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featuring

Joseph Conyers, Bass

Jessica Petrasek, Flute

program

Pre-Show Selections

Scott Joplin, arr, Alexander Timofeev | The Entertainer | Bethena | Maple Leaf Rag

Traditional, arr., F. Kreisler | Allegro Londonderry Air "Farewell to Cucullain"

Stephen Prutsman | Film Score for Buster Keaton’s “Seven Chances”

Program Notes

Buster Keaton’s Seven Chances

Tonight’s program turns the clock back a century, to an era when the boundaries between concert hall, popular entertainment, and the emerging art of cinema were still fluid. The year is 1925; F. Scott Fitzgerald has just published The Great Gatsby, The Harlem Renaissance saw a pivotal turning point, jazz is in full swing, and silent filmmaker Buster Keaton is at the height of his creative and commercial success. The ‘20s were roaring. With this quintessentially American program, we hope to give you a taste of an era that heard and felt music in a different way.

As you enter the Carver, Agarita performs Three Rags by Scott Joplin: The Entertainer, Bethena, and Maple Leaf Rag, newly arranged for this performance by composer Alexander Timofeev.

Joplin was the defining voice of ragtime, a musical language built on the irresistible tension between a steady, grounded pulse and melodies that dance playfully around it. By the turn of the twentieth century, works such as the Maple Leaf Rag and The Entertainer had helped bring ragtime into the center of American popular culture. Yet Joplin thought of his music as more than entertainment: he brought elegance, structural clarity, and compositional ambition to the form, eventually extending his musical language into ballet and opera.

Tonight, his music also serves as our entrance into the sound world surrounding early American cinema. Rather than presenting the rags in their original solo-piano form, Agarita commissioned Alexander Timofeev to reimagine them for our ensemble, allowing Joplin’s syncopated rhythms and lyrical melodies to bounce between different instruments.

Before the film begins, the mood shifts as we perform the traditional Irish melody known as the Londonderry Air, which has traveled through countless arrangements and associations, becoming especially familiar through the song “Danny Boy.” Violinist and composer Fritz Kreisler created his own arrangement, Farewell to Cucullain, for violin, cello, and piano, published in 1922, just three years before Seven Chances.

Kreisler’s treatment draws out the melody’s warmth and nostalgia, transforming a simple folk tune into an intimate piece of chamber music. For tonight’s performance, Agarita offers another transformation: the cello line is performed on double bass by our esteemed guest artist Joseph Conyers, Principal Bass of the Philadelphia Orchestra, alongside Sarah and Daniel.

Filmmaker Barbara Cigarroa introduces tonight’s feature and invites us to shift our attention from the concert stage to the screen. A Mexican-American writer and director from South Texas, Cigarroa has participated in the Sundance Institute Directors and Screenwriters Labs, and her films have screened at festivals including the New York Film Festival, Palm Springs, Aspen, and others.

Released in 1925, Seven Chances finds Buster Keaton playing Jimmie Shannon, a young man facing financial ruin who suddenly learns that he stands to inherit seven million dollars, but on one condition: he must be married by 7:00 p.m. on his twenty-seventh birthday. Unfortunately, that birthday is today.

What begins as a marriage proposal quickly becomes a race against the clock, escalating through misunderstandings, increasingly desperate attempts to find a bride, and eventually the kind of spectacular physical comedy for which Keaton remains legendary.

Keaton was one of silent cinema’s great visual storytellers. His famously impassive expression – the “Great Stone Face” – stands in comic opposition to a world that seems determined to become more chaotic around him. In Seven Chances, that contrast grows almost exponentially: an ordinary predicament expands into absurdity, then spectacle, and finally one of Keaton’s most memorable chase sequences.

Silent film was never truly silent; music was an essential partner to the images on screen, shaping pace, atmosphere, tension, sentiment, and comedy. Tonight, just over a century after Seven Chances first appeared in theaters, Agarita brings that relationship back to life. In addition to double bassist Joseph Conyers mentioned above, this spectacular arrangement by composer and pianist Stephen Prutsman features flute and piccolo parts, which tonight are played by one of our favorite artists – and Daniel’s twin sister – Jessica Petrasek. We are honored to invite Jessica back to San Antonio for this exhilarating program.

