Office: 36 Main Street
Campus: 137 Pleasant Street
Mailing: P.O.Box 648 Blue Hill, ME 04614
Office: 207-374-2811
Tickets: 207-374-2203
In addition to being its namesake, Franz Kneisel’s passion for chamber music is the heart and soul of Kneisel Hall.
Kneisel Hall offers two distinct programs for music students and young professional artists.
The season returns with the best of chamber music. Join us June 28 to August 25.
We look forward to sharing a full slate of Friday and Sunday concerts, Open Rehearsals, Master Classes, the ever-popular Young Artist Concert series, and more!
Your donation supports our musicians and the music they make.
2023-2024 season highlights include appearances with Chameleon Arts Ensemble and the Aletheia Piano Trio, the world premiere of Kenji Bunch’s Sketches for Mr. South presented by The Juilliard School, and a performance of the Samuel Adams Chamber Concerto with conductor Timothy Weiss and the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble. Recent performance highlights include recitals presented by Oberlin Conservatory, the Juilliard School, and Boston Conservatory featuring On the Blue Shore of Silence, a multimedia suite for violin, piano, electronics, and visual art by composers Gity Razaz, Gloria Justen, Sayo Kosugi, and artist Johanna Andruchovici (commissioned by Francesca dePasquale and co-commissioned by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society), a performance of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Violin Concerto with the Oberlin Orchestra, and the release of Gity Razaz’s Duo for Violin and Piano on her debut album for BIS records, recorded with pianist Scott Cuellar.
Since her debut as soloist at age 9 touring Spain with the Main Line Chamber Orchestra, Francesca has appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras, including the Riverside Philharmonic, Gustav Mahler Orchestra, the Bach Festival of Philadelphia, Colburn Orchestra, Galesburg Symphony, Peninsula Symphony, and Santa Cruz Symphony. As recitalist, she has collaborated with artists Meng-Chieh Liu, Natalie Zhu, John Root, and Reiko Uchida on series such as the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, National Sawdust, Rutgers University, the University of Pennsylvania, California Music Center, and the Perlman Music Program.
An active chamber musician, Francesca has performed with renowned artists Adrian Brendel, Paul Coletti, Thomas Cooley, Jennifer Frautschi, Kim Kashkashian, Nicholas Kitchen, Ronald Leonard, Robert Levin, Pavel Nersessian, Merry Peckham, Itzhak Perlman, Jeffrey Sykes, Roger Tapping, Richard Todd, Donald Weilerstein, and Helena Winkelman. Francesca is a member of the artist roster for Manhattan Chamber Players and Noree Chamber soloists, and performs frequently with Marinus Ensemble and Chameleon Arts Ensemble. Additionally, she has performed for the Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth, Open Chamber Music at IMS Prussia Cove, Friends of Chamber Music (Reading, PA), An Appalachian Summer Festival’s Broyhill Chamber Ensemble, Chesapeake Chamber Music, Heifetz International Music Institute, Music at Bunker Hill, 23Arts Initiative, Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, Music in the Vineyards, Olympic Music Festival, Music@Menlo, Colburn Chamber Music Society, and the Perlman Music Program. Additionally, she has collaborated with dancers Isabella Boylston and James Whiteside for the Fall for Dance Festival alongside composer Stefan Levin, as well as performed with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Brooklyn based orchestral collective The Knights, and A Far Cry.
Francesca is the violinist of the Aletheia Piano Trio alongside pianist Fei-Fei and cellist Juliette Herlin. Formed in 2013 at the Juilliard School, the trio gave debut performances at the Rose Studio and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center in New York and the Terrace Theater at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The Aletheia Piano Trio has performed for the Dame Myra Hess Series (Chicago, IL), Shenson Chamber Music Concerts (Washington, D.C.), PLAY the Classics at Bethel Woods (Bethel, NY), Friends of Chamber Music (Reading, PA), Macon Concert Association at Wesleyan College (Macon, GA), Concerts in the Barn (Quilcene, WA), Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach (Palm Beach, FL), Saint Vincent College Concert Series (Latrobe, PA), Shandelee Music Festival (Livingston Manor, NY), and the Busan Maru International Music Festival (Busan, Korea), which included Beethoven Triple Concerto with the Gustav Mahler Orchestra and conductor Wilson Ng. Additionally, the trio has toured China in 2018 and 2019, performing at Poly Theatres throughout the country. Recent media highlights include a live recital broadcast for WFMT (Chicago) as well as several broadcasts on Performance Today of Haydn Trio No. 39 in G major, recorded live in performance for the Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach. Additionally, the trio has recently released two video recordings of the Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel piano trio and Schumann Phantasiestücke Op. 88, both available on YouTube.
Francesca is a member of the violin faculty at Oberlin Conservatory of Music as well as the Juilliard School Pre-College Program. Additionally, she is a member of the violin faculty at the Heifetz International Music Institute (where she also serves as Artistic Advisor), recently taught as violin faculty for the Perlman Music Program Israel residency, and was a masterclass artist for the Starling-DeLay Symposium. Previously, Francesca served as the Starling Fellow teaching assistant to Itzhak Perlman from 2013-2016 and teaching assistant to Catherine Cho from 2013-2018 at the Juilliard School, as well as Visiting Assistant Professor at Oberlin Conservatory of Music during the Fall of 2018. A graduate of the Juilliard and Colburn Schools, Francesca studied with Itzhak Perlman, Catherine Cho, and Robert Lipsett. Previous teachers include Hirono Oka, Charles Parker, and William dePasquale, with additional mentorship from Norman Carol and Arnold Steinhardt. Francesca performs on a 1968 Sergio Peresson violin.
Office: 36 Main Street
Campus: 137 Pleasant Street
Mailing: P.O.Box 648 Blue Hill, ME 04614
Office: 207-374-2811
Tickets: 207-374-2203