USCB Festival Series Chamber Music Concert

USCB Festival Series Chamber Music Concert
February 8, 2015 ~ 5 pm
USCB Center for the Arts
Gilles Vonsattel, piano
Todd Palmer, clarinet
Bella Hristova, violin
Edward Arron, cello
Trio in c minor for Piano, Violin, and Cello, Opus 1, No. 3
L.v. Beethoven
(1770-1827)
Allegro con brio
Andante cantabile con Variazioni
Menuetto: Quasi Allegro
Finale: Prestissimo
Suite from L’histoire du Soldat (The Soldier’s Tale)
for Violin, Clarinet, and Piano
Igor Stravinsky
(1882-1971)
The Soldier’s March
The Soldier’s Violin
A Little Concert
Tango-Waltz-Ragtime
The Devil’s Dance
~ Intermission ~
Feux d’artifice for Solo Piano
Claude Debussy
(1862-1918)
Sonata for Violin and Piano
C. Debussy
Allegro vivo
Intermède: Fantasque et léger
Finale: Très animé
Grand ‘Trio’ Concertant for Piano, Clarinet and Cello
C. M. von Weber
(1786-1826)
Arranged from Grand Duo Concertant, Opus 48 by Todd Palmer
Allegro con fuoco
Andante con moto
Rondo: Allegro
GILLES VONSATTEL
Winner of a 2008 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Gilles Vonsattel is an
artist of uncommon breadth. Called a “wanderer between worlds”
by the Lucerne Festival he is an artist of extraordinary versatility
and originality. With repertoire that ranges from Bach’s Art of the
Fugue to Xenakis, as well as equal comfort as a soloist and
chamber musician, Vonsattel displays a musical curiosity and
sense of adventure that has gained him many admirers. He began
touring after capturing the top prize at the prestigious 2002
Naumburg International Piano Competition. He made his Alice
Tully Hall debut that year and has since performed with the
Warsaw Philharmonic; at Zürich’s Tonhalle, Warsaw’s Chopin
Festival, and Tokyo’s Opera City Hall and throughout the US. In
July 2010 he made his Boston Symphony Orchestra and
Tanglewood debuts in the Brahms First Piano Concerto under
Herbert Blomstedt, and in 2011 he made his San Francisco
Symphony debut. He has been an artist member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln
Center since the 2012-13 season.
Vonsattel regularly plays at festivals, including Rockport, Angelfire, Ottawa, Bridgehampton,
Seattle, Caramoor, West Cork, and Archipel. The top prize winner at the 2006 Geneva
International Music Competition, Vonsattel was a laureate of the 2009 Honens International
Piano Competition in Calgary and is also a laureate of the Cleveland and Dublin piano
competitions. He has been heard frequently on NPR’s Performance Today, Radio France
Musique, CBC, ARD, and the BBC. Vonsattel’s recording of Liszt solo works and Beethoven’s
Piano Concerto No. 1 with L’Orchestre de Chambre de Genève was released in 2007 on the
Pan Classics label to critical acclaim. In 2011 a recording of music by Ravel, Debussy,
Honegger and Holliger was released on the Honens label. His most recent CD is music of
Heinz Holliger on the GENUN label.
After studying with pianist David Deveau, he received his B.A. in political science and
economics from Columbia University and his M.M. from The Juilliard School, where he worked
with Jerome Lowenthal. Beginning in September 2010, he assumed the position of Assistant
Professor of Piano at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst.
TODD PALMER
Having been involved in creative and diverse artistic presentations
throughout his career, clarinetist Todd Palmer has appeared as
soloist, recitalist, chamber music collaborator, educator, arranger,
and presenter in a musical endeavors around the world. He has
appeared with symphony and chamber orchestras and has
collaborated with many of the world’s finest string ensembles such
as the St. Lawrence, Brentano, Borromeo, Pacifica and Daedelus
quartets. Palmer has also shared the stage with sopranos Kathleen
Battle, Renée Fleming, Heidi Grant Murphy, and Dawn Upshaw
and commissioned and appeared in the world premiere of
composer Ricky Gordon’s theatre work, Orpheus and Euridice, with
coloratura Elizabeth Futral on Great Performers at Lincoln Center.
Since being the first wind player to be awarded the grand prize in
the Ima Hogg Young Artist Auditions and then winning the Young
Concert Artist International Auditions, Mr. Palmer has appeared as recitalist and lecturer at
major performing arts centers and universities in 48 States and a dozen countries. In addition,
Mr. Palmer has been closely associated with composer Osvaldo Golijov. His recording of The
Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind with the St. Lawrence Quartet for EMI Classics received
two Grammy Award nominations in addition to the Classical Prelude Award from the
Netherlands.
