Sharing the Spotlight Paul Kantor

SHARING THE SPOTLIGHT PAUL KANTOR, violin LING-LING HUANG, violin JAMES DUNHAM, viola NORMAN FISCