Fontana Chamber Arts caps its 2025–26 season with two events in back-to-back Sundays, and the organization's executive director Brad Wong and program coordinator Tina Gorter joined Cara Lieurance on Let's Hear It to preview both.
First up is the annual BRAVO! concert on Sunday, April 12 at 7 p.m. at the Jolliffe Theatre in the Epic Center — a free showcase featuring six young musicians, ages 14–18, selected through adjudicated auditions held March 14. This year's performers include pianists Isaac Sandelin and Raymond Zhu, clarinetists Emelyn Germay and Jaden Palmore, French hornist Sam Vought, and violinist Terry Stamp, representing schools from across the region. Gorter, serving as BRAVO! coordinator for the first time, says the event illustrates what music uniquely builds in young people: "dedication and endurance and accountability and confidence."
The season finale follows on Sunday, April 19 at 7:30 p.m. in the Dalton Center Recital Hall at Western Michigan University, where the Ariel Quartet steps in after a late-season scheduling change made the originally planned artist unavailable. Wong says the Cincinnati-based ensemble was a natural choice: "they're a young, exciting group" who have been together since their teenage years in Israel and have excelled in competitions including the 2006 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition.
The quartet's program moves from Haydn through Alban Berg's Op. 3, Caroline Shaw's Blueprint, and Beethoven's Op. 127 — a late quartet the group recently recorded for the third volume of their complete Beethoven cycle. In a pre-recorded interview, violist Jan Grüning describes the arc: "each piece redefines in a way what a string quartet can be." On the quartet's mission, he adds, "the biggest power in music, and especially in chamber music, is to bring people together, no matter their belief system."
The concert also marks a personal milestone: Wong is retiring from Fontana at the end of this season, with a successor to be announced soon. April 19 doubles as a community send-off for the director. Tickets and details are at fontanamusic.org.
This interview was summarized by Claude AI and edited by the author.