He has participated in numerous music festivals in the US and abroad including 19 years at
Spoleto Festival USA and the Tanglewood Institute, where he was awarded the Leonard
Bernstein Fellowship. In 2008 he premiered David Bruce’s Gumboots, a Carnegie Hall
commission written especially for him and the St. Lawrence Quartet, and for two years he
appeared in Lincoln Center’s revival of South Pacific. In 2011 he was a soloist in Robert
Lepage’s staging of Stravinsky’s The Nightingale and Other Fables at BAM and in 2013 gave
the world premiere of Crosswalk, a new work for clarinet and dance by choreographer Mark
Morris.
Palmer has had many of his arrangements performed throughout the country in addition to
many broadcasts on NPR’s Performance Today. Discography includes DG, EMI, Koch, Bridge,
New World and Ghostlight recordings. Palmer has recorded for EMI, DG, Koch, Naxos and
Ghostlight labels.
.
BELLA HRISTOVA
Acclaimed for her passionate performances, beautiful sound, and
compelling command of her instrument, violinist Bella Hristova is a
young musician with a growing international reputation. The Strad
has praised, “Every sound she draws is superb,” and The
Washington Post noted that she is “a player of impressive power and
control.” Recipient of a 2013 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Ms.
Hristova’s 2014-2015 season includes chamber music with the
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and at the Cactus Pear
Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, the Skaneateles Festival,
and the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival. She also appears
in encore recital performances in the Young Concert Artists Series at
Merkin Concert Hall and at the Kennedy Center.
Ms. Hristova has performed extensively as soloist with orchestra
including with Pinchas Zukerman and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Lincoln Center and the New
York String Orchestra under Jaime Laredo at Carnegie Hall. Her most recent recording is Bella
Unaccompanied.
In addition to the 2013 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Bella Hristova is the recipient of numerous
prizes and awards, including First Prize in the 2009 Young Concert Artists International
Auditions, the Gordon and Harriet Greenfield Foundation Fellowship of YCA, and First Prize in
the 2007 Michael Hill International Violin Competition in New Zealand. She debuted in the
Young Concert Artists Series at Merkin Concert Hall, at the Kennedy Center and at the Isabella
Gardner Museum in Boston.
Following the Michael Hill prize, she made a critically acclaimed tour of New Zealand and a CD
of solo violin works by Charles de Bériot (Naxos). Music Web International praised the CD, “The
musical diversity of these pieces is a delight….Hristova combines jaw-dropping technical
prowess with real style.”
Born in Bulgaria, Ms. Hristova began violin studies at the age of six. In 2003, she entered the
Curtis Institute of Music, where she worked with Ida Kavafian and studied chamber music with
Steven Tenenbom. She received her Artist Diploma with Jaime Laredo at Indiana University in
2010. Ms. Hristova plays a 1655 Nicolò Amati violin, once owned by the violinist Louis Krasner.
EDWARD ARRON
Cellist Edward Arron has garnered recognition worldwide for his elegant
musicianship, impassioned performances, and creative programming. A
native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Mr. Arron made his New York recital debut in
2000 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Since that time, he has
appeared in recital, as a soloist with major orchestras, and as a chamber
musician throughout North America, Europe and Asia.
In 2013, Mr. Arron completed a ten-year residency as the artistic director
of the critically acclaimed Metropolitan Museum Artists in Concert, a
chamber music series created in 2003 to celebrate the 50th anniversary
of the Museum’s prestigious Concerts and Lectures series. Currently, he
is the artistic director, host, and resident performer of the Musical
Masterworks concert series in Old Lyme, Connecticut, as well as the
Festival Series in Beaufort, South Carolina and Chamber Music on Main at the Columbia
Museum in Columbia, SC. Additionally, Mr. Arron curates a series, “Edward Arron and Friends,”
at the Caramoor International Music Festival, and is the co-artistic director along with his wife,
pianist Jeewon Park, of the new Performing Artists in Residence series at the Clark Art Institute
in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
Mr. Arron has performed numerous times at Carnegie’s Weill and Zankel Halls, Lincoln Center’s
Alice Tully and Avery Fisher Halls, New York’s Town Hall, and the 92nd Street Y, and is a
frequent performer at Bargemusic. Festival appearances include Ravinia, Salzburg, Mostly
Mozart, BRAVO! Colorado, Tanglewood, Bridgehampton, Spoleto USA, Santa Fe, Seattle
Chamber Music, Great Mountains, Charlottesville, Telluride Musicfest, Seoul Spring, Lake
Champlain Chamber Music, and Bard Music Festival. He has participated in Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk
Road Project as well as Isaac Stern’s Jerusalem Chamber Music Encounters.
Edward Arron began playing the cello at age seven in Cincinnati and continued his studies in
New York with Peter Wiley. He is a graduate of the Juilliard School, where he was a student of
Harvey Shapiro. Mr. Arron has served on the faculty of New York University since 2009.