Equally passionate about art, cuisine, history and music, pianist Hadley McCarroll and cellist Monica Scott formed the duo martha & monica in 2006. With programs chosen for their thematic, geographic or emotional relevance, the pair delight in repertoire as diverse as Brahms and Poulenc to Schumann and Carter. Pianist Hadley McCarroll is well-known to local audiences. In addition to ten years in the vocal/instrumental trio The Mirage Ensemble, she is an internationally sought after opera coach and collaborative pianist with companies such as the Royal Danish Opera, Utah Festival Opera and the San Francisco Opera. Cellist Monica Scott has enjoyed a varied career spanning solo, orchestral and chamber music, touring Europe, the U.S.A, Argentina and South Korea. She performed four seasons with the San Francisco-based Del Sol String Quartet, and is the cellist with the composer/performer/improviser collective sfSoundGroup.

About our next concerts:

Robert Schumann's poetic cycle Papillons and Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho's quixotic Sept Papillons, for solo piano and solo cello, complement two noble sonatas by Franz Schubert and Benjamin Britten. Intrigued by the unusually tender and expressive qualities of the arpeggione – a bowed guitar held between the knees, in vogue for no more than 10 years – Schubert composed the Sonata in A minor "Arpeggione" in 1824.  The great Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovitch was the inspiration for Britten's Sonata in C (1961), in which the instruments take on operatic roles, from the hushed opening, through dramatic tragedy to exuberent heights.