Music in the Great Hall
The Frances M. Maguire Art Museum is proud to host the Department of Music, Theatre & Film Music in the Great Hall concert series, held in the museum's Great Hall. Co-curated by Dr. Suzanne Sorkin and Dr. Elizabeth Morgan, this diverse series is designed to benefit and inspire all students, and features esteemed faculty as well as professional guest artists and performers. The concert series is free for all members of the Saint Joseph community including students, faculty and staff.
2025 Misher Festival Presents: Elizabeth Morgan and Friends
Thursday, March 20, 2025, 7:30 - 9pm
Lark, chef Nichola Elmi's lauded restaurant in nearby Bala Cynwyd, will offer a $55 per person prix fixe menu (a meal consisting of several courses served at a total fixed price) for concert goers on 3/20. Book a reservation for 5:30 or earlier, and after you book, add a note saying you will be coming for the prix fixe dinner.
The Department of Music, Theatre & Film presents Music in the Great Hall: Elizabeth Morgan and Friends. Featuring Dara Morales, violin, Jesus Morales, cello, Kerri Ryan, Viola, and Elizabeth Morgan, piano on March 20, 2025 at 7:30 PM in the Frances M. Maguire Art Museum. The program includes works by Johannes Brahms and Ludwig van Beethoven.
Admission is free and all are welcome! Doors will open at 7:00 PM.
Music in the Great Hall is open to the public – no tickets are required. However, limited reserved seating is available for visitors outside of the university community up to one week prior to the event. Once the reserved seating is fulfilled, seats will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. To reserve seats for an upcoming Music in the Great Hall event, please submit THIS FORM by 3:00 PM on March 10th.
There is a suggested donation of $20.00 for visitors outside of the university community. Donations can be made by placing your cash or check in the Department of Music, Theatre & Film collection box located in the museum lobby.
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Violinist Dara Burkholder Morales joined the Philadelphia Orchestra in 2007 as Assistant Principal Second Violin. A native of Ephrata, Pennsylvania, she previously held positions as Principal Second Violin of the Utah Symphony and Opera, Principal Second Violin and Interim Associate Concertmaster of the Puerto Rico Symphony, and Concertmaster of the Northern Kentucky Symphony. Ms. Morales earned both her Bachelors and Masters degrees in music from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, where she acted as graduate teaching assistant and taught in the prestigious Starling Preparatory Program.
As soloist, she has performed with the Utah Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Puerto Rico Symphony, Allegro Chamber Orchestra(Lancaster, PA), the Bangor Symphony, and the Lancaster Symphony, among others. Her principal teachers include Kurt Sassmannshaus, Helen Kwalwasser, and Dorothy DeLay, and chamber music studies with Peter Oundjian, Henry Meyer, and the Tokyo Quartet. She lives with her husband Jesús, a cellist, and daughters Isabel and Karina in center city Philadelphia. Ms. Morales maintains an active private teaching studio.
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Jesús A. Morales Matos was born into a prominent musical family and is an active soloist, recording artist, and chamber musician. As a member of the Dalí Quartet, Jesus is on faculty at West Chester University as part of the quartet's residency. His students have been accepted into esteemed music schools such as the Curtis Institute of Music, Yale University, and Temple University.
As a concert artist, Fanfare Magazine wrote, “not since DuPre’s or Starker’s performances of the Saint-Saëns Concerto have I heard such miraculous playing: clean as a whistle, impassioned, technically adept, and exhibiting extraordinary control.” The Salt Lake Tribune added, “his sound has an assertive, gorgeous quality, from the cello’s brusque low notes to its sweet upper range.” The New York Concert Review hailed him as a soloist “in a category above many cellists of today … inspired and captivating.” The Caribbean Business declared, “…he is already talked about as a soloist of potential international stature.”
Mr. Morales solo appearances include the Philharmonia Bulgarica, the San Bernardino Symphony, New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, the Orquesta Sinfonica de Puerto Rico, the Camerata Symphony, the National Repertory Orchestra, the Starling Chamber Orchestra, and the Festival de Orquestas Sinfonica Juvenil de las Americas.
As a recording artist, Mr. Morales’ recordings of the Saint-Saëns and Lalo cello concertos on the Centaur label, were received with rave reviews.
Mr. Morales has participated in summer festivals including, the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico, Banff Centre for the Arts, Grand Teton Music Festival, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, Bowdoin Music Festival, Eastern Music Festival, and Música Rondeña in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Mr. Morales has also performed in recitals and chamber music concerts in Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, and St. Thomas, VI.
Mr. Morales holds a bachelor’s degree from The Cleveland Institute of Music and has done postgraduate work at The Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music. His teachers include Dr. Ronald Crutcher, Alan Harris, Helga Winold, and Yehuda Hanani. He studied chamber music with Peter Oundjian among others.
Mr. Morales resides in Philadelphia with his wife, violinist Dara Morales, and daughters Isabel and Karina.
