Master Class with Shmuel Ashkenasi - February 3, 2014

David Finckel and Wu Han, Artistic Directors

MASTER CLASS WITH SHMUEL ASHKENASI Monday, February 3, 2014 at 11:00 AM Daniel and Joanna S. Rose Studio

www.ChamberMusicSociety.org

The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center 70 Lincoln Center Plaza, 10th Floor New York, NY 10023 212-875-5788 www.chambermusicsociety.org

The Chamber Music Society’s education and outreach programs are made possible, in part, with support from the Colburn Foundation, Consolidated Edison Company, Hearst Fund, The Frank and Helen Hermann Foundation, Alice Ilchman Fund, Newman’s Own Foundation, The Khalil Rizk Fund, Tiger Baron Foundation, The Helen F. Whitaker Fund, and The Winston Foundation. Public funds are provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.

MASTER CLASS WITH SHMUEL ASHKENASI Monday, February 3, 2014 at 11:00 AM

RICHARD STRAUSS

Sonata in E-flat major for Violin and Piano, Op. 18 (1887-88)

(1864-1949)

CHLOÉ KIFFER, VIOLIN; DOMINIC CHELI, PIANO

ROBERT SCHUMANN (1810-1856)

JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897)

Sonata No. 1 in A minor for Violin and Piano, Op. 105 (1851) XIAO WANG, VIOLIN; MIN YOUNG KANG, PIANO

Sonata in G major for Violin and Piano, Op. 78 (1878-79) SIRENA HUANG, VIOLIN; XIAOHUI YANG, PIANO

Shmuel Ashkenasi will appear on the CMS Eloquent Masterworks program on Friday, February 7 at 7:30 PM in Alice Tully Hall.

Please turn off cell phones, pagers, and other electronic devices.

Photographing, sound recording, or videotaping this performance is prohibited.

Today’s master class is being streamed live at www.ChamberMusicSociety.org/WatchLive

about

SHMUEL ASHKENASI

Violinist Shmuel Ashkenasi has performed as soloist with many leading orchestras, such as those of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, Berlin, London, Moscow, and Tokyo. He has been the choice of many of the world’s most distinguished conductors, such as Stokowski, Böhm, Kempe, Leinsdorf, and Kubelik. His recording of the Paganini Violin Concertos Numbers 1 and 2, with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra on the Deutsche Grammophon label, is still available after more than 50 years. In 1969, he formed the famed Vermeer Quartet and remained its first violinist throughout the quartet’s 39-year career. With performances in practically every major city and prestigious music festival in North and

meet today’s

South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia, the Vermeer Quartet achieved international stature as one of the world’s finest classical music ensembles. Mr. Ashkenasi began his musical training at the Music Academy of Tel Aviv in the class of legendary pedagogue Ilona Feher. He arrived in the United States in 1958 and studied with Efrem Zimbalist at the Curtis Institute of Music. He later won first prize in the Merriweather Post Competition in Washington, D.C., was a finalist in the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, and captured second prize at the 1962 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. He is also a noted pedagogue and is currently a professor at the Curtis Institute of Music and Bard College.

PERFORMERS

20-year-old pianist Dominic Cheli of St. Louis, Missouri has performed Bach’s D minor Piano Concerto with the St. Louis Chamber Orchestra, and at the Innsbrook Institute with members of the St. Louis Symphony. Mr. Cheli performed Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the Webster University Symphony Orchestra and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Gateway Festival Orchestra. Mr. Cheli has participated in the Aspen Music Festival and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. He is a recipient of the President’s Merit Scholarship, the G.A. Jr. and Kathryn M. Buder Scholarship, and the Bright Flight Scholarship. He has performed in master classes with renowned musicians such as Orli Shaham, Richard

Goode, Claude Frank, Joseph Kalichstein, Stephen Hough, Clive Greensmith, Sylvia Rosenberg, and Yoheved Kaplinsky. He also performed for Jeremy Denk at the Rose Studio as part of the CMS master class series. He has performed with pianist Orli Shaham in her concert series “Baby Got Bach” and has been featured on the national radio show “From the Top.” Mr. Cheli has been awarded 1st prize in numerous competitions, including St. Louis Chamber Orchestra’s 2009 Young Artist Competition, Webster University Symphony Orchestra’s 2008 Concerto Competition, and the 2007 St. Louis Italian-American Federation’s Piano Competition. He also placed 3rd in the 2008 MTNA National Junior Division

Competition, and received the Audience Prize and 2nd Prize in the 2008 IIYM International Piano Competition.

