New@Night: American Triptych
New music can be both fun and intriguing! Meet your friends at The Armory, grab a beverage, and enjoy new music from three of America’s most exciting young composers.
Sponsors: Marilyn Crilley & George Rowbottom
COME EARLY to socialize!
The Armory, at Portland Center Stage
Wednesday, 7/13 • 6:00 pm
Program
Click on any piece of music below to learn more about it.
- CHRIS ROGERSON ‘Partita’ for Solo Violin (2020)
CHRIS ROGERSON (b. 1988)
Partita for Solo Violin (2020)1. Praeambulum
2. Sarabande-Chaconne
3. Minuet
4. Air
5. CapricePartita for Solo Violin was written in 2020 during the height of the pandemic. Ben Beilman is one of my closest friends (we attended the Curtis Institute together), and given how isolated our society was, it was especially rewarding to work so closely with him on this project. Partita is inspired by Baroque dance forms — in fact, I was particularly inspired by Ben’s performances of Bach and very specifically his wonderful, light-as-air ornamentation. Throughout the work, the listener will hear ornamentation that is evocative of the Bach partitas and sonatas. This work is in five movements: Praeambulum, a short, declamatory introduction; Sarabande; Minuet, a playful interlude; Air (in which the violin is tuned a half-step lower for each of the two lower strings); and finally, Caprice, a virtuosic close to the work.
—© Chris Rogerson
- ALISTAIR COLEMAN ‘Moonshot’: A Triptych for String Quartet (2019)
ALISTAIR COLEMAN (b. 1998)
Moonshot: A Triptych for String Quartet (2019)I. July 16, 1969
II. July 20, 1969
III. July 21, 1969Three years ago, I was fortunate to tour the Glenstone Art Museum in Potomac, MD. It was a magical experience, and it was here that I encountered On Kawara’s Moon Landing triptych. The juxtaposing colors, precise gestures, powerful historical context, and placement of the pieces encapsulated me in the space. I have only seen photos and historical artifacts from the mission, but experiencing Kawara’s pieces, each completed on the day of each event, made me feel frozen in a moment in time — almost as if the works themselves were artifacts from the mission, or more broadly, living relics from a watershed moment in American history.
Experiencing Kawara’s Moon Landing Triptych led me to envision a three-movement work for string quartet which is now titled Moonshot. Each movement is titled with a date painted on each canvas: I. July 16, 1969, launch; II. July 20, 1969, the lunar landing; and III. July 21, 1969, the day people on Earth came together to celebrate humanity’s first steps on the Moon. I wanted to illustrate the feeling of each moment in time, using the paintings as a direct connection to those events, and capturing the wonder of art and space exploration that Kawara’s work evoked in me. The piece was commissioned by the Glenstone Museum and premiered in 2019. The world-premiere recording was filmed in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and produced for the 2019 Smithsonian Year of Music.
—© Alistair Coleman
- DAVID LUDWIG ‘Swan Song’ for Violin and Piano (2013)
DAVID LUDWIG (b. 1974)
Swan Song for Violin and Piano (2013)
I composed Swan Song as the third piece in a triptych that are inspired by other works from the repertoire. Perhaps “inspired” isn’t a strong enough word, because these pieces draw directly from the materials of this music from the past (I have in my mind the image of making my own sculpture out of the same bucket of clay), and what compels me is the idea of reworking those materials as a part of a deeper connection to the tradition. But for Swan Song in particular, I felt like I was writing a play with many characters having separate conversations about the same piece of music: Franz Schubert’s Fantasy for Violin and Piano in C major, K. 934.The term “Swan Song” in music is most closely associated with Schubert, whose last songs were collected and titled (posthumously) Schwanengesang, as if these were Schubert’s last beautiful utterances. Perhaps of all composers, his music speaks the most of inner sadness, even at its most gemütlich (comfortable). In writing a new work for violin and piano, I thought immediately of Schubert’s Fantasy, a work that dates from the last two years of his tragically short life.
Swan Song models Schubert, weaving in and out of music that is not a series of miniature movements or variations, but a chain of related passages that, linked together, form a Fantasy. The opening passage of Swan Song appears several times throughout the piece, each time slightly different, as if transformed by all the music preceding it. In between are fast passages with quick exchanges between violinist and pianist, music in the extremes of volume and register, and many little games and conversations with Schubert.
The sections have many characters, each making a statement, then stepping back. At one point, Schubert himself makes a brief appearance in Swan Song, as a phantom who emerges into the light and returns to the background as quickly as he appeared. Finally, after increasingly fast music that seems to plow headlong into a brusque ending, hope appears, rising toward a resolution of the quiet questions asked in the first twinkling sonorities of the piece.
