JUNE 21 OPENING NIGHT GALA - Americans in Paris
Saturday, 8:30pm
Venetian Theater
Tickets: $70.00, $57.50, $45.00, $32.50
Orchestra of St. Luke's
Jon Kimura Parker, piano; Alisa Weilerstein, cello;
Igor Begelman, clarinet; Michael Barrett, conductor
Three internationally renowned soloists, Michael Barrett, and the Orchestra of St. Luke's launched the 2008 International Festival with Americans in Paris, a program featuring works by Gershwin, Copland, and Bernstein, each of whom found creative inspiration in the immortal City of Lights.
Opening Night, was sponsored, in part, through generous support from ReachCapital Management, LLC.
ABOUT THE MUSIC
Leonard Bernstein
Paris Waltz from Candide
Leonard Bernstein was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, on 25 August 1918 and died in New York City on October 14, 1990. His musical Candide went through several versions (discussed below). The waltz to be performed here is from a suite arranged by Charlie Harmon and first performed by the Minnesota Orchestra on January 14, 1999.
Leonard Bernstein’s Candide, a musical based on Voltaire's satirical short novel, opened on Broadway on December 1, 1956. At the time it was regarded as a noble failure when it closed after only 73 performances. Certainly there were dramatic problems with Lillian Hellman's book; not until the show was completely restaged with a totally rewritten libretto as a kind of lively vaudeville did it become a real popular success, nearly two decades after its first run. Yet, the original cast album became an underground classic, demonstrating to anyone who cared to listen that this show managed to combine in rare profusion a wide range of musical styles, many of them witty parodies, in astonishing technical brilliance.
Candide might have been regarded as a failure at first, but Bernstein kept coming back to it again and again. After the great Broadway success of the lively second version, he reworked it into a more elaborate "opera house version" which emphasized the show's musical splendors (this was performed and recorded by the New York City Opera). And even that version he worked on for another production, for the Scottish Opera, just before his death, in the hope of producing a definitive version.
Through all the rewrites and variant editions, some songs were moved around, repurposed, provided with different lyrics or dramatic settings. Other songs remained unchanged. A few things were dropped from one production and then reinstated for another. The overture was one thing that never changed. From the beginning, Candide boasted a real overture that was something other than the hastily-cobbled-together potpourri of songs designed to be the hit numbers. This bright and sassy overture quickly assumed a life of its own and kept the memory of the show alive even when there was no chance (or so it seemed) of a revival.
The passage to be heard here comes from the Scottish Opera version. Following the early scene in which an attack on their homeland separates the young lovers Candide and Cunegonde (each of whom believes that the other has died), the story shifts to Paris, where Cunegonde is living a glamorous life as a kept woman. The scene is introduced with a brilliant waltz that serves the practical function of covering a scene change and the dramatic function of projecting in music the brilliant high life of the 18th-century French capital.
Gabriel Fauré
Élégie, Op. 24
Gabriel Urbain Fauré was born in Pamiers, Ariège, on May 12, 1845, and died in Paris on November 4, 1924. He composed his Élégie for cello and piano in 1880; in that version it was first performed by cellist Jules Loëb at a concert of the Société Nationale on December 15, 1883. Fauré orchestrated the work about 1897; a revision dating from about 1901 received its premiere in Monte Carlo on January 23, 1902; Carlo Sansoni was the soloist, Léon Jéhin the conductor. In addition to the solo instrument, the score calls for woodwinds in pairs, four horns, and strings. Duration is about eight minutes.
