Concerts @ First Presents
Atlanta Chamber Players Season closing concert
Atlanta Chamber Players and Concerts @ First Season Closing Concert Sunday, May 16th 2:00 P.M. Musicians Alcides Rodriguez, clarinet Helen Hwaya Kim, violin Catherine Lynn, viola Charae Krueger, cello Elizabeth Remy Johnson, harp Jens Korndöerfer, organ Elizabeth Pridgen, piano Daniel Tosky, bass Kenn Wagner, violin L’Histoire du Soldat – A Soldier’s Tale (1919, Switzerland) Marche du Soldat Le Violon du Soldat Un Petit Concert Tango – Valse – Ragtime Danse du Diable
Igor STRAVINSKY (1882-1971)
Alcides Rodriguez Helen Hwaya Kim Elizabeth Pridgen Café Music (2004, United States) Allegro Rubato, andante moderato Presto
Paul SCHOENFIELD (b. 1947)
Helen Hwaya Kim Charae Krueger Elizabeth Pridgen INTERMISSION
Kol Nidrei, Op. 47 (1880, England) Arr. for cello, harp & organ by H. Reimann & J. Korndoerfer
Max BRUCH (1838-1920)
Charae Krueger Elisabeth Remy Johnson Jens Korndoerfer
Rhapsody in Blue for Piano and Strings (1924, United States; arr. 2016)
George GERSHWIN (1898-1937) Arr. Louis Sauter
Helen Hwaya Kim Kenn Wagner Catherine Lynn Charae Krueger Daniel Tosky Elizabeth Pridgen
Program Notes Commentary by Edmund Trafford Igor Feodorovich Stravinsky Oranienbaum, 17 June 1882-Los Angeles, 6 April 1971 Igor Stravinsky was beyond any doubt the towering composer of the twentieth century. No other living composer came close to surpassing his achievement. There is no form to which he did not turn a masterful hand—opera, concerto, ballet, oratorio, symphony, chamber music—all are represented in the collected output of a long and extraordinarily productive live. Stravinsky was the son of Feodor Stravinsky, famed basso at the St. Petersburg Opera, and so was surrounded with French, German, and Italian opera from childhood. He began piano lessons at the age of nine, and progressed to studying the scores of Brahms, Wagner, and other major composers. If not precisely a professional musician, Stravinsky was certainly becoming a well-informed amateur. Despite his love of music, he was sent to study law at the University of St. Petersburg. Here he became friends with the son of composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (whose orchestral suite Scherherazade remains a perennial audience favorite), and ultimately sought out Rimsky-Korsakov’s advice in a choice of careers. Stravinsky studied privately with Rimsky-Korsakov until Rimsky-Korsakov’s death in 1908. The major work of this early period is the 1908 Fireworks, Opus 4, in whose orchestral flair and color he showed himself the outstanding of RimskyKorsakov; it was composed as a wedding present for Rimsky-Korsakov’s daughter. The period 1910-1913 is marked by the composition of a the great ballets for Serge Diaghilev—the brilliant Firebird, of course, then the charming Petrouchka, and finally the shattering Rite of Spring. World War I intervened, and Stravinsky’s style underwent a marked change. Gone were the pre-war exoticism and extravagance (Rite of Spring, for example required an orchestra with eight French horns). A new world demanded a new style, and in the next 35 years—from the 1918 ballet-pantomime The Soldier’s Tale through the 1952 opera The Rake’s Progress, a period which also includes the oratorio Oedipus Rex and the magnificent and moving Symphony of Psalms—Stravinsky embarked on the serios of masterpieces which came to be termed “Neoclassic.” These works stressed economy of style and the use of traditional forms (symphony, concerto, etc.) combined with an increasingly progressive musical language. Stravinsky lived long enough to come to terms with the 12-tone method of composition pioneered by Arnold Schoenberg, and he incorporated some of Schoenberg’s 12-tone techniques in his most important late works of the 1950s and 1960s.
