We are pleased to announce three livestreamed chamber concerts featuring Grammy and Emmy Award-winning pianist Gloria Cheng, on February 15, Che-Yen Chen and Takae Ohnishi, on March 15, and Quartet Nouveau, on May 10. The concerts will be livestreamed to YouTube Live from the Athenaeum’s Joan and Irwin Jacobs Music Room at 7 PM. Ticketholders will have 48 hours access to a recording.
On Monday, February 15, at 7 PM, Grammy and Emmy Award-winning pianist Gloria Cheng will perform John Adams' Minimalist masterpiece Phrygian Gates, along with shorter pieces by Chinese American composers including UCSD professor and Grawemeyer Award-winner Lei Liang, and Pulitzer Prize winner Zhou Long. She will be joined by a surprise guest for a performance of Ravel's "Laideronnette, impératrice des pagode" from his Mother Goose Suite.
Gloria Cheng has long been devoted to a process of creative collaboration, having worked extensively with such internationally renowned composers as John Adams, Terry Riley, Thomas Adès, and the late Steven Stucky. Cheng has appeared as a concerto soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta and Pierre Boulez, and on its acclaimed Green Umbrella series with Esa-Pekka Salonen and Oliver Knussen. Cheng inspired and premiered such notable compositions as Esa-Pekka Salonen's Dichotomie, John Adams' Hallelujah Junction for two pianos, which was written for her and Grant Gershon, and Steven Stucky's Piano Sonata.
PROGRAM:
Lei Liang, My Windows, I, “Tian” (“heaven”) 我的窗: 天
From the collection Garlands for Steven Stucky:
Chen Yi, In Memory of Steve Stucky
Pierre Jalbert, Inscription
Mandy Fang, That Raindrops Hastened the Falling Flowers
Judith Weir, Chorale, for Steve
Phyllis Chen, Hypnos, for toy piano
Maurice Ravel, from Mother Goose Suite, "Laideronnette, impératrice des pagodes"
Zhou Long, Pianobells 钢琴钟
John Adams, Phrygian Gates
Liang, My Windows, IV, “Pausing, Awaiting the Wind to Rise”
About Gloria Cheng:
Grammy and Emmy Award-winning pianist GLORIA CHENG has long been devoted to a process of creative collaboration, having worked extensively with such internationally renowned composers as John Adams, Terry Riley, Thomas Adès, and the late Steven Stucky. Ms. Cheng has appeared as a concerto soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta and Pierre Boulez, and on its acclaimed Green Umbrella series with Esa-Pekka Salonen and Oliver Knussen. She has been a recitalist at the Ojai Music Festival (where she first appeared in 1984 with Pierre Boulez), the Chicago Humanities Festival, William Kapell Festival, and Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music. Ms. Cheng inspired and premiered such notable compositions as Esa-Pekka Salonen's Dichotomie (of which she is the dedicatee), John Adams' Hallelujah Junction for two pianos (written for her and Grant Gershon), and Steven Stucky's Piano Sonata. Partnering with composers in duo-recitals, she premiered Thomas Adès's two-piano Concert Paraphrase on Powder Her Face and Terry Riley's Cheng Tiger Growl Roar. Ms. Cheng received a Grammy Award for her 2008 recording, Piano Music of Salonen, Stucky, and Lutosławski, and a second Grammy nomination for her 2013 disc, The Edge of Light: Messiaen/Saariaho. On screen, Ms. Cheng's film, MONTAGE: Great Film Composers and the Piano — documenting the recording of works composed for her by Bruce Broughton, Don Davis, Alexandre Desplat, Michael Giacchino, Randy Newman, and John Williams — aired on PBS SoCal and captured the 2018 Los Angeles Area Emmy Award for Independent Programming. Her most recent disc, Garlands for Steven Stucky, is a star-studded tribute to the late composer by 32 of his friends and former students. After obtaining a Bachelor's degree in Economics from Stanford University, Ms. Cheng studied in Paris on a Woolley Scholarship and earned graduate degrees in performance from UCLA and the University of Southern California, where her teachers included Aube Tzerko and John Perry. Ms. Cheng now is on the faculty at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music where she has created courses and programs designed to unite performers, composers, and scholars.
