Beehive Chamber Series: Homeland
Schedule
Thu Nov 09 2023 at 07:00 pm to 09:00 pm
Location
Multicultural Arts Center | Cambridge, MA

About this Event
Beehive Chamber Series: Homeland
Homeland explores folk-inspired music by a diverse group of composers paying homage to their homelands: Carlos Guastavino (Argentina), Violetta Parra (Chile), Leos Janacek (Czech Republic), and Bela Bartok (Hungary). These pieces explore the essence of each composer’s cultural-political landscape, using folk material from everyday life. Our journey concludes with Brahms’ monumental Trio in A Minor, which he composed after visiting his friend clarinetist Richard Muhlfeld in Meiningen, Germany.
Program:
Las Presencias, No. 7 “Rosita Iglesias:” Carlos Gustavino
Pohádka for cello and piano: Leos Janacek
Selections from Duos for violin and cello: Bela Bartok
Selection of songs arranged for viola and cello: Violetta Parra
Trio in A Minor, Op. 114: Johannes Brahms
Musicians:
Viola: Sergio Muñoz
Cello: Matthew Smith
Piano: Peipei Song
Palaver Strings is a musician-led string ensemble and nonprofit organization based in Portland, ME. For ten years, their mission has been to strengthen and inspire community through music. In their musician-led model, Palaver’s musicians share artistic and administrative leadership, guided by a passion for engaging new audiences, addressing social justice issues, and amplifying underrepresented voices.
Venue Information:
The Multicultural Arts Center is located at 41 Second Street in Cambridge, MA. Please enter at the ground floor entrance and visit the Box Office on your right as you enter.
Once you check in, you will head upstairs to the theater. There is an elevator and staircase for access to the theater.
Seating is general admission. The house will open an hour before the show starts, so you are welcome to arrive early. Feel free to visit our gallery before the show begins.
Getting There:
The Multicultural Arts Center is located just a few blocks from the Green line Lechmere MBTA Station.
The East Cambridge Parking Garage is entered off Spring Street, between First & Second Streets, one block away from us, and open 24/7.

About the Musicians
Peipei Song
Dr. Peipei Song is a collaborative pianist at The Boston Conservatory at Berklee. She actively works with instrumentalists for competitions in the Boston area, many of whom have won or placed in the Boston Pops Young Artist Competition, New England Conservatory Prep Concerto Competition, Boston Conservatory Soloist Concerto Competition, and New England Philharmonic Young Artist Competition. She has studied with well-known string quartets that held chamber music residencies at Arizona State University: Brentano String Quartet, St. Lawrence String Quartet, and Shanghai String Quartet. Since 2017, Dr. Song has given annual piano chamber music lecture recitals at the National Centre for Performing Arts in Beijing, China. Before coming to the United States, she served on the piano faculty of Tianjin Conservatory of Music (China). In both 2005 and 2006, Dr. Song received the National Excellent Piano Teacher of China award from China Education Television. In addition to Groton Hill Music Center, she is a member of the piano faculty and piano chamber music coach at Bay Chamber Concerts and Music School (Rockport, Maine). While she worked on her doctoral degree at Arizona State University, her mentor was Professor Russell Ryan.
Sergio Muñoz
Chilean violist Sergio Muñoz Leiva is an advocate for dialogue, collaboration, and community-building, which he realizes in music through his love for chamber music and education.
A curious and versatile performer, Dr. Muñoz Leiva is active in chamber music, solo, and orchestral settings. His repertoire spans from early Baroque to music that is fresh off the press, performed on both modern and baroque viola. He has premiered works by Paola Prestini and Nico Muhly, and has collaborated with artists such as Kinan Azmeh, Dinuk Wijeratne, Masaaki Suzuki, Rachel Podger, Monica Huggett, Robert Mealy, Daniel S. Lee, Emi Ferguson, Laurie Smukler, Catherine Cho, Natasha Brofsky, Areta Zhulla, Carol Rodland, Kim Kashkashian, Mikhail Kopelman, Renée Jolles, Ariadne Daskalakis, and Steven Doane.
Dr. Muñoz Leiva is a member of the Providence Baroque Orchestra and has performed as a guest artist with A Far Cry, Palaver Strings, Carnegie Hall’s Link Up Orchestra, the United Nations Chamber Music Society, the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, and the Chile Chamber Orchestra. He has appeared in venues such as Jordan Hall and Symphony Hall in Boston; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall in New York; the Municipal Theater of Santiago in Santiago de Chile; the Guangzhou and Shenzhen Opera Houses in China; the LVR-Landesmuseum in Bonn, Germany; and the Palazzo Ricci in Montepulciano, Italy.
His musical mentors are Penelope Knuth, David Holland, Dimitri Murrath, Kim Kashkashian, and Carol Rodland. He is a graduate of the Interlochen Arts Academy and holds degrees from the New England Conservatory, the Eastman School of Music, and The Juilliard School. His research interests include musical analysis, Latin American folk music, and music as a catalyst for community building.
Dr. Muñoz Leiva joined the Department of Music of College of the Holy Cross as Interim Director of Chamber Music in September 2022. He also currently serves as Music Theory Instructor at Project STEP in Boston. Previous teaching appointments include serving as Studio Teaching Assistant to Carol Rodland at The Juilliard School, as Instructor of Viola for Non-Majors at the Eastman School of Music and the University of Rochester, and as Teaching Artist at City College Academy of the Arts in New York.
As a multilingual citizen of the world, Dr. Muñoz Leiva enjoys the subtleties of language, linguistics, and semantics. When he is not musicking, he can be found in the swimming pool perfecting his butterfly stroke.
Matthew Smith
Cellist Matthew Smith is equally active as a performer and educator. In the U.S., he has performed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. and was a musician-in-residence at the Boston Center for the Arts as a member of the musician-led chamber orchestra Palaver Strings. In China he has given performances at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing, as well as a full recital and masterclass with his duo partner Peipei Song at Tianjin Conservatory.
As an educator, he has served as a Teaching Assistant at The Boston Conservatory, and most recently as a Music Educator and Teaching Artist Fellow through the Massachusetts Cultural Council. He is currently the Managing Director of Education for Palaver Strings.
Matthew has participated in solo master classes with Colin Carr, Gautier Capuçon, and Bernard Greenhouse and has studied chamber music with members of the St. Lawrence String Quartet and Brentano String Quartet. He received a Master of Music degree from The Boston Conservatory at Berklee, where he studied with Andrew Mark, and a Bachelor of Music degree from Arizona State University, where he studied with Thomas Landschoot and graduated summa cum laude.
Where is it happening?
Multicultural Arts Center, 41 Second Street, Cambridge, United StatesEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
USD 0.00 to USD 30.00
