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The Gut Instinct Chamber Music Project, now in its third season, is a concert series in the Triangle area which brings UNC Chapel Hill and Duke University's historical instrument collections together with artists committed to presenting inspired, visceral, historically informed performances of the 19th-century chamber music repertoire. The series features music of female composers and their artistic circles. The name "Gut Instinct" is a play on words. In 19th-century Europe, the violin, viola, and cello were strung with (sheep) gut.
"Music-making of visceral immediacy." -Cultural Voice of North Carolina
All of the artists collaborating with the Pleyel and Graf pianos at UNC-Chapel Hill (built in 19th-century Paris and Vienna, respectively), as well as the Clementi piano at Duke (early 19th-century England) use these gut string materials. The turn of phrase "gut instinct" also refers to the visceral, accessible nature of the musical performances that this series presents. Our mission is to make "Historically Informed Performance" accessible, relatable, and culturally relevant! We also want to feature these special pianos that are rarely heard by the public, along with great music by female composers which has remained lesser known to the greater public for far too long, and living composers who are keeping our art form alive!
This season, Gut Instinct takes on the large-scale project "To Beethoven Rather Than To Seem," marking 200 years since Beethoven's death and 250 since the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Over the course of five concerts, Nicholas DiEugenio and pianist Mimi Solomon will present all ten Beethoven Sonatas on period instruments along with five commissioned works written expressly for them.
featuring Beethoven's iconic "Kreutzer" Sonata and music of David Kirkland Garner
featuring Allen Anderson's "Linen," plus Beethoven Violin Sonatas Nos. 6 and 7
featuring Beethoven's heroic and youthful Violin Sonata No. 3 and the Jesse Jones Scherzo it inspired
featuring Beethoven's final Violin Sonata, the elegiac and enigmatic op. 96, along with Tonia Ko's Tribute: Axis II
this concert is presented as part of the NCHIP Festival
featuring Beethoven's "Spring" Sonata and Robert Honstein's Olmsted
Nicholas DiEugenio, violin
Jessica Troy, viola
James Wilson, cello
Mimi Solomon, fortepiano (featuring Duke's Clementi Fortepiano)
This concert is presented as part of Duke's Rare Music Series
Nicholas DiEugenio, violin
Mimi Solomon, fortepiano (featuring UNC's 1830 Graf by Rodney Regier)
Jeanne Fischer, soprano
Nicholas DiEugenio, violin
Mimi Solomon, fortepiano (featuring UNC's 1842 Pleyel Fortepiano)
Nicholas DiEugenio, violin
Mimi Solomon, fortepiano (featuring UNC's 1830 Graf by Rodney Regier)
Nicholas DiEugenio, violin
Raman Ramakrishnan, cello
Mimi Solomon, fortepiano (featuring UNC's 1830 Graf by Rodney Regier)
Nicholas DiEugenio, violin
Mimi Solomon, fortepiano (featuring UNC's 1843 Pleyel)
Friday, February 28, 2025, 5:30 pm, Person Recital Hall at UNC Chapel Hill ($10/15)
Don't miss this chance to hear Schubert's epic cello quintet played on gut strings!!
Nicholas DiEugenio and Kako Boga, violins
Jessica Troy, viola
Keiran Campbell and James Wilson, cellos
Mimi Solomon, fortepiano (featuring UNC's 1830 Graf by Rodney Regier)
Violinist Nicholas DiEugenio has been heralded for his“excellent...evocative” playing (TheNew York Times), full of “rapturous poetry” (American Record Guide). Nicholas is in-demand as a soloist, chamber musician, and ensemble leader, creating powerful shared experiences in music ranging from early baroque to contemporary commissions.
A core member of the Sebastians, a period group hailed as “topnotch” by the New Yorker and“sharp-edged and engaging” by the New York Times, Nicholas also performs and records with pianist and wife Mimi Solomon.Their award-winning duo project “Unraveling Beethoven” comprises a full cycle of the Beethoven violin sonatas along with response works from composers Tonia Ko, Robert Honstein, Jesse Jones, Allen Anderson, and D.K. Garner.