guest artists

Citizen musician, social entrepreneur, and youth advocate, Philadelphia Orchestra Principal Bass Joseph H. Conyers is a multi-faceted 21st-century artist whose innovative work on the stage, coupled with his life’s dedication to music education and access, has been recognized internationally. He was honored as a WHYY “Good Soul”in 2025, and in 2024 he was named The Philadelphia Orchestra’s Education and Community Ambassador, a newly endowed position. He joined The Philadelphia Orchestra in 2010 as assistant principal bass and served as acting associate principal bass from 2017 to 2023; he won the principal position in May 2023. Before joining The Philadelphia Orchestra, Mr. Conyers was a member of the Atlanta Symphony and the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra, and he began his orchestral career as principal bass of the Grand Rapids Symphony. He’s an alumnus of the Tanglewood Music Center, the Aspen Music Festival and School, Spoleto USA, the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, and the Brevard Music Center. A native of Savannah, Georgia, Mr. Conyers received an Honorary Doctor of Music Arts from the Cleveland Institute of Music in 2025 and the Malinda P. Sapp Legacy Award from the Grand Rapids Symphony in 2026. His numerous other accolades include the Sphinx Organization’s Medal of Excellence, its most prestigious recognition; the Theodore L. Kesselman Award from the New York Youth Symphony; the C. Hartman Kuhn Award from Yannick Nézet-Séguin and his own Philadelphia Orchestra; Musical America’s 30 Top Professionals; the Artist Teacher Award from the American String Teacher’s Association; and many high honors from the International Society of Bassists. He’s been featured in Ebony magazine (2007), and in 2023 he appeared on the cover of The Strad magazine after being named principal bass of The Philadelphia Orchestra, the first Black musician to hold a playing principal position in the Orchestra’s history. This title also likely makes him the first Black principal of a string section among the world’s greatest orchestras. In 2015 Mr. Conyers was the inaugural recipient of the Young Alumni Award from his alma mater, the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Harold Robinson, former principal bass of The Philadelphia Orchestra, and famed bass soloist Edgar Meyer. In 2021 Mr. Conyers’s broad-ranging career was featured on an episode of Jim Cotter’s Articulate on PBS, which highlighted his work as founder and vision advisor of Project 440, a thriving Philadelphia non-profit organization that has helped thousands of high school student use their interest in music to explore new pathways for themselves and ignite change in their communities. For 11 seasons he has been music director of Philadelphia’s famed All City Orchestra, which for nearly 100 years has showcased the top high school musicians in the School District of Philadelphia. He also serves on the. A 2004 Sphinx Laureate, Mr. Conyers has been a bass soloist with numerous orchestras and an artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center for many years. He is the artistic director and founder of Dubhe, a collective of some of the most influential chamber musicians who dedicate themselves to creating performances centered on authentic connections and inclusivity. He’s also performed chamber music all over the world with several of today’s most celebrated artists. An inaugural guest on a pilot taping of National Public Radio’s From the Top (1999), Mr. Conyers is the co-host of the podcast Tacet No More with his colleague Yumi Kendall, assistant principal cello of The Philadelphia Orchestra. The podcast is a landing pad for positive discussions about the classical music industry and the belief in the power of music to better humanity. A frequent guest clinician and public speaker presenting from Yale University to the Colburn School, Mr. Conyers is a sought-after pedagogue and music coach with former students in orchestras across the Americas and Europe. He currently serves on the double bass faculty of the Juilliard School and Temple University.

Known by his handle @weatherclef, Mr. Conyers maintains a significant social media presence. Mr. Conyers is immensely grateful for the musical mentors in his life not mentioned above: Rose Marie Smith, Lynne Tobin, David Warshauer, Dan Swaim, Kevin Mauldin, Paula Swart, Erin Freeman, Drew Cahoon, Aaron P. Dworkin, and Albert Laszlo. Mr. Conyers regularly performs on the “Zimmerman/Gladstone” 1802 Vincenzo Panormo bass, which he has affectionately named “Norma.” He also performs on an Aaron Reiley bass, which he commissioned in 2019, and which he has affectionately named “Miss Riley.”

Jessica Petrasek is Lecturer in Flute at Georgia State University in Atlanta. She has recently performed with the Atlanta, Cincinnati, and Detroit Symphony Orchestras, the EPIC Chamber Series, Classical Remix Festival, and on tour with the Kansas City Symphony at the Elbphilharmonie, Concertgebouw, and Berliner Philharmonie. Currently the tenured Assistant Principal Flute and Piccolo of the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra and Piccolo and Utility Flute of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra in Georgia, Jessica has previously held the positions of Principal Flute of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, Principal Flute of the Wichita Symphony Orchestra, Principal Flute of the Breckenridge Music Festival Orchestra, Piccolo of the Kansas City Symphony, Piccolo and Second Flute of the Central City Opera Orchestra, and Piccolo and Second Flute of the Sarasota Opera Orchestra. Jessica is a founding member of Hera Trio with oboist Lara Dahl and pianist Miya Sun. She and her husband, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Principal Percussionist Joe Petrasek, play together as the Petrasek Duo, and give performances and masterclasses all over the country.

Barbara Cigarroa is a Mexican-American filmmaker from South Texas. She holds an MFA in Screenwriting from Columbia University and a BA in English from Yale University. A storyteller, with a passion for social justice activism, and Hispanic narratives, Barbara’s work has been recognized worldwide on the festival circuit, and through individual grants and awards.

Cigarroa’s screenplay, EL OTRO LADO (The Other Side), was a featured project at IFP’s 2018 No Borders Co-Production Market, and was selected for the 2019 Sundance Institute Directors & Screenwriters Labs, the 2019 Hamptons Screenwriters Lab, is a winner of the 2019 SFFILM Westridge Grant, and was a winner of the the inaugural 2019 The Black List/Latinx List. Cigarroa was also the recipient of the Sundance Latinx Fellowship, Maja Kristin Directing Fellowship, and was celebrated by FILMMAKER MAGAZINE as one of the “Top 25 New Faces of Independant Film” in 2019.

EL OTRO LADO is to be Cigarroa’s first feature.

Cigarroa’s short film DIOS NUNCA MUERE had its world premiere at the 2018 New York Film Festival, where she was invited to be a member of the 2018 NYFF Artist Academy. DIOS NUNCA MUERE went on to screen at dozens of film festivals, including Palm Springs, Winterthur, Cartageña, Aspen, and IFF Boston where it won the Grand Jury Prize. Previous work, MARTA ROSA, was an official selection at dozens of international film festivals, including Austin, New Orleans, and Palm Springs, where it won Panavision’s “Best North American” short and IndieWire named it “Best of the Fest.”

Prior to her narrative work, Barbara volunteered as a documentary filmmaker in South Texas for non-profit companies focused on fighting for underprivileged community’s rights. Before this, Barbara mentored under renowned documentary filmmaker Albert Maysles (SALESMAN, GREY GARDENS, GIMME SHELTER).

Seven Chances English