipeScreams
Sunday, November 16 - 7:00 pm - Harvest Home Concert
Friday, January 30 - 7:30 pm - Nathaniel Gumbs, organist
Friday, March 20 - 7:30 pm - Bach Birthday Bash