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Da Capo Chamber Players

Winners of the Naumburg Chamber Music Award, the internationally acclaimed Da Capo Chamber Players has worked closely with countless distinguished composers, representing an enormous spectrum of compositional styles. Da Capo's virtuoso artists bring years of creative insight, involvement and artistic leadership to performances of today's repertoire, including well over 150 works written especially for the group, from composers such as Joan Tower, John Harbison, Shulamit Ran, Valerie Coleman, Philip Glass, George Perle, Shirish Korde, Tania León, and Milton Babbitt, among many others.

In tour concerts and mini-residencies across the country, Da Capo works with young composers everywhere, giving them opportunities to try out things with highly experienced virtuoso performers as well as recordings (often award-winning!) of their works. The ensemble has been in residence at Bard College for over three decades, and since 2006 has been Ensemble in Residence with the Bard College Conservatory of Music.  In May 2012, the Naumburg Foundation invited Da Capo to premiere works by their first ever composition winners.  National Public Radio named Da Capo’s CD, Chamber Music of Chinary Ung on Bridge Records, as one of the 5 Best Contemporary Classical CDs of the year in 2010. 

In May 2016, a 45th Anniversary Program offered several themes tied to Da Capo’s identity: “rhythmnation”, long-standing collaborations with gifted composers, honoring black history.  The Da Capo Chamber Players’ history includes a number of exemplary programs highlighting superb works by minority composers, including African-American, Latino, and Asian.  Further, these works are routinely included in Da Capo’s “normal” programming (which we of course think is “supra-normal”). 

The members of the Da Capo Chamber Players are Curtis Macomber, violin; Chris Gross, cello; Patricia Spencer, flute; Marianne Gythfeldt, clarinet; and Steven Beck, piano.

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Zachary Schwartzman

Zachary Schwartzman has conducted around the United States, in Brazil, England, Bosnia, and Mexico. His orchestral performances have been featured on NPR, including a national broadcast on “Performance Today.” A recipient of the career development grant from the Bruno Walter Memorial Foundation, he has served as assistant conductor for the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Opera Atelier (Toronto), Berkshire Opera Festival, Opéra Français de New York, L’Ensemble orchestral de Paris, Gotham Chamber Opera, Oakland East Bay Symphony, Connecticut Grand Opera, and Opera Omaha, among others. He was associate conductor for two seasons with New York City Opera, as well as conductor in their VOX series, and has been associate/assistant conductor for fifteen productions at Glimmerglass Opera, where he conducted performances of Carmen and the world premiere of Jeanine Tesori’s A Blizzard on Marblehead Neck.

Mr. Schwartzman’s credits as assistant conductor include recordings for Albany Records, Bridge Records, Naxos Records, Hyperion Records, and a Grammy-nominated world-premiere recording for Chandos Records. He had a twelve-year tenure as music director of the Blue Hill Troupe and has been assistant conductor for the American Symphony Orchestra since 2012. He has appeared as both assistant conductor and conductor at Bard SummerScape and the Bard Music Festival at The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts. In addition to degrees in Piano Performance and Orchestral Conducting, he earned a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Oberlin College.