Date/Time
Tuesday, August 5, 2025
12:00 pm PDT – 1:00 pm PDT
Location
Lani Hall, UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music & via Livestream
445 Charles E. Young Dr East, 2526 Schoenberg Music Building
Program
Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953)
Sonata for Two Violins in C Major, op. 56
I. Andante cantabile
II. Allegro
III. Commodo (quasi allegretto)
IV. Allegro con brio
Martin Chalifour, Ambroise Aubrun, violins
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–93)
String Sextet in D Minor, op. 70 (“Souvenir de Florence”)
I. Allegro con spirito
II. Adagio cantabile e con moto
III. Allegretto moderato
IV. Allegro con brio e vivace
Southern Notes: From Provence to Florence
Martin Chalifour, violin
Ambroise Aubrun, violin
Paul Coletti, viola
Kate Hamilton, viola
Charlie Tyler, cello
Gregory Hamilton, cello
Martin Chalifour
Martin Chalifour has been Principal Concertmaster of the Los Angeles Philharmonic since 1995. He graduated with honors from the Montreal Conservatory at the age of eighteen and then moved to the United States to continue studies at the famed Curtis Institute of Music.
Chalifour received a Certificate of Honor at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and is also a laureate of the prestigious Montreal International Competition. Apart from his LA Phil duties, he has maintained an active solo career, playing a diverse repertoire of more than sixty concertos. Chalifour has appeared as soloist with conductors Pierre Boulez, Gustavo Dudamel, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, Neville Marriner, and Esa-Pekka Salonen. Outside the U.S., he has played solos with the Auckland Philharmonia, the Montreal Symphony, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the National Orchestra of Taiwan, and the Malaysian Philharmonic, among others.
Chalifour began his orchestral career with the late Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony, playing as Associate Concertmaster for six years. Subsequently, for five years he occupied the same position in the Cleveland Orchestra, where he also served as Acting Concertmaster under Christoph von Dohnányi. While in Cleveland, Chalifour taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music and was a founding member of the Cleveland Orchestra Piano Trio. Chalifour is a frequent guest at summer music festivals, including the Mainly Mozart Festival and the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival.
Maintaining close ties with his native country, he has returned there often to teach and perform as soloist with various Canadian orchestras, most recently in Vancouver and in Hamilton.
Martin Chalifour has recorded solo and chamber music for the Telarc, Northstar, and Yarlung labels. He teaches at Caltech and at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music.
Ambroise Aubrun
Hailed as a “marvelous violinist” (France Musique) with “sensitive tone” (Pizzicato Magazine) and “tremendous ease, suppleness, and beauty of sound” (Nice-Matin), violinist Ambroise Aubrun enjoys a career as a soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician. He has performed extensively on three continents and has conducted master classes in North America (Québec, California, Oregon, New York, Wisconsin, Nevada, Utah, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico), France, Italy, Australia, and New Zealand.
His albums for Editions Hortus and Navona Records have embraced a wide range of repertoire from J.S. Bach to Eric Tanguy (b. 1968), and received praise of the highest caliber (five stars in Pizzicato Magazine, “coup de coeur” by France Musique, and a nomination for the 2021 International Classical Music Awards). His performances and albums have been broadcast on CBS, ABC, WFMT Chicago, France Musique, 3MBS Melbourne (Australia), Klara Radio (Belgium), KPFK Los Angeles, KNCJ Nevada, WTUL New-Orleans, and KUSC Los Angeles.
He has served as guest concertmaster of the Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra, the Las Vegas Philharmonic, and the International Chamber Orchestra of Puerto Rico, and is a regular guest of the Los Angeles Philharmonic violin sections.
Aubrun graduated at age nineteen from the Paris National Superior Conservatory, and then studied at UCLA (DMA) and at the Colburn Conservatory of Music (Artist Diploma). He is a winner of the Charles Oulmont Prize of the Fondation de France, a laureate of the Langart Foundation in Switzerland, and a recipient of the UNLV Barrick Scholar Award for outstanding achievement in Creative Activities and a CSUN Faculty Achievement Award. Currently Associate Professor of Violin at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Dr. Aubrun previously taught at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music and UC Santa Barbara. He is the artistic director of the Henry J. Bruman Summer Chamber Music Festival at UCLA. Dr. Aubrun plays a Matteo Goffriller violin, on generous loan from the Langart Foundation. More information at www.ambroiseaubrun.com.
