Emanuel Ax Playbill 04/05/24

April 5, 2024 | 7:30 PM

Camp Concert Hall

UNIVERSITY of RICHMOND MODLIN CENTER FOR THE ARTS

PHOTO CREDIT: NIGEL PARRY

Thank You

THIS ENGAGEMENT OF EMANUEL AX, PIANO IS MADE POSSIBLE IN PART BY THE GENEROUS SUPPORT OF Dewitt Fund for the Arts

THANKS TO OUR 2023 -2024 MODLIN ARTS PRESENTS SEASON SPONSORS & COMMUNITY PARTNERS

Louis S. Booth Arts Fund

E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation

Cultural Affairs Committee

Department of Music, University of Richmond

A. Dale Mayo Fund

Virginia B. Modlin Endowment

Clinton Webb Fund

Norman and Gay Leahy

William and Pamela O’Connor

H. Gerald Quigg Arts EndowmentWelcome

Welcome

WE ARE DELIGHTED TO ANNOUNCE OUR 2023-2024 SEASON!

At Modlin Center for the Arts, we are committed to providing the University of Richmond campus and our broader community with the best in diverse, thought-provoking, and captivating performances. Each season is cultivated with our attention to showcasing artists who provide insight into our shared humanity. At the University of Richmond, we pledge to you—our patrons and partners, on campus and in our region—that the arts will provide broad access to rich voices, creative passion, and unforgettable experiences.

Modlin is more than our presenting series. We operate as the home for our academic partners within the School of Arts & Sciences, providing spaces for conversation, connection, and collaboration across disciplines. Explore the full range of opportunities from the Department of Music, Department of Theatre & Dance, and University Museums. Don’t miss the extensive calendar of FREE concerts, performances, and exhibits, and make plans to join us.

I hope that you will also consider a contribution to the Modlin Center for the Arts. Your backing is a vital endorsement of the value that Modlin contributes to our cultural landscape. We are deeply grateful to have you include Modlin in your cultural investments. Thank you for being a valued member of our community of the arts.

I look forward to seeing you at Modlin performances in 2023-24 and to hearing what moves you this year!

Paul Brohan, Executive Director

FALL MODLIN ARTS

AUGUST 2023

2023/24 Calendar

 P Ticketed: Paid

 F Free: Tickets/Registration Required

 F Free: No Tickets/Registration Required

 Modlin Arts Presents

 Department of Theatre and Dance

 Department of Music

 University Museums

 Tucker Boatwright Festival

Queer Pioneers: LGBTQ+ History Through the Photographs of Robert Giard

On view 28 Aug - 8 Dec   F

Making Your Mark: Prints and Drawings from the Hechinger Collection

On view 28 Aug - 8 Dec   F

Crystals: Minerals from the Collection

On view through 4 May   F

Therefore I Am: Portraits from the Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center

On view through 30 Jun   F

SEPTEMBER

David Esleck Trio

Thu 7 Sep 7:30pm

Marty Stuart

Thu 14 Sep 7:30pm

Volcano Theatre, Book of Life

Sat 23 Sep 7:30pm  

We All Break & Leyla McCalla

Thu 28 Sep 7:30pm 

Family Weekend Concert

Fri 29 Sep 7:30pm   F

OCTOBER

Rhiannon Giddens & The Legendary Ingramettes

Sun 1 Oct 7pm   P

White Pearl

Thu-Sat 5-7 Oct 7:30pm

Sun 8 Oct 2pm   F

Company SBB // Stephanie Batten Bland, Embarqued: Stories of Soil

Fri Oct 6 7:30pm   P

The Acting Company, Odyssey

Wed 11 Oct 7:30pm   P

Sankai Juku, KŌSA–between two mirrors

Thu 19 Oct 7:30pm   P

Davison Plays Davison

Fri 20 Oct 7:30pm   F

13th Annual Celebration of Dance @ UR!

