FACULTY ARTIST SERIES
YOOJIN JANG, VIOLIN MASUMI PER ROSTAD, VIOLA GUY JOHNSTON, CELLO ALEXANDER KOBRIN, PIANO
Sunday, November 15, 2020 Kilbourn Hall (livestream) 3:00 PM
The Faculty Artist Series is generously supported by Patricia Ward-Baker.
PROGRAM Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, K. 478 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
YooJin Jang, violin Masumi Per Rostad, viola Guy Johnston, cello Alexander Kobrin, piano
INTERMISSION
Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 47 Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
YooJin Jang, violin Masumi Per Rostad, viola Guy Johnston, cello Alexander Kobrin, piano
MEET THE ARTISTS Applauded by The Strad for her “fiery virtuosity” and “consummate performances,” violinist YooJin Jang is a winner of the 2017 Concert Artists Guild Competition and First Prize winner of the 2016 Sendai International Music Competition. These victories have resulted in a busy itinerary of international recital and concerto engagements and also the release of two new recordings for the dynamic young talent lauded by the Boston Musical Intelligencer as being “a performer without fear or technical limitation.”
Recent and forthcoming concerto performances include appearances with the symphony orchestras of Columbus, Chautauqua, Dubuque, and Roswell. In recital, highlights include YooJin’s recent Carnegie Hall debut and concerts at Jordan Hall and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert series in Chicago. A passionate chamber musician, YooJin has performed with Caramoor’s Rising Stars and toured with Musicians from Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute and Musicians From Marlboro.
MEET THE ARTISTS Internationally, YooJin has performed with the KBS Symphony Orchestra and Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as with the Budapest Festival Orchestra led by Ivan Fischer, Bulgaria National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, and Spain’s Extremadura Orchestra; and recitals in Japan in Sendai, Nagoya and at Hamarikyu Asahi Hall in Tokyo.
In 2017, YooJin released two albums: live performances of the Mendelssohn and Stravinsky Violin Concertos with the Sendai Philharmonic Orchestra and Junichi Hirokami and a recital disc featuring music of Mendelssohn, Stravinsky, Grieg, and Sibelius with pianist Kae Ozawa. Her first album, Korean Young Musicians, was released on the KBS (Korean Broadcast System) label, in cooperation with Aulos media & KBS Classic FM. She is also regularly heard on the radio, including a recent appearance on WQXR’s McGraw Hill Young Artists Showcase.
YooJin’s latest victories at CAG and Sendai follow a long line of international competition success. In 2013, she won Japan’s fourth International Munetsugu Violin Competition, which included the loan of the 1697 ‘Rainville’ Stradivari violin. She was also a top prize winner at the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, the Michael Hill International Violin Competition (including the Audience Prize and Best Performance of the New Zealand Commission Work), and the Yehudi Menuhin Competition.
YooJin is a co-founder of The Kallaci String Quartet, which made its international debut at the Kumho Art Hall in Seoul, Korea and the Seoul Spring Festival of Chamber Music. Recognized for her creative work in chamber music, she won the 2011 Borromeo String Quartet Guest Artist Award, and in 2009 she was awarded the Schloss Weikersheim Scholarship as part of the London String Quartet Competition. YooJin has also participated in the Marlboro and Ravinia Festivals, where she worked with artists such as Menahem Pressler, Dénes Várjon, and Peter Wiley.
YooJin holds a Bachelor of Music from The Korean National University of Arts, where she studied under Nam Yun Kim. She earned a Master of Music, Graduate Diploma, Artist Diploma, and Doctor of Musical Arts from New England Conservatory, as a student of Miriam Fried.
In the fall of 2020, Yoojin started her position as assistant professor of violin at the Eastman School of Music.