In the last months of Fauré's life, Aaron Copland, then a student in Paris, wrote an article for the American journal, The Musical Quarterly, in which he commented, "The world at large has particular need of Gabriel Fauré today; need of his calm, his naturalness, his restraint, his optimism; need, above all, of the musician and his great art." These terms sum up much of the effect of Fauré’s music, though they scarcely indicate his importance as the most advanced composer of his generation and one of the greatest teachers of his time. Every voice student learns at least of few of his exquisite songs; every chorus sooner or later essays that most tranquil of nineteenth-century settings of the Requiem. Instrumentalists play some of his exquisite chamber works with great frequency, others far less often than they deserve. For all practical purposes, orchestras limit themselves to the suite from the incidental music he composed to Maeterlinck’s play Pelléas et Mélisande and a few other small lyric pieces, of which the Élégie is among the most familiar.
On June 24, 1880, the Élégie received a private performance in the home of Saint-Saëns, following which Fauré wrote to his publisher, "My cello piece was excellently received, which greatly encourages me to go on and do the whole Sonata." By 1883 he had clearly decided against finishing a cello sonata, since he published what would have been its slow movement as a separate work. Not until 1917 did Fauré actually write a cello sonata, but by then he was a very different composer from the one he had been in 1880. Its success evidently encouraged him to write a second sonata in 1921.
The single slow movement is laid out in a simple ABA form, beginning and ending with a poignant, drooping theme. The contrasting middle section is filled with sinuous arabesque culminating in a brief cadenza and an abbreviated return of the first theme an octave higher.
Leonard Bernstein
Three Meditations from "Mass" for Cello and Orchestra
As the title suggests, Three Meditations from "Mass" is drawn from Leonard Bernstein's full-length Mass: A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players, and Dancers, which was composed for the opening of the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and premiered there on September 8, 1971. Later the composer adapted several passages from the score as a duo for cello and piano, and then arranged them in orchestral form; this version is dedicated to Mstislav Rostropovich, who gave the first performance at the Kennedy Center, with the composer conducting, on October 11, 1977. In this form the score calls for solo cello and an orchestra consisting of string orchestra augmented by harp, piano, organ, and a large percussion ensemble consisting of vibraphone, xylophone, marimba, timpani, glockenspiel, cymbals, suspended cymbals, triangle tambourine, gourds, tom-tom, two snare drums, bass drum, and three hand drums (high, middle, and low).
No doubt most of those who attended the first performance of Mass at the Kennedy Center in 1971 assumed (from its title) that the work would be essentially another in the long and distinguished line of Mass settings of which the European cultural tradition is so rich (and which Bernstein himself knew so well as a conductor), perhaps especially a work like Beethoven's Missa solemnis, which combines visionary ecstasy with structural strength. As a conductor, Bernstein was one of the greatest advocates the Beethoven score has ever had (and he conducted it in a memorable performance at Tanglewood during the last month of work on his own Mass).
Such a setting would have been perfectly suitable as a tribute to a Roman Catholic president. But Bernstein's music was always essentially theatrical, and Mass was not intended to be merely a concert work, but rather a treatment of the burning issues of American society in the early 1970s placed within the context of the traditional elements of the Latin Mass that composers have been setting to music for at least 700 years. The resulting work treated theological questions of doubt and faith, dramatically cast to suggest the debates of the "God is dead" movement that was much discussed at the time, as well as war and peace, race relations, social and economic justice, and ecological concerns.
As the composer noted in a preface to Three Meditations, there were points of "extreme tension" in the stage work in which the principal character of the evening, known simply as the Celebrant, "tries to control the situation by saying, 'Let us pray,' and it is at these moments that the Meditations are played by the pit orchestra, while the entire company remains motionless in attitudes of prayer, or contemplates ceremonial dance." This description is true enough of the first two "meditations" (which are actually called "Meditation #1" and "Meditation #2" in the score of Mass). "Meditation #1" comes between the Confession and the Gloria; "Meditation #2" follows the Gloria and precedes the Epistle. The first two movements of the present work are in fact fairly literal arrangements of those two passages, with a leading role now given to the solo cello and considerable reworking of the orchestral part. The second of these is a set of four short variations based on a brief eleven-note passage from the finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (a highly chromatic passage that does not at once suggest Beethoven). During the course of the movement there are two brief, but quite recognizable quotations from the Beethoven work: the opening notes of the famous "Joy" theme, and the simple major chords to which are sung the word Brüder ("Brothers"), played here by the cello and echoed by the string orchestra in the same texture as Beethoven’s original.
