NEW TO YOUTUBE | Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and VC Artist Charles Yang

Check out this performance of Gregg August's "Variations On A Theme By Pérotin" scored for string orchestra and solo violin at New York's Riverside Church

Filmed last year, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra collaborated with VC Artist violinist Charles Yang to perform a work by living composer and bassist Gregg August.

A member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra himself, August straddles classical, jazz, and Latin styles in his work as a composer.

This performance features Orpheus members violinists Ronnie Bauch, Abigail Fayette, Laura Frautschi, Richard Rood, Miho Saegusa, and Eric Wyrick, violists Dana Kelley and Nardo Poy, cellists Eric Bartlett and Melissa Meell, and bassist Gregg August.

Starting in 1972, cellist Julian Fifer assembled a group of New York freelancers in their early twenties to play orchestral repertoire as if it were chamber music. Instead of taking the path of symphony orchestra positions, these musicians learned how to play, plan and promote concerts as a true collective, with leadership roles rotating from the very first performance. Today, the regularly performing New-York based Orpheus Chamber Orchestra tours Europe and Asia and has released a catalog of over 70 albums on Deutsche Grammophon, Nonesuch, and other labels.

A graduate of The Juilliard School, where he studied with Glenn Dicterow, and former student of Kurt Sassmanshaus, Paul Kantor, and Brian Lewis in his earlier years, Charles Yang is a recent recipient of the esteemed Leonard Bernstein Award.

As a genre-bending violinist, Charles performs in the crossover string trio Time for Three, as well as in a duo with pianist Peter Dugan — the latter of whom he made his VC Vanguard Concerts debut with last year.

Charles' elaborate career has seen him perform at the Aspen Music Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Ravinia Festival, Crested Butte Music Festival — as well as at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center’s Metropolitan Opera House, David H. Koch Theater, etc.