AT HOME • Viennese Revolutionaries
Vienna, one of the European musical capitals of the 18th to 20th centuries, was the home for some of the most important composers in history. At the heart of the First Viennese School of composition was the iconic Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and two of his divinely beautiful works bookend this program that feature Artistic Directors Gloria Chien and Soovin Kim. The revolutionary Second Viennese School is represented by Anton Webern’s hair-raising quintet transcription of Arnold Schoenberg’s first Chamber Symphony, played by the Pierrot ensemble Third Sound—a dynamic instrumental combination of violin, cello, flute, clarinet, and piano that sounds like a small orchestra.
ACCESS DATES FOR THIS CONCERT: This concert will be professionally recorded with access August 4 @ 7pm through August 31 @ 11:59pm
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Program
Click on any piece of music below to learn more about it.
- MOZART Violin Sonata in G Major, K. 379
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791)
Violin Sonata in G Major, K. 379 (17’)I. Adagio
II. Andantino cantabile
III. AllegrettoShortly after Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91) moved from his hometown, Salzburg, to the much larger city of Vienna, he published a collection of violin sonatas, his Opus 2 (1781). He selected these sonatas for publication not only because of their quality but also their commercial appeal, hoping they would help spread his reputation as a composer in his new home.
Mozart described the composition of the Violin Sonata in G Major, K. 379, in a letter to his father. “I composed it yesterday night between eleven and twelve,” he wrote, “but in order to finish it, I wrote out only the accompaniment part for Brunetti [the violinist] and remembered my own part.”
Despite its hasty composition, K. 379 counts among Mozart’s finest contributions to the repertoire for violin and piano. Structured in only two movements, it begins with a lengthy, pensive Adagio introduction, followed by a peppy Allegro that fosters a sense of spontaneity with unexpected pauses and contrasting musical textures. The gentle melody that begins the second movement kicks off a theme and variations, which provides bountiful opportunities for both the violinist and pianist to explore the theme’s subtle intricacies.
—© Ethan Allred
- JENNIFER HIGDON “Smash” (2005)
JENNIFER HIGDON Smash (2005)
Smash comes at the beginning of the 21st century, where speed often seems to be our goal. This image fits well the instruments in this ensemble, because these are some of the fastest moving instruments in terms of their technical prowess. Each individual plays an equal part in the ensemble, contributing to the intensity and forward momentum, as the music dashes from beginning to end, smashing forward in momentum.
- Jennifer Higdon
- ARNOLD SCHOENBERG Chamber Symphony No. 1 in E Major, Op. 9 (Arr. Anton Webern)
ARNOLD SCHOENBERG (1874-1951)
Chamber Symphony No. 1 in E Major, Op. 9 (Arr. Anton Webern) (22’)I. Sonata. Allegro
II. Scherzo
III. Development
IV. Adagio
V. Recapitulation and finale“Now I have established my style. Now I know how I have to compose,” Arnold Schoenberg declared in 1906, after completing his Kammersymphonie No. 1. This work is a fulcrum between Schoenberg’s earlier music, reflective of post-Romantic and early Expressionist Viennese/German trends, and the distinctive originality of his later compositions.
Schoenberg was a musical autodidact, which left him free to innovate and establish a unique methodology. Op. 9 reflects one of Schoenberg’s earliest moves away from standard Western tonality based on the triad, a three-note a chord comprised of two stacked thirds. Instead, Schoenberg uses the interval of the fourth (to hear what this sounds like, hum the opening notes of the original Star Trek theme).
The Kammersymphonie’s single movement has five distinct sections played without pause, Schoenberg labeled them Exposition, Scherzo, Development, Adagio, and Reprise. Some sections, like the Scherzo, are so short they fly by before we realize it. Just after Op. 9 begins, a solo horn intones a “motto” of quickly rising fourths, which recurs throughout the work. “As a clarinetist, I am struck by how extreme the emotions are in this piece,” observes Matthew Griffith. “There are luscious, resonant melodies next to march-like drives forward. No time is wasted dwelling on any one idea because another is just around the corner.”
—© Elizabeth Schwartz
- MOZART Piano Concerto No. 12 in A Major, K. 414
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791)
Piano Concerto No. 12 in A Major, K. 414 (26’)I. Allegro
II. Andante
III. AllegrettoWolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s composed his Piano Concerto No. 12 in A Major in the fall of 1782, shortly after moving to Vienna. It is one of three concertos he wrote at that time to make money through a Lenten performance series, following on the heels of his success with The Abduction from the Seraglio. To make them marketable in a published form, he wrote them to be playable two ways – with strings, oboes, and horns, or with only a string quartet (or quintet), known as a quattro. He wrote to his father that these concertos are a happy medium between too easy and too difficult: “they are very brilliant, pleasing to the ear, and natural, without being vapid.” Yet he noted “There are also occasional passages from which connoisseurs alone can derive satisfaction.”