The third movement has more complex origins. It does not correspond to the passage labeled "Meditation #3," late in Mass, but is rather mostly a reworking of the music called the "Second Introit," which consisted of three sections: a lively choral dance in 9/8 time (but, typically of Bernstein, the meter is made vigorous and jazzy with alternations of 3/8 and 3/4); a chorale, "Almighty father," in something of a simple congregational hymn-singing style; and Epiphany, an extended solo for oboe with percussion. For Three Meditations, Bernstein rewrote the oboe solo for cello, and placed Epiphany first (though it returns at the end to round out the movement). The choral dance is now purely orchestral and considerably extended, while the chorale is tranquil and visionary in mood.
As Bernstein's note to the Three Meditations indicated, by comparison to a full theatrical performance of Mass, "These excerpts can convey at best only a certain limited aspect of scope and intention," but they do nonetheless capture a good bit of the character of one of Leonard Bernstein's most unusual-yet most typical-works.
Aaron Copland
Clarinet Concerto
Aaron Copland was born in Brooklyn, New York, on November 14, 1900, and died in Tarrytown, New York on December 2, 1990. He composed the Clarinet Concerto for Benny Goodman, who gave the first performance on November 6, 1950, with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Fritz Reiner. In addition to the solo instrument, the score calls for piano, harp, and strings. Duration is about 18 minutes.
Early in his career, Copland had adopted some of the rhythmic elements and characteristic sonorities of jazz in order to sound more American. In such works as Music for the Theatre of 1925 he translated the "feel" of the popular stage of the day—vaudeville and charming book musicals of Kern, Gershwin, and others, with great songs and brainless plots—into a tasty concert piece that challenged the symphony orchestras called upon to play it, because almost all of the musicians in those orchestras were Europeans of the old school, with no feeling for the syncopations of American popular music.
During the '30s, Copland found other ways of creating an American sound, mostly through the employment of folk songs and fragments in his popular ballets Billy the Kid, Rodeo, and Appalachian Spring. But he returned quite naturally to his jazzy licks when writing a piece for a great jazz musician, clarinetist Benny Goodman. After making his mark as a jazzman, Goodman began to take an interest in classical music as well, playing the Mozart concerto and other standard repertory works for his instrument. When he decided to commission a new piece, he wanted the best composer available; various musical advisors were unanimous in suggesting Copland.
Copland, an inveterate traveler, began the score in Rio de Janeiro late in 1947, but he finished it during his sixth season of teaching at Tanglewood during the summer of 1948. Goodman found it a challenge, especially in the lively syncopated parts, which move in ways rather different from the jazz he was accustomed to. But his loving performance (and the superb recording he made) quickly established the concerto as a popular modern favorite.
Structurally, the work is simplicity itself: two movements (slow, then fast) linked by a solo cadenza. The first movement is graceful and songful, cast in broad but gentle musical arches. The cadenza introduces some jazzy elements that are then fully exploited in the faster second movement.
George Gershwin
Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra
George Gershwin was born in Brooklyn, New York, on September 26, 1898 and died in Beverly Hills, California, on July 11, 1937. He composed his concerto in the summer of 1925 on a commission from the New York Philharmonic, and played the solo part himself at the premiere, under the direction of Walter Damrosch, on December 3. In addition to the solo piano, the score calls for three flutes and piccolo, three oboes and English horn, three clarinets and bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones and tuba, timpani plus three percussionists, and strings. Duration is about 31 minutes.