L’Histoire du Soldat (The Soldier’s Tale) The Soldier’s Tale, a “narrative ballet in five scenes to be read, played, and danced,” was composed in 1918, as World War I was coming to a close. This little moralistic fable tells the story of how the devil leads astray a wandering soldier, homeward bound. The score owes its bitterness and biting irony to the widespread disillusionment which followed the Armistice. Stravinsky’s earlier and more famous ballets were perhaps more polished in workmanship and certainly more sophisticated in the choice of musical materials. Perhaps to make his point clearer in The Soldier’s Tale, he deliberately scaled down his medium and broadened his musical approach. And certainly, the choice of reduced instrumentation accepted the practical fact that during the course of the war, the great theatres and concert houses of Europe had suspended operations. Gone was the pre-war orchestral opulence of The Firebird and The Rite of Spring; in their place stood a racketing cabaret ensemble of seven musicians playing a waltz, a ragtime, and a tango. L’Histoire du Soldat was premiered in Lausanne, Switzerland, on 28 September 1918. The trio version for clarinet, violin, and piano was prepared by Stravinsky himself from the original score. During the summer of 1985, the Atlanta Chamber Players accompanied Boston’s Underground Railway Theatre in a new production of this work, which premiered at Atlanta’s Center for Puppetry Arts and toured to Pittsburgh and Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Times praised the Atlanta Chamber Players’ performance as “impeccably interpreted.”
Paul (b. Pinchas) Schoenfield Detroit, 24 January 1947Born in Detroit, Michigan in 1947, Paul Schoenfield writes music that combines classical, folk, and popular forms. Once an active concert pianist (who studied with the legendary Rudolf Serkin and has appeared on the acclaimed Music from Marlboro series), Schoenfield studied at Carnegie-Mellon University and received the degree Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Arizona. He is currently a professor of composition at the University of Michigan. His music is deeply infused with Jewish influences. He has lived on a kibbutz and spent most of the decade of the 1990s living in the Israeli city of Migdal Ha’emek, near Haifa. Speaking of his Trio for Violin, Clarinet, and Piano, he noted that he wanted “to create entertaining music that could be played at Hassidic gatherings as well as in the concert hall.” His habit of incorporating and assimilating folk materials into his work has been widely recognized. Noted music historian and commentator Klaus George Roy wrote in 1994 “Paul Schoenfield writes the kind of inclusive and welcoming music that gives eclecticism a good name. . . If Paul considers himself essentially a folk musician, it is surely a highly sophisticated one.” The composer himself has stated (perhaps somewhat alarmingly) that his work “is not the kind of music for relaxation, but the kind that makes people sweat; not only the performer, but the audience.”
He has received numerous commissions and been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Fund, the Bush Foundation, Meet the Composer, and Chamber Music America. Among his many recordings are Klezmer Rondos, a concerto for flute; the two-act opera The Merchant and the Pauper based on a classic Hassidic folk tale; Improvisations on Hassidic Folk Melodies for piano; Four Parables for piano and orchestra; and the song cycle Camp Songs, set to poems by Aleksander Kulisiewicz, who survived imprisonment during World War II at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Germany. Camp Songs was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2003. A companion work, Ghetto Songs, a set of six poems by Mordecai Gebirtig who was shot in the Krakow ghetto in 1942, was composed in 2008.
Café Music Café Music was commissioned by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and received its premiere in Minneapolis in January 1987, with Schoenfield himself performing the piano part. The composer has made the following comments concerning this work: “The idea to compose Café Music first came to me in 1985 after sitting in one night for the pianist at Murray’s Restaurant in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Murray’s employs a house trio that plays entertaining dinner music in a wide variety of styles. My intention was to write a kind of high-class dinner music—music which could be played at a restaurant, but might also (just barely) find its way into a concert hall. The work draws on many of the types of music played by the trio at Murray’s. For example, early 20th-century American, Viennese, light classical, gypsy, and Broadway styles are all represented. A paraphrase of a beautiful Chassidic melody is incorporated in the second movement.” Max Karl August Bruch Cologne, 6 January 1838-Friedenau, 2 October 1920 Bruch had a long and varied career as teacher, conductor, composer, and kapellmeister. He was born only ten years after the death of Beethoven, was a contemporary of Brahms, and managed to outlive Debussy. He was a careful and conservative composer out of step with the “new German school” which included composer Arnold Schoenberg and his students Anton von Webern and Alban Berg. His major compositions include three symphonies, three violin concertos, and two operas. Many of them are couched in simple idioms, sometimes including folk song material. In fact, Bruch’s study of folk music earned him a reputation as something of an authority in the field, and his scholarly researches spilled over more than once into his creative work. Notable examples are the Adagio on Celtic Melodies, Opus 56, the Songs and Dances on Russian and Swedish Folk Songs, Opus 79, and the Scottish Fantasy, Opus 46 (the work which immediately precedes Kol Nidrei.) It is possible that Bruch’s own interest in folk materials was a determining factor in the artistic development of England’s master folklorist-composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams, who studied with Bruch at the Berlin Academy in 1897-1898. Bruch’s first major post was as court kapellmeister to the Prince of Schwarzburg, a type of position in service to the nobility which was rapidly disappearing. He directed the Liverpool Philharmonic Society from 18801883 before becoming conductor at Breslau 1883-1890. In 1891, his increasing reputation as a composer earned him an appointment as professor of composition at the Berlin Academy, a post he held until his retirement in 1910.
Kol Nidrei, Opus 47 Bruch’s “adagio for violoncello based on a Hebrew melody” is probably his best-known work. The basis of the composition is the solemn Hebrew melody customarily chanted on the eve of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the highest holy day observed by Jews. Bruch’s treatment of this traditional chant is so convincing that a number of commentators assume Bruch’s Jewish heritage to be self-evident. Overlooking the fact that Bruch was the Protestant grandson of an eminent Lutheran minister. (Bruch later noted, “Even though I am a Protestant, as an artist I deeply felt the outstanding beauty of these melodies and therefore I gladly spread them through my arrangement.”) Kol Nidrei (“All Vows”) was composed during Bruch’s tenure as conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and was intended to honor Liverpool’s Jewish community. It was premiered in Leipzig on 20 October 1881. It opens with the solo cello solemnly intoning the unembellished chant melody. Variations expand on the original theme and lead to a secondary subject. The original melody is recalled and the work closes in an appropriately somber mood. The original orchestral setting was arranged by the composer for organ and harp, with the cello solo, completed in 1882.
George Gershwin Brooklyn, 9 September 1898-Hollywood, 11 July 1937 Though Gershwin’s name is nearly synonymous with American music, it is still sometimes fashionable to denigrate his serious works by calling them “popular,” as if to say that an attractive and appealing work is somehow of less artistic significance than one which is self-consciously weighty and pretentious. Thus, though Gershwin’s popularity has never been questioned, there remains a residue of opinion that his work was perhaps not really quite respectable as “serious” music. Perhaps a few examples of how other more “respectable” composers viewed Gershwin will disperse any lingering critical doubt. Maurice Ravel, for example, was an unapologetic admirer of Gershwin; at a 1928 musical gala whose guest list was studded with famous conductors, singers, and performers, Ravel refused to attend unless he could meet Gershwin there. Béla Bartók ordered all of Gershwin’s music as soon as it was available in Budapest during the 1920s. England’s Ralph Vaughan Williams said bluntly that “We must not make the mistake of thinking lightly of the art of Gershwin.” And the formidable progenitor of the 12-tone method of composition, Arnold Schoenberg, a friend of Gershwin’s and occasional guest at Gershwin’s Long Island estate, was so moved after Gershwin’s untimely death at the age of 39 that he orchestrated Gershwin’s Three Piano Preludes as a tribute. (Schoenberg’s high regard of Gershwin was reciprocated. Gershwin was an accomplished amateur painter, and the last completed work before his death was a portrait of Schoenberg.) The list could be easily expanded, but the point is that Gershwin’s greatness was recognized and respected by other composers whose own work was beyond any doubt “serious.” The career of George Gershwin—composer of “I Got Rhythm,” “Embraceable You,” and other immortal tunes rivalling in originality and artistry anything of Jerome Kern or Cole Porter—began modestly on New York’s East Side. He was all of ten years old before he started piano lessons, but his ability quickly became evident. By the time he was 16, he had decided upon the career of a composer—a jazz composer—and he told his piano teacher, “This is American music. This is the kind of music I want to write.” In 1919, his first certifiable “hit” song, “Swanee,” was made famous by Al Jolson, and a string of highly successful musical comedies followed in the early 1920s. But Gershwin was also a musician of serious intent who desired to reconcile jazz with “classical” music, or as he put it, “to bring Tin Pan Alley to Carnegie Hall.” In this desire he succeeded brilliantly.
