Cellist Adam Grabois and pianist Margarita Nuller explore virtuosity, intimacy and transformation in a distinguished chamber music program.

The Valley Music Series welcomes cellist Adam Grabois and pianist Margarita Nuller for an afternoon of extraordinary chamber music on Sunday, November 15, 2026, at 3:00 p.m. at Valley Presbyterian Church, 21 West Whisconier Road, Brookfield and you're invited!

Doors open at 2:30 PM. The concert is free and open to the public with a suggested donation of $20 gratefully accepted at the door. After the concert, Valley will present an afterglow — a reception for everyone to meet the artists and friends of the Valley Music Series. Parking is free, and the building is fully wheelchair accessible.

CONCERT INFORMATION
Bringing together music of Frédéric Chopin, Nadia Boulanger and César Franck, the program traces nearly a century of European musical imagination from the elegance and brilliance of Romantic Warsaw and Paris to the concentrated colors of twentieth-century France.

At its heart is one of chamber music’s most compelling relationships: two instruments that can speak independently, yet transform through listening to one another.

The afternoon opens with Chopin’s youthful Introduction and Polonaise brillante in C major, Op. 3, music alive with virtuoso flair, aristocratic gesture and the unmistakable rhythmic character of the Polish polonaise. It is followed by the composer’s Cello Sonata in G minor, Op. 65, one of the final works published during his lifetime and among the most searching creations of his late period. Heard together, the two works offer a rare portrait of Chopin across the span of his artistic life—from the exhilaration of youth to the concentrated expression of maturity.

Following intermission, the program turns to Nadia Boulanger, one of the most influential musical figures of the twentieth century. Celebrated internationally as the teacher of generations of composers and musicians, Boulanger was also a composer of striking refinement. Her Trois pièces pour violoncelle et piano reveal that less frequently encountered voice: intimate, beautifully proportioned music in which harmonic color, lyricism and rhythmic vitality are distilled with remarkable economy.

The program culminates in César Franck’s Sonata in A major, one of the defining chamber works of the late Romantic era. Originally composed in 1886 for violin and piano and subsequently authorized by Franck in its celebrated cello arrangement, the Sonata unfolds through an ingenious architecture of musical memory: themes return, evolve and acquire new meaning until the work reaches its radiant conclusion.
For this performance, that repertoire is entrusted to two musicians whose careers have been shaped by a deep commitment to chamber music.

Adam Grabois has appeared with the New York Chamber Soloists at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Morgan Library, the National Gallery of Art, the Getty Center and the Kravis Center, among venues across the United States. A graduate of Swarthmore College who studied with David Finckel, Grabois is also the founder of the recording label Reflex Editions. The Philadelphia Inquirer praised his playing for the remarkable emotional range he could draw from “the sound of a single note.”

Margarita Nuller, a graduate of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, has performed as soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States, Europe, Russia and South America. A winner of the Artists International Auditions, she made her New York recital debut at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall and has appeared as concerto soloist with orchestras in the United States, Russia and Puerto Rico. She currently serves on the faculty of Kent School.

Together, Grabois and Nuller bring to the Valley Music Series an afternoon conceived on an intimate scale but encompassing an extraordinary expressive landscape.

From Chopin’s youthful brilliance to the searching voice of his final years, from Boulanger’s concentrated modernity to Franck’s great architecture of memory, this is music that asks us to listen closely and rewards that attention with worlds of feeling.

PROGRAM
Frédéric Chopin
Introduction and Polonaise brillante in C major, Op. 3
Cello Sonata in G minor, Op. 65
Nadia Boulanger
Trois pièces pour violoncelle et piano
César Franck
Sonata in A major

ABOUT THE VALLEY MUSIC SERIES
The Valley Music Series brings accomplished artists and thoughtfully curated programs to Western Connecticut, creating opportunities for audiences to encounter exceptional music in an intimate setting. Through performances that unite artistic excellence, discovery and community, the Series celebrates chamber music as it was meant to be experienced: close enough to see the conversation between musicians, and close enough to become part of it.