This year marks the 110th anniversary of George Gershwin's birth. Had he lived even a normal lifespan – rather than being cut off in his prime by a brain tumor at the age of thirty-eight – who knows what musical marvels we might have, to celebrate his life and work on this occasion? But that is the kind of second-guessing we offer for other musical geniuses whose lives were far too short: Mozart, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Bizet, none of whom reached the age of forty. And as with them, we also celebrate Gershwin's far-too-brief life because, in spite of its brevity, his creativity left an astonishing wealth of riches. He remains unique among American composers.
After all, Gershwin did something that no other composer has managed to do so easily and so well: he spanned the two cultures of classical and popular music in America, crossing a chasm that had begun to open up in the middle of the 19th century, when composers had to choose whether they wanted to be popular (and, with luck, get rich) or to be taken seriously as artists (though that probably meant starving in self-respect). They might address an audience in the hundreds or a few thousand in the concert halls, or they might reach millions via the popular theater, sheet music, and later recordings, radio, and television.
Many composers had no choice; limited technique kept them in the "popular" camp because they were unable to do more than pound out a simple tune with simple lyrics and hope it would catch on. At the other end of the spectrum, a few composers with a high degree of training wrote for the elite, yet sometimes offered up a lively march or a waltz or a comic opera to show that they were not too starchy. Before Gershwin only two composers—John Philip Sousa and Victor Herbert—had a considerable degree of success in more than one musical arena, but the world has persisted in linking them especially to the march and the operetta. And since Gershwin showed the way, other composers, like Morton Gould, Leonard Bernstein, and André Previn sought success in different areas. They were talented creators who have left much wonderful music. But none of them, before or since, created a full body of music that is so consistently welcomed from Broadway to the Met, from "Your Hit Parade" to Carnegie Hall.
Gershwin's talent was recognized early-and he himself was never shy about displaying it. But given his background, as the son of hard-working Russian-Jewish immigrants growing up in his native Brooklyn and haunting the popular Yiddish theater on New York's Lower East Side, no one would have predicted the direction his talent would take. He began his professional life as a song-plugger—someone who sat at the piano in one of the music-publishing shops in Tin Pan Alley to demonstrate the recent popular songs in the hopes that customers would buy the sheet music to take it home and learn themselves. Periodically he would slip in a tune of his own, and he found that these were liked by the listeners. By the time he was twenty-one he had written his first full Broadway score (for La, La, Lucille, 1919) and the following year his song Swanee became a sensational hit for Al Jolson and earned Gershwin $10,000 in royalties the first year; in fact, it remained his number-one money-maker for the rest of his life. Clearly he was destined to become a "popular" composer.
But already at that time, while turning out bright and flippant Broadway shows, he contributed a surprising extended piece—a short opera called Blue Monday, sung by African-American performers—to the flossy, cheerful, empty-headed Scandals of 1921, a revue produced by George White. The audience was not prepared for a serious musical-dramatic number ending in murder as part of their light entertainment, and Blue Monday was dropped after a single performance.
But it showed that Gershwin was interested in more than the thirty-two bar song form of which he had already become a master. And Paul Whiteman, a bandleader who wanted to elevate the popular music of the time, remembered it. Three years later he persuaded Gershwin to write a concert piece for a special program—“An Experiment in Modern Music,” he called it—to
demonstrate the potential of jazz and the syncopated rhythms of the '20s. The result was called Rhapsody in Blue, and it made history. Suddenly, out of the world of American popular music, there was a piano concerto that sang and swung and snapped its fingers. Gershwin undertook serious study of compositional techniques and wrote more large pieces—the Concerto in F, An American in Paris, the Second Rhapsody, the Variations on I Got Rhythm—that still enjoy a welcome in the concert hall, and Porgy and Bess is still arguably the finest opera yet written by an American.