Rhapsody in Blue
Gershwin’s first major “serious” commission came from Paul Whiteman, leader of the famous Whiteman jazz band. Whiteman had embarked on a series of concerts of “experiments in symphonic jazz.” The commission was offered in January of 1924. Gershwin worked feverishly under an almost impossible deadline, and the piano score of American Rhapsody was completed in less than a month, in time for Ferde Grofé, of Whiteman’s band, to orchestrate it for the 12 February 1924 premiere at New York’s Aeolian Hall. (Whiteman was also responsible for premiering Grofé’s own Grand Canyon Suite in November 1931.) Between the completion of the score and the first performance, American Rhapsody acquired the title by which we know it today—Rhapsody in Blue, a title suggested by George’s brother, Ira. Gershwin, the quintessential New Yorker, described this piece “as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America—of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our blues, our metropolitan madness.” With this premiere, Gershwin’s career as a “serious” American composer was launched. Rhapsody in Blue was hailed as “the first jazz symphony” and brought the young composer to the attention of conductor Walter Damrosch of the New York Symphony Orchestra. On the strength of this work, Damrosch commissioned a full-scale piano concerto from the 27-year-old composer. The Concerto in F received its Carnegie Hall premiere on 3 December 1925, the composer at the piano as soloist. Damrosch also premiered Gershwin’s An American in Paris on 13 December 1928. The original scoring of Rhapsody in Blue, by way of Ferde Grofé, was for a jazz orchestra of about two dozen musicians. Grofé was also responsible for the 1942 re-scoring for standard symphony orchestra and solo piano. An arrangement was created by Louis Sauter in 2016 for string quintet (incorporating the condensed orchestral material), and solo piano.
About the Artists Elisabeth Remy Johnson, harp Elisabeth Remy Johnson was appointed Principal Harpist of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in 1995. She holds the endowed Carl and Sally Gable Chair and also held the honorary UPS Community Service Chair from 2006-07. With the Orchestra, Remy Johnson has performed concertos by Debussy, Handel, Mozart and Ginastera. Her studies were with Ann Hobson Pilot in Boston and with Alice Chalifoux at the Salzedo Summer Harp Colony in Camden, Maine. She graduated from Harvard University Phi Beta Kappa with a double major in Music and French. Remy Johnson has recorded extensively with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, including a recording of Britten's Ceremony of Carols with Robert Shaw. Other recordings include a solo CD: Whirlwind, a flute and harp recording with Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Principal Flutist Christina Smith: Encantamiento, and most recently, a solo Christmas album entitled A Christmas Collection for solo harp.
In addition to frequent solo and chamber music recitals in the Atlanta area, Remy Johnson has performed with the Atlanta Chamber Players, the Carolina Chamber Music Festival, the Grand Teton Music Festival, and is a frequent guest at the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival. She has been a featured guest soloist at the Mid Atlantic Harp Festival and the International Harp Festival in Rio de Janeiro (2010, 2016). Remy Johnson teaches harp privately through the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s Talent Development Program and at several universities in the Atlanta area. She was co-founder and artistic director (2000-2010) of the Urban Youth Harp Ensemble, serving students from the Atlanta Public Schools. For this work she received Atlanta's Channel Eleven Community Service Award and the TBS Pathfinder’s Award. Remy Johnson was also awarded the Atlanta Business Chronicle's "Up & Comers Award", known as "40 under 40", showcasing young community leaders in Atlanta.
About the Artists Helen Hwaya Kim, violin Helen Hwaya Kim made her orchestral debut with the Calgary Philharmonic at the age of six, and has gone on to become a respected and sought-after artist. She has appeared as a soloist with the Boston Pops at Boston's Symphony Hall, as well as with the Milwaukee and Atlanta Symphony Orchestras. Ms. Kim earned her Bachelor and Master's Degree from the Juilliard School, where her teachers included Cho-Liang Lin and Dorothy DeLay. While at Juilliard, she served as Concertmaster of the Juilliard Orchestra and was the winner of the Juilliard Concerto Competition at both the pre–college and college levels. She is the recipient of more than one hundred national and international awards. She won the prestigious Artists International Competition in New York and, as a result, gave debut recitals at Carnegie Weill Hall and the Aspen Summer Music Festival.
A native of Canada, Ms. Kim has been engaged by many of Canada's leading orchestras, including the National Arts Center Orchestra, Montreal Metropolitan Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, McGill Chamber Orchestra, and the Windsor, Regina, Victoria and Prince George Symphonies. She has also appeared with the DeKalb, New Orleans, Aspen and Banff Festival Orchestras, and with orchestras in the United Kingdom, Germany and Poland. Ms. Kim has toured extensively throughout Canada and the United States, including performances at Alice Tully Hall and the Santa Fe and La Jolla International Music Festivals, where she performed with ChoLiang Lin, Gary Hoffman, Andre Previn, and the Orion String Quartet. She performed Bach’s Double violin concerto with Hilary Hahn at the Amelia Island Chamber music festival. She most recently made her debut performance at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Other festival highlights include performances at the Highlands-Cashiers, Banff, Zenith, St. Miguel De Allende and Sitka International Chamber Music Festivals.
