It’s Beethoven Chamber Music on Sunday, May 4, 2025 at 2:00 PM, as ARCA’s favorite pianist and program host David Allen Wehr returns to the Lincoln Hall Steinway and is joined by Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Principal Cellist, Anne Martindale Williams.
The program of Beethoven works will include the Pastoral and Pathetique piano sonatas and the Beethoven Sonata for Piano and Cello, Opus 69 and Variations on “Hail, the Conquering Hero Comes,” from Handel’s “Judas Maccabeus” for cello and piano.
This concert of David Allen Wehr and Anne Martindale Williams is ARCA’s FOUNDERS’ CONCERT honoring the memory of ARCA’s founding President and Secretary/Treasurer, Dr. Arthur Steffee and Patricia Steffee, respectively.
Immediately following the concert, the audience is invited to meet the artists at a post concert reception in the Red Brick Gallery and Gift Shop from 4 to 6 PM for the wine and cheese reception for the first exhibit of the 2025 RBG season – the photography and poetry of Greg Clary.
ARCA is grateful to Dr. Charles and Susan Sutherland for their generous gift sponsoring the Founders Concert performed by David Allen Wehr and Ann Martindale Williams.
Tickets are Adults $25, ARCA Members $20 and Students $5. Call to reserve 724-659-3153 to pay by cash or check at the door.
A favorite of Foxburg audiences, international competition winner, pianist David Allen Wehr will serve as the program host for the concert, providing enlightening insights on the music and composers sure to delight and charm the audience. In recent years David has brought to Lincoln Hall a solo Chopin program, and chamber music concerts from the “Schubert on the Bluff” series, as well as a duo concert of the Rachmaninoff piano suites with Cynthia Raim. David’s performance with Raim in the Memorial Concert for Arthur Steffee in 2024 was a moving tribute to ARCA’s founder and president.
Returning to Lincoln Hall is Pittsburgh Symphony’s celebrated Principal Cellist, Anne Martindale Williams, who has collaborated with guest artists such as Yehudi Menuhin, André Previn, the Emerson Quartet, Lynn Harrell, Joshua Bell, Gil Shaham and Pinchas Zukerman in numerous chamber music performances and made her London debut performing Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with the Royal Philharmonic, Andre Previn conducting.
In 2013, Ms. Williams made her Lincoln Hall debut in an ARCA summer concert with Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Concertmaster Noah Bendix-Balgley and PSO Principal Harp Gretchen Van Hoesen.
In 2019, Anne Martindale Williams joined David Allen Wehr in a a program of Romantic Russian chamber music with Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Principal Flutist, Lorna McGhee.
ARCA is honored to have these two extraordinary artists come together again to perform glorious Beethoven chamber music that was so appreciated by ARCA’s Founders, to whom this concert pays tribute.
Immediately following the concert, the audience is invited to meet the artists at a post concert reception in the Red Brick Gallery and Gift Shop from 4 to 6 PM for the wine and cheese reception for the first exhibit of the 2025 RBG season – the photography and poetry of Greg Clary, based on The Vandalia in Me.
The Vandalia in Me is a collection of poems and photographs from someone who has lived in Appalachia for his entire life. First on his family’s homestead in southern West Virginia, then for the past 42 years in the northwestern Pennsylvania Wilds.
These poems and photographs are rooted in the author’s experiences and observations of the Appalachia he loves and the people and events he has encountered. These images and words share the common theme of seeking beauty among the ordinary and infusing them with respect and significance.
“Clary is the Whitman of West Virginia, honoring the laborers, the precious encounters, the deeper wisdoms. He understands intimately that life itself is poetry.” Philip Terman, author of My Blossoming Everything and This Crazy
Its Spring in Foxburg!
When planning your trip to Foxburg – plan to take a brisk walk in the gorgeous spring afternoon along the Allegheny River trail or rent bicycles or have a scenic pontoon tour (beginning May 1 through October) on the Allegheny River with Foxburg Tours!
Before or after the concert, plan to dine overlooking the Allegheny on the deck of The Allegheny Grille or for lighter fare, soup, salads, sandwiches and pizzas at Foxburg Pizza.
Or have a wine tasting or enjoy a bottle of wine on the patio of the remodeled Foxburg Wine Cellars.
Make it a weekend on the beautiful Allegheny – having a romantic overnight at The Foxburg Inn, where every room has a river view – and seating on the patio is the perfect place for reading or resting after a walk or bicycle ride.
Beethoven Chamber Music
David Allen Wehr, piano
Anne Martindale William, Principal Cello, PSO
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Piano Sonata in D Major, op. 28 (Pastoral)
Piano Sonata in C Minor, op. 13 (Pathetique)
Intermission
Variations on “Hail, the Conquering Hero Comes,” from Handel’s “Judas Maccabeus” for Cello and Piano
Sonata no. 3 in A Major for Cello and Piano, op. 69
Pianist and Program Host – David Allen Wehr
David Allen Wehr’s international career was launched when he won the Gold Medal at the 1987 Santander International Piano Competition in Spain. The resulting tours have taken him to over 30 countries in Europe, North and South America, and the Far East, including performances in the world musical capitals of New York, London, Paris, Vienna, Washington, Madrid and Buenos Aires
It was David’s thirteen seasons touring the United States and Canada for Community concerts as a soloist and in chamber music partnerships that honed his unique ability to make great works of music accessible to the public. Known for his ability as a “Living Program Note”, David Allen Wehr has a warm personality that welcomes an audience member into the emotion of the music and makes imaginative and simple the intricacies of great works of master composers. The audience will certainly be charmed by this wonderful program made more enjoyable by the rich program commentary by David Allen Wehr.