Uniquely, even as he aspired ever higher into the world of concert music and opera, Gershwin continued to turn out one great musical after another, each filled with a string of splendid songs that caught the ear at first hearing and remained in the mind long after. From 1924, working with his brother Ira as his lyricist, Gershwin wrote Lady Be Good (1924), Oh, Kay! (1926), Strike Up the Band (1927, rewritten 1930), Girl Crazy (1930), Of Thee I Sing (1931), and Let'Em Eat Cake (1933), to name only the major shows. If he had written nothing else, Gershwin=s name would still be linked with those of the other masterful songwriters of the Golden Age of the American Musical: Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers among them.
The Concerto in F would never have been written but for the success of Rhapsody in Blue. Even though that work was loose-limbed in its architecture, it demonstrated Gershwin=s ability to write a piece much larger than a popular song, so when the New York Philharmonic offered a commission for a genuine full scale piano concerto, he accepted.
Gershwin's own analysis of the work is the best brief guide: "The first movement employs the Charleston rhythm. It is quick and pulsating, representing the young enthusiastic spirit of American life.... The second movement has a poetic nocturnal atmosphere which has come to be referred to as the American blues, but in a purer form than that in which they are usually treated. The final movement reverts to the style of the first. It is an orgy of rhythms, starting violently and keeping to the same pace throughout."
-Program Notes © Steven Ledbetter
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Jon Kimura Parker, piano ~ Internationally acclaimed concert pianist Jon Kimura Parker’s extraordinary career has taken him from Carnegie Hall and London’s Royal Festival Hall to Baffin Island and Zimbabwe. A true Canadian ambassador of music, Mr. Parker has given two command performances for Queen Elizabeth II, special performances for the United States Supreme Court, and has performed for the Prime Ministers of Canada and Japan. He is an Officer of The Order of Canada, his country's highest civilian honor.
In recent seasons, Jon Kimura Parker has performed as guest soloist with the New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic, the NHK Tokyo Orchestra, and with major orchestra in Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Cincinnati, Dallas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Montreal, San Diego, Salt Lake City and Toronto. This season Mr. Parker performs as concerto soloist with fifteen symphony orchestras in North America with conductors including Hans Graf, Jeffrey Kahane, David Robertson, Michael Stern, and Pinchas Zukerman, He also returns to Vail with the Philadelphia Orchestra next summer.
Recent summer orchestral festival appearances have included the Hollywood Bowl, Minnesota Sommerfest, Mainly Mozart, Sun Valley and Vail, as well as chamber music festivals in Amelia Island, La Jolla, Santa Fe, Seattle, Steamboat Springs and Orcas Island. Jon Kimura Parker also collaborates regularly with the Tokyo Quartet and Lynn Harrell. An unusually versatile artist, Mr. Parker has jammed with Doc Severinsen in Calgary and Bobby McFerrin in Philadelphia and Baltimore, and has performed with Audra McDonald and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. As a member of the outreach project "PianoPlus," Mr. Parker toured remote areas including the Canadian Arctic, performing classical music and rock ’n’ roll on everything from upright pianos to electronic keyboards.
An active media personality, Mr. Parker has hosted the classical music television series Whole Notes, on Bravo! Canada. He also hosted CBC Radio Two's five-part series Up And Coming, showcasing young musicians. He has played himself in a guest appearance on the Disney Channel's Under the Umbrella Tree. Mr. Parker was also seen on CNN performing in war-torn Sarajevo, and documented on PBS's The Visionaries.
A committed educator, Jon Kimura Parker is Professor of Piano at The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in Houston. His former student Jade Simmons was recently named the first New Music/New Places Fellow by New York’s Concert Artists Guild. Mr. Parker is the E. Stephen Purdom Distinguished Visiting Artist at the Schwob School of Music at Columbus State University, as well as Honorary Co-Chair of the Piano Pedagogy Research Laboratory at the University of Ottawa. Mr. Parker has given master classes and lectures at The Juilliard School, The Steans Institute, and Yale University. Jon Kimura Parker is also the Artistic Advisor of the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival.
"Jackie" Parker received all of his early education in Canada, training with his uncle, Edward Parker and his mother, Keiko Parker. He studied with Lee Kum-Sing at the Vancouver Academy of Music and University of British Columbia, Marek Jablonski at The Banff Centre, and with renowned pedagogue Adele Marcus at The Juilliard School, where he received his doctorate. He won the Gold Medal at the 1984 Leeds International Piano Competition.
Mr. Parker has recorded for Telarc with Yoel Levi, Andre Previn and Peter Schickele. He was born, raised and educated in Vancouver. He lives in Houston with his wife, violinist Aloysia Friedmann and their daughter Sophie. For further information, please see www.kimura.com and www.oicmf.org.
Alisa Weilerstein, cello ~ The 25-year old American cellist Alisa Weilerstein has attracted widespread recognition for playing that combines natural virtuosity and with impassioned musicianship. Ms. Weilerstein has performed with the nation’s top orchestras, given recitals in music capitals throughout the U.S. and Europe, and regularly participates in prestigious international festivals. She is also dedicated to performing chamber music, having grown up in a family of musicians with whom she collaborated from an early age. Regularly lauded for her interpretive instincts coupled with technical prowess, the New York Times wrote of a performance that Ms. Weilerstein “radiated such concentration and pleasure…that watching her became a lesson in the art of listening.” Following her recent New York Philharmonic debut, performing the Elgar Cello Concerto, Newsday wrote that “to hear Weilerstein play is to experience the serenity of being in a master’s hands.”
Ms. Weilerstein is already continually engaged by orchestras across the U.S. and has performed as soloist with the Baltimore Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Saint Louis Symphony and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, among others. In Europe she has performed with the Barcelona Symphony, Bournemouth Symphony, Gulbenkian Orchestra Lisbon, Leipziger Bachkollegium, Orchestre National de France, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich. She makes regular appearances at festivals such as the Aspen Music Festival, Bad Kissingen, Blossom Music Festival, Caramoor, Green Music Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Schleswig-Holstein, Spoleto USA, Vail, Vancouver Chamber Music Festival, and the Verbier Festival. Ms. Weilerstein was recently named the winner of the 2006 Leonard Bernstein Award, which she received at the Schleswig-Holstein Festival in Germany.
During the 2006-07 season Ms. Weilerstein made her New York Philharmonic subscription debut performing the Elgar Cello Concerto with Zubin Mehta conducting, and performed with the Philharmonic under Lorin Maazel in Tokyo during the Philharmonic’s 2006 Japan Korea visit. She also made her debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra with Christoph Eschenbach conducting, and gave recitals with violinist Maxim Vengerov and pianist Lilya Zilberstein at Carnegie Hall, La Salle Pleyel in Paris and the Barbican in London. Other highlights of Ms. Weilerstein’s 2006-07 season include performances with the Seattle Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, and the Moscow State Symphony as part of their U.S. tour, among other engagements. She also gives a U.S. tour with Gil Shaham and Friends that includes a performance at Zankel Hall in May. This summer Ms. Weilerstein will give two trio recitals with Maxim Vengerov and Igor Levit at the Dr. Anton Philips Hall in The Hague and at Cadogan Hall in London. She will give the New York premiere of Osvaldo Golijov’s cello concerto, Azul, during the opening concerts of the Mostly Mozart festival, and performs again with the New York Philharmonic under Lorin Maazel at the Vail Festival. She also performs with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Ludovic Morlot at the Mann Center. During the 2007-08 season Ms. Weilerstein will perform with the Detroit Symphony under Sir Andrew Davis, the Pittsburgh Symphony under Marek Janowski, the San Diego Symphony under Jahja Ling, the San Francisco Symphony under David Roberston, and the Toronto Symphony under Peter Oundjian, among many other engagements. She will also give several recitals throughout the U.S., including the Celebrity Series in Boston. Abroad she will perform with the NDR Hamburg under Manfred Honik, the New York Philharmonic under Lorin Maazel at the Hong Kong Festival, and will give recitals in Bergamo and Milan, Italy.