An avid performer of new music, she can be heard on the recent CD release of the works of Alvin Singleton on Albany records. Helen performed the world premiere of the “Concertino” by Chen Yi, scored for solo violin and orchestra that was commissioned especially for her and the KSU Orchestra and was recently released by Centaur in 2016. Ms. Kim currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia, where she served as Assistant and Associate Concertmaster for the Atlanta Symphony for three seasons. She is currently the Assistant Concertmaster of the Atlanta Opera Orchestra and serves as Professor of Violin and Chair of the String Department at Kennesaw State University. Dr. Jens Korndörfer, organ In the last two decades, German organist Dr. Jens Korndörfer has established himself internationally as performer, educator and church musician. Praised as “a virtuoso in the grand Romantic tradition” who creates “performances that are deeply musically satisfying as well as exciting” (The American Organist), Jens is regularly invited at the most prestigious venues and festivals around the world. Highlights include solo concerts at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, Merrill Auditorium in Portland (ME), Duke University Chapel, the Cathedral-Basilica in St. Louis, the Montreal Bach Festival, the Cathedrals in Washington, Berlin, Paris, Salzburg, Oslo, and Moscow, Westminster Abbey in London, the Royal Chapel in Versailles, the Minster in Ulm, Suntory Hall and Metropolitan Art Space in Tokyo, Kyoto Concert Hall, and the Cultural Centre in Hong Kong. Jens’ repertoire reaches from the Renaissance to the 21st century, including transcriptions, commissions and world premieres for organ solo, and organ with other instruments or choir. Widely recognized as a "prodigious technician" (La Presse, Montreal), his "effortless and poetic playing" (Susan Landale) “that is superior both technically and musically” (The American Organist), and his “well-planned, dramatic programming” (Nordbayerischer Kurier) delight both organ aficionados and first time visitors alike. In addition to frequently collaborating with other musicians, he has also performed with ensembles such as the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Sapporo Symphony Orchestra, and the Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini.
About the Artists The eclectic nature of his interests is also manifest in his four commercial recordings on major instruments in Canada, Japan, and the USA. The recordings (one of them with the solo trumpeter of the Sapporo Symphony Orchestra) and Jens’ live performances have also been broadcast widely on dedicated radio channels such as Pipedreams, Organlive, and OrganRoxx.Passionate about forming the next generation of organists, Jens taught first at Agnes Scott College (2014-19) and, since 2017, has been directing the successful rebuild of the organ program at Georgia State University. Designed to prepare students for a successful career in church and concert, the comprehensive program includes classes in improvisation, choral conducting, and harpsichord in addition to organ performance; graduate assistantships in partnership with major churches in the Atlanta area provide first-rate insights into the day-to-day business of a church musician.
Frequently invited as guest speaker and clinician, Jens has given master classes and presentations for chapters of the American Guild of Organists, at conventions, universities, and concert halls around the world. His research has been published in music journals such as The Diapason, La Tribune de l’Orgue, Musica Sacra, The Organ, and The American Organist, and he has served on the jury of competitions. As Director of Worship and the Arts, and Organist at First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta, GA, Jens oversees a thriving music and arts ministry. Under his leadership, the sanctuary organ was not only renovated, but enlarged to 112 ranks in 10 divisions, equipped with a state-of-the art control system by Syndyne and completely re-voiced by organ builders Klais (Bonn, Germany) and Schlueter (Lithonia, GA). The church also just added a new Steinway Concert Grand Piano to its collection of instruments, and the concert series has expanded significantly in scope and attendance thanks to collaborations with major local cultural players (Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, HIGH Museum of Art, Atlanta Opera, Alliance Theatre).