The Allegro first movement begins with a graceful first theme and a more playful second, elaborated by the piano. Mozart wrote a total of eight piano cadenzas for the concerto in its published edition, giving two options for each of four locations, though he improvised his own cadenzas in performance. The slow movement, a stately Andante, begins with a sincere solo in the first violin, setting the tone for a serene and lyrical exchange between strings and piano. Mozart quotes a theme by Johann Christian Bach, his mentor, who had recently passed away. The final Allegretto rondo uses a compact and cheerful melody to finish off his “pleasing” concerto with lighthearted ease.
—Ethan Allred
Artists
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Gloria Chien
Piano & Artistic Director
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Taiwanese-born pianist Gloria Chien has one of the most diverse musical lives as a noted performer, concert presenter, and educator. She made her orchestral debut at the age of sixteen with the Boston Symphony Orchestra with Thomas Dausgaard, and she performed again with the BSO with Keith Lockhart. She was subsequently selected by The Boston Globe as one of its Superior Pianists of the year, “who appears to excel in everything.” In recent seasons, she has performed as a recitalist and chamber musician at Alice Tully Hall, the Library of Congress, the Phillips Collection, the Dresden Chamber Music Festival, and the National Concert Hall in Taiwan. She performs frequently with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
In 2009, she launched String Theory, a chamber music series in Chattanooga, Tennessee that has become one of the region’s premier classical music presenters. The following year she was appointed Director of the Chamber Music Institute at Music@Menlo. In 2017, she joined her husband, violinist Soovin Kim, as Artistic Director of the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival in Burlington, Vermont. The duo became Artistic Directors at Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon in 2020. Chien studied extensively at the New England Conservatory of Music with Wha Kyung Byun and Russell Sherman. She, with Kim, were awarded Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s 2021 CMS Award for Extraordinary Service to Chamber Music.
Chien is Artist-in-Residence at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee, and she is a Steinway Artist. Chien received her B.M., M.M., and D.M.A. degrees from the New England Conservatory of Music as a student of Russell Sherman and Wha-Kyung Byun.
Upcoming Concerts & Events
- Chien-Kim-Watkins Trio: Beethoven’s Complete Piano Trios “Triumph & Transcendence”
- Chien-Kim-Watkins Trio: Beethoven’s Complete Piano Trios “Breaking Boundaries”
- Chien-Kim-Watkins Trio: Beethoven’s Complete Piano Trios “Dawn of a New Age”
- EXCLUSIVE DONOR CONCERT: Emerson Quartet Farewell with Gloria Chien
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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.
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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Diana Adamyan
Violin, Protégé
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Diana Adamyan is quickly gaining an international reputation as one of her generation’s most outstanding violinists. After winning the First Prize at the 2018 Yehudi Menuhin International Competition, the world’s most prestigious prize for young violinists, she went on to receive First Prize in the 2020 Khachaturian Violin Competition.
In summer 2022, Ms. Adamyan made her debut at the Aspen Festival performing Dvorak with Lionel Bringuier, and with the Boston Pops Orchestra performing Mendelssohn at Boston Symphony Hall. This season, she returns to the Göttinger Symphonieorchester to perform Beethoven, and the Niederbayerische Philharmonie in Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1. She will also make her debut performing Sibelius with the Staatsorchester Darmstadt, and performing Beethoven with the Bruckner Orchester Linz in Munich’s Prinzregententheater, and will return once more to the Göttinger Symphonie in Dvorak. Recent and upcoming engagements also include recitals in Tokyo and France, and her debut with the Deutsche Symphonie Orchester at the Philharmonie in Berlin.
Since winning First Prize at the Menuhin Competition, Ms. Adamyan has received numerous proposals to participate in the concerts around the world, from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, to the Seiji Ozawa Academy in Switzerland, and the Matsumoto International Music Festival in Japan. Following an invitation from Maestro Pinchas Zukerman to participate under his guidance in summer masterclasses of the Ottawa National Arts Center, Ms. Adamyan was invited to appear as a soloist in Gala Concert of NAC, alongside Mr. Zukerman, Itzhak Perlman, Jessica Linnebach, and other renowned musicians. Later, she also appeared alongside Mr. Zukerman playing the Bach Double Concerto with the Royal Philharmonic at Cadogan Hall in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
Born in 2000 in Yerevan, Armenia, into a family of musicians, Ms. Adamyan currently studies at the Munich University of Performing Arts with world-renowned teacher, Professor Ana Chumachenco, whose distinguished students have included Lisa Batiashvili, Julia Fischer, and Veronika Eberle. Previously, she studied at the Tchaikovsky School of Music (Yerevan) with Professor Petros Haykazyan and at Yerevan Komitas State Conservatory with Professor Eduard Tadevosyan.
Ms. Adamyan is the recipient of a scholarship from the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben and under the patronage of the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) and “YerazArt” organization in Boston. She performed on a violin crafted by Urs Mächler for the Menuhin Competition, and now performs on an instrument made by Nicolò Gagliano in 1760, generously on loan from the Henri Moerel Foundation.