MEET THE ARTISTS Grammy Award-winning Japanese-Norwegian violist Masumi Per Rostad has been described as an “electrifying, poetic, and sensitive musician” with an “understated yet commanding presence” by critics and is in demand as a soloist, chamber musician, and teacher as well as an active contributor to many online and print publications. In 2017 he was appointed to the faculty of the prestigious Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY.
Masumi regularly tours internationally and has performed at many of today’s most prominent festivals, including Marlboro, Spoleto USA, Music@Menlo, Caramoor, Music in the Vineyards, Bowdoin, and The Aspen Music Festival. His guest violist collaborations include programs with the St Lawrence, Ying, Pavel Haas, Miro, Verona, Emerson Quartets, and Horszowski Trio. He toured and recorded extensively as a former member of the International Sejong Soloists. He can be heard on the Cedille Records, Naxos, Hyperion, Musical Observations, Bridge, and Tzadik record labels.
As a former member of the Pacifica Quartet from 2001-2017 Masumi regularly performed in the world’s greatest venues including Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, Sydney’s City Hall, New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, Vienna’s Konzerthaus and Musikverein, Munich’s Herkuleshaal, Paris’ Louvre and Cite de la Musique, and Berlin’s Konzerthaus, among many others. He was a full professor of viola and chamber music as quartet-in-residence at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music. In 2006 the ensemble was awarded the coveted Cleveland Quartet Award and they were also named Musical America’s 2009 Ensemble of the Year.
Masumi is an ardent advocate for the arts, and often sought after as a contributing writer to such publications as the Huffington Post, Strings and Gramophone magazines as well as The Guardian.
Passionate about breaking down barriers that prevent people from enjoying Classical music, Masumi was the founder of DoCha, a chamber music festival in Champaign, Illinois that produces innovative events with an ardent focus on engaging new audiences through programming that is fun and inventive. DoCha-hosted events feature unique collaborations between members of the University and are multi-genre presentations from Classical chamber music to contemporary dance to the spoken word, and much more. All programs are free of charge and take place at the beautiful former community Opera House. Other activities of DoCha,
MEET THE ARTISTS include “in-reach” performances for elementary school students as well as master classes, competitions, and performance opportunities for local music students.
Masumi proudly began his studies at the Third Street Music School Settlement in New York City, at age three. In 2008 he was awarded the “Rising Star Award” by the school for his musical achievements.
He received his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School. There, he studied with legendary violist and pedagogue Karen Tuttle from the age of 17 and was made her teaching assistant just three years later at the age of 20. At Juilliard he was awarded the “Lillian Fuchs Award” for outstanding graduating violist. He also won The Juilliard School Concerto Competition and performed the world premiere of Michael White’s Viola Concerto in Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, with conductor James DePreist. That same year he gave the New York premiere of Paul Schoenfield’s Viola Concerto with the Juilliard Orchestra to critical acclaim.
Masumi has served on the faculties of the University of Illinois at Urbana -Champaign, The University of Chicago, Longy School of Music, and Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music. He has given master classes at The Cleveland Institute of Music, The Aspen Music Festival, The Bowdoin Festival, Interlochen, and San Francisco Conservatory among many others.
Currently, Masumi lives in Rochester, NY with his wife Sonia, a concert pianist. He is professor of viola and chamber music at Eastman School of Music. He is a D’Addario Artist and has used their strings since 1999. His Fratelli (Brothers) Amati viola was crafted in Cremona, Italy in 1619.
Guy Johnston is one of the most exciting British cellists of his generation. His early successes included winning the BBC Young Musician of the Year, the Shell London Symphony Orchestra Gerald MacDonald Award and a Classical Brit. He has performed with many leading international orchestras including the London Philharmonic, Philharmonia, Ulster Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, NHK Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony, Britten Sinfonia, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, Orquestra Sinfonica do Estado de Sao Paulo, Moscow Philharmonic, and St Petersburg Symphony.
