Purchase, NY
Rachmaninoff: The ComposerSat, Oct 21, 2023, 5:00 pm
The Performing Arts Center, Purchase College
Two hours, including intermission
Program
Anton Rubinstein
(1887–1982)“Romance” from Soirées à Saint-Petersbourg for Violin, Cello, and Piano, Op. 44, No. 1
(1860)Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
(1840–1893)Souvenir d’un lieu cher for Violin and Piano, Op. 42
(1878)Mily Balakirev
(1837–1910)"The Goldfish's Song" for Voice and Piano
(1860)Modest Mussorgsky
(1839–1881)“Where are you, little star?” for Voice and Piano
(1857)Sergei Rachmaninoff
(1873–1943)“Arion” for Voice and Piano, Op. 34, No. 5
(1912)Mikhail Glinka
(1804–1857)“The Lark” from A Farewell to Saint Petersburg for Voice and Piano
(1840)Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
(1844–1908)“It wasn't the wind, blowing from up high” from In Spring for Voice and Piano, Op. 43, No. 2
(1897)Sergei Rachmaninoff
(1873–1943)“These Summer Nights” for Voice and Piano, Op. 14, No. 5
(1896)Sergei Rachmaninoff
(1873–1943)Trio élégiaque in D minor for Piano, Violin, and Cello, Op. 9
(1893, rev. 1917)Gilles Vonsattel
Benjamin Beilman
Clive Greensmith
Swiss-born American pianist Gilles Vonsattel is celebrated for his versatility and originality. He has been honored with an Avery Fisher Career Grant, the 2016 Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award, and top prizes in the Naumburg and Geneva competitions, and has performed alongside world-renowned orchestras like the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, San Francisco Symphony, Munich Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg. He has performed recitals and chamber music at venues including Ravinia, Tokyo’s Musashino Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Lucerne Festival, Bravo! Vail, Chamber Music Northwest, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and Music@Menlo. An advocate of contemporary music, he has premiered compositions in the United States and Europe, collaborating closely with composers Jörg Widmann, Heinz Holliger, Anthony Cheung, and George Benjamin. Recent milestones in his career encompass a performance of Carlos Chávez’s Piano Concerto at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium with The Orchestra Now, a debut at Mostly Mozart, and a critically acclaimed recording of Richard Strauss and Kurt Leimer’s music with the Bern Symphony Orchestra and Mario Venzago for Schweizer Fonogramm. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, he earned his bachelor’s degree in political science and economics from Columbia University and a master’s degree from the Juilliard School. Vonsattel is Professor of Piano at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and is on the faculty at Bard College Conservatory of Music.
Benjamin Beilman is one of the leading violinists of his generation. He has won international praise for his passionate performances and deep rich tone which the New York Times described as “muscular with a glint of violence”, and the Strad described as “pure poetry.“ Le Monde has described him as “a prodigious artist, who combines the gift of utmost sound perfection and a deep, delicate, intense, simmering sensitivity”.
Benjamin's 2024–25 season includes a return to the Antwerp Symphony performing Korngold with Roderick Cox, and to the Hamburger Symphoniker performing Bruch with Ha-Na Chang at the Laeiszhalle. He also makes his debut with the Belgian National Orchestra reuniting with Michael Schønwandt in a performance of Stravinsky’s concerto, and with the Tokyo Metropolitain Symphony performing Korngold. In the US, performances include a return to the Cincinnati Symphony for Saint-Saëns Violin Concerto No.3 with Ramón Tebar, and a recital tour with Steven Osborne.
Last season included Benjamin's subscription debut with the Chicago Symphony with Semyon Bychkov, and six weeks of performances in Europe, including concerts with the SWR Symphonieorchester Stuttgart alongside Elim Chan, a return to the Kölner Philharmonie with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken, and appearances at the Grafenegg Festival, Festpielhaus St. Pölten, and the Musikverein in Vienna with the Tonkünstler Orchester and Tabita Berglund. He also returned to play-direct the London Chamber Orchestra, and re-united with Ryan Bancroft for his debut with BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Meanwhile, performances in the US included his debut with the St Louis Symphony under Cristian Macelaru, as well as returns to the Minnesota Orchestra with Elim Chan.
In past seasons, Benjamin has performed with many major orchestras worldwide including the Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Rotterdam Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Trondheim Symphony, Oslo Philharmonic, Taipei Symphony, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Zurich Tonhalle, Sydney Symphony, and Houston Symphony. He has also extensively toured Australia in recital under Musica Aviva, and in 2022, became one of the youngest artists to be appointed to the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music.
In recent seasons Beilman’s commitment to and passion for contemporary music has led to new works written for him by Frederic Rzewski (commissioned by Music Accord), and Gabriella Smith (commissioned by the Schubert Club in St. Paul, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music). He has also given multiple performances of Jennifer Higdon’s violin concerto, and recorded Thomas Larcher’s concerto with Hannu Lintu and the Tonkünstler Orchester, as well as premiered Chris Rogerson’s Violin Concerto (“The Little Prince”) with the Kansas City Symphony and Gemma New.
Conductors with whom he works include Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Cristian Măcelaru, Lahav Shani, Krzysztof Urbański, Ryan Bancroft, Matthias Pintscher, Gemma New, Karina Canellakis, Jonathon Heyward, Juraj Valčuha, Han-Na Chang, Elim Chan, Roderick Cox, Rafael Payare, Osmo Vänskä, and Giancarlo Guerrero.
Beilman studied at the Curtis Institute of Music with Ida Kavafian and Pamela Frank, and with Christian Tetzlaff at the Kronberg Academy, and has received many prestigious accolades including a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship, an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a London Music Masters Award. He has also recorded works by Stravinsky, Janáček and Schubert for Warner Classics. He perfoms with the ex-Balaković F. X. Tourte bow (c. 1820), and plays the “Ysaÿe” Guarneri del Gesù from 1740, generously on loan from the Nippon Music Foundation.
Clive Greensmith has a distinguished career as soloist, chamber musician, and teacher. From 1999 until 2013 he was a member of the world-renowned Tokyo String Quartet, giving over one hundred performances each year in the most prestigious international venues, including New York’s Carnegie Hall, Sydney Opera House, London’s Southbank Centre, Paris Châtelet, Berlin Philharmonie, Vienna Musikverein, and Suntory Hall in Tokyo. As a soloist, he has performed with the London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic, and the RAI Orchestra of Rome. He has also performed at Marlboro Music Festival, La Jolla Summerfest, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Ravinia Festival, the Salzburg Festival, Edinburgh Festival, and the Pacific Music Festival in Japan. Over 25 years, he has built up a catalogue of landmark recordings, most notably the complete Beethoven string quartet cycle for Harmonia Mundi with the Tokyo String Quartet. He studied at the Royal Northern College of Music in England with American cellist Donald McCall. He continued his studies at the Cologne Musikhochschule in Germany with Boris Pergamenschikow. After his 15-year residency with the Tokyo String Quartet at Yale University, he was appointed Professor of Cello at the Colburn School in Los Angeles in 2014. In 2019, he became the artistic director of the Nevada Chamber Music Festival and was appointed director of chamber music master classes at the Chigiana International Summer Academy in Siena, Italy. Mr. Greensmith is a founding member of the Montrose Trio with pianist Jon Kimura Parker and violinist Martin Beaver.