Mr. Cheli is currently pursuing a bachelor of music in piano performance at the Manhattan School of Music under the tutelage of André-Michel Schub.

Praised by the Hartford Courant as “the first real virtuoso from the text-message age,” violinist Sirena Huang made her orchestra solo debut with the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra at age nine. Since then, she has performed in 13 countries across 3 continents and has been featured as soloist with more than 40 orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Staatskapelle Weimar in Germany, Russian Symphony Orchestra, New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Aspen Sinfonia, Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra, Corpus Christi Symphony Orchestra, and many others. She performed as a guest artist at the Aspen Music Festival, Eastern Music Festival, Verbier Music Festival, Harriman-Jewell Series, Sarasota Arts Series, Albuquerque Chamber Music Festival, South Windsor Artist Series, and “The Great Music for a Great City” series in New York City, among others.

Ms. Huang was invited to perform during the ceremony in which the Humanitarian Award was presented to President Sarkozy of France. In addition, she received the honor of playing for His Majesty King Abdullah II of Jordan at the 2007 World Peace Conference in Petra alongside distinguished guests such as Elie Wiesel and 30 other Nobel Prize Laureates. Also in 2007, under the invitation of former Czech Republic President Havel, she played in the Opening Ceremony of “Forum 2000 World Conference” in Prague. In 2006, she was

invited to be a guest speaker at the TED Conference held in California. Ms. Huang was the First Prize Gold Medalist of the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians held in Korea in 2009.

More recently, she was the First Prize Winner and recipient of the Audience Award in the 2011 Cooper International Competition as well as the Hannloser Prize Winner for Violin at the Verbier Music Festival in Switzerland. Ms. Huang was named the first Artist-in-Residence of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra for 20112014. Ms. Huang is currently a sophomore undergraduate at The Juilliard School and studies violin with Stephen Clapp and Sylvia Rosenberg.

Pianist Min Young Kang has performed in concerts as a collaborative pianist and a chamber musician in Weill Hall at Carnegie, Merkin Hall in New York City, Château de Fontainebleau in France, Sejong M Theater, Sejong Chamber Hall, and Kumho Recital Hall in Korea among others. She recently collaborated with the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music and Seoul National University in concerts and appeared as a collaborative pianist in music festivals such as Fontainebleau Music Festival, Music Academy of the West, Manhattan Summer Voice Festival, and Sejong International Music Festival.

Ms. Kang is a recipient of numerous awards including 2nd prize at the Artur Balsam Duo Competition, Prix Special du Directeur and the Prix du Musique de Chamber from Ecoles d’Art Americaines de Fontainebleau, President Award of the Manhattan School of Music, the Renee and Richard Hawley scholarship, and the Arno Drucker scholarship. She holds a bachelor of music in piano performance from Yonsei University in Korea, and a master of music degree in collaborative piano from the

Eastman School of Music. Ms. Kang is currently a doctoral candidate studying collaborative piano under the guidance of Heasook Rhee at the Manhattan School of Music.

French violinist Chloé Kiffer was born to a family of musicians and started playing the violin at the age of six. She entered the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique of Paris at the age of 15 and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in violin performance. She earned an artist diploma after graduating the Hochschule für Musik Saar in Germany. Ms. Kiffer has won several awards including first prize with top honors at the Bundeswettbewerb Jugend Musiziert in Germany, second prize in the international violin competition Yang Dang in China in 2004, and first prize in the Alois Kottmann international competition in Germany in 2007.

Additionally, Ms. Kiffer won second prize in the Lions Club Competition in Germany in 2008, SACEM prize and the special award EMCY in the European Competition for Young Soloists in Luxemburg, 2010, first prize in the international competition Richard Bellon in Germany, 2011, and the prestigious prix de la vocation from the Bleustein-Blanchet Foundation in 2012. Most recently, Ms. Kiffer won the 2013 Eisenberg-Fried String Concerto Competition at the Manhattan School of Music where she performed the Stravinsky Concerto in their opening concert under Maestro George Manahan in October. Ms. Kiffer has taken part in many international music festivals including the Kronberg Academy, the International Music Session in Holland, the Keshet Eilon Music Center in Israel and the Young Artist Program in Canada. She has participated in master classes with Pinchas Zukerman, Robert Mann, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Lara Lev,

Maxim Vengerov, Ivry Gitlis, Edward Grach, Pavel Vernikov, and Midori. Ms. Kiffer is currently attending the Manhattan School of Music where she is pursuing a master’s degree with Patinka Kopec and Pinchas Zukerman.

