A Concert for the New Year

Boston Landmarks Orchestra

Boston Landmarks Orchestra builds community through great music. Landmarks produces free concerts and musical events across the greater Boston area. Increasing access to music for everyone is at the core of all its programming. Between 2018 and 2023, 70% of the repertoire Landmarks performed was written by composers of color or women. The orchestra intentionally promotes artists and targets audiences that have been historically excluded from orchestral music. Landmarks was founded in 2001 and began its signature summer concert series at the DCR Hatch Memorial in 2007. The orchestra also performs community concerts at local venues in neighborhoods such as Roxbury, Dorchester, and Jamaica Plain.

CHRISTOPHER WILKINS was appointed Music Director of the Boston Landmarks Orchestra in the spring of 2011. Since then, he has expanded the orchestra’s mission of making great music accessible to the whole community. He has also helped develop the orchestra’s Breaking Down Barriers initiative, making accessibility a priority in all aspects of the orchestra’s activities.

Mr. Wilkins also serves as Music Director of the Akron Symphony. As a guest conductor, Mr. Wilkins has appeared with many of the leading orchestras of the United States, including those of Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco. Previously, Mr. Wilkins served as Music Director of the Orlando Philharmonic, the San Antonio Symphony, and the Colorado Springs Symphony.

He has served as associate conductor of the Utah Symphony, assisting Joseph Silverstein; assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra under Christoph von Dohnányi; conducting assistant with the Oregon Symphony under James DePreist; and was a conducting fellow at Tanglewood. He was winner of the Seaver/NEA Award in 1992.

Born in Boston, Mr. Wilkins earned his bachelor’s degree from Harvard College in 1978. He received his master of music degree at Yale University in 1981, and in 1979 attended the Hochschule der Künste in West Berlin as a recipient of the John Knowles Paine traveling fellowship. As an oboist, he performed with many ensembles in the Boston area, including the Berkshire Music Center Orchestra at Tanglewood, and the Boston Philharmonic under Benjamin Zander.

Violin I

Greg Vitale, Concertmaster

Christine Vitale

Heidi Braun-Hill

Violin II

Paula Oakes, Principal

Colin Davis

Viola

Kenneth Stalberg, Principal

Abigail Cross

Cello

Rafael Popper-Keizer, Acting Principal

Jennifer Lucht

Bass

Robert Lynam, Principal

Flute

Lisa Hennessy, Principal

Rachel Braude

Oboe

Andrew Price, Principal

Clarinet

Rane Moore, Principal

Margo McGowan

Bassoon

Lecolion Washington, Acting Principal

Horn

Kevin Owen, Principal

Whitacre Hill

Trumpet

Dana Oakes, Principal

Harp

Amanda Romano Foreman, Acting Principal

Personnel Manager

Christopher Ruigomez

Librarian

Andres Almirall

Arranger

David Kempers

Guest Artists

Credit: Robert Torres

American violinist Thomas Lee Cooper’s passion for music and the violin began at an early age, studying piano with his mother alongside his sister, before subsequently taking up the violin. Since then, Cooper has performed as a soloist in several countries across continents, including Canada, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands, and in such venues as Carnegie Weill Hall in New York City, Severence Hall in Cleveland, Museo Stradivari in Cremona and the Opera House in Tel Aviv. Cooper has performed concerti with the Colorado College Festival Orchestra, the Coeur D’Alene Symphony Orchestra, the Credo Baroque Orchestra, the Bar Harbor Music Festival Orchestra, and the Middlesex Chamber Orchestra among others, and has been broadcasted on WCRB (Boston), WHRB (Harvard), WCVL (Cleveland), and Venice Classical Radio (VCR).

Cooper is a laureate of several prizes and competitions, such as the Naftzger, Washington, and Coeur D’Alene Competitions and most recently the Cremona International Competition, at which he received the First Prize.

As a chamber musician, Cooper has had the fortune of sharing the stage with such groups and individuals as the Oberlin Trio, the Jupiter String Quartet, David Bowlin, Amir Eldan, and Evgeny Sinaiski. He is a founding member of the Tristan Trio, alongside pianist Aljoša Jurinić, and cellist Tyler James.