Swan Song was commissioned by Carnegie Hall for violinist Benjamin Beilman to be premiered November 14, 2013 with Beilman and pianist Yekwon Sunwoo.
—© David Ludwig
- SAYGUN Partita for Solo Cello, Op. 31 (1954)
AHMET ADNAN SAYGUN (1907- 1981) Partita for Solo Cello, Op. 31 (1954)
I. Lento
II. Vivo
IV. Andantino
Artists
-
Soovin Kim
2025 YAI Faculty, Violin & Artistic Director
-
Soovin Kim enjoys a broad musical career regularly performing Bach sonatas and Paganini caprices for solo violin, sonatas for violin and piano ranging from Beethoven to Ives, Mozart, and Haydn concertos and symphonies as a conductor, and new world-premiere works almost every season. When he was 20 years old, Kim received first prize at the Paganini International Violin Competition. He immersed himself in the string quartet literature for 20 years as the 1st violinist of the Johannes Quartet. Among his many commercial recordings are his “thrillingly triumphant” (Classic FM Magazine) disc of Paganini’s demanding 24 Caprices and a two-disc set of Bach’s complete solo violin works that were released in 2022.
Kim is the founder and artistic director of the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival (LCCMF) in Burlington, Vermont. In addition to its explorative programming and extensive work with living composers, LCCMF created the ONE Strings program through which all 3rd through 5th grade students of the Integrated Arts Academy in Burlington study violin. The University of Vermont recognized Soovin Kim’s work by bestowing an Honorary Doctorate upon him in 2015. In 2020, he and his wife, pianist Gloria Chien, became artistic directors of Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon. He, with Chien, were awarded Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s 2021 CMS Award for Extraordinary Service to Chamber Music. Kim devotes much of his time to his passion for teaching at the New England Conservatory in Boston and the Yale School of Music in New Haven.
Upcoming Concerts & Events
-
Benjamin Beilman
Violin
-
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 his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic and Kirill Petrenko on tour in the US, and returns to the Chicago, Cincinnati, and Antwerp symphonies. He also makes his debut with the Belgian National Orchestra the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony. He will also tour with pianist Steven Osborne across the US.
In recent seasons, Beilman’s commitment to and passion for contemporary music has led to new works written for him by Frederic Rzewski, Gabriella Smith, and a concerto by Chris Rogerson. 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.
He 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. In 2022, he became one of the youngest artists to be appointed to the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music.
He performs 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.
Upcoming Concerts & Events
-
Anna Lee
Violin
-
Delighting her listeners with “her warm, humane musicianship” and “sweet spot of grace,” Anna Lee is an active concert violinist, chamber musician, and teacher. She began violin studies at the age of four with Alexander Souptel and debuted as soloist performing the Paganini Violin Concerto No. 1 a year and a half later with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Lan Shui. She spent a large part of her childhood in Japan and Singapore even though she was born in South Korea, and at the age of six moved to New York after being accepted to the Juilliard School Pre-College Division under the tutelage of Masao Kawasaki.
Concert venues that Anna Lee has appeared in are the Carnegie-Weill, Carnegie-Zankel, Wigmore, Beethoven-Haus, Avery Fisher, Victoria, Lotte, and Esplanade Concert Halls, as well as Merkin Hall and Peter Jay Sharp Theater. She has claimed top prizes in the 2019 Montréal Competition, 2018 Indianapolis Competition, 2011 Sion-Valais Competition, 2011 Kronberg Violin Masterclasses, 2010 and 2012 Menuhin Competition (Junior and Senior Divisions, respectively), and Aspen Music Festival AACA Competition. Anna Lee has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts, awarded by Office for the Arts at Harvard, the Bernhard and Mania Hahnloser Violin Prize at the Verbier Festival Academy, and the Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award.
Anna Lee was a Chamber Music Northwest Protégé Artist in 2022, and she has also been featured in music festivals around the world, such as the Gstaad Menuhin Festival and the Marlboro Music Festival, and on radio shows such as “From the Top” with host Christopher O’Riley and APM’s Performance Today with host Fred Child. She has also been the cover page feature of the Wall Street Journal Magazine.
Notable chamber music collaborations include Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet and Steven Isserlis in the Kronberg Academy’s “Chamber Music Connects the World” festival. Anna Lee was also presented by Sir András Schiff at the BeethovenFest in Bonn. As a soloist, Anna Lee made her New York Philharmonic debut in April 2011, as well as her Frankfurt debut in 2016 with maestro Christoph Eschenbach and the Hessische Rundfunk Radio Orchestra. She has also appeared with the Singapore, Indianapolis, Park Avenue Chamber, and Montreal Symphony Orchestras.
