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.
Bulgarian-American violinist Bella Hristova has won international acclaim for her “expressive nuance and rich tone” (New York Times) and “impressive power and control” (Washington Post). A recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, she is known for a diverse repertoire, bold programming, and a warmly beguiling stage presence. Hristova has performed as a soloist with orchestras across the United States, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and New Zealand, and has given recitals at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. A devoted champion of living composers, she has premiered new concertos by Anthony Ritchie and her husband, David Serkin Ludwig. Her commissioning project, Lineage, features six new solo violin works and will be released as an album on Azica Records in 2027. She plays a 1655 Nicolò Amati violin once owned by Louis Krasner.
Violist Timothy Ridout has appeared with orchestras including the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, and the Netherlands Philharmonic, working alongside conductors such as Sakari Oramo, Sir András Schiff, Sylvain Cambreling, and Sir Simon Rattle. A committed chamber musician, he performs regularly at Wigmore Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and the Musikverein, with partners including Janine Jansen, Leonidas Kavakos, and Yo-Yo Ma. A champion of new music, Ridout premiered Mark Simpson's Viola Concerto Hold Your Heart in Your Teeth with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin under Robin Ticciati. He records with Harmonia Mundi, and has made appearances at the BBC Proms, Verbier Festival, and Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Ridout is a former BBC New Generation Artist, an alum of CMS’s Bowers program, and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellow. He performs on a viola by Peregrino di Zanetto, c.1565–75, on generous loan from a patron of Beare’s International Violin Society.
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, including the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra and the Munich Chamber Orchestra. As a chamber musician, he has appeared at venues such as the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Beethovenhaus Bonn, the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. He has collaborated with artists like Danae Dörken, the Danish String Quartet, the Amaryllis Quartet, and the Schumann Quartett. At age 22, Manz won first prize in the clarinet category at the ARD International Music Competition, a prize that had not been awarded for 40 years, as well as the coveted Audience Prize. He is the principal clarinetist of the SWR Symphony Orchestra in Stuttgart. His recordings include A Bernstein Story, which won the 2020 Opus Klassik award; clarinet concertos by Nielsen and Lindberg; and a recital of works by Brahms and Schumann with pianist Herbert Schuch. His double album, Quasi Cool, showcases his stylistic versatility as a clarinetist and arranger. He is an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program.