In 2012, violinist Xiao Wang became the first Chinese violinist to win the Szigeti International Violin Competition.

Mr. Wang performed with the Kodály Philharmonic Orchestra during its Budapest Spring Festival as well as with the Gewandhaus Academisches Orchester in the Gewandhaus Leipzig, Germany. He was heard in live performances on Houston Public Radio’s “Front Row” series and also performed under the baton of Maestro Andreas Ligeti in Hungary’s Béla Bartók National Concert Hall and in New York as part of the Young Music Forum Series.

Mr. Wang has collaborated with the American String Quartet, members of the Mendelssohn String Quartet and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. As first prize winner of the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Young Artists competition, Mr. Wang performed as soloist with the Texas Music Festival Orchestra conducted by Maestro Lavard Skou Larsen. Xiao Wang began studying at the Central Conservatory in Beijing with Professor Wei-dong Tong at age 10, later studying at the Curtis Institute of Music with Joseph Silverstein. He has played in master classes for Claude Frank, Midori, Cho-Liang Lin, Arnold Steinhardt and Pamela Frank. Mr. Wang is currently a full scholarship student at Manhattan School of Music where he studies with Lucie Robert.

Pianist Xiaohui Yang was born in Liaoning, China and has performed across the United States and internationally. In 2014, she will be appearing with the

New Jersey Symphony Orchestra under conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali. In 2013, she performed in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, on a chamber music tour in San Francisco and South Korea as a member of Curtis on Tour, and was invited to high schools in Milwaukee for solo recitals and presentations. She performed violin/piano duo recitals in Hawaii in 2012. Ms. Yang has worked with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra under conductor Andrews Sill, and the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, conducted

by Michael Stern and David Hayes. Ms. Yang has participated in several music festivals including Tanglewood Music Center in 2013 where she held Billy Joel Keyboard Fellowship, Taos School of Music in 2011, and was invited to give a solo recital at the Shenyang Foreign Culture Music Festival in 2010. She also performed at the Beethoven Institute in 2009, and the Third Beijing International Music Festival and Academy in 2008.

Ms. Yang has participated in master classes with Emanuel Ax, Peter Serkin, Jerome Lowenthal, Gary Graffman, Richard Goode, Jonathan Biss, Seymour

Lipkin, and Pavlina Dokovska. In 2013, Ms. Yang was awarded First Prize in the American Protege International Piano and Strings Competition and, in 2012, obtained Second Prize in the Piano Arts North American Biennial Competition.

In 2007, she was awarded Second Prize in the Fourteenth Hong Kong Piano Open Competition and received Third Prize in the 2004 International Chopin Piano Competition in Asia. Ms. Yang was also awarded Second Prize in the Second Toyama Asian Youth Music Competition in 2003. Ms. Yang came to the United States in 2007 as a student at the Attached Music School of Shenyang Conservatory of Music where she studied piano with Danwen Wei, Xianwei Cheng and Rosemary Platt. In 2008, she was awarded the Michael and Cecilia lacovella Capuzzi Memorial Fellowship to study with Ignat Solzhenitsyn at Curtis Institute of Music for her bachelor of music degree, obtaining the Festorazzi Prize upon her graduation in 2013. She is currently studying piano with Robert McDonald and pursuing a master of music at The Juilliard School, where she holds Cecilia Felman Piano Scholarship.

upcoming

EVENTS

INSIDE CHAMBER MUSIC

Wednesday, February 5, 2014, 6:30 PM • Daniel and Joanna S. Rose Studio Focus on Beethoven’s Quartet in F minor for Strings, Op. 95, “Serioso”

ELOQUENT MASTERWORKS

Friday, February 7, 2014, 7:30 PM • Alice Tully Hall Featuring works by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Schubert

Pre-Concert Lecture with Michael Parloff in the Rose Studio

6:15 PM • $10; $8 for concert ticket holders

BEETHOVEN REFLECTED

Sunday, February 9, 2014, 5:00 PM • Alice Tully Hall Featuring works by Beethoven and Mendelssohn

Pre-Concert Lecture with Michael Parloff in the Rose Studio

3:45 PM • $10; $8 for concert ticket holders