MEET THE ARTISTS Recent and forthcoming seasons have included concertos with BBC Philharmonic (Ilan Volkov), BBC Symphony Orchestra (Sakari Oramo), Philharmonia, Aurora Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia and Rheinische Philharmonie. Guy continues to play chamber music and recitals at prestigious venues such as Wigmore Hall, Queen Elisabeth Hall, Louvre Museum, and the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory and in festivals across Europe and is presenting programmes with Sheku Kanneh- Mason and Melvyn Tan.
A prolific recording artist, Guy’s recent recordings include Howells’ Cello Concerto with Britten Sinfonia (a piece he also gave the premiere of) and a celebration disc of the tricentenary of his David Tecchler cello, collaborating with the acclaimed Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, where the cello was made. The 2018/19 season saw the release of his recording Themes and Variations with Tom Poster, comprising works by Beethoven, Grieg, Chopin, MacMillan, Schumann and Martinu.
He is Artistic Director of the Hatfield House Chamber Music Festival and a founder member of the award-winning Aronowitz Ensemble. He is Associate Professor of Cello at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York and a guest Professor of Cello at the Royal Academy of Music, where he was awarded an Hon. ARAM in 2015.
Guy plays a 1714 David Tecchler cello, generously on loan from the Godlee-Tecchler Trust which is administered by The Royal Society of Musicians.
Called the “Van Cliburn of today” by the BBC, Alexander Kobrin has placed himself at the forefront of today’s performing musicians.
In the 2019-2020 season Mr. Kobrin made his Carnegie Hall debut as well as concluded his Complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas project for WETA radio in Washington DC. His new Schubert and Hindemith CDs were released in 2019 on Centaur and Quartz labels.
In 2005, Mr. Kobrin was awarded the Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Gold Medal at the Twelfth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, TX. His numerous successes in competitions also include top prizes at the Busoni International Piano Competition (First Prize), Hamamatsu International Piano Competition (Top Prize), and Scottish International Piano Competition in Glasgow (First Prize)
MEET THE ARTISTS Mr. Kobrin has performed with many of the world’s great orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic, Russian National Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra Verdi, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Moscow Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Dallas Symphony, Berliner Symphony, Swedish Radio Symphony, Birmingham Symphony, Warsaw Philharmonic and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. He has collaborated with renowned conductors such as Mikhail Pletnev, Mikhail Jurovsky, Sir Mark Elder, Vassiliy Sinaisky, James Conlon, Claus Peter Flor, Alexander Lazarev, Vassiliy Petrenko, Yuri Bashmet, and many others.
He has appeared in recital at major halls worldwide, including the Avery Fisher Hall in New York, the Kennedy Centre in Washington, Albert Hall and Wigmore Hall in London, Louvre Auditorium, Salle Gaveau and Salle Cortot in Paris, Munich Herkulesaal and Berliner Filarmonia Hall in Germany, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire, Sheung Wan Civic Centre in Hong Kong, as well as Sala Verdi in Milan and many others. Other performances have included appearances at La Roque d’Antheron, the Ravinia Festival, Ruhr Klavier Festival, the Beethoven, Busoni, Chautauqua, and International Keyboard festival in NYC.
Annual concert tours include performances and masterclasses in major conservatories in Asia, Europe, and the USA.
Before joining Eastman School of Music Alexander Kobrin was on the faculty of Gnessins State Academy of Music in Moscow, Schwob School of Music in Columbus, GA, and at New York University. Mr. Kobrin regularly serves in the juries of international piano competitions, including Busoni, Hamamatsu, Rosalyn Tureck, Neuhaus, and others.
Mr. Kobrin has released recordings on the Harmonia Mundi, Quartz, and Centaur labels, covering a wide swath of the piano literature to critical acclaim including “critic’s choice” awards in Gramophone and Fanfare magazines.
Mr. Kobrin was born in 1980 in Moscow, Russia. He is a graduate of Gnessins Special Music School and Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory where he studied with professors Tatiana Zelikman and Lev Naumov.
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