Sonic Spectrum III
Thu, Apr 11, 2024, 7:30 pm
Daniel and Joanna S. Rose Studio at CMS
90 minutes, no intermission
Program
Felipe Lara
(b. 1979)Livro dos Sonhos for Clarinet and Piano
(2004)Kurt Schwertsik
(b. 1935)Haydn lived in Eisenstadt for Viola and Piano, Op. 122
(2020)Johannes Maria Staud
(b. 1974)Lagrein for Clarinet, Violin, Cello, and Piano
(2008)David Serkin Ludwig
(b. 1974)Trio No. 4 for Piano, Violin, and Cello, “Hashkiveinu”
(2024)Viet Cuong
(b. 1990)Wax and Wire for Clarinet, Violin, Cello, and Piano
(2014)
Chelsea Wang
Wu Qian
Bella Hristova
Timothy Ridout
Jonathan Swensen
Sebastian Manz
Praised by the New York Times as an “excellent young pianist,” Chelsea Wang has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician throughout North America, Europe and Asia. She is a prizewinner of many international piano competitions, and has performed with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Des Moines Symphony and musicians from the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. Her festival appearances include Music@Menlo, Ravinia Steans Music Institute, Bravo!Vail, Tippet Rise, and many others. A native of West Des Moines, Iowa, Ms. Wang is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and Peabody Conservatory, where she studied with Meng-Chieh Liu, Ignat Solzhenitsyn, Leon Fleisher, and Yong-Hi Moon. She is currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music with James Giles. Additionally, Wang is a member of Ensemble Connect, a fellowship program under the joint auspices of Carnegie Hall, the Weill Institute, and the Juilliard School.
Winner of a 2016 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award, as well as classical music’s bright young star award for 2007 by The Independent, pianist Wu Qian has maintained a busy international career for over a decade. She has appeared as soloist in many international venues including the Wigmore, Royal Festival, and Bridgewater halls in the UK, City Hall in Hong Kong, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. As a soloist she has appeared with the Konzerthaus Orchester in Berlin, the Brussels Philharmonic, the London Mozart Players, I Virtuosi Italiani, the European Union Chamber Orchestra, and the Munich Symphoniker. She won first prize in the Trio di Trieste Duo Competition and the Kommerzbank Piano Trio competition in Frankfurt, and has received numerous other awards. Appearances this season include performances in the UK, Germany, USA, Korea, Australia, Spain, and The Netherlands and collaborations with Alexander Sitkovetsky, Leticia Moreno, Cho-Liang Lin, Clive Greensmith, and Wu Han. Her debut recording of Schumann, Liszt, and Alexander Prior was met with universal critical acclaim. She is a founding member of the Sitkovetsky Piano Trio with which, in addition to performing in major concert halls and series around the world, she has released two recordings on the BIS label and also a disc of Brahms and Schubert on the Wigmore Live Label. Wu Qian an alum of The Bowers Program.
Acclaimed for her passionate, powerful performances, beautiful sound, and compelling command of her instrument, violinist Bella Hristova has performed extensively as a soloist with orchestras including the Charlotte, Milwaukee, and Kansas City symphonies as well as orchestras in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and New Zealand. Highlights of the 2023–24 season include performances of Wynton Marsalis’s Violin Concerto with the Charleston Symphony and Eugene Philharmonic, Prokofiev’s Second Concerto with the New York Youth Symphony at Carnegie Hall, and the Barber Concerto with the Orlando Philharmonic. Hristova was the featured soloist for a concerto commissioned by a consortium of eight major orchestras and written for her by her husband, acclaimed composer David Serkin Ludwig, which she continues to perform. A sought-after chamber musician at festivals, she has performed at Australia’s Musica Viva, Music@Menlo, Chamber Music Northwest, and Marlboro Music. Following multiple tours of New Zealand with renowned pianist Michael Houstoun, she and Houstoun recorded the complete Beethoven Sonatas for Piano and Violin, and more recently the Brahms Sonatas, both released on Rattle. She received a 2013 Avery Fisher Career Grant and first prizes in the Michael Hill International Violin Competition and the Young Concert Artists International Auditions, and is a Laureate of the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. Hristova attended the Curtis Institute of Music, where she worked with Ida Kavafian, and received her artist diploma with Jaime Laredo at Indiana University. She is an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program and plays a 1655 Nicolò Amati violin.