Acutely aware of the arts’ responsibility towards our society, Jens began a highly successful partnership with Challenge the Stats, an organization that raises awareness for minorities in the classical arts scene, and helped create scholarship opportunities for children from minorities in the church’s School of Fine Arts. Through presentations and lecture series on inter-disciplinary topics in collaboration with FPC’s resident theologian, and through creative events such as multi-media tours of the organ and lecture-recitals with organ arrangements of popular works, Jens further increased the reach of the church’s music and arts ministry in the city of Atlanta and beyond. A top-honor graduate from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris, the Oberlin Conservatory, the Musikhochschule in Bayreuth and McGill University in Montreal, Jens’ teachers include Olivier Latry, Michel Bouvard, James David Christie, and Ludger Lohmann. His talent has also been recognized with numerous prizes and scholarship awards from the Canadian International Organ Competition, the German Academic Exchange Service, the Oberlin Conservatory (Dean’s Scholarship), McGillUniversity (Max Stern Fellowship) and the Government of Quebec (Quebec Merit Scholarship). Among Jens’ many formative experiences, his tenure as organist in residence at the Concert Hall Kitara in Sapporo, Japan, in the 2005/06 season is of particular importance: In addition to a packed schedule with performances, recordings and teaching all over Japan, he was particularly inspired by the imaginative marketing and highly creative outreach efforts of the hall’s administration, which resulted in frequently soldout organ concerts (a rare occurrence in the Western World) and a very diverse audience that included all age groups. Ever since, in his positions Jens has striven to make the arts and especially the organ as successful as they were in Sapporo.
About the Artists Charae Krueger, cello Charae Krueger is Principal Cellist for the Atlanta Opera Orchestra and the Atlanta Ballet Orchestra. She is Lecturer and Artist-In-Residence in Cello at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, having been a faculty member since 2005. Charae is an avid chamber musician and is a member of the Summit Piano Trio, the Peachtree String Quartet, the Leaptrott Piano Trio and KSU Faculty String Trio. She is a regular featured artist at the Highlands-Cashiers Chamber Music Festival in North Carolina, the Grand Teton Music Festival in Wyoming and at the North Georgia Chamber Music Festival. Her solo and chamber music recitals have been featured on NPR’s Performance Today, WABE Radio Atlanta and WGBH Radio Boston. She plays frequently with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Charleston Symphony. Charae also enjoys recording studio work and has played on albums of Bruce Springsteen, Faith Hill and Natalie Cole. Recent concerts include chamber music performances at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Grand Teton Music Festival with violinist Julian Rachlin, concerts with concertmasters William Preucil, Andrés Cárdenes and David Coucheron at Highlands-Cashiers Chamber Music Festival, chamber music performances with the Atlanta Chamber Players and the Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta. Ms. Krueger has been featured in solo recitals at the Blue Ridge Chamber Music Festiaval and All-Saints Church concert series in Atlanta, concerto performances with DeKalb Symphony Orchestra and the Atlanta Community Orchestra. She has twice performed the entire Beethoven cycle of Cello Sonatas with pianist Robert Henry and has done a recital tour and accompanying live CD of the Southeastern US with pianist Stanley Yerlow. Ms. Krueger received her early cello training in Canada at the Regina Conservatory of Music. She went on to study at Brandon University and received her Bachelor of Music Performance degree from New England Conservatory in Boston. She also holds an Artist Diploma from the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, MA. She continued her training during the summers at the Banff Centre in Canada and did quartet training with the Juilliard Quartet at the summer program at the Juilliard School. Charae was also a participant in the New York String Orchestra Seminar under the direction of Alexander Schneider with concerts at Carnegie Hall. After graduating, she was a founding member of the award-winning Arden String Quartet, with national and international appearances at Merkin Hall in NYC, Brown and Hofstra Universities as well as radio programs throughout the US east coast. Catherine Lynn, viola Catherine Lynn joined the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in 2002 and became Assistant Principal Viola in 2009. An active teacher and chamber musician, Ms. Lynn is on the faculty of Kennesaw State University and plays with the Atlanta Chamber Players. Ms. Lynn is a viola coach for the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra and has performed as a soloist with the Kennesaw State University and Georgia Youth Symphony Orchestras. Prior to joining the Atlanta Symphony, Ms. Lynn was Principal Viola of the Flint Symphony Orchestra in Michigan and a member of the Rosseels String Quartet in residence at the University of Michigan. Ms. Lynn received her Bachelor of Music from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and her Master of Music and Doctorate of Musical Arts at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where she studied with Yizhak Schotten and Andrew Jennings.
