2022–2023 ATMUSICEMORY
This season, the Schwartz Center is celebrating 20 years of world-class performances and wishes to gratefully acknowledges the generous ongoing support of Donna and Marvin Schwartz.
Cover and Program Design: Lisa Baron | Cover Photo: Mark Teague
Design and Photography Credits
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This concert is presented by the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts. 404.727.5050 | schwartz.emory.edu | boxoffice@emory.edu
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Acknowledgment
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30th Anniversary Celebration Julie Coucheron and William Ransom, piano; Helen Kim and Jun-Ching Lin, violin; Zhenwei Shi, viola; Jesús Castro-Balbi, cello The Vega String Quartet Saturday, September 17, 2022, 8:00 p.m. Emerson Concert Hall Schwartz Center for Performing Arts 2022–2023 ECMSA Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta 30th Anniversary Season EMERSON SERIES
The Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta is supported by the Cherry L. Emerson Endowment, the Rebecca Katz-Doft Chamber Music Endowment, the Ethel Orentlicher Gershon Fund, a generous gift from Dr. John and Linda Cooke, and by music lovers like you.
4 Program
—Intermission—
Très lent Vif et agité The Vega String Quartet
Allegro moderato con fuoco (1809–1847)
Allegro moderato (1875–1937)
Octet in E-flat Major, op. 20 Felix Mendelssohn
Allegro leggierissimo Presto Helen Kim and Jun-Ching Lin, violin; Zhenwei Shi, viola; Jesús Castro-Balbi, cello The Vega String Quartet
Julie Coucheron and William Ransom, piano String Quartet in F Major Maurice Ravel
Variations on a Theme by Haydn, 0p. 56 Johannes(1833–1897)Brahms
Assez vif, très rythmé
Scherzo:Andante
Adagio for Strings Samuel(1910–1981)Barber
Prior to joining KSU, Castro-Balbi served as a faculty at Texas Christian University, where he built an internationally sought-after cello program. A critically acclaimed concert cellist, he has performed in the United States, Latin America, Europe, and Asia; and in chamber music as a member of the Caminos del Inka String Quartet, the Clavier Trio, and the Lin/CastroBalbi Duo. As a soloist, he has collaborated with the Aarhus, Dallas, and Fort Worth symphony orchestras; the Dallas Chamber Symphony; the China, Louisiana, and Mexico City philharmonic orchestras; the Leipzig Radio Orchestra; and the National Symphony Orchestra of Peru. He has been featured at New York’s Alice Tully Hall, more than a dozen times at Carnegie Hall, the Shanghai Oriental Arts Center, and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall.Castro-Balbi
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Julie Coucheron has established an international career, winning prizes in Italy, Germany, and the United States. Coucheron has worked with musicians such as Lazar Berman, Claude Frank, Emanuel Ax, Vladimir Feltsman, John O’Connor, and Christopher O’Riley, and has toured Europe, America, South America, and Asia, playing in great halls like Verizon Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Kennedy Center, and Carnegie Hall.
Of Peruvian heritage and raised in France, Castro-Balbi graduated from the Conservatoire National Supérieur at Lyon, Indiana University, the Yale School of Music, and has a doctor of musical arts degree from the Juilliard School.
Jesús Castro-Balbi is an inclusive, visionary, and strategic leader of international perspective with a passion for advancing students and building communities through the arts and education. As interim associate dean of the Kennesaw State University (KSU) Journey Honors College, he supports a talented faculty and staff team dedicated to creating an extraordinary educational experience for all KSU students.
has long been a strong proponent of new music. To date, he has presented 53 premiere performances, the world premiere recording of 19 works, and is the dedicatee of 19 compositions. A renowned educator, he has guest taught at Beijing’s Central Conservatory, Paris Conservatoire, Leipzig and Stuttgart Hochschule, for the Japan Cello Society, at the Juilliard School, and at the Yale School of Music. Additionally, he has adjudicated at the Lynn Harrell Competition, the Sphinx Competition, and at the Aiqin Bei (China), Lutoslawski (Poland), and Carlos Prieto (Mexico) international cello competitions.
Performer Biographies
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Coucheron is also an artist with the Georgian Chamber Players.
Coucheron enjoys a various and wide range of styles and repertoire emerging from her highly trained classical background to the more contemporary and popular music. Recent collaborations include performances with artists such as the Steve Miller Band and Elton John.
Helen Hwaya Kim made her orchestral debut with the Calgary Philharmonic at age six. She has appeared as a soloist with the Boston Pops at Boston’s Symphony Hall, as well as with the Milwaukee and Atlanta symphonies. Kim has BM and MM degrees from the Juilliard School where her teachers included Cho-Liang Lin and Dorothy DeLay, and she was the winner of the Juilliard Concerto Competition. Kim is the recipient of more than one hundred national and international awards. In 1992, she won the prestigious Artists International Competition in New York and, as a result, gave debut recitals at Carnegie Weill Hall and the Aspen Music Festival. A native of Canada, Kim has been engaged by many of Canada’s leading orchestras, including the National Arts Center, Montreal Metropolitan, Vancouver, McGill Chamber, 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 UK, Germany, and Poland. Kim has toured extensively throughout Canada and the United States, including performances at Alice Tully Hall and the Santa Fe and La Jolla music festivals, where she performed with Cho-Liang Lin, Gary Hoffman, Andre Previn, and the Orion String Quartet. She performed Bach’s Double violin concerto with
Born in Oslo, Norway, Coucheron began playing the piano at age four. She received both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree with honors from the Royal Academy of Music in London while also gaining her teaching diploma at the same institution.
The siblings released their second recording David and Julie on the Mudi/Naxos label in 2008. In 2009, she won first prize at the Pinerelo International Chamber Music Competition in Italy. Coucheron enjoys a close collaboration with David and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra principal cellist, Chris Rex, and together they have formed the Christiania Trio that performs regularly in various concert halls around the world.
Coucheron has performed at festivals including the Oslo Chamber Music Festival, Bergen International Music Festival, and La Jolla Summer fest. In 2002, she released her first recording, Debut on the Naxos label, together with her brother, David, containing lyrical and virtuoso music from the classical repertoire. The response was excellent and it sold more than 40,000 copies in Norway alone.
Jun-Ching Lin joined the Atlanta Symphony as assistant concertmaster in 1988 after a year as concertmaster of the Augusta Symphony. He has been the concertmaster of the Atlanta Opera Orchestra and a guest concertmaster with the Florida, Fort Worth, Kalamazoo, and Phoenix symphonies.
Lin is very active in education, hosting educational residencies at Trinity School in Atlanta and in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He has been the first violin coach of the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra for more than 25 years and has taught at Emory University, Georgia Tech University, Meadowmount, Encore School for Strings, and Franklin Pond Chamber Music.
Pianist, artistic director, master teacher, editor, and judge for international competitions, William Ransom regularly appears in recital, as soloist with orchestras, and as a chamber musician throughout the world. He has performed in New York’s Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Town Hall, and Merkin Hall; in orchestra halls in Chicago, Detroit, and Atlanta; at the National Gallery in Washington D.C.; and in Philadelphia, Boston, Miami, Dallas, and Los Angeles. He has performed for the American Ambassadors to Japan, Korea, Austria, and Ireland, and
Jun-Ching Lin was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and grew up in Boston. While in Boston he studied with Sara Scriven, Roman Totenberg, and Robert Koff. He was one of the first Presidential Scholars in the Arts. He is a graduate of the Curtis and Cleveland institutes of music where he was a student of Ivan Galamian, Jascha Brodsky, and David Cerone. He met his wife, Helen Porter, during the first summer of Encore and they are the proud parents of Emma and Nicholas.
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Hilary Hahn at the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival. Kim 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 professor of violin at Kennesaw State University. She is also the violinist of the Atlanta Chamber Players and the new music ensemble, Sonic Generator.
Lin is the first violinist of the Franklin Pond String Quartet and a founding member of the Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta. He has played chamber music on the violin and viola with Alan Gilbert, the Merling Trio, Robert Spano, and Yo Yo Ma. He has also performed with members of the Cleveland, Miami, and Tokyo string quartets and principals of the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, and Philadelphia Orchestra. Lin has participated in festivals in HighlandsCashiers, La Jolla, San Diego, and Steamboat Springs, among others.