On Monday, March 15, at 7 PM, violist Che-Yen Chen and harpsichordist Takae Ohnishi will celebrate Bach.
PROGRAM:
Sonata for Violin and Harpsichord in A Major, BWV 1015
Sonata for Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord in G Major, BWV 1027
Sonata for Violin and Harpsichord in B Minor, BWV 1014
Suite No. 3 in D Major, BWV 1068
II. Air
Artists’ bios:
CHE-YEN CHEN
Newly appointed Professor of Viola at UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music, award-winning violist Che-Yen Chen is a founding member of the Formosa Quartet and First-Prize winner of the 2006 London International String Quartet Competition. He was awarded First Prize in the 2003 Primrose International Viola Competition and has been described by the San Diego Union-Tribune as an artist whose “most impressive aspect of his playing was his ability to find not just the subtle emotion, but the humanity hidden in the music.” Having served as Principal Violist of the San Diego Symphony and Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Chen has appeared as a guest principal with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra, and Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Performing in chamber music festivals across North America and Asia, Chen is a founding member of Camera Lucida and the Myriad Trio. As a former member of Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society and a participant in the Marlboro Festival, Chen’s combined passion in chamber music and education led him to embark on co-founding the Formosa Chamber Music Festival, the first intensive chamber music training program of its kind in Taiwan. Before joining UCLA, Chen had been on the faculty of USC, UCSD, SDSU, CSU Fullerton, and he has given master classes across North America and Asia.
TAKAE OHNISHI
Harpsichordist Takae Ohnishi has performed extensively as a soloist, chamber musician, and continuo player. Gramophone remarked that “Ohnishi's brilliant artistry immerses the listener in the creative and emotional narratives Bach unfolds with incomparable mastery.” Classics Today described her “masterful technique,” and praised her playing’s “vitality and impressively differentiated articulation.”
Ohnishi has been Principal Harpsichordist at Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, a soloist with the Berlin Philharmonic Scharoun Ensemble and the Gardner Chamber Orchestra, and a continuo player with Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra and Bach Collegium San Diego. She is a prizewinner at the International Early Music Harpsichord Competition in Japan. Her debut album, A Harpsichord Recital, was selected as an International Special Prized CD by the leading Japanese music magazine Record Gei-jyu-tsu. Her latest solo disc, Goldberg Variations, was released on Bridge Records to critical acclaim.
Ohnishi graduated from Toho Gakuen School of Music and holds a MM from the New England Conservatory of Music and a DMA from Stony Brook University. Since 2007, she has been a lecturer of harpsichord and baroque chamber music at UCSD. As Music Director of the Music at Green concert series, she brings live performance to patients at Scripps Hospital.
On Monday, May 10, at 7 PM, the Athenaeum will present a chamber concert featuring Quartet Nouveau.
Quartet Nouveau
Annabelle Terbetski, viola
Missy Lukin, violin
Elizabeth Brown, cello
Batya MacAdam-Somer, viola and violin
PROGRAM:
String Quartet No. 7 (“A Thousand Cranes”), Elena Ruehr
String Quartet No. 9 in E-flat Major, op. 117, Shostakovich
Elena Ruehr‘s A Thousand Cranes was inspired by conversations with violist Kimberlee Uwate of the Delgani Quartet, whose Japanese American family was moved to an internment camp during World War II. Ruehr’s own father escaped Nazi Germany. Her string quartet explores the experiences and resiliency of children of war. Quartet Nouveau co-commissioned A Thousand Cranes.
About QUARTET NOUVEAU:
Quartet Nouveau and Chamber Music Institute formed as a 501(c)3 nonprofit, in January 2013, with the mission of making chamber music available to the entire San Diego community. The members of the string quartet also perform freelance and teach privately within the community. Their concerts feature standard string quartet repertoire as well as newly composed works.
The concerts will be livestreamed via Youtube Live. Ticket holders will receive a link before the concerts. The concerts will be available for 48 hours to ticket holders.