About the Artists Elizabeth Pridgen, piano Pianist Elizabeth Pridgen has distinguished herself as a soloist and chamber musician and was appointed Artistic Director of the Atlanta Chamber Players in 2014. Ms. Pridgen has appeared in concerts at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall, Merkin Hall, the Tilles Center on Long Island, Spivey Hall in Atlanta, and the "Rising Stars Series" at the Ravinia Festival. Ms. Pridgen has also performed at Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, and the Kosciuszko Foundation, and in recitals in London, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Washington D.C., Miami, San Francisco, and throughout the Southeast and Caribbean. Ms. Pridgen performs regularly at festivals including the Rome Chamber Music Festival in Rome, Italy, the Strings Music Festival in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, the River To River Festival, the Highlands-Cashiers Chamber Music Festival, the Water Island Music Festival, and the Madison Chamber Music Festival. An avid chamber performer, she has collaborated with artists such as Elmar Oliveira, Robert McDuffie, Yo-Yo Ma, Lynn Harrell, Hilary Hahn, Sarah Chang, Anne Akiko Meyers, Jennifer Koh, Nadja Salerno- Sonnenberg, the Diaz String Trio, Cuarteto Latinoamericano, and the American String Quartet. She performs regularly with violinist Amy Schwartz Moretti and cellist Julie Albers as a member of the Cortona Trio and with the Georgian Chamber Players. Ms. Pridgen is currently a Distinguished Artist and Piano Chair at the McDuffie Center for Strings and holds the G. Leslie Fabian Piano Chair at the Townsend School of Music at Mercer University. She received her Master of Music degree at the Juilliard School where she studied with Joseph Kalichstein and earned her bachelor's degree at the Peabody Conservatory of Music as a student of Ann Schein. Alcides Rodriguez, clarinet Alcides Rodriguez joined the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in 2005 as clarinet and bass clarinet. A versatile musician, Rodriguez can be heard in chamber, orchestral and concerto performances on clarinet and bass clarinet. He is a member of the Atlanta Chamber Players. A dedicated educator, he is on the faculty of the Atlanta Symphony's Talent Development Program and maintains a private studio at home. He is an Artist and Clinician for the Buffet Group and Vandoren, and plays Buffet clarinets and Vandoren reeds exclusively. A native of Venezuela, Rodriguez obtained his musical training through the System of Youth Orchestras of Venezuela before moving to the United States. He obtained a Master of Music degree from Northwestern University, and a Bachelor of Music degree from Baylor University. His main teachers were Russell Dagon, Richard Shanley and J. Lawrie Bloom. Rodriguez has participated in various summer music festivals, including the New Hampshire Music Festival, the National Repertory Orchestra and the National Orchestral Institute. Internationally, he has performed at the San Miguel de Allende Chamber Music Festival (México), the Pacific Music Festival (Japan) and the Campos do Jordão International Winter Festival (Brazil). An avid advocate of Venezuelan music, Rodriguez also plays maracas and cuatro. He has been featured as a maracas soloist, performing the Concerto for Maracas and Orchestra by Ricardo Lorenz. He has also played maracas in the percussion section of the Atlanta Symphony. His album The Venezuelan Clarinet (2010) is a tribute to the music of his native country, and a showcase of Rodriguez' versatility. Throughout his career, Rodriguez has earned prizes in clarinet competitions such as the Young Texas Artist Music Competition, the Kingsville Competition and the Orchestral Excerpts Competition of the International Clarinet Association. While in Venezuela he often performed as a soloist with various youth orchestras, playing some of the most important works in the clarinet repertoire. In 1997, he gave the first performance in Venezuela of Carl Nielsen's Clarinet Concerto.
