THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY College of Music presents
Faculty Recital of Benjamin Sung, Violin
David Kalhous, Piano
Featuring a premiere of a new work by special guest
Dongryul Lee, Composer
Tuesday, March 4, 2025
7:30 p.m. | Longmire Recital Hall
PROGRAM
Sonata for violin and piano Leoš Janáček Con moto (1854–1928)
Ballada
Allegretto
Vivo
The Ci(r)cadian Tree Dongryul Lee I. Every black is an infinity of colors (The ascension hole) (b. 1978)
— World Premiere —
Commissioned by Ben Sung and David Kalhous for their extension project
Elegie for violin and piano (1939) Vítězslava Kaprálová (1915–1940)
Sonata in D minor for violin and piano, Op. 108 Johannes Brahms
Allegro (1833–1897)
Adagio
Un poco presto e con sentimento
Presto agitato
ABOUT THE GUEST ARTIST
Seoul-born Chicago based composer Dongryul Lee (이동렬[iː doŋ ɾjəɾ], pronouns: he/him) crafts music that entwines the acoustical nature of sounds with clarity, pathos, and reinvented classical expressions.
He finds inspirations in spiritual, literary, and scientific elements, encompassing a diverse range of topics from Borgesian poetics and Jungian Philosophy to Number Theory, Artificial Intelligence, and Engineering Campanology, oftentimes employing yearlong in-depth interdisciplinary research. The dual identities of his backgrounds, a Korean immigrant living in the States, a born Catholic and learned Buddhist thinker, and a composer with a computer science degree, also greatly influence his musical language.
Lee’s compositions have been performed by ensembles such as the Avanti!, Grossman, Kairos, Contemporanea, Jupiter, MIVOS, New Earth, Callithumpian Consort, Axiom Brass, GMCL, S.E.M., Conference Ensemble, Paramirabo, Cello Loft, and Illinois Modern Ensemble, among others. Dongryul has collaborated with a number of celebrated soloists and conductors including Miranda Cuckson, Ariel Mo, Vimbayi Kaziboni, James Baker, Petr Kotik, Eugenia Jeong, Matt Oliphant, Hannah Collins, Balázs Kálvin, Amber Evans, David Angelo, Eric Moore, Nicolee Kuester, Sungmin Shin, Laura Liu, Hanqian Zhu, Tomoko Ono, and Chukyung Park. He was awarded the Kate Neal Kinley Memorial Fellowship, which supported his study with Jukka Tiensuu (2020); the third prize in the first Bartók World Competition (Hungary, 2018); the Special Prize Piero Pezzé in the Composition Competition Città di Udine (Italy, 2018); Second Prize in the 3rd GMCL Competition (Portugal, 2017); and Second Prize in
2017 Busan Maru International Music Festival Competition (South Korea). The performance of his Unending Rose by the Kairos quartett (Berlin, 2020) was supported by the Theodore Presser Foundation, Arts Council Korea, and Kultur Büro Elisabeth Berlin.
Lee began writing music with the computer when he was 13. After probing all kinds of music for 10 years while leading rock bands, analyzing Bach and Final Fantasy, and writing atonal music without formal exposure to serialism, Dongryul finally came to the US in 2008 to study at the Eastman School (BM in composition) as a 29 year old freshman. Prior to this embarkation, he studied music and practiced piano privately for five years while working as software engineer, after earning a degree in computer science and industrial system engineering (BS) from Yonsei University. He completed his MM and DMA degrees in composition-theory at the University of Illinois UrbanaChampaign, where he administered the McFarland Carillon. Lee was the 2020-21 CCCC Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Chicago’s Center for Contemporary Composition, and taught at North Central College, Harper College, the University of Chicago, and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Lee is an assistant professor of music at Loyola University Chicago, where he serves as the coordinator of Theory and Composition.
Lee studied composition with Jukka Tiensuu, Reynold Tharp, Heinrich Taube, Stephen Andrew Taylor, Erin Gee, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, David Liptak, and Tae-hoon Kim, and conducting with Brad Lubman and Mark Davis Scatterday, and piano with Tony Caramia, Ji Yun Lee, and Yoon Jeong Kim. Additionally, he studied at short-term academies with Chaya Czernowin (SICPP 2021), Jennifer Higdon (ACA 2020), Jukka Tiensuu (Sävellyspaja 2018), Julian Anderson (SICPP 2018), Mario Davidovsky (Composers Conference 2017), and Joshua Fineberg (Domaine Forget 2017). He also studied rock vocal techniques in 1999 with Myungki Kim, a renowned Korean underground heavy-metal vocalist.
ABOUT THE FACULTY ARTISTS
Associate Professor of Violin at Florida State University, violinist Benjamin Sung is also a Faculty Artist and Violin Coordinator of the Brevard Music Center where he acts as Concertmaster of the Brevard Opera Orchestra. Recent concert highlights include the 2022 Brevard Music Festival; the 24 Caprices by Paganini during the COVIDshortened 2019-20 season; a complete Beethoven sonata cycle with pianist David Kalhous; and a TED talk for TEDx Fargo. In 2022, after sharing 10 years of concerts of the violin-piano repertoire, Sung and Kalhous are embarking on a new chapter of their partnership, called extension, an effort to present the greatest music of the existing repertoire along with newly commissioned works from today’s most exciting composers, both in live performance and recorded and streaming media.
Sung has performed as soloist with numerous orchestras, including the Camerata Romeu of Havana, Cuba, the Virtuosi of Festival Internacionale de Musica in Recife, Brazil, and the National Repertory Orchestra. He is equally in demand as a chamber musician, having shared the stage with great performers including pianist Monique Duphil, and cellists Antonio Meneses and Marcio Carneiro. He is a past winner of the Starling Award of the Eastman School of Music and the Violin Fellowship of the Montgomery Symphony, and an Aaron Copland Fund Recording Grant.
An enthusiastic advocate of contemporary music, Sung has recorded the music of composers Steve Rouse and Marc Satterwhite for Centaur Records, has performed and taught for Studio 2021 at Seoul National University, and has worked with many of the greatest composers of this generation, including John Adams, Pierre Boulez, George Crumb, and Helmut Lachenmann. He recently released an album of new American works entitled FluxFlummoxed
on Albany Records, a recording hailed by Fanfare Magazine as “a brilliant performance of four superb works” with “impeccable intonation and tone production.” Sung has an upcoming new solo album featuring works by Sciarrino, Berio, Maderna, and Schnittke.
Sung holds a Bachelor’s degree from the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with Oleh Krysa, and Master’s and Doctoral degrees from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, from the studio of Nelli Shkolnikova. Sung also studied at the Professional Training Program at Carnegie Hall, the Lucerne Festival Academy, the New York String Seminar, and the Chamber Music Residency at The Banff Centre.
David Kalhous is increasingly gaining recognition and critical acclaim in the United States and Europe for his wideranging repertoire and adventurous programming spanning more than three centuries. He has appeared as a soloist with Prague Symphony Orchestra FOK, Prague Philharmonia, Israel Symphony Orchestra, Moravian Philharmonic, and Chamber Philharmonia Pardubice. As a recitalist and a chamber musician, he performed at the Prague Spring Festival, Gilmore Keyboard Festival, Czech Philharmonic Chamber Music Series, Czech Radio’s Studio Live Rising Stars Series. In New York City, he appears at Bargemusic, Symphony Center, and Spectrum; in Chicago, at PianoForte Foundation and Constellation. Kalhous regularly performs, lectures, and teaches masterclasses at leading American, European, and Israeli universities and conservatories.
He has recorded for Czech Radio and Television, and has written, produced, and hosted programs devoted to piano music for Prague’s Classic FM Radio.
David Kalhous’ interest in new music has resulted in collaboration with many composers who have dedicated works to him. He regularly performs with Fonema Consort in Chicago and Konvergence in Prague. He gave the debut performance of Ligeti’s piano Études and Feldman’s For Bunita Marcus in Prague, and is preparing a CD of eight newly commissioned works for piano.
David Kalhous studied at the Prague Conservatory with Jaroslav Čermák. He subsequently attended Hochschule für Musik in Vienna, Rubin Academy of Music at Tel-Aviv University, and Yale University, and studied with Paul Badura Skoda, Emil Leichner, Victor Derevianko, David Northington, and Peter Frankl. He also worked with Jerome Lowenthal at the Music Academy of the West. David Kalhous holds a DMA from Northwestern University, where he worked with Ursula Oppens. He previously taught at Texas Tech University School of Music.
To Ensure An Enjoyable Concert Experience For All…
Please refrain from talking, entering, or exiting during performances. Food and drink are prohibited in all concert halls. Recording or broadcasting of the concert by any means, including the use of digital cameras, cell phones, or other devices is expressly forbidden. Please deactivate all portable electronic devices including watches, cell phones, pagers, hand-held gaming devices or other electronic equipment that may distract the audience or performers.
Recording Notice: This performance may be recorded. Please note that members of the audience may at times be included in this process. By attending this performance you consent to have your image or likeness appear in any live or recorded video or other transmission or reproduction made in conjunction to the performance.
Florida State University provides accommodations for persons with disabilities. Please notify the College of Music at (850) 644-3424 at least five working days prior to a musical event to request accommodation for disability or alternative program format.