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
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 appeared as a soloist with orchestras across the US, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and New Zealand. She was the featured soloist for an eight-orchestra concerto commission, written by her husband, composer David Serkin Ludwig, and recently recorded it with the Buffalo Philharmonic and JoAnn Falletta. Her discography also includes the complete Beethoven and Brahms sonatas with pianist Michael Houstoun. A champion of new music, her project Lineage features six new solo violin commissions by Dai Wei, Gloria Kravchenko, Nokuthula Ngwenyama, Eunike Tanzil, Joan Tower, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. She is a recipient of a 2013 Avery Fisher Career Grant and first-prize winner of the Michael Hill and YCA competitions. Hristova studied with Ida Kavafian and Jaime Laredo, is an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, and plays a 1655 Nicolò Amati violin.
Cellist Jonathan Swensen is the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and joint first prize of the Naumburg International Cello Competition, and was featured as “One to Watch” in Gramophone. He made his concerto debut performing the Elgar Concerto with Portugal’s Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música, and has performed with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Orquesta Ciudad de Granada, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Mobile Symphony, Greenville Symphony, and the Aarhus, Odense, and Iceland symphonies. He has captured first prizes at the Windsor International String Competition, Khachaturian International Cello Competition, and the Young Concert Artists International Auditions. 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 received his Artist Diploma. He is now an Artist in Residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel working with Gary Hoffman, and a member of CMS’s Bowers Program.
Clarinetist Sebastian Manz 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. As a chamber musician, he has performed at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Beethovenhaus Bonn, Festspiele Mecklenburg Vorpommern, and MDR Musiksommer in Germany, collaborating with artists like Danae Dörken and the Danish String Quartet. At the ARD International Music Competition in 2008, he won first prize in the clarinet category, which had not been awarded for 40 years, and the coveted Audience Prize. He is Principal Clarinet of the SWR Symphony Orchestra in Stuttgart. His recording A Bernstein Story was awarded with the Opus Klassik award in 2020, and he recently released a 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. He is an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program.