David Allen Wehr
David Allen Wehr holds the Jack W. Geltz Distinguished Piano Chair at the Mary Pappert School of Music. His international career was launched when he won the Gold Medal at the 1987 Santander International Piano Competition in Spain. The resulting tours have taken him to over 30 countries in Europe, North and South America, and the Far East, including performances in the world musical capitals of New York, London, Paris, Vienna, Washington, Madrid and Buenos Aires. Over 1,000 concerts include 13 seasons of touring the United States and Canada for Community Concerts as soloist, pianist with the Sartory Trio, and duo-recital partner with violinist Linda Wang and cellist Zuill Bailey. Wehr has been soloist with the London Symphony, National Symphony, Chautauqua Symphony, Houston Symphony, New Zealand Symphony and all the major Spanish and Latin American orchestras.
Born in Princeton, New Jersey, Wehr grew up in Boise, Idaho, where his parents, graduates of Westminster Choir College, were ministers of music at the Methodist Cathedral of the Rockies. Piano lessons began on his fourth birthday with his mother and continued with his father. Later teachers were Peggy Erwin, Edward Zolas and Sequeira Costa. Wehr studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Taos School of Music, the Dartington Summer Music School in England, and holds degrees from the University of Kansas. He coached extensively with Leon Fleisher, Jorge Bolet and Malcolm Frager. Early in his career, Wehr won the 1975 Kosciuszko Chopin Prize in New York City, the 1983 National Federation of Music Clubs Young Artist Award, and Second Prizes in the 1983 Naumburg International Piano Competition at New York’s Carnegie Hall, and the 1986 Kapell Competition at the Kennedy Center.
David Allen Wehr has amassed a large and critically acclaimed discography with Connoisseur Society, Inc., with programs by Chopin, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Mussorgsky, Schumann, Delius, Czerny, Gershwin, Brahms, Griffes, Wagner-Liszt, Dvoř-k and Joe Utterback. The complete Beethoven Sonata Cycle has been released in four double-CD albums. His CDs are available through the Mary Pappert School of Music by calling (412) 396-6082 and at amazon.com. Since 2007, Wehr has served each summer as Principal Keyboard at the Sunflower Music Festival in Topeka, Kansas and the Buzzards Bay Musicfest in Marion, Massachusetts.
Wehr was first associated with Duquesne from 1991-1994, when the Sartory Trio was chamber ensemble-in-residence, and his current tenure began in 2001, when he was named the first Hillman Distinguished Chair. His previous performance projects here include the complete Beethoven Sonata Cycle (2002-2004), Beethoven’s “Dynamic Duos”: the complete violin-piano sonatas with Charles Stegeman, the complete works for cello and piano with Anne Martindale Williams, and the Ninth Symphony in Liszt’s two-piano transcription with Helene Wickett (2004), “Brahms on the Bluff”, (Brahms’ complete instrumental chamber music, 2005-2008), “Musique on the Bluff” (French music, 2008-2010), “Bicentennials on the Bluff” (Chopin and Schumann, 2010), “Dvořák at Duquesne” (2011), and “Budapest on the Bluff” (2012) and “Beethoven on the Bluff” (2013-14) presenting the major piano chamber works of Beethoven.
Anne Martindale Williams
Anne Martindale Williams has enjoyed a successful career as principal cellist of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra since 1979. Throughout her tenure with the orchestra, she has often been featured as soloist both in Pittsburgh and on tour in New York at Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall. Williams was soloist with the Pittsburgh Symphony in the Pittsburgh premier of The Giving Tree conducted by the composer, Lorin Maazel. She has also collaborated with guest artists such as Yehudi Menuhin, André Previn, the Emerson Quartet, Lynn Harrell, Joshua Bell, Gil Shaham and Pinchas Zukerman in numerous chamber music performances. She made her London debut performing Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with the Royal Philharmonic, Andre Previn conducting. Her solo in The Swan on the Pittsburgh Symphony’s recording of Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saëns was described by Grammophon critic Edward Greenfield as “…the most memorable performance of all.”
Williams divides her time between the orchestra, teaching at Carnegie Mellon University, and solo and chamber music performances in America, Europe and the Far East. She has appeared in several nationally televised productions including Concertos, produced by the BBC and Previn and the Pittsburgh, produced by WQED. She has given master classes at many universities and festivals throughout the country, including The Curtis Institute of Music, SUNY at Stony Brook, Manhattan School of Music, the New World Symphony in Miami, the National Orchestral Institute, Aspen, Credo at Oberlin College and the Masterworks Festival. She also has performed at many of America’s prestigious summer music festivals including Aspen, Caramoor, Skaneateles, Maui, Rockport Festivals in Massachusetts and Maine, Grand Teton, Strings Festival in Steamboat Springs, Orcas Island, and Mainly Mozart in San Diego. For many years she has enjoyed performing throughout the country with her Piano Trio, which includes her good friends Andrés Cárdenes and David Deveau.
Williams has performed numerous times as soloist with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, performing Schumann’s Concerto in A minor, Tippett’s Triple Concerto, Previn’s Reflections, Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 3 and 6, Strauss’s Don Quixote, Bloch’s Schelomo, Dvořák’s Cello Concerto, Dutilleux’s Tout un mondelointain, Saint-Saëns’ Concerto No. 1 and Brahms’ Double Concerto, as well as Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro for String Quartet. In recent seasons, she was featured in Haydn’s Concerto in C, Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations, Elgar’s Cello Concerto, and Haydn’s Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Cello, Oboe, Bassoon and Orchestra, and Walton’s Cello Concerto.
Williams is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music where she studied with Orlando Cole. Her Tecchler cello was made in Rome in 1701. Her husband, Joe, is the director of student ministries at Beverly Heights Presbyterian Church in Mount Lebanon. They reside in Pittsburgh.