About the Artists Daniel Tosky, bass Double bassist Daniel Tosky joined the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra during the 2015/16 season. Tosky came to Atlanta from Miami Beach, where he was a member of the New World Symphony. He has also performed frequently with the New York Philharmonic and Philadelphia Orchestra as guest musician. Holding the title of Distinguished Artist at the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings at Mercer University, Tosky maintains a small teaching studio and coaches chamber music. He also instructs individually through the ASO’s Talent Development Program and has traveled to Colombia, South America on the invitation of La Academia Filarmónica de Medellín to offer lessons and masterclasses. As a chamber artist, Tosky has performed in Europe and Asia; and as a soloist, he recently presented Nino Rota’s Divertimento Concertante with the Western Piedmont Symphony. Orchestral festival fellowships include the Aspen Music Festival, Music Academy of the West, and the New York String Orchestra Seminar. He has also participated in Le Domaine Forget, the Aldeburgh Festival, the Brevard Music Center, and the Wabass Institute. A native of North Carolina, Tosky began his musical education in the public school system and would later go on to attend the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he had the opportunity to study under renowned pedagogue Lawrence Hurst. After completing his studies at IU, he would gain a master’s degree as a member of the Manhattan School of Music’s Orchestral Performance program, working with Timothy Cobb. Other influential teachers include Peter Lloyd, Jeffrey Turner, Hal Robinson, and Orin O’Brien. He performs on an instrument made in Genoa by Ludovico Rastelli, ca. 1835. Kenn Wagner, violin Kenn Wagner has been a first violinist with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra since 1995, and has also served as acting assistant concertmaster of the ASO for one season. Outside of the ASO he has also appeared abroad as guest soloist with the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra in China, and Christ Church Symphony string section, in New Zealand. Nationally he has soloed with the New Orleans Symphony, Arlington symphony and the Wintergreen Music Festival Orchestra. Locally, Wagner has also appeared as soloist with the Atlanta Community Symphony Orchestra, the Dekalb Symphony, Clark/Spellman Symphony, Atlanta Philharmonic, and the Atlanta Musicians' Orchestra. In addition to his solo work and position with the ASO, Wagner enjoys playing chamber music and has performed with groups such as the Riverside Chamber Players, Leaptrott Trio (Trio in residence at Brenau University), Atlanta Chamber Players, Awadagin Pratt’s Next Generation Festival, and National Chamber Players with special guest Kenneth Slowik of the Smithsonian Chamber Players. Last season he also made his debut at the Piccolo Spoleto festival with the Orlando Chamber Soloists and later that summer performed with members of the Grammy Award winning Cuerteto Latino Americano in Mexico. Wagner has also performed chamber music with former IU faculty member, Csaba Erdelyi and this summer with Alan Morrison, keyboard faculty member of the Curtis institute.
Wagner is a graduate of Indiana University where he trained with Joseph Gingold, former Concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra Before completing his undergraduate degree at Indiana University, Wagner won a position with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, with coaching from Vernon Summers of the National Symphony and former Concertmaster of both Atlanta and National Symphonies, William Steck. Wagner is currently on faculty at both Kennesaw State University and Morehouse College.
Concerts @ First Donors Orchestrator
Patron
Anonymous
Carillon Bell Choir in memory of Jack McGaughey
Underwriter
Dan Benardot
Debi and Fred Akers in memory of Helen and Scott Akers
Elizabeth Fogartie
Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Allvine Mrs. Elizabeth Case Mr. John Cooke
A.M. Haltiwanger in honor of Dr. Jens Korndörfer Margaret Howell Mary and Dick Leslie Belinda Massafra
Mr. and Mrs. Baxter Jones in memory of Margaret Hays Mershon Bates Block Jean Russ Angel Linda and Mason Stephenson Mr. and Mrs. Robert Candler Friend Mr. and Mrs. Annika and Tim Eichenlaub Idara Bassey Mrs. Lillian Law Barbara Cook Mrs. Margaret Murphy Jon Gunneman Anne C. Pritchett Mrs. Carol Hardenburg Ann and Eberhard Voit Carton and Cheryl Hughes Gail and David Watson in memory of Cary and Jeffrey Jakubowski Brooks Lide; Bill Minnich Benefactor
Pat Kidwell
Dr. Margaret Blackmon in honor or Daniel Bara and Jens Korndörfer
Uwe Korndoerfer
Carol and James Dew
Stephen Nagler
Mr. and Mrs. James Griffin
Drs. Joseph Bishop and Stuart Noel
Mr. and Mrs. Edward Hatch
Anne Pritchett
Stephen Nash
Anonymous in memory of Jack Stringer; in honor of Jeff Chilcutt Giles Myers Nancy Schultz Ms. Susan Lowance Sandi Stine Arthur and Mamie Mendez Mr. and Mrs. Spalding and Aimee Nix Mr. and Mrs. Michael Russ Suzanne Shull Mr. and Mrs. Jack Stringer
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Concerts @ First presents SAVE THE DATE! Full 2021-2022 Season Coming Soon! Friday, October 29, 2021 8:00 P.M. Piano and Organ Concert Featuring a newly commissioned work for Concerts @ First Friday, February 4, 2022 8:00 P.M. Piano Dedication Concert With world-renowned pianist Charles Richard-Hamelin
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