Paul Coletti
Paul Coletti is a composer, performer, recording artist, and teacher. He has given over fifteen hundred concerts in solo and chamber music settings, and recorded over thirty CDs, some of which won prestigious international awards. Hyperion’s ‘English music for viola’ was named in the BBC’S best one hundred CDs of all time. As a soloist, Coletti has performed in Edinburgh, London, Paris, New York, Buenos Aires, Shanghai, Beijing, Melbourne, Auckland, Leipzig, Assisi, Salzburg, Hannover; with orchestras such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the BBC, NHK; at the Sydney Opera House, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Berlin Philharmonie, Kennedy Center, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Suntory Hall, and in Chicago, where he performed on Paganini’s legendary Stradivarius viola. Paul Coletti’s full conducting debut was in an all-Mozart program with the New Japan Philharmonic orchestra in Tokyo. In 1978 Paul studied with Alberto Lysy, Yehudi Menuhin, and Johannes Eskaer at the International Menuhin Music Academy.
Kate Hamilton
Kate Hamilton, violist, is described by Minnesota Public Radio as “hot viola playing, she uses her bow to draw out a rich stew of colors…and has a sound like liquid gold.” Additionally, a 2025 review by LA Opus describes her “gorgeous sound.”
She enjoys an international career as Associate Professor of Viola at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and serves as Co-Director of the International Chamber Music Festival in Joao Pessoa, Brazil. Since 2019, she has been performing in the viola section of the Berlin Philharmonic (Germany) at the Berlin Philharmonie Concert Hall under Sir Simon Rattle, Herbert Blomsteadt, Paavo Jarvi, and the final performances of Bernard Haitink with the Berlin Philharmonic. As a viola soloist, Kate has been featured with the Wuhan Philharmonic Orchestra (China) performing works of Max Bruch at the Qintai Concert Hall, the Kansas City Civic Orchestra, Central Oregon Symphony, and the Chamber Orchestra of San Jose (Costa Rica).
Recent chamber music performances include viola quintets with members of the Berlin Philharmonic in Leipzig, a Duo Novae tour of New Zealand and Australia, and the Musica Maestri Series at the Milan Conservatory (Italy). In August 2025, Duo Novae will be featured as soloists with the Festival Orchestra at the International Chamber Music Festival in Joao Pessoa, Brazil. Kate’s viola is a copy of the baroque “viola d’amore” style built by luthier Hiroshi Iizuka of Philadelphia.
Charlie Tyler
Cellist Charlie Tyler has enjoyed a varied career as soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral performer in concert venues around the world. Charlie was named winner of the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Concerto Competition, top prize winner of the Osaka International Music Competition, and winner of the Atwater Kent Strings Competition. He has received degrees from The Cleveland Institute of Music (BM), The Juilliard School (MM), and UCLA (DMA) and served as co-principal cello of the Hyogo Performing Arts Center Orchestra in Japan for three seasons. He now performs regularly with orchestras around Southern California, including LA Opera, Muse/Ique, and the New West Symphony and is a familiar presence on chamber music series throughout the region. In addition to live performances, Charlie maintains an active recording career in Los Angeles where he has played on numerous scores for film and television.
Gregory Hamilton
For the past 30 years, Gregory Hamilton has held teaching positions at several universities, most recently at Concordia College in Minnesota. As Executant Senior Lecturer of Cello at the University of Otago, his solo playing was heard throughout New Zealand on Concert-FM Radio broadcasts, and the Otago Daily Times referred to him as “a master of the instrument.” He also taught at Illinois State University where he was a founding member of the Ricard Piano Trio and has played in the Houston and Columbus (OH) Symphonies. International masterclasses and performances include invitations from the conservatories of Milan, Seville, and Malakoff in France, and Hamilton has taught and performed with the Fundación Sistema de Orquestas Juveniles de Argentina, a program serving poor and disadvantaged children in Buenos Aires. In 2005 he received the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Kansas. A solo CD titled “The Hollywood Cello,” featuring works by film composers of the Golden Era, was released by Soundset Recordings in 2011.
The Henry J. Bruman Summer Chamber Music Festival is held in Lani Hall, a 133-seat auditorium located in the Schoenberg Music Building on the UCLA campus. All concerts are free of charge, and no reservations are required. Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Lot 2 is the closest campus parking lot; click here for full details on UCLA visitor parking, including campus parking maps and rates.
This year’s Festival will be livestreamed on the Center’s YouTube Channel. Please subscribe to our channel to be notified when the concerts go live.
About The Henry J. Bruman Summer Chamber Music Festival
Ambroise Aubrun, D.M.A., Artistic Director
The festival was founded in 1988 by Professor Henry J. Bruman (1913–2005), who sought to introduce new audiences to chamber music at informal concerts on the UCLA campus. The festival is made possible by the Henry J. Bruman Trust, Professors Wendell E. Jeffrey and Bernice M. Wenzel, by a gift in memory of Raymond E. Johnson, and with the support of the UCLA Center for 17th-& 18th-Century Studies.
Photos courtesy of the artists.