Anna Lee’s teachers were Masao Kawasaki and Cho-Liang Lin at the Juilliard School Pre-College Division, Ana Chumachenco at the Kronberg Academy, and Miriam Fried and Don Weilerstein in Boston, where she recently completed her Comparative Literature degree at Harvard College. Currently, she is studying with Ani Kavafian at the Yale School of Music. She has also taught as a chamber music teacher, most notably at the Kronberg Academy’s Mit Musik—Miteinander festival and Festival MusicAlp in France.
-
Aiden Kane
Viola
-
American violist Aiden Kane has performed in North America, Europe, and Asia as a current member of the Viano Quartet, First Prize Laureates of the 2019 Banff International String Quartet Competition and recipients of the 2025 Avery Fisher Career Grant.
After leaving violin for the dark side, Aiden first studied viola with Daniel Foster through the National Symphony Orchestra’s Youth Fellowship Program. She subsequently earned a Bachelor’s and two Master’s degrees (in viola performance and chamber music studies, respectively) at the Colburn Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Paul Coletti. During her undergraduate years at Colburn, Aiden discovered her love for quartet life as the violist of the Calla Quartet, which received the Silver medal at the 2015 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition and presented Colburn’s inaugural Musical Encounters outreach program. Since she joined the Viano Quartet, Viano has won international competitions, weathered a pandemic, moved from one coast to another, studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in the Nina von Maltzahn String Quartet-in-Residence program, and joined the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Bowers Program—and Aiden loves quartet life even more for it all.
When she isn’t playing the viola, Aiden enjoys hiking, composing, and keeping an assortment of remarkably self-reliant houseplants.
-
Efe Baltacigil
Cello
-
Turkish cellist Efe Baltacigil finished his undergraduate studies in Istanbul, Turkey, before attending the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. During his last year of study, at the age of 23, he won the Associate Principal Cello position at the famous Philadelphia Orchestra.
Since 2011, he has held the position of Principal Cellist at the Seattle Symphony, and has appeared as a soloist with the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Seattle Symphony. Efe has had recital and concerto debuts in Carnegie Hall and has been a senior member of the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont since 2017.
Efe performed as a soloist for Seattle Symphony’s 2022 Opening Night Gala and will play Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto with them in October 2023.
Besides music and his family, Efe enjoys windsurfing, sailing, drawing, and volleypong.
-
Tate Zawadiuk
Cello
-
Canadian cellist Tate Zawadiuk is both an engaging soloist and founding member of the Viano Quartet. The ensemble won first prize at the 2019 Banff International String Quartet Competition and has performed internationally in venues such as Wigmore Hall, Berlin Konzerthaus, Flagey, and Bremen Die Glocke.
As a soloist, Tate has performed with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vancouver Philharmonic, New Westminster Symphony, Richmond Symphony Orchestra, and Vancouver Youth Symphony Orchestra. He has collaborated with world-renowned artists such as Emanuel Ax, James Ehnes, Marc-André Hamelin, Inon Barnatan, Clive Greensmith, Scott St. John, Noah Bendix-Balgley, Ida Kavafian, Steven Tenenbom, and Johannes Moser.
Tate is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music as a member of the Nina von Maltzahn Graduate String Quartet-in-Residence. He holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Colburn Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Clive Greensmith and Ronald Leonard.
-
Ellen Hwangbo
Piano
-
Lauded as an “excellent pianist” (Daily Gazette) and “amazing … young talent” (Silicon Valley Insider), Ellen Hwangbo is known for her “harmony, energy and elegance” and her ability to deliver “truly potent and dramatic” experiences (Rutland Herald) that leave her audiences “wanting to hear more” (Times Union). A top-prize winner of the Music Teachers National Association’s National Young Artist Competition in 2006, she has performed to great acclaim across Asia, Europe, and North America.
As a spirited chamber musician, Ellen is renowned for her “wonderful interplay” with colleagues (Rye News), and broad range of expression from “moody sobriety” (Boston Musical Intelligencer) to “bold exuberance” (Daily Gazette). She has performed with world-renowned musicians such as Anthony Marwood, Richard Lester, Soovin Kim, Roger Tapping, Colin Carr, William Sharp, Eduardo Leandro, and Lucy Shelton, among others. Ellen’s passion for sparking new and exciting connections through chamber music led her to found Constellations Chamber Concerts, a DC-based concert series, where she has served as Artistic Director since 2019. As an engaged advocate for new music, she has worked directly with composers David Ludwig, William Bolcom, Stefano Gervasoni, Jörg Widmann, Brett Dean, and many others, including for several world premieres and recordings.
Ellen began her piano studies with Peter Cooper and continued with Logan Skelton at the University of Michigan, graduating summa cum laude. She received her Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from SUNY Stony Brook, where she studied under luminary pedagogue Gilbert Kalish.