DONNA AND MARVIN SCHWARTZ ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
Elena Cholakova, piano
Emory Director of Piano Studies
Anyango Yarbo-Davenport, violin
Schwartz Artist in Residence
Saturday, March 4, 2023, 8:00 p.m.
Emerson Concert Hall
Schwartz Center for Performing Arts
2022–2023
Program
Fantasie No.1 in G Minor Florence Price (1887–1953)
String Poetic Jennifer Higdon
Jagged Climb (b. 1962)
Nocturne
Blue Hills of Mist
Maze Mechanical
Climb Jagged
Safos
Juan Antonio Cuéllar (b. 1966)
Sonata for Violin and Piano John Corigliano
Allegro (b. 1963)
Andantino
Lento
Allegro
Schwartz Artist-in-Residence Program
The Donna and Marvin Schwartz Foundation Artist-in-Residence program at Emory seeks to substantially increase the depth, diversity, and profile of performing arts education in the Emory and greater Atlanta communities by providing opportunities for meaningful contact with performing artists, composers, and art scholars from throughout the world. To learn more about performances and interactive learning workshops with Schwartz artists in residence, visit schwartz.emory.edu/SAIR.
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Elena Cholakova, piano
Bulgarian pianist Elena Cholakova regularly performs in important musical venues in Eastern and Western Europe, South America, and the United States. She has given solo recitals at the Liszt Academy and the United States Embassy in Budapest, Hungary; Bulgaria Hall and Sofia Conservatory in Sofia, Bulgaria; Aosta Concert Hall in Aosta, Italy; Fellbach Musicschulle in Fellbach, Germany; and Fazioli Salon in Chicago, Illinois; among others. Cholakova has toured the southeast United States as a member of the American Chamber Music Society. Her performances have been broadcasted live on NPR, Atlanta’s WABE, Chicago’s classical music radio station WFMT, and Bulgarian television and radio stations.
During the 2022–2023 season, Cholakova will perform at Musikverein in Vienna; Bulgaria’s premier “Balabanov’s House Music Days” International Festival; in Bogotá, Columbia, with violinist Anyango Yarbo-Davenport; and the southeast United States with violinist Miroslav Hristov. Recognizing the impact of the pandemic on women’s careers in the arts, Cholakova is commissioning a CD of all new music written by women composers. The project will unfold as a series of collaborations and culminate in a recording of the pieces commissioned.
Cholakova has performed Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring with former Atlanta Symphony Orchestra music director Robert Spano in a multimedia production hailed as “one of the most important collaborations of the year.” As a member of the Atlanta Chamber Players, Cholakova has appeared in the International Chamber Music Festival in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; has regularly performed in Atlanta’s premier Spivey Hall; and has premiered commissioned works by leading American composers. Cholakova has been featured in the HighlandsCashiers Chamber Music Festival in North Carolina; the International Days of Music Festival in Plovdiv, Bulgaria; the Sofia Musical Evenings Festival in Sofia; and more.
During summers, Cholakova serves on the faculty of the Interharmony Music Festival in Italy and the Prague Piano Festival in the Czech Republic. Cholakova is a recipient of the Rislov Foundation Scholarship of the University of Michigan, awarded to musicians nationwide for their high achievements in the field of music. Specializing in Chopin’s Preludes, op. 28, she presented a lecture recital at the Third World Piano Conference in Novi Sad, Serbia, focusing on the different editions of the piece. A dedicated educator, Cholakova holds a special interest in teaching. Her
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students have won top prizes at numerous national and international competitions.
Cholakova has a DMus in piano performance from Northwestern University. She serves as director of piano studies at Emory University and director of the Emory Young Artist Piano Competition.
Anyango Yarbo-Davenport, violin
Born and raised in Munich, Germany, violinist Anyango Yarbo-Davenport was born into the musical family of American soprano Africa YarboDavenport and the late Austrian conductor Hans Peter Jillich. YarboDavenport regularly performs in such notable venues as Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Royal Festival Hall (London), Teatro Mayor (Bogotá), Mozarteum Saal (Salzburg), and Teatro Colon, and can be heard on radio and television in the United States, South America, and Europe.
In 2017 Yarbo-Davenport made her debut as the newly appointed soloist and conductor of the Colour of Music Festival Virtuosi, an allfemale chamber orchestra of African ancestry. Under her direction, the Virtuosi presented at institutions including the University of California, Davis; the University of Houston; the University of Richmond; and the City University of New York; among others. Yarbo-Davenport’s recent engagements include solos with the National Symphony of Colombia; Orchestra Bellas Artes at the televised South American New Year’s Gala; performances on BBC, FOX26, WXXI, PBS, and NPR; as well as chamber music collaborations with members of the Vienna Philharmonic.
Yarbo-Davenport will be performing iconic concertos ranging from Brahms to Sibelius, Piazzolla, and Price throughout the Americas during the 2022–2023 season. Together with duo partner pianist Jinson Kim, she will present recitals throughout the United States, Europe, South America, and Asia, for the release of their upcoming CD Invisible Threads. (Sheva Collection UK, 2023). Yarbo-Davenport’s debut CD AMERICANA! (Sheva Collection UK, 2022) was released by Naxos Digital Library in APril 2022 and features a collection of contemporary American music from Aldridge (world premiere recording), Higdon, and Corigliano with pianist Vanessa Fadial (the Colburn School, Los Angeles).
Yarbo-Davenport pursued a doctoral degree at the Eastman School of Music (New York) where she was awarded the coveted Performers’ Certificate and served as teaching assistant to her mentor, Charles Castleman. She received her early training at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München (Germany) and the Mozarteum University Salzburg
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(Austria) with additional studies at the Sibelius-Akatemia (Finland) with Paivyt Meller.
A dedicated teacher, Yarbo-Davenport was awarded the Jack L. Frank Award for Excellence in Teaching. Her students win top prizes in international competitions; hold orchestra positions in the Americas and Europe; and have been accepted into the top universities of Germany, France, Austria, and the United States.
During 2021–2022 Yarbo-Davenport held a post-doctoral fellowship at Belmont University (United States) where she expanded her research into musician health and recorded works of underrepresented composers to be released in 2023. Yarbo-Davenport is a professor and coordinator of violin and chamber music at the Pontifical Javeriana University in Bogotá (Colombia) as well as artistic director, soloist, and co-program curator of the Colour of Music Festival Virtuosi, where she is also a member of the festival’s artistic committee. She serves as faculty at Universidad de Los Andes and at the summer music institutes of Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of North Texas.
Yarbo-Davenport performs on an 18th-century French violin, chooses from bows ranging from the Peccatte School to contemporary makers, and is an Olitarte Artist. For more information, visit anyangomusic.com.
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