Sat 21 Oct 7:30pm   F

Family Arts Day: Barefoot Puppet Theatre, New Squid on the Block

Sun 22 Oct 1pm-4pm   P

Kenny Barron Voyage Trio

Wed 25 Oct 7:30pm   P

Inon Barnatan, Alisa Weilerstein & James Ehnes, Swan Song, The Schubert Project

Fri 27 Oct 7:30pm   P

Schola Cantorum & Women’s Chorale

Sun 29 Oct 3pm   F

NOVEMBER

ShoutHouse

Fri 3 Nov 7:30pm   P

Jazz & Contemporary Combos

Wed 8 Nov 7:30pm   F

J’Nai Bridges, Mezzo-Soprano

Thu 9 Nov 7:30pm   P

Terence Blanchard, Fire Shut Up in My Bones

Sun 12 Nov 7:30pm   P

Sky Hopinka: Masterclass and Film Screening

Mon-Wed 13–15 Nov 

Popular Music Ensemble

Tue 14 Nov 7:30pm   F

Jazz Ensembles: Little Big Band with Black & White

Wed 15 Nov 7:30pm 

Kiara Vigil: Keynote Lecture

Thu 16 Nov 4:30pm   F

Fairview

Thu-Sat 16-18 Nov 7:30pm

Sat 18 - Sun 19 Nov 2pm 

Global Sounds

Sun 19 Nov 3pm

UR Wind Ensemble

Mon 20 Nov 7:30pm 

Canadian Brass, Holiday Show

Wed 29 Nov 7:30pm   P

DECEMBER

50th Annual Festival of Lessons and Carols

Sun 3 Dec 5pm, 8pm   F

Chamber Ensembles

Mon 4 Dec 7:30pm 

University Symphony Orchestra

Wed 6 Dec 7:30pm 

MODLIN ARTS

2023/24 Calendar

SPRING

 P Ticketed: Paid

 F Free: Tickets/Registration Required

 F Free: No Tickets/Registration Required

 Modlin Arts Presents

 Department of Theatre and Dance

 Department of Music

 University Museums

 Tucker Boatwright Festival

JANUARY 2024

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton

Marsalis, Max Roach Centennial

Thu 25 Jan 7:30pm   P

Richard Becker Piano Concert

Wed 31 Jan 7:30pm   F

FEBRUARY

Hamid Rahmanian, Song of the North

Fri 2 Feb 7:30pm   P

Paul Hanson Piano Concert

Sun 4 Feb 3pm   F

Layale Chaker & Sarafand, with Kinan Azmeh

Fri 16 Feb 7:30pm   P

Emily Riggs, soprano

Sun 18 Feb 3:00 

Zuill Bailey, Cello

Wed 28 Feb 7:30pm   P

Yiman Wang: Keynote Lecture

Tue 20 Feb 12pm   F

Alexa Joubin: Keynote Lecture

Thu 22 Feb 12pm   F

MARCH

MOVING | BODIES BODIES | MOVING University Dancers

39th Annual Concert

Fri-Sat 1-2 Mar 7:30pm

Sun 3 Mar 2pm   F

Doris Wylee-Becker Piano Concert

Sun 3 Mar 3pm   F

Richmond Piano Trio

Mon 4 Mar 7:30pm   F

Martha Graham Dance Company

Fri 22 Mar 7:30pm   P

Brad Mehldau, Piano   P

Sun 24 Mar 7:30pm

Chris Thile, Mandolin

Wed 27 Mar 7:30pm   P

APRIL

Emanuel Ax, Piano

Fri 5 Apr 7:30pm   P

UR Wind Ensemble

Mon 8 Apr 7:30pm   F

UR Jazz & Contemporary Combos

Thu 11 Apr 7:30pm   F

Natu Camara

Fri 12 Apr 7:30pm   P

Schola Cantorum & Women’s Chorale

Sun 14 Apr 3pm  

Popular Music Ensemble

Tue 16 Apr 7:30pm   F

UR Symphony Orchestra

Wed 17 Apr 7:30pm   F

Everybody

18-20 Apr 7:30pm

21 Apr 2pm   F

Danish String Quartet

Sat 20 Apr 7:30pm   P

Global Sounds

Sun 21 Apr 3pm   F

UR Chamber Ensembles

Mon 22 Apr 7:30pm 

Cuban Spectacular

Thu 25 Apr 7:30pm 

MODLIN CENTER FOR THE ARTS PRESENTS

EMANUEL AX, piano

PROGRAM

Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13, Ludwig van Beethoven “Pathetique” (1798) (1770-1827)

Drei Klavierstücke, Op. 11

Arnold Schoenberg

1. Mässige (1874-1951)

2. Mässige

3. Bewegte

Piano Sonata No. 2 in A major,

Ludwig van Beethoven Op. 2, No. 2 (1770-1827)

INTERMISSION

Drei Klavierstücke (1894)

6 Little Pieces, Op. 19

Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)

Arnold Schoenberg

1. Leicht, zart (1874-1951)

2. Langsam

3. Sehr langsame

4. Rasch, aber leicht

5. Etwas rasch

6. Sehr langsam

Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Ludwig van Beethoven “Appassionata” (1770-1827)

PHOTO CREDIT: NIGEL PARRY

Tonight’s performance will last approximately 1 hour 50 minutes, including intermission.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Born to Polish parents in what is today Lviv, Ukraine, Emanuel Ax moved to Winnipeg, Canada, with his family when he was a young boy. Mr. Ax made his New York debut in the Young Concert Artists Series, and in 1974 won the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv. In 1975 he won the Michaels Award of Young Concert Artists, followed four years later by the Avery Fisher Prize.

The 2023/24 season will focus on the world premiere of Anders Hillborg’s piano concerto, commissioned for him by the San Francisco Symphony and Esa-Pekka Salonen with subsequent performances in Stockholm and New York. A continuation of the ‘Beethoven For 3’ touring and recording project with partners Leonidas Kavakos and Yo-Yo Ma will take them to the midwest in January. In recital Mr. Ax can be heard on the west coast in the fall and mid-west/east coast in the spring, culminating at Carnegie Hall in April. An extensive European tour will include concerts in Holland, Italy, Germany, France and the Czech Republic.

