Kevin Park
Artistic Director
DATE
Fri. October 04, 2024 - 7:30 PM
South Delta Baptist Church, Delta
SUBSCRIPTION
PROGRAM
8 Pieces, Op. 39 for Violin and Cello
Reinhold Glière
I. Prelude
II. Gavotte
III. Berceuse
IV. Canzonetta
V. Intermezzo
VI. Impromptu
VII. Scherzo
VIII. Etude
Sonata for Cello and Piano in D minor, Op. 40
Dmitri Shostakovich
I. Allegro non troppo
II. Allegro
III. Largo
IV. Allegro
Piano trio No.2 in E flat major, Op.100
Franz Schubert
I. Allegro
II. Andante con moto
III. Scherzo. Allegro moderato - Trio
IV. Allegro moderato
VIDEO
ANDREW WAN
Andrew Wan was named concertmaster of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal (OSM) in 2008. As soloist, he has performed worldwide under conductors such as Rafael Payare, Kent Nagano, Maxim Vengerov, Vasily Petrenko, Bernard Labadie, Carlo Rizzi, Peter Oundjian, Xian Zhang, Michael Stern and James DePreist. He has played chamber music with artists such as the Juilliard Quartet, Vadim Repin, Marc-André Hamelin, Daniil Trifonov, Menahem Pressler, Jörg Widmann, Emanuel Ax, Johannes Moser, Arabella Steinbacher, James Ehnes, and Gil Shaham as a frequent artist at the Seattle Chamber Music, La Jolla Summerfest, Ottawa Chamberfest, Toronto Summer Music, Orford Musique, St. Prex, Colorado College and Olympic festivals. Wan performs regularly as guest concertmaster for the Pittsburgh, Houston, Indianapolis, National Arts Centre, Toronto and Vancouver Symphony orchestras.
Wan’s discography includes Grammy-nominated and Juno, Felix and Opus award-winning releases on the Analekta, Onyx, Bridge, and Naxos labels with the Seattle Chamber Music Society, New York’s Metropolis Ensemble, Charles Richard-Hamelin and the New Orford String Quartet. In the fall of 2015, he released a live recording of all three Saint-Saëns violin concerti with the OSM and Kent Nagano under the Analekta label to wide critical acclaim. His recent live album of works for violin and orchestra by Bernstein, Moussa and Ginastera with Nagano and the OSM won the 2021 Juno award for Best Classical Recording for Large Ensemble.
Wan enjoys a deep collaborative relationship with Canadian pianist Charles Richard-Hamelin, silver medalist of the 17th Chopin International Piano Competition, with whom he has recorded all ten Beethoven sonatas for piano and violin. Their second album of Beethoven's 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th Sonatas garnered the 2022 Juno award for Best Classical Recording for Small Ensemble. Their next recording featured the sonatas for violin and piano by Robert Schumann, released in the fall of 2022.
Wan graduated from The Juilliard School with Bachelor of Music, Master of Music and Artist Diploma degrees and is currently a member of the New Orford String Quartet, Associate Professor of Violin at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University, Artistic Director of the Prince Edward County Chamber Music Festival and for the 2017-18 season was Artistic Partner of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. In 2019, he won the Part-Time Teaching Award at the Schulich School of Music. (www.andrewviolin.com)
Andrew Wan performs on a 1744 Michel'Angelo Bergonzi violin, and gratefully acknowledges its loan from the David Sela Collection. He also enjoys the use of an 1860 Dominique Peccatte bow from Canimex.
ANTON NEL
Anton Nel, winner of the first prize in the 1987 Naumburg International Piano Competition at Carnegie Hall continues to enjoy a remarkable and multifaceted career that has taken him to North and South America, Europe, Asia, and South Africa.
Highlights of Mr. Nel’s four decades of concertizing include performances with the Cleveland Orchestra, the symphonies of Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, Seattle, Detroit, and London, among many others. (He has an active repertoire of more than 100 works for piano and orchestra.) An acclaimed Beethoven interpreter, Anton Nel has performed the concerto cycle several times, most notably on two consecutive evenings with the Cape Philharmonic in 2005.