His Musica Omnia recording of the complete Schumann violin sonatas with Chi-Chen Wu on fortepiano was named one of the Top 10 albums of2015 by The Big City. His August 2017 release on the New Focus label with MimiSolomon, critically lauded as “a touching, committed tribute” (I Care If You Listen),is an homage to the late Pulitzer Prize-winner Steven Stucky. The disc features Stucky’s Sonata for violin and piano, two new works by Stucky’s students Jesse Jones and Tonia Ko, and the previously unrecorded Violin Sonata of Robert Palmer.
A two-time prize-winner at the prestigious Fischoff competition, Nicholas is passionately committed to collaboration, and has performed chamber music with Laurie Smukler, Joel Krosnick, Joseph Lin, Peter Salaff, and Ani Kavafian, as well as members of the Meta4 Quartet. As a baroque and classical violinist, he has performed with violinists Ingrid Matthews and Aislinn Nosky, as well as members of Tafelmusik, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, Philharmonia Baroque, and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. He has also performed as guest Principal Second Violinist of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. He is an alumnus of the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, where he was deeply influenced by the musicianship of pianist Seymour Lipkin. At the same time, Nicholas also strives to incorporate musical elements from some of his favorite rock icons such Jimi Hendrix, Anthony Kiedis, and Thom Yorke.
Rooted in a deeply compassionate approach to teaching, Nicholas is currently Associate Professor of Violin at UNC Chapel Hill, and is co-artistic director of MYCO, a non-profit chamber music organization for middle and high school students. Formerly Assistant Professor of Violin at the Ithaca College School of Music, Nicholas has also been a faculty member of the Kinhaven Music School in Vermont during the summers since 2010. Nicholas holds degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music (B.M, M.M) and the Yale School of Music (D.M.A., A.D.), and he performs on a baroque violin made by Karl Dennis in 2011, and also on an 1835 violin made by J.B. Vuillaume.
American pianist Mimi Solomon (Lecturer) enjoys a multi-faceted career as a chamber musician, soloist, and teacher. She has performed throughout the United States, China, Japan and Europe, has appeared as soloist with orchestras including Shanghai Symphony, Philharmonia Virtuosi, and Yale Symphony Orchestra, and has been featured on numerous radio and television broadcasts including the McGraw-Hill Young Artist’s Showcase, France 3, France Inter, and National Public Radio.
An avid chamber musician, Solomon regularly appears at music festivals on both sides of the Atlantic such as Santander, IMS Prussia Cove, Lockenhaus, Rencontres de Bel-Air, Ravinia, Taos, Norfolk, Yellow Barn, Charlottesville, La Loingtaine, and Aspen. Mimi spends part of every year coaching and performing chamber music at Kinhaven Festival in Vermont, and has taught at Cornell University, East Carolina University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Ithaca College.
Solomon recently returned to the US after nearly a decade in Paris, during which in addition to being active as a a chamber musician and soloist, she perfected her French and gained an assiduous understanding of where to find the best French delicacies. She graduated cum laude in East Asian Studies from Yale and went on to receive a Master of Music from Juilliard. Her main teachers were Peter Frankl and Robert McDonald, and she has also played regularly for Ferenc Rados and studied the fortepiano with Patrick Cohen. Her studies were generously supported by a Beebe Grant and two Woolley Scholarships from the Fondation des États-Unis. She currently lives in Chapel Hill with her husband, violinist Nicholas DiEugenio.
Soprano Jeanne Fischer performs in a variety of classical genres, ranging from baroque to modern. A native of North Carolina, she received a British Marshall Scholarship for graduate study at the Royal Academy of Music in London. There she was awarded the DipRAM, the Academy’s highest honor, given for an exceptional final recital. Her performances include appearances with The Bach Sinfonia, The Publick Musick, The Smithsonian Chamber Players, Ensemble Courant, and the Magnolia Baroque Festival. In Britain, she performed at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival, the Dartington International Festival, and London’s St. Martin-in-the-Fields as part of their Outstanding Young Artists’ Series.
She is the winner of competitions including the Voce Young Soloists’ Competition, the Royal Academy’s Ethel Bilsland Singing Prize, and the University of Maryland’s Pomeroy Scholarship for achievement in 18th-century music. She is currently Area Head of Voice at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she teaches studio voice and directs UNC Opera. She has also taught lyric diction, performance practice, and vocal pedagogy. In addition to her work in the Department of Music, she serves on the faculty steering committee of the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies.
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