IMPORTANT NOTE for ATTENDEES: This concert will be held in person at the Moore Community Center, 125 State Street, Ellsworth, Maine. Due to COVID-19 restrictions the audience will be limited to 50 members and seats will be filled first come, first served. Masks will be required of all attendees, regardless of vaccination status.

ELLSWORTH - Ellsworth Community Music Institute (ECMI) offers its next live Midday Concert @ 1:00 on November 16. The concert will be performed by the Silver Duo; Noreen Silver, cello and Phillip Silver, piano.

Noreen and Phillip Silver bring a wealth of performing experience to their highly-regarded partnership. They have an international reputation for chamber music playing of the highest caliber. The Duo, founded when Noreen and Phillip were students at the New England Conservatory of Music, has received accolades and acclaim from audiences and critics throughout Europe, Israel, the United States, Scandinavia, and the Czech Republic. Full musician bios are posted below.

The concert program will include works by Frescobaldi-Cassadó, Bach-Popper, Schumann, Bosmans, Ben-Haim, Fauré and Saint-Saëns.

This concert series is sponsored by Ellsworth Community Music Institute (ECMI) with funding from the Onion Foundation and the City of Ellsworth. Admission is free to the public.

For more information, please call 207-664-9258 or email: info@ellsworthcommunitymusic.org.

Musician bios:

Noreen Silver was born and grew up in Glasgow, Scotland. As a teenager she was a member of the prestigious National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. Cello studies include degree programs at London’s Royal College of Music and, with the support of a Rotary International Fellowship, advanced degree studies with Laurence Lesser at Boston’s New England Conservatory. Supplementary studies were also undertaken with world-renowned cellists Pierre Fournier, Jacqueline du Pré, and William Pleeth.

Noreen’s professional experience includes several years in Seattle’s Northwest Chamber Orchestra, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Opera, Boston Opera, London’s BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. She is now principal cellist of the Bangor Symphony Orchestra (USA), and has appeared as soloist with the orchestra on several occasions.

Much of Noreen’s career has been centered around the Silver Duo with pianist husband Phillip Silver. Together they have performed in Israel, Germany, Czech Republic, USA and UK, and have broadcast on national radio stations in many European countries. Noreen has been described as “an extraordinarily soulful player” who “demonstrates an uncommon depth of feeling and imagination.” (The Glasgow Herald).

Noreen is an adjunct faculty member at the University of Maine teaching cello and coaching chamber music. In a recent project she performed the six Suites for Solo Cello by JS Bach, at the School of Performing Arts. Noreen is a dedicated teacher and an avid chamber music player who is featured as soloist in CDs of Chamber Music by Leone Sinigaglia and Bernhard Sekles on the Toccata Classics label in London.

Phillip Silver is an internationally acclaimed solo and collaborative artist. The Frankfurter Rundschau described his playing as “virtuosic,” Haaretz (Israel) commented upon his “…superb technical ability that enthralled the audience with melody, lyricism and poetry,” while the Boston Globe called him “an international collaborative pianist of the first rank,” and the Jerusalem Post described him as “a superb accompanist whose work is marked by sensitivity, felicity of style and an inborn musicianship which unerringly directs him to the most appropriate musical gesture.”

Phillip has performed in many of the world’s leading concert halls including Carnegie Hall in New York, the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and Wigmore Hall in London, the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow, Scotland, the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, Germany, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, and the Henry Crown Theater in Jerusalem. After a recent New York performance Jacquelyn Claire writing in nytheatreguide.com stated “Silver’s playing soared past the chandeliers to impossible heights of human excellence.”

Over the course of his career he has performed with many distinguished artists including Denes Zsigmondy, Jian Wang, Elmar Oliveira, Albert Markov and Alexander Markov. Phillip has been a member of the Van Leer Chamber Players in Jerusalem, the Rachmaninov Trio in the UK, and the Silver Duo, a long established ensemble with his wife, cellist Noreen Silver.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Phillip studied with Katja Andy and Leonard Shure at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, where he earned the degrees of Bachelor and Master of Music cum laude. He also earned the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Washington for his research into the music of Ignaz Moscheles.

Along with a significant number of performances, recordings and broadcasts for radio in the United States, Britain, Israel, Europe and Scandinavia, Phillip has recorded several Compact Discs for the German Koch/Schwann label. These include a recital of German Romantic Lieder with the Israeli soprano Cilla Grossmeyer, and a recording of 20th century Russian piano trios as a member of the UK based Rachmaninov Trio. A world premiere recording of music by Italian-Jewish victim of the Nazis, Leone Sinigaglia, was released with critical acclaim on the Toccata Classics label. Music-Web International stated “These elegant readings set a standard for future Sinigaglia performances.”

Phillip’s most recent recording, a CD of music by the German-Jewish composer Bernhard Sekles was released on the Toccata Classics label in London. Maria Nockin reviewing this recording in Fanfare magazine commented upon the “brilliantly played fireworks from the pianist” while Steve Arloff writing in MusicWeb International described it as “a really valuable discovery” marked by “flawless playing.”… “thoroughly deserving to be heard by every chamber music lover.”

For a substantial part of his career Phillip Silver has, in addition to international performance, carried out research on music and musicians caught up in the Holocaust. He has presented his research in the form of commercial recordings, lectures and recitals on both national and international stages including venues in Israel, Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom. Phillip also works closely with a number of Israeli composers and is active in bringing their music to a wider international public. As a member of the Jerusalem based Van Leer Trio, Phillip was a recipient of a prestigious award for best performance of an original Israeli chamber composition.

Phillip Silver has been on the faculties of Glasgow University, Strathclyde University, and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, Scotland. He is currently a Professor of Music at the School of Performing Arts at the University of Maine.

Silver Duo; Noreen Silver, cello and Phillip Silver, piano