Additionally, he has performed all-Beethoven solo recitals, complete cycles of the violin and cello works, and most recently a highly successful run of the Diabelli Variations as part of Moises Kaufman’s play 33 Variations.
He was also chosen to give the North American premiere of the newly discovered Concerto No. 3 in E Minor by Felix Mendelssohn in 1992. Two noteworthy world premieres of works by living composers include "Virtuoso Alice" by David Del Tredici (dedicated to, and performed by Mr. Nel at his Lincoln Center debut in 1988) as well as Stephen Paulus's Piano Concerto also written for Mr. Nel; the acclaimed world premiere took place in New York in 2003.
As a recitalist, he has appeared at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum, and the Frick Collection in New York, at the Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena, Davies Hall in San Francisco, and the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Internationally he has performed recitals in major concert halls in Canada, England (Queen Elizabeth and Wigmore Halls in London), France, Holland (Concertgebouw in Amsterdam), Japan (Suntory Hall in Tokyo), Korea, China, and South Africa.
A favorite at summer festivals he has performed at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival, as well as at the music festivals of Aspen and Ravinia (where he is on the artist-faculties), Vancouver, Cartagena, and Stellenbosch, among many others.
Possessing encyclopedic chamber music and vocal repertoire he has, over the years, regularly collaborated with many of the world's foremost string quartets, instrumental soloists, and singers. With acclaimed violinist Sarah Chang he completed a highly successful tour of Japan as well as appearing at a special benefit concert for Live Music Now in London, hosted by HRH the Prince of Wales.
Mr. Nel is also an acclaimed harpsichordist and fortepianist. In recent seasons he has performed annual recitals on both instruments, concertos by the Bach family, Haydn and Mozart with La Follia Austin Baroque as well as the Poulenc Harpsichord Concerto (Concert Champêtre) with the Austin Symphony.
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BION TSANG
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Cellist Bion Tsang has been internationally recognized as one of the outstanding instrumentalists of his generation: among his many honors are an Avery Fisher Career Grant, an MEF Career Grant and the Bronze Medal in the IX International Tchaikovsky Competition. Mr. Tsang earned a Grammy nomination for his performance on the PBS special A Company of Voices: Conspirare in Concert (Harmonia Mundi).
Mr. Tsang has appeared as soloist with such orchestras as the New York, Mexico City, Moscow, Busan and Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestras, the National, American, Pacific, Delaware and Atlanta Symphony Orchestras, the Saint Paul and Stuttgart Chamber Orchestras, the Louisville Orchestra and the Taiwan National Orchestra. Other highlights include making his solo debuts at Orchestra Hall in Chicago with Zubin Mehta and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, and at the Esplanade in Boston with the Longwood Symphony Orchestra. He also gave the U.S. premiere of the Enescu Symphonie Concertante, Op. 8 with the American Symphony Orchestra in Avery Fisher Hall and the U.S. premiere of Tan Dun’s Crouching Tiger Concerto for Cello Solo and Chamber Orchestra at Atlanta’s Symphony Hall.
As a chamber musician, Mr. Tsang has collaborated with such artists as violinists James Ehnes, Pamela Frank, Nai-Yuan Hu, Jaime Laredo, Cho-Liang Lin, Anne Akiko Meyers and Chee Yun, violist Michael Tree, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, bassist Gary Karr and pianist Leon Fleisher. He has been a frequent guest artist of the Boston Chamber Music Society, Brooklyn Chamber Music Society, Chamber Music International of Dallas, Fort Worth Chamber Music Society, Da Camera of Houston, Camerata Pacifica of Los Angeles and Bargemusic in New York and performed at such festivals as Marlboro Music Festival, the Cape Cod, Tucson, Portland and Seattle Chamber Music Festivals, the Bard Festival, Bravo! Colorado, Music in the Vineyards and the Laurel Festival of the Arts, where he served as Artistic Director for ten years.
