Andy & Friends
7:00 PM
Satterlee Hall at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral
Presented by Prisma Health
Join pianist Andrew Armstrong and acclaimed violinist Simone Porter for the next installment of Andy & Friends!
Mozart’s deeply personal E minor Sonata sets the stage for Janáček’s distinctive musical language, while Lili Boulanger’s D’un Matin de Printemps captures the freshness and energy of a spring morning. The evening takes a playful and virtuosic turn with Kreisler’s Syncopation and de Falla’s fiery Danse espagnole, alongside beloved melodies by Dvořák and Prokofiev’s sweeping Romeo & Juliet.
With Armstrong and Porter sharing the stage, expect an evening of musical chemistry, expressive storytelling, and captivating artistry.
Steinway Piano Selected from Steinway Piano Gallery-Columbia – www.steinwaycarolina.com.
CONCERT PROGRAM
W. A. Mozart: Sonata for Keyboard & Violin in E minor, K. 304
Leoš Janáček: Sonata for Violin and Piano
Lili Boulanger: D’un Matin de Printemps for Violin and Piano
Sergei Prokofiev: Romeo & Juliet Suite, Opus 64 arr. Baich/Fletzberger
Antonin Dvořák: Songs My Mother Taught Me, Opus 55, No. 4, arr. Kreisler
Fritz Kreisler: Syncopation
Manuel de Falla/Kreisler: Danse espagnole
ABOUT ANDY ARMSTRONG, piano
Praised by critics for his passionate expression and dazzling technique, pianist Andrew Armstrong has delighted audiences across Asia, Europe, Latin America, Australia Canada, and the United States, including performances at Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, and Warsaw’s National Philharmonic.
Andrew’s orchestral engagements across the globe have encompassed a vast repertoire of more than 60 concertos with orchestra as well as solo recitals and in chamber music concerts at festivals around the globe.
This 2025-26 season, Andrew will perform Grazyna Bacewicz’s Piano Concerto and Beethoven’s Triple Concerto both with the South Carolina Philharmonic. This October 2025, Andrew launches the first presentation of his Tuscan Music Festival, October 11-19. Throughout calendar year 2026, Andrew joins longtime friend and duo partner, Two-Time Grammy Winning violinist James Ehnes in a cross-country tour across Canada, playing in each capital, province, and territory. Back in the States, year-round, Andrew directs and hosts six thriving chamber music series. Three of them are in South Carolina – in Beaufort (USCB Chamber Music), in Columbia (SC Philharmonic’s Andy & Friends), and in Greenville (Sigal Music Museum presents Andy & Friends, a combination of evening chamber music concerts and daytime workshops with students at the remarkable public arts high school, the Fine Arts Center). He also directs New Canaan Chamber Music in Connecticut, Fabbri Chamber Concerts in NYC at Fabbri Mansion’s 1609 Italian Renaissance Library, a rare, intimate jewel with only 80 seats, and A Little Night Music at Tuckerman Hall in Worcester, MA, the vibrant city where Andrew lives happily with his wife Esty, their three children Jack (19), Elise (14), and Gabriel (8), and their dog Dooker.
ABOUT SIMONE PORTER, violin
Violinist Simone Porter has been recognized as an emerging artist of impassioned energy, interpretive integrity, and vibrant communication. She has debuted with the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Seattle and Pittsburgh Symphonies and with a number of renowned conductors, including Stéphane Denève, Gustavo Dudamel, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Nicholas McGegan, Ludovic Morlot, Donald Runnicles, David Robertson, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Manfred Honeck, Louis Langrée and David Danzmayr. Simone made her professional solo debut at age 10 with the Seattle Symphony and her international debut with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London at age 13. In March 2015, Simone was named a recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant.
Simone’s recent seasons include extensive US touring with visits to orchestras such as Colorado, North Carolina, St. Louis, Oregon, Nashville, Baltimore, Hawai’i, Grand Rapids, Arkansas, Omaha, Jacksonville and Quebec Symphonies, Buffalo and Erie Philharmonics, Florida Orchestra and many more. The 2026/2027 season features returns to the Virginia, Princeton, Eugene, Colorado, and Pasadena Symphonies and debuts with the Greensboro, Gonzaga, and Port Angeles Symphonies. She will also return to the Oregon Symphony, where she currently serves as the Artist-in-Residence through the 2027/2028 season. Internationally, Simone has performed with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra with Gustavo Dudamel; the Orquestra Sinfônica Brasileira in Rio de Janeiro; the National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica; the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong; the Sun Symphony in Vietnam; the Royal Northern Sinfonia; the Milton Keynes City Orchestra in the United Kingdom; Orquesta Clasica Santa Cecilia de la Fundacion Excelentia in Madrid; the Opera de Marseille and at the Edinburgh Festival performing Barber under the direction of Stéphane Denève.
An eager collaborator and chamber musician, Simone has appeared at festivals such as La Jolla Summerfest, Seattle Chamber Music Society, Bay Chamber Music, Moab Music Festival, Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival and many more. She recently collaborated with Third Coast Percussion at Swarthmore College and 92NY and will collaborate this season with violinist Blake Pouliot and pianist Hsin-I Huang for performances at Stanford and Northridge, CA. Simone previously lead a side-by-side project with New Century Chamber Orchestra and students of San Francisco Conservatory, presented in San Francisco and at Stanford Live. Recent recital highlights include a tour in Spain with pianist Pallavi Mahidhara and debuts at Celebrity Series in Boston, NY92, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. This season, Simone will make her recital debut with Pallavi Mahidhara at the Morelia International Music Festival.
February 2025 marked the release of Simone’s highly acclaimed first solo album ad tendo on the Bright Shiny Things label, featuring pieces by Esa-Pekka Salonen, Reena Esmail, Andrew Norman, Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber and Hildegard von Bingen. Her album received a five star review from BBC Music Magazine and was later nominated for the Magazine’s 2026 Newcomer Award. At the invitation of Salonen, Simone performed his work ‘Lachen verlernt’ (‘Laughing Unlearnt’), at the New York Philharmonic’s “Foreign Bodies,” a multi-sensory celebration of the work of the composer and conductor. Simone made her Carnegie Zankel Hall debut on the Emmy Award-winning TV show From the Top: Live from Carnegie Hall followed in November 2016 by her debut in Stern Auditorium. She returned to Carnegie in December of 2024 together with cellist Joshua Roman as a part of their Well-Being Concert. In June 2016, her featured performance of music from Schindler’s List with Maestro Gustavo Dudamel and members of the American Youth Symphony was broadcast nationally on the TNT Network as part of the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award: A Tribute to John Williams.
Raised in Seattle, Washington, Simone studied with Margaret Pressley as a recipient of the Dorothy Richard Starling Scholarship, and then attended the Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles in the studio of Robert Lipsett.
Simone Porter performs on a 1740 Carlo Bergonzi violin made in Cremona Italy on generous loan from The Master’s University, Santa Clarita, California.
