Part storytelling, part live music, The Nightingale’s Sonata is a wholly unique narrated concert experience. Accompanied by two acclaimed musicians and the projection of over 100 historical photographs, author Thomas Wolf recounts the life of Lea Luboshutz, the first internationally known female violinist, her incomparable Stradivarius violin (the “Nightingale”), and her multi-generational musical family, of which he is a member. Violinist Patrick Doane and pianist Anastasia Antonacos accompany the story with a live performance of César Franck’s sonata for violin and piano, a work that is central to the family’s history. Ticket holders for this concert will receive a free copy of Thomas Wolf’s book The Nightingale’s Sonata (one per family).

Thomas Wolf’s career has spanned more than five decades. After making his debut as flute soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the age of sixteen, he spent fourteen seasons as flutist and company manager of his uncle Boris Goldovsky’s touring opera company. He also performed chamber music concerts with leading musicians in the United States and Canada. As artistic director of Bay Chamber Concerts, he produced over a thousand concerts and participated in the creation of both a community music school and Fox Islands Concerts. He is the author of numerous books including The Nightingale’s Sonata and Musical Gifts. His popular classes and seminars at Harvard University and throughout the country have been supplemented more recently by on-line courses reaching tens of thousands of students in over a hundred countries. Patrick Doane received his bachelors and masters degrees from Juilliard and is completing his doctorate at the Graduate Center, CUNY, in New York City. Since moving to New Haven in 2017, he has played in the New Haven Symphony and the Hartford Symphony, has served as concertmaster, appeared as soloist with the orchestra, and has performed in recitals throughout the northeast. Anastasia Antonacos is a former member of the full-time piano faculty at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. With a master’s degree and a doctorate in piano performance from Indiana University in Bloomington, she is a faculty member at the University of Southern Maine School of Music and a founding director of 240 Strings. She performs regularly around New England as a member of the Portland Piano Trio, which has been chosen for multiple residencies at Avaloch Farm Institute. She is Artistic Director of Fox Islands Concerts.