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Jessica Bodner
Viola
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Jessica Bodner, described by The New York Times as a “soulful soloist,” is the violist of the Grammy Award-winning Parker Quartet. A native of Houston, TX, Jessica began her musical studies on the violin at the age of two, then switched to the viola at the age of twelve because of her love of the deeper sonority.
Ms. Bodner has recently appeared at venues such as Carnegie Hall, 92nd Street Y, Library of Congress, Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Wigmore Hall (London), Musikverein (Vienna), Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and Seoul Arts Center, and has appeared at festivals including Chamber Music Northwest, Chamberfest Cleveland, Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, Yellow Barn, Perigord Noir in France, Monte Carlo Spring Arts Festival, San Miguel de Allende, Istanbul’s Cemal Recit Rey, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Hitzacker, and Heidelberg String Quartet Festival. As a member of the Parker Quartet, she has recorded for ECM, Zig-Zag Territoires, Nimbus, and Naxos.
Recent collaborators include mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron, clarinetists Charles Neidich and Jörg Widmann, pianists Menahem Pressler, Shai Wosner, Gloria Chien, and Orion Weiss, violinists Soovin Kim and Donald Weilerstein, violists Kim Kashkashian and Roger Tapping, cellists Deborah Pae, Marcy Rosen, Natasha Brofsky, and Paul Katz, and percussionist Ian Rosenbaum.
Jessica is a faculty member of Harvard University’s Department of Music as Professor of the Practice in conjunction with the Parker Quartet’s appointment as Blodgett Quartet-in-Residence. She has held visiting faculty positions at the New England Conservatory and Longy School of Music, served as faculty at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and Yellow Barn Festival, and has given masterclasses at institutions such as Eastman School of Music, San Francisco Conservatory, Amherst College, University of Minnesota, and at the El Sistema program in Venezuela.
Outside of music, Jessica enjoys cooking, running, practicing yoga, and hiking with her husband, violinist Daniel Chong, their son, Cole, and their vizsla, Bodie.
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Efe Baltacigil
Cello
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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.
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Braizahn Jones
Bass
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Braizahn Jones is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Hal Robinson and Edgar Meyer. Braizahn studied with Paul Firak (Principal Bass, Las Vegas Philharmonic) in his hometown of Las Vegas, Nevada before attending the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University where he studied with Jeffrey Weisner before transferring to Curtis in 2014. Since then, Braizahn has gone on to perform and tour with both the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Seattle Symphony before joining the Oregon Symphony as Assistant Principal Bass in 2018. With his time away from the orchestra he also performs chamber music with world-renowned artists at Portland’s Chamber Music Northwest and the Jackson Hole Chamber Music festival. A passionate teacher, Braizahn serves as part of the double bass faculty at the National Orchestral Institute at the University of Maryland. He has served as guest faculty at the Pacific Music Institute in Honolulu, as well as various other festivals and youth orchestras locally, nationally, and internationally, and joined the double bass faculty at Reed College in Portland, Oregon in 2022.
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Third Sound
Ensemble
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Laura Cocks, flute
Bixby Kennedy, clarinet
Karen Kim, violin
Michael Nicolas, cello
Steven Beck, piano
Patrick Castillo, composer“Forward-looking, expert ensemble Third Sound” (The New Yorker) is a collective of virtuoso performers drawn from New York City’s finest chamber musicians. The ensemble musicians—flutist Sooyun Kim, clarinetist Romie de Guise-Langlois, violinist Karen Kim, cellist Michael Nicolas, and composer Patrick Castillo—have appeared on the most prestigious series and stages around the world and garnered myriad honors, including the Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Georg Solti Foundation Career Grant, and the Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance, among many others. Conceived from a desire to present the complete literature as a rich and dynamic continuum, Third Sound brings together an accomplished group of musicians equally skilled in—and equally passionate about—the work of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms as that of composers ranging from Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and Messiaen; Carter, Wuorinen, Adams, and Reich; to emerging composers of the early twenty-first century.
Third Sound recorded the title track of Wang Lu’s portrait album, Urban Inventory (New Focus Recordings), which was named one of The New Yorker’s Notable Performances and Recordings of 2018. In 2020, innova Recordings releases the ensemble’s debut album, Heard in Havana.
Third Sound made its debut in November 2015 at the Festival de Música Contemporánea de La Habana (Havana, Cuba), presenting a program of contemporary American music in partnership with the American Composers Forum. I Care If You Listen wrote of the ensemble’s festival performance, “Third Sound played with a level of commitment, joy, and ensemble cohesion that belies the short time they have worked together.” The ensemble has also appeared at the Miller Theatre at Columbia University (New York), National Sawdust (Brooklyn), Bard Music West (San Francisco), the Schubert Club (St. Paul, MN), and elsewhere.