Mr. Tsang’s discography includes three live concert recordings, each captured at Jordan Hall in Boston: Beethoven: Sonatas and Variations for Cello and Piano (Artek), Brahms: Cello Sonatas and Four Hungarian Dances (Artek), and Bion Tsang & Adam Neiman: Live at Jordan Hall (BHM). In 2017, Tsang released The Blue Rock Sessions (BHM), featuring eighteen virtuoso miniatures for cello and piano, with accompanying individual videos shot by Rodanti Films at the Blue Rock Artist Ranch and Studio in Wimberly, TX. In 2019, he released Dvorak/Enescu Cello Concertos (SONY Classical) with conductor Scott Yoo and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. In 2021, Tsang released Bach Cello Suites (SONY Classical), recorded at Bastyr Chapel in Seattle, WA, on the 1713 “Bass of Spain” Antonio Stradivari cello from the Fulton Collection. His latest album, Cantabile (Universal Music Group), with Yoo and the RSNO, was released in 2023.
A versatile collaborator, Mr. Tsang was featured on the soundtrack to Recapturing Cuba: An Artists Journey, a PBS documentary by Trinity Films, winning two Gold Medals—Director’s Choice and Artistic Excellence—at the Park City Film Music Festival, coincident to the Sundance Film Festival. He was a featured guest artist on the KLRU-TV and PBS television production, A Company of Voices: Conspirare in Concert, filmed in Dell Hall at the Long Center for the Performing Arts in Austin, and aired nationally on PBS stations during their March 2009 pledge drives. Tsang has also been featured on KLRU-TV’s In Context recorded in the Austin City Limits studio, the first time classical musicians appeared in that space. A frequent collaborator with the Hong Kong City Contemporary Dance Company, he has performed solo cello onstage alongside the dancers in productions of There, After... (Kodaly Op. 8 Solo Sonata) and Plaza X (Bach Solo Suites). Tsang has been featured twice on the PBS Great Performances television docuseries Now Hear This in episodes “Beethoven’s Ghost” (2021) and “Schumann: Genius and Madness” (2023), which includes music and video footage from the making of Cantabile in Glasgow, Scotland.
Mr. Tsang made his professional debut at age eleven in two concerts with Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic. That same year he returned to perform two more concerts with Mehta and the Philharmonic. One of these performances was broadcast worldwide on the CBS Festival of Lively Arts television series. While still in his teens, he became the youngest cellist ever to receive a Gregor Piatigorsky Memorial Prize and the youngest recipient ever of an Artists International Award. He was also chosen as a Finalist of the NFAA’s Arts Recognition and Talent Search and subsequently as a Presidential Scholar in the Arts. At age nineteen, Tsang became the youngest cellist to win a prize in the VIII International Tchaikovsky Competition. He has been featured on America Online as CultureFinder’s “Star Find of the Week,” on the Internet Cello Society as “Artist of the Month,” and most recently in print in the book 21st-Century Cellists.
Born in Michigan of Chinese parents, Bion Tsang began piano studies at age six and cello at age seven. The following year, he entered The Juilliard School. Tsang received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University and his Master of Musical Arts degree from Yale University, where he studied with Aldo Parisot. His other principal cello teachers have included Ardyth Alton, Luis Garcia-Renart, William Pleeth, Channing Robbins, and Leonard Rose.
Mr. Tsang resides in Austin, TX, where he is Division Head of Strings and holds the Joe R. & Teresa Lozano Long Chair in Cello at the Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music at The University of Texas at Austin. He was the recipient of the Texas Exes Teaching Award after just his first year of service and soon after was named “Instrumentalist of the Year” by the Austin Critics Table. He has also served as visiting professor at Indiana University in Bloomington. In his spare time, Bion helps his family run the Paul J. Tsang Foundation, a nonprofit organization named in honor of Bion's father and formed to help facilitate educational or career opportunities for promising students and professionals in the arts and sciences. Most of all, he enjoys spending time with his three children: Bailey, Henry and Maia.
Mr. Tsang plays on a Wayne Burak workbench series cello made in April 2011.