Daniel Hope Joins the Garth Newel Piano Quartet

July 27, 2025 I Garth Newel Piano Quartet

What follows is a personal account from Isaac Melamed, Garth Newel Piano Quartet cellist.

I met Daniel Hope when he became the Music Director and Concertmaster of my beloved New Century Chamber Orchestra in 2018. Since then we’ve enjoyed many wonderful seasons full of incredible music-making and artistic expression. In addition to our four San Francisco Bay Area concert sets each year, we toured Daniel’s home country of Germany twice, where he is a superstar of superstars. Among many highlights (including enormous concert halls overflowing with enthusiastic audiences demanding multiple encores per concert) was a performance in Elmshorn’s ‘Riding Hall’ where horses were literally members of the audience! (You can read all about our 2023 Germany tour here: https://www.ncco.org/news/germany-tour-2023 )

Daniel’s accolades are many, and much too numerous to get into in this short post, but I do want to take a second to speak to Daniel’s personal side and say what a wonderful human being he is. He loves to laugh, and delights in listening to others and sharing incredible stories from his treasure trove of musical experiences. He has a beautiful family and somehow finds time amidst his busy touring life to spend his most cherished time with his wife and children. I had dreamed of bringing Daniel to Garth Newel to meet Teresa, Jeannette, and Fitz, and to play chamber music at our beautiful hall in the Allegheny Mountains (which in fact was itself a former Arabian Horse-riding stable!). This dream somehow became a reality when Steve Wogaman joined our team and made bringing Daniel to Garth Newel one of his top priorities.

We are all in for an incredible treat on August 22nd and 23rd. Perhaps the most beloved chamber music work in Garth Newel’s grand history, Dvorak’s epic Piano Quintet, will be explored for the first time with Daniel Hope and the Garth Newel Piano Quartet. The monumental Franck Violin Sonata, works by Schulhoff, Mahler, and our very own Sostice, by David Biedenbender (written for the Garth Newel Piano Quartet and inspired by the beauty of Garth Newel itself), round out the weekend’s programs.

I’m hearing that much of the county hotels and B&B’s are booked for the weekend, due in part to the incredible buzz surrounding Daniel Hope’s arrival. Fortunately, we have a wonderful deal going on where guests who purchase tickets for the weekend’s concerts receive a 25% discount code for accommodations at the Omni Homestead resort just down the road.

I look forward to seeing you there, and to us all becoming part of a new Daniel Hope and Garth Newel story!