Timothy Ridout, a former BBC New Generation Artist, Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship 2020 winner, and recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society 2023 Young Artist Award, is one of the most sought-after violists of his generation. The 2023–24 season sees him join the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, and Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra alongside the likes of Kazuki Yamada and Sir Simon Rattle. Further highlights include his return to America with Camerata Pacifica and his debut with Royal Northern Sinfonia. Recent seasons have included appearances with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Odense Symphony Orchestra, Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, hr-Sinfonieorchester, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Hamburger Symphoniker, Orchestre National de Lille, Camerata Salzburg, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, the Hallé, BBC Philharmonic and Philharmonia Orchestra. Across his engagements he has worked with conductors such as Sakari Oramo, Lionel Bringuier, Sylvain Cambreling, Nicholas Collon, and Sir András Schiff, and performed as far and wide as South America and Australia. In 2020 Ridout won Hamburger Symphoniker’s inaugural Sir Jeffrey Tate Prize and in 2021 he joined CMS’s Bowers Program. Born in London in 1995, Ridout studied at the Royal Academy of Music, graduating with the Queen’s Commendation for Excellence. He completed his master’s at the Kronberg Academy with Nobuko Imai in 2019 and, in 2018, took part in the Kronberg Academy’s Chamber Music Connects the World. He plays a viola by Peregrino di Zanetto c. 1565–75 on loan from a generous patron of Beare’s International Violin Society.
Rising star of the cello Jonathan Swensen is the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and was featured as “One to Watch” in Gramophone Magazine upon the release of his debut recording Fantasia, an album of works for solo cello which received rave reviews on its release. Jonathan fell in love with the cello upon hearing the Elgar Concerto at the age of six, and ultimately made his concerto debut performing that very piece with Portugal’s Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música. He has performed with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Orquesta Ciudad de Granada, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Mobile Symphony, Greenville Symphony, and the Aarhus, Odense, and Iceland symphonies. He made his critically acclaimed recital debuts at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater and New York’s Merkin Concert Hall, with additional performances in Boston’s Jordan Hall, the Morgan Library and Museum, and the Krannert Center. He is a frequent performer of chamber music in the US and Europe, appearing at the Tivoli Festival, Copenhagen Summer Festival, Chamberfest Cleveland, Krzyżowa-Music, Vancouver Recital Society, and San Francisco Performance, among others. He has captured first prizes at the Windsor International String Competition, Khachaturian International Cello Competition, and the Young Concert Artists International Auditions. In 2024, he begins his tenure as a member of CMS’s Bowers Program. A graduate of the Royal Danish Academy of Music, Swensen continued his studies with Torleif Thedéen at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo and Laurence Lesser at New England Conservatory, where he receives his Artist Diploma in May 2023.
Clarinetist Sebastian Manz has been praised for his “enchantingly beautiful intonation and technical prowess” by Fono Forum. He has performed as a soloist with major European orchestras such as the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, and the National Youth Orchestra of Germany. On the chamber music stage, he has given performances at Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Beethovenhaus Bonn, and has appeared at festivals including the prestigious Festspiele Mecklenburg Vorpommern and the MDR Musiksommer in Germany, collaborating with artists like Sebastian Studnitzky, Sarah Christian, Julian Steckel, Danae Dörken, the Danish String Quartet, and the Armida Quartett. At the ARD International Music Competition in 2008, he won not only first prize in the clarinet category, which had not been awarded for 40 years, but also the coveted Audience Prize and other special prizes. He is Principal Clarinet of the SWR Symphony Orchestra in Stuttgart. He is also active in the “Rhapsody in School” organization founded by Lars Vogt, which is committed to bringing classical music into schools. His recording A Bernstein Story was awarded with the Opus Klassik award in 2020. He recently released his recording of clarinet concertos by Carl Nielsen and Magnus Lindberg, as well as a recital recording of works by Brahms and Schumann with pianist Herbert Schuch. Manz was born in Hanover, and his teachers include the acclaimed clarinetists Sabine Meyer and Reiner Wehle. He is an alum of CMS's Bowers Program.