SPOTLIGHT RECITAL: Soovin Kim & Alexi Kenney
Multi-award-winning violinist Alexi Kenney returns this summer to play on two programs with umama womama, and this showcase recital will illuminate his masterful virtuosity and depth of expression with pianist Zitong Wang. Join us for a midday interlude of superbly performed Bach, Salina Fisher, and Eugène Ysaÿe.
PSU, College of the Arts, Lincoln Recital Hall
Tuesday, 7/11 • 12:00 pm
Program
Click on any piece of music below to learn more about it.
- J.S. BACH Sonata for Violin & Keyboard, BWV 1016
J. S. BACH (1685-1750)
Violin & Keyboard Sonata in E Major, BWV 1016 (20’)I. Adagio
II. Allegro
III. Adagio ma non tanto
IV. AllegroDuring the lifetime of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), the trio sonata was one of the most important multi-movement chamber music forms. Trio sonatas typically included two melodic instruments and a continuo, or the instrument(s) that would provide the harmonic and rhythmic backbone in Baroque music. Despite their name, trio sonatas were generally performed by four musicians, for instance two violinists, a harpsichordist, and a cellist.
Although Bach did write some trio sonatas, he generally preferred to write sonatas for only one melodic instrument and continuo. Rather than including the second melodic instrument, he preferred to notate a full melodic line for the keyboardist to play with their right hand above the rhythmic and harmonic bass line provided by their left hand. By doing so, Bach helped elevate the importance of the keyboard from the background to the foreground and arguably created the template for instrumental sonata composers ever since.
Bach structured his Sonata for Violin and Keyboard in E Major, BWV 1016, in an old-fashioned Italian style known as the “sonata de chiesa,” or church sonata. Church sonatas typically consisted of four movements: slow-fast-slow-fast. In this sonata’s opening Adagio, the violin offers the primary melodic material, while the keyboard provides the bass line as well as a gently flowing treble countermelody. In the second movement, the keyboard introduces a dancelike theme, soon imitated by the violin then repeated in three-part dialogue between the violin, keyboard right hand, and keyboard left hand. The third movement Adagio ma non troppo is a mesmerizing duet that unfolds slowly into a series of elegant exchanges between violin and keyboard right hand. Bach ends the sonata with a jubilant Allegro dance, showcasing the virtuosity of violinist and keyboardist alike in an ecstatic yet carefully crafted finale.
—© Ethan Allred
- SALINA FISHER “Hikari” (2023)
SALINA FISHER “Hikari” (2023)
Hikari, by Salina Fisher, was commissioned by the Borletti-Buitoni Trust on behalf of Alexi Kenney.
Salina Fisher writes: “‘Hikari,’ meaning light, brightness, or radiance, leans into the violin’s natural resonance and brilliance. Its
musical language integrates the instrument’s expressive warmth and lyricism with more transparent timbres, in a constant search for light.
The featured open string-crossing is an homage to Bach’s Chaconne, a work that is both central to this recital and to my own relationship with the violin.”—© Princeton University Concerts
- EUGÈNE YSAŸE Sonata for two Violins
EUGÈNE YSAŸE (1858-1931)
Sonata for two Violins, IEY. 20 (30’)I. Poco lento, maestoso: Allegro fermo
II. Allegretto poco lento
III. Allegro vivo e con fuoco
Artists
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Alexi Kenney
Violin
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Violinist Alexi Kenney is forging a career that defies categorization, following his interests, intuition, and heart. He is equally at home creating experimental programs and commissioning new works, soloing with major orchestras, and collaborating with some of the most celebrated artists and musicians of our time. Alexi is the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award.
Alexi has performed as soloist with the Cleveland Orchestra, the San Francisco, Dallas, Pittsburgh, Detroit, and San Diego symphonies, l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Gulbenkian Orchestra, and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. This season, he plays the complete violin sonatas of Robert Schumann with Amy Yang on period instruments at the Frick Collection, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and the Phillips Collection.
He continues to tour his project Shifting Ground in collaboration with the new media artist Xuan, which intersperses works for solo violin by J.S. Bach with pieces by Matthew Burtner, Mario Davidovsky, Salina Fisher, Nicola Matteis, Angélica Negrón, and Paul Wiancko.
Alexi is a founding member of the two-cello quartet Owls, hailed as a “dream group” by The New York Times. He regularly performs at chamber music festivals including Caramoor, ChamberFest Cleveland, Chamber Music Northwest, La Jolla, Ojai, Marlboro, Music@Menlo, Ravinia, Seattle, and Spoleto. He is an alum of the Bowers Program at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
He plays a violin made in London by Stefan-Peter Greiner in 2009 and a bow made in Port Townsend, WA by Charles Espey in 2024.
Upcoming Concerts & Events
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Zitong Wang
Piano, Protégé
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23-year-old Chinese pianist Zitong Wang made her solo recital debut at age 13 in Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing. She has performed at such venues as the Steinway Hall in New York, Verizon Hall in Philadelphia, Severance Hall in Cleveland, etc. She has appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, Galicia Symphony Orchestra, Hangzhou Philharmonic, etc. She has worked with conductors Jahja Ling, Xian Zhang, Lina Gonzalez-Granados, José Trigueros, and Yang Yang.
Among others, she is a first prize winner of the Rosalyn Tureck International Bach Competition and Virginia Waring International Concerto Competition, second prize in the Thomas and Evon Cooper International Competition, and first prize in Princeton Festival Competition and France Music Competition. She most recently won first prize and “Nelson Freire Prize” in the XXXIII Ferrol International Piano Competition in 2022. A devoted chamber musician, Zitong has played alongside with Meng-Chieh Liu, Don Liuzzi, Vera Quartet, Zora Quartet, etc. She has toured with Roberto Díaz and musicians from Curtis. As an active member of Curtis 20/21 ensemble, she has worked with composers Unsuk Chin, Bright Sheng, David Ludwig, and Alvin Singleton. In 2019 she participated in the Intimacy of Creativity conference for composers in Hong Kong as a guest pianist.
Born in Inner Mongolia, China, Zitong began piano lessons at age three and previously studied with Hua Chang and Yuan Sheng at the Central Conservatory of Music Affiliated Middle School in Beijing. At age thirteen, she entered the Curtis Institute of Music where she studied with Meng-Chieh Liu and Eleanor Sokoloff. She is currently pursuing her Master’s degree at New England Conservatory with Dang Thai Son.
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Soovin Kim
Violin & Artistic Director
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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.