METROPOLITAN OPERA
ORCHESTRA PRINCIPALS
Benjamin Bowman, Concertmaster
Milan Milisavljević Principal Viola
Joel Noyes, Assoc. Principal Cello
Benjamin Hochman, Piano
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Thursday, February 26, 2026
7.30 p.m.
​​​PROGRAM ​
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Gabriel Fauré'
Piano Quartet in G Minor, Op 45
Joaquin Turina
Piano Quartet in A Minor, Op 67
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​​ ​​​​​​​ABOUT THE MUSICIANS
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American-Canadian violinist Benjamin Bowman is the Concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera. He is a member of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and until 2017 he was also Concertmaster of the American Ballet Theatre Orchestra.
​Benjamin is very active and engaged as a chamber musician, recitalist, and soloist. He regularly performs in concerts and festivals in Europe and North America. He was nominated for a 2017 Grammy for his recording with the ARC (Artists of the Royal Conservatory) Ensemble (The Chamber Works of Jerzy Fitelberg) and was also featured on the 2013 Juno-winning album Levant with the Amici Chamber Ensemble. Other collaborative work includes extensive immersion in contemporary music, improvisation, and performance with singer/songwriters. His discography includes recent solo and chamber-music releases on the CHANDOS, Sony Masterworks/RCA Red Seal, ATMA Classique, and Innova labels.
Bowman received his Bachelor of Music degree from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Benjamin plays a very fine Nicolò Bergonzi from Cremona, ca 1780.
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Milan Milisavljević is Principal Viola with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. His performances combine intense expression with an immediate and profound link to his listeners and have won much critical acclaim.
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The Strad magazine has described his playing as “very imaginative, with a fine, cultured tone.” Milan’s solo album Sonata-Song, released by Delos Music, has received glowing reviews, with the recording of Aram Khachaturian’s solo sonata on the album hailed as “definitive”. He has won prizes at competitions such as Lionel Tertis and Aspen Lower Strings and has performed at Marlboro, Cascade Head, Classical Tahoe, Mostly Mozart, Agassiz and Grand Teton music festivals. Milan has appeared as soloist throughout the world, with orchestras such as the Munich Chamber Orchestra, Philharmonic orchestras of Belgrade, Medellín, and Boca del Río, Aspen Sinfonia, New York Classical Players, Classical Tahoe, and others. As a chamber musician, he has collaborated with members of the Guarneri and Mendelssohn String Quartets, as well as Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Joseph Kalichstein, Augustin Hadelich, Cho-Liang Lin and many others.
Milan has been heard worldwide on countless recordings and broadcasts of the MET. He previously served as its Assistant Principal Viola for eleven seasons. He is a former member of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and has served as guest Principal Viola of many orchestras, such as the Toronto Symphony. Deeply committed to education, Milan is on the viola faculty of the Mannes School of Music as well as New York University. He has given classes at universities and conservatories worldwide, such as at the Juilliard School and the Rubin Academy of Music, as well as at Verbier Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Interlochen Center for the Arts and as a volunteer at Ecole de musique St-Trinite in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. He is also increasingly in demand as a conductor, serving on the conducting faculty of the Manhattan School of Music Precollege Division as head of one of its orchestras.
Deeply committed to music of today, Milan has given the world premiere of Afro-Cuban composer Leo Brouwer’s Solo Viola Sonata, and regularly performs new music by Ana Sokolovic, Jessie Montgomery and others. Milan’s teachers include Jutta Puchhammer, Atar Arad, James Dunham, Nobuko Imai and Samuel Rhodes. He plays on instruments and bows made by Stephan Von Baehr, Pierre Simon and Jean-Pascal Nehr and is a Larsen Strings Artist.
Joel Noyes is Assistant Principal Cello of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. As a chamber musician and recitalist, Joel has appeared throughout the United States at such prestigious venues as Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, and Bargemusic, Ltd. He performed with Renee Fleming in the opening night concert of Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall and has been seen there several times since as part of the Musicians from the Met chamber series. He has also performed at festivals including Marlboro Music, La Jolla Summerfest, and Music from Angel Fire, and has collaborated with many of the world’s leading chamber musicians, including members of the Guarneri, Juilliard, and Vermeer Quartets.
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Born into a musical family, he began playing the cello at the age of three under the tutelage of his father. Joel graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where he studied with David Soyer. While at Curtis, he was chosen principal cellist of the Institute’s orchestra, and frequently played in the Philadelphia Orchestra. His other teachers have included Richard Aaron at the Cleveland Institute of Music and Marc Johnson of the Vermeer Quartet. A versatile musician, Joel enthusiastically composes his own music, plays Egyptian music in a band in New York, has been seen on the Late Show with David Letterman, and has participated in numerous movie soundtracks.
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In all roles, from soloist to chamber musician to conductor, Benjamin Hochman regards music as vital and essential. Composers, fellow musicians, orchestras, and audiences recognize his deep commitment to insightful programming and performances of quality.
Born in Jerusalem in 1980, Hochman’s musical foundation was laid in his teenage years. Claude Frank at the Curtis Institute of Music and Richard Goode at the Mannes School of Music proved to be defining influences. At the invitation of Mitsuko Uchida, he spent three formative summers at the Marlboro Music Festival. At 24, Hochman debuted as soloist with the Israel Philharmonic at
Carnegie Hall conducted by Pinchas Zukerman. Orchestral appearances followed with the New York Philharmonic, Chicago and Pittsburgh Symphonies, and Prague Philharmonia under conductors including Gianandrea Noseda, Trevor Pinnock, David Robertson, and John Storgårds.
A winner of Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Career Grant, Hochman performs at venues and festivals across the globe, including the Philharmonie in Berlin, Vienna Konzerthaus, the Kennedy Center in Washington, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Germany’s Klavierfestival Ruhr, and Lucerne and Verbier festivals in Switzerland.