Ms. Weilerstein has given recitals in music centers across the U.S., including Atlanta, Baltimore, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Portland and San Francisco. She performed at The Louvre in her Paris recital debut in September 1999. Other notable engagements have included an eight-city tour of Japan, featuring a Suntory Hall performance in March 1999, a concert tour of Australia, and Florida tours with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in 2000 and 2002.
Alisa Weilerstein was the recipient in 2000 of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and was selected for two prestigious young artists programs in 2000-01, the ECHO (European Concert Hall Organization) “Rising Stars” recital series and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Society Two. As part of the ECHO series in 2000-01, Ms. Weilerstein gave recitals at seven celebrated concert halls in Europe (Symphony Hall in Birmingham, Wigmore Hall in London, Athens Concert Hall, the Cologne Philharmonie, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam) as well as at Carnegie Hall (Weill Recital Hall), which nominated her to be part of the series. Ms. Weilerstein also released an acclaimed recording on EMI Classics’ Debut series in 2000 including works by Paganini, Dvorák, Ginastera, Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, Janácek, Saint-Saëns, Fauré and De Falla.
Having begun playing the cello at age 4, Ms. Weilerstein performed her first public concert six months later. She often plays with her parents, Donald and Vivian Hornik Weilerstein, as the Weilerstein Trio, which is the Trio-in-Residence at the New England Conservatory in Boston. Her Cleveland Orchestra debut was in October 1995, at age 13, playing the Tchaikovsky “Rococo” Variations. She made her Carnegie Hall debut with the New York Youth Symphony in March 1997. Ms. Weilerstein is a graduate of the Young Artist Program at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Richard Weiss. In May 2004, she graduated from Columbia University in New York with a degree in Russian History. For more information on Ms. Weilerstein, please visit www.alisaweilerstein.com
Igor Begelman, clarinet ~ "Exhilarating virtuosity and imagination that compliment his gracious sense of style and excellent musical personality" (Houston Chronicle) have become the trademarks for the recent Winner of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, clarinetist Igor Begelman.
He has performed recitals in the United States, Europe, Japan, and Israel and as a soloist with the Houston, Savannah and New Haven Symphonies, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, as well as the Odense Simfoniker and L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande among others.
Equally accomplished as a soloist and chamber musician, Mr. Begelman has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and at festivals throughout the world including Marlboro, Moab, Tucson, Caramoor, Tanglewood and Schleswig-Holstein. An avid proponent of new music, Mr. Begelman has premiered compositions by Anton Kuerti, Alex Krasotov, Meyer Kupferman, Elliot Schwartz, Ralph Shapey and Jennifer Higdon.
An active educator, Mr. Begelman is Professor of Clarinet at the North Carolina School of the Arts and Director of the Wind Program at the Bowdoin International Music Festival. In addition, he teaches at Brooklyn and Sarah Lawrence Colleges and has taught on various occasions at Yale, Juilliard, and the Manhattan School of Music. He has given numerous master classes at such festivals as Caramoor and Bowdoin, and throughout the US.
Mr. Begelman was awarded top prizes at the Carl Nielsen International Clarinet Competition in Denmark and the Geneva International Competition in Switzerland and in the US at William C. Byrd Competition, Koussevitsky Competition, International Clarinet Society Competition, Heida Hermanns International Competition, Tilden Prize Competition and Crane New Music Competition among others. His honors also include the Special Prize at the Munich International Competition and awards from the Altamura/Caruso Foundation, Salon de Virtuosi and the 2008 Brio award from the Bronx Council for the Arts.
Raised in Kiev, Ukraine, Igor Begelman came to the United States in 1989. He received his master's degree from The Juilliard School of Music and a bachelor's degree from The Manhattan School of Music. His major teachers include Charles Neidich and Stanley Drucker.
Igor Begelman currently resides in New York with his wife Larisa and daughter Eve.