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Praised by the Baltimore Sun for her “achingly sweet touch at the keyboard,” pianist and musicologist Elizabeth Morgan brings history and performance alive in her recitals, writing, and teaching. A native of Oakland, California, she received her undergraduate and master’s degrees in piano performance at The Juilliard School before completing a PhD in music history and a DMA in piano performance as a Dean’s Fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Dr. Morgan has performed as soloist in many major American venues, frequently giving lecture recitals, where she introduces musical works with commentary from the keyboard. She is best known for a lecture recital program of musical works related to Jane Austen, which she has performed throughout the United States and at venues around England, including the Jane Austen Memorial Archive and the Cobbe Collection. She has been invited to give recitals and lecture-recitals at countless American universities, including Vassar College, the Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music, Wellesley College, Lawrence University, the University of Nevada, Saint Anselm College, the University of Richmond, the University of Delaware, Franklin and Marshall College, the University of Massachusetts, Northwestern University, Fordham University, West Chester University, Penn State, and the University of California, Santa Cruz, among other venues. She has appeared as soloist with orchestras on both coasts, most recently with the Seattle Symphony (Carnival of the Animals; 2019) and the Pennsylvania Chamber Orchestra (Beethoven Triple Concerto; 2022), and she has performed with the Mark Morris Dance Company, the Rosie Herrera Dance Theatre, and at numerous chamber music festivals. Her performances have been featured on National Public Television, National German Radio, and on local radio stations throughout the United States.
Dr. Morgan’s research and writing focus on music of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, particularly works for the keyboard and for small ensembles, and on issues related to gender. Her work has been published in 19th-century Music, the Journal of the Society for American Music, Nineteenth-Century Music Review, and in collections published by Routledge and Ashgate. She frequently gives pre-concert talks for the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society.
Dr. Morgan is an Associate Professor of Music at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. She lives outside of the city with her husband, intellectual property attorney Kevin Bovard, and their two sons, Thomas and Graham.
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Kerri Ryan has served as the Assistant Principal Viola of The Philadelphia Orchestra since the beginning of the 2007-08 season. She came to Philadelphia from the Minnesota Orchestra, where she was Assistant Principal viola for seven seasons. During that time, she appeared twice as soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra. She previously served as Associate Concertmaster of the Charleston Symphony where she was also a featured soloist. Ms. Ryan and her husband, violinist William Polk, are founding members of the award-winning Minneapolis Quartet.
Kerri Ryan has a bachelors degree in violin performance from The Curtis Institute of Music. While at Curtis, Ms. Ryan began studying viola with Karen Tuttle. As an high school student, she studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music as a member of its Young Artist Program. As the winner of multiple youth competitions, Ms. Ryan appeared as soloist with orchestras such as The Cleveland Orchestra and The Philadelphia Orchestra. Her violin teachers include Lee Snyder, Jascha Brodsky, Rafael Druian, and Arnold Steinhardt.
Ms. Ryan is passionate about teaching, serving on the faculty of Temple University, a string quartet coach Settlement Music School, and a regular instructor at the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra Music Institute. Additionally, Kerri is an avid chamber musician, having collaborated with such artists as Emmanuel Ax, Christoph Eschenbach, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Andre Watts, and Nadja Solerno-Sonnenberg. She is a current member of the Philadelphia Chamber Ensemble.
Jasper String Quartet
Thursday, April 24, 2025, 7:30 – 9pm
The Department of Music, Theatre and Film presents Music in the Great Hall: Jasper String Quartet on April 24, 2025 at 7:30 PM in the Frances M. Maguire Art Museum. The program includes quartets by Haydn, Prokofiev, and 2025 String Commission unglove by Suzanne Sorkin.
Admission is free and all are welcome! Doors will open at 7:00 PM.
Music in the Great Hall is open to the public – no tickets are required. However, limited reserved seating is available for visitors outside of the university community up to one week prior to the event. Once the reserved seating is fulfilled, seats will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. To reserve seats for an upcoming Music in the Great Hall event, please submit this form by 3:00 PM on 4/17/25.
There is a suggested donation of $20.00 for visitors outside of the university community. Donations can be made by placing your cash or check in the Department of Music, Theatre & Film collection box located in the museum lobby.
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Celebrated as one of the preeminent American string quartets of the twenty-first century, the prizewinning Jasper String Quartet is hailed as being “flawless in ensemble and intonation, expressively assured and beautifully balanced” (Gramophone). The Quartet is highly regarded for its “programming savvy” (ClevelandClassical.com), which strives to evocatively connect the music of underrepresented and living composers to the canonical repertoire through thoughtful programs that appeal to a wide variety of audiences.
A recipient of Chamber Music America’s prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award (2012), the Quartet’s playing has been described as “sonically delightful and expressively compelling” (The Strad). The ensemble has released eight albums, including its most recent release, Insects and Machines: Quartets of Vivian Fung (2023) which Strings Magazine praised as being “intensely dramatic throughout demonstrating both their advocacy of new music and their transcendent mastery.” The Quartet’s 2017 release, Unbound, was named by The New York Times as one of the year’s 25 Best Classical Recordings.
The Quartet will release new recordings in 2024 and 2025, including Reinaldo Moya’s Pájaros Garabatos with soprano Maria Brea in 2024, works by Tina Davidson with pianist Natalie Zhu in 2024, and Richard Festinger’s Quartet No. 5 in 2025. In celebration of its Twentieth Anniversary in 2026-27, the Quartet has commissioned new works from composers Patrick Castillo, Brittany J. Green, Reinaldo Moya and Michelle Ross.
The Jasper String Quartet is passionate about connecting with audiences beyond the concert hall and is the Professional Quartet-in-Residence at Temple University’s Center for Gifted Young Musicians and Director of the annual Saint Paul Chamber Music Institute. The Quartet is Artistic Director of Jasper Chamber Concerts, a series in Philadelphia dedicated to encouraging curiosity, community, and inclusivity through world-class chamber performances.
The Jasper String Quartet is named after Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada and is represented by Suòno Artist Management. For more information, please visit jasperquartet.com.