With a love of conductor-less ensemble playing, Cooper has appeared as a guest musician with many of the finest chamber orchestras in the country, including the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and A Far Cry. He has spent his summers performing at Keshet Eilon in Israel, the Mozarteum Summer Academy in Salzburg, Nagold Sommermusik in Bavaria and Festival Orford Musique in Quebec.

In the 2025 – 2026 season, Cooper appears regularly in concert as a soloist and chamber musician, with engagements to include appearances with the Boston Landmarks Orchestra, the Bar Harbor Music Festival Orchestra, and at Museo Stradivari in Cremona, and Scena Amadeo in Zagreb.

A native of the Boston area, Cooper received his early training from the late Hungarian violinist and musicologist, Stephen Erdely. He received his formal training through scholarships at the New England Conservatory and Oberlin Conservatory.

Cooper performs on a “Januarius Gaglianus 1751” on generous loan from a private collection.

Podium Note

by Christopher Wilkins

Over the past several years, the Boston Landmarks Orchestra has made a tradition of presenting concerts in January. Past themes have included Three Kings celebrations—particularly meaningful in Boston’s Latin communities—and reflections on the spirit of renewal that accompanies the new year. This year, we turn to themes of hope, goodwill, and humor—qualities that resonate throughout the program, but especially in the opening and closing music by Vaughan Williams. We’re also thinking of America’s anniversary year: both Mozart’s Symphony in D and Joseph Bologne’s Violin Concerto were composed 250 years ago.

We’re excited to collaborate with Thomas Cooper, a terrific musician who is Boston-born and educated, and with whom we’ve hoped to work for many years. He solos in two contrasting works, a Classical concerto and a Romantic showpiece. Thomas has a special interest in the music of Joseph Bologne, and brings with him an authoritative new edition he has prepared of Bologne’s best-known violin concerto.

Bologne’s biography is astonishing, and familiar to many by now. One of the premiere violinists of his day, he led one of Paris’ two greatest orchestras at the time that Mozart performed with the other. But Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges was equally renowned in French aristocratic circles, and acclaimed as one of the greatest fencers of his generation. He was about a decade older than Mozart, and appears to have had an influence on Mozart’s writing. At one time, they lived under the same roof in Paris. Thomas will relate this story, and more.

Ambassador Program

Started in 2022, the Ambassador Program aims to seasonally employ enthusiastic, music-loving folks from a variety of backgrounds, representing the diversity of Boston’s neighborhoods. With 54% of our Ambassadors speaking more than one language—including Spanish, Portuguese, and French—they help spread the word of Boston Landmarks Orchestra to a vast number of Boston communities, including Roxbury, Jamaica Plain, East Boston and more. From promoting our concerts in their own neighborhoods, to helping patrons both new and familiar navigate the Esplanade, our Ambassadors are here to engage as many people as possible, promoting Boston Landmarks Orchestra’s mission of building community through great music.

THANK YOU
to our many donors and supporters.

Click here for current list of donors

Special thanks to Directors, Advisors, Musicians and Staff who make our work possible.

Click here for a list of Board Members

Share With Us!

Tag us @LandmarksOrch

Use the hashtags #LandmarksOrchestra #Landmarks2026

The Wasps: Ballet & Final Tableau		Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958)
Umoja		Valerie Coleman (b. 1970)
Ye, Who Seek the Truth		Julia Perry (1924–1979) arranged by Jannina Norpoth
Symphony in D major, KV 196 & 121		Wolfgang Amadè Mozart (1756–1791)
	Allegro molto Andantino grazioso Allegro
Violin Concerto in A major, Op. 5 No. 2		Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745–1799)
	Allegro moderato Largo Rondeau
Thomas Cooper, violin
Präludium and Allegro		Fritz Kreisler (1875–1962)
Thomas Cooper, violin
The Wasps Overture		Vaughan Williams

Run Time

Boston Landmarks Orchestra

Guest Artists

Podium Note

Ambassador Program

THANK YOU to our many donors and supporters.

THANK YOU
to our many donors and supporters.