Ransom was recently named one of Musical America Worldwide’s “30 Musical Innovators.” Zhenwei Shi from Changsha, China, was appointed by maestro Robert Spano as principal viola of the Atlanta Symphony in 2018. He received first prize in the 2010 International String Players Competition in Hong Kong, third prize of the 2014 Johansen International Young String Players Competition in the United States, and first prize of the Theodore Holland Viola Prize in the UK. He was awarded the Special Jury Prize from the 2016
8 his performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio and television in the United States, Japan, Korea, Argentina, and Poland. His recording of Enoch Arden by Richard Strauss, The Music of Alfredo Barili, Chamber Music of Johannes Brahms, and Listening to Memories with Chopin, Brahms, and Bach were released on the ACA label. Ransom can also be heard on Heartkeys from Rising Star Records.
Ransom commissioned and premiered several major works by composer Stephen Paulus including his Concerto for Piano and Wind Ensemble, and he was also the featured pianist performing music by Dwight Andrews used in August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize winning Broadway hit, The Piano Lesson, as well as the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie based on the same play. A popular performer on many university concert series, he has performed at numerous colleges around the world including Yale, Cornell, Duke, Tulane, Vanderbilt, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford, Toho (Japan), Yonsei (Korea), and the School of the Arts (Argentina) where he has also given master classes. Born in Boston and raised in Nashville, Ransom began his musical studies at an early age. He was a scholarship student of William Masselos at the Juilliard School in New York (BM and MM), and he also worked with Theodore Lettvin at the University of Michigan (DMA) and Madame Gaby Casadesus at the Ravel Academy in France. Ransom is currently the Mary L. Emerson Professor of Piano at Emory University in Atlanta. He is founder and artistic director of the Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta and has collaborated with such artists as cellists Yo-Yo Ma and Steven Isserlis; clarinetist Richard Stoltzman; members of the Juilliard, Emerson, Tokyo, Cleveland, St. Petersburg, American, Borromeo, Lark, Cavani, and Muir string quartets; violinists William Preucil, Elmar Oliviera, Tim Fain, and Robert McDuffie; guitarist Eliot Fisk; and members of the Empire Brass Quintet, the Eroica Trio, and the percussion group Nexus, among many others. For ten years he was an artist-faculty member of the Kamisaibara Pianists Camp in Japan, and in 2016 he was named artistic director of the Juneau Jazz & Classics Festival in Alaska.
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The Vega String Quartet, quartet-in-residence at Emory University, is cultivating a new generation of chamber music lovers through dynamic performances and innovative community engagement. The New York Times raved that “[the quartet’s] playing had a kind of clean intoxication to it, pulling the listener along . . . the musicians took real risks in their music making” and the Los Angeles Times praised the group’s “triumphant L.A. debut.” The quartet concertizes both nationally and internationally, most recently in Baltimore, Chicago, St. Thomas USVI, Berlin, San Miguel Mexico, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the Brahmssaal in Vienna’s Musikverein. The quartet’s major performance projects at Emory have included the complete cycle of Beethoven quartets, as well as pairing Bach’s complete works for solo violin, viola and cello with the six Bartók quartets. It has also developed a series of “Jazz Meets Classics” programs, bringing the two genres together.
Shi started his viola studies with Li Sheng at the middle school of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. He attended the Royal Academy of Music with a full scholarship with Paul Silverthorne, Roger Chase, and Juan-Miguel Hernandez. After graduating with a first-class honor degree, he received full scholarship offers from the San Francisco Conservatory, Royal Academy of Music, and the Juilliard School for his master’s degree study.Shi has performed as a solo violist and chamber musician at prestigious venues such as Buckingham Palace, Wigmore Hall, Royal Festival Hall, and the Shanghai Concert Hall. He has also frequently played with the San Francisco Symphony and Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
One of the unique aspects of the quartet’s residency at Emory is to bring performance into the classroom, collaborating with academic professors to create interdisciplinary parallels and conversations. The members also enrich the cultural life of their community, having founded the Emory Youth Chamber Music Program, which gives intensive training in small ensemble playing to advanced pre-college
The Vega String Quartet Emily Daggett Smith and Jessica Shuang Wu, violins; Yinzi Kong, viola; Guang Wang, cello
XII Lionel Tertis Viola International Competition, the Regent’s Award from Duchess of Gloucester of British Royalty, and a scholarship from the Drake Calleja Trust and ABRSM from 2016.