Mr. Ax has been a Sony Classical exclusive recording artist since 1987 and following the success of the Brahms Trios with Kavakos and Ma, the trio launched an ambitious, multi-year project to record all the Beethoven Trios and Symphonies arranged for trio of which the first two discs have recently been released. He has received GRAMMY® Awards for the second and third volumes of his cycle of Haydn’s piano sonatas. He has also made a series of Grammy-winning recordings with cellist Yo-Yo Ma of the Beethoven and Brahms sonatas for cello and piano. In the 2004/05 season Mr. Ax contributed to an International EMMY® Award-Winning BBC documentary commemorating the Holocaust that aired on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. In 2013, Mr. Ax’s recording Variations received the Echo Klassik Award for Solo Recording of the Year (19th Century Music/Piano). Mr. Ax is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and holds honorary doctorates of music from Skidmore College, New England Conservatory of Music, Yale University, and Columbia University. For more information about Mr. Ax’s career, please visit www. EmanuelAx.com.

PHOTO CREDIT: NIGEL PARRY

PROGRAM NOTES

Ludwig van Beethoven and Arnold Schoenberg, born nearly 100 years apart, are both recognized as musical innovators. While Beethoven remade Classical forms, infusing them with new passion and drama, Schoenberg stretched tonality until it broke, replacing it with his own idiosyncratic system of pitch organization. The piano figures prominently in each composer’s output, but while Beethoven was a master performer on that instrument, Schoenberg, a cellist, struggled at times to write idiomatically for the keyboard. Tonight’s program alternates sonatas by Beethoven with miniatures by Schoenberg. Each composer is represented by early and middle-period works, yet hints of their later, complex styles also emerge.

The first two selections show each composer testing the boundaries of convention. Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, dubbed the “Pathétique” by its publisher, is one of his most beloved works. The first movement features a slow, dramatic introduction that unexpectedly returns at points of structural significance. While the second movement alternates a serenely beautiful melody with two similarly expressive episodes, the sonata’s third and final movement is stormy and full of contrasts, concluding with a moment of calm before the final violent gesture.

In his Drei Klavierstücke, Op. 11, Schoenberg similarly pushes the envelope, employing free atonality – music without a central, governing pitch – and using short, recurring motives to help unify the three pieces. This approach evokes an expressionistic, stream-of-consciousness atmosphere, rather than traditional thematic development and motion towards a tonal goal.

Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 2 in A major and Schoenberg’s Drei

Klavierstücke (1894) are early works by their respective composers. The twenty-five-year-old Beethoven dedicated his second sonata to his onetime teacher, Joseph Haydn. Its opening movement calls to mind Haydn’s sunny disposition, albeit with some daring modulations, while the second movement is unusually slow and solemn. After a dancelike Scherzo, the sonata’s concluding movement features a graceful main theme with a characteristic arpeggio.

Schoenberg’s 1894 Klavierstücke, written when he was twenty years old, reside in the tonal world of late Romanticism. The influence of Brahms is heard throughout, most notably in the lyrical first piece, marked Andantino. Its unexpectedly rapid conclusion foreshadows the middle Andantino grazioso. By turns graceful and bombastic, this, too, ends with a suggestion of what will follow: the final Presto, which is the longest and most motivically developed of the three pieces. Schoenberg composed the first five of his Six Little Pieces, Op. 19, on a single day in February 1911, adding the sixth the following June, in memory of the recently deceased Gustav Mahler. These are his final piano works to employ free atonality, after which he would develop the serial technique for which he is known. The extreme brevity of the Six Little Pieces enabled the composer to explore basic musical elements such as contrary motion, dynamic contrast, and the interval of a major third.

Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, nicknamed the “Appassionata,” is one of his most celebrated piano works. He wrote it in 1803, shortly after acquiring a piano with an extended range, which is reflected in the scope of the sonata’s opening gesture. The first movement is highly dramatic, replete with arpeggios, trills, and a “fate” motive that would later reappear in the composer’s Fifth Symphony. Next comes a set of variations on a simple theme, which linger on a tense diminished chord before proceeding directly to the third movement. Once again, bold gestures predominate, this time paired with a driving, perpetual motion. Beethoven defies formal expectations by repeating the movement’s development and recapitulation sections, before introducing a new theme in the ferocious final moments.

- Dr. Linda Fairtile, Head Music Librarian

Parsons Music Library, University of Richmond

Modlin Arts Presents

NATU CAMARA

Fri 12 April 2024

Camp Concert Hall

If you merged Miriam Makeba with Nina Simone, added a dose of Tracy Chapman, and sprinkled in some Tina Turner, you might begin to describe the vibrant singer/ songwriter Natu Camara.

SOLD OUT

EVERYBODY

18-21 April 2024

Alice Jepson Theatre

Playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins brings us an inventive riff on the 15th-century morality play, Everyman. Chosen by lottery at each performance, Everybody explores the meaning of life.

DANISH STRING QUARTET

Sat 20 April 2024

Camp Concert Hall

The Danish String Quartet brings their impeccable musicianship to classical masterpieces and Scandinavian folk tunes alike. Their joy in music-making is palpable to audiences worldwide.

SOLD OUT

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