10 students. The quartet was appointed to the roster of the Woodruff Arts Center’s Young Audiences program, engaging thousands of students throughout the greater-Atlanta school system. The musicians have also held residencies in Augusta, Jacksonville, and Juneau which combined traditional performances with educational outreach, performances in non-traditional venues, and masterclasses for area students.
The quartet has won numerous international awards, including at the Bordeaux String Quartet Competition, as well as top prizes from the Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition, the Carmel Chamber Music Competition, and the National Society of Arts and Letters String Quartet Competition. The group tours throughout Asia, Europe, and North America, and has appeared at Weill Hall and Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, Bargemusic, and Duke Hall at the Royal Academy of Music, London. The members of the quartet collaborate with some of the world’s finest musicians including Andres Cardenes, Eliot Fisk, Christopher O’Riley, William Preucil, Richard Stoltzman, Mark O’Connor, Robert Spano, Charles Wadsworth, Peter Wiley, and the Eroica Trio. They also commission, premier, and record works by leading composers. The quartet is a frequent guest at numerous music festivals, including Amelia Island, Aspen, Brevard, Highlands-Cashiers, Juneau Jazz & Classics, Kingston, Mostly Mozart, Rockport, San Miguel de Allende, and SummerFest La Jolla.
Music at Emory
The Department of Music at Emory University provides an exciting and innovative environment for developing knowledge and skills as a performer, composer, and scholar. Led by a faculty of more than 60 nationally and internationally recognized artists and researchers, undergraduate and graduate students experience a rich diversity of performance and academic opportunities. Undergraduate students in the department earn a BA in music with a specialization in performance, composition, or research, many of whom simultaneously earn a second degree in another department. True to the spirit of Emory, a liberal arts college in the heart of a research university, the faculty and ensembles also welcome the participation of nonmajor students from across the EmoryBecomecampus.apart of Music at Emory by giving to the Friends of Music. A gift provides crucial support to all of the activities. To learn more, visit music.emory.edu or call 404.727.1401.
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Thursday, October 6, 6:00 p.m., Jazz on the Green, Patterson Green, free Friday, October 14, and Saturday, October 15, 8:00 p.m., In the Middle, Atlanta Master Chorale, Schwartz Center, Emerson Concert Hall, $38/$10 all students, tickets required Saturday, October 15, 10:00 a.m., Alec Chien, piano, ECMSA: Master Class Series, Schwartz Center, Tharp Rehearsal Hall, free
For more ECMSA events, visit chambermusicsociety.emory.edu.
Many fall music events at Emory are free to attend. Visit music.emory. edu or schwartz.emory.edu to view descriptions and information for upcoming music events. If an event requires a ticket for attendance, prices are indicated in the listings below in the following order: Full price/Emory student price (unless otherwise noted as the price for all Friday,students).September 23, 8:00 p.m., Music from Copland House featuring Susan Graham, mezzo-soprano, A Standing Witness, Candler Concert Series, Schwartz Center, Emerson Concert Hall, $55/$10, tickets required
Thursday, October 27, 8:00 p.m., Hélène Grimaud, piano, Candler Concert Series, Schwartz Center, Emerson Concert Hall, $80/$10, tickets required Saturday, October 29, 8:00 p.m., Emory University Symphony Orchestra, Schwartz Center, Emerson Concert Hall, free
Thursday, October 20, 6:00 p.m., Jazz on the Green, Patterson Green, free Thursday, October 20–Saturday, October 22, Urban Bush Women, Candler Dance, Schwartz Center, Dance Studio, $30/$10, tickets required Saturday, October 22, 8:00 p.m., Emory Choirs, Fall Homecoming Concert, Schwartz Center, Emerson Concert Hall, free, tickets required Sunday, October 23, 4:00 p.m., Emory Wind Ensemble, Schwartz Center, Emerson Concert Hall, free
Upcoming Emory Music Concerts
Saturday, October 1, 8:00 p.m., Maria Clark, soprano, artist affiliate recital, Schwartz Center, Emerson Concert Hall, free
Music at Emory Music at Emory brings together students, faculty, and world-class artists to create an exciting and innovative season of performances, lectures, workshops, and master classes. With more than 150 events each year across multiple Emory venues, audiences experience a wide variety of musical offerings. We hope you enjoy sampling an assortment of work from our student ensembles, community youth ensembles, artists in residence, professional faculty, up-and-coming prodigies, and virtuosos from around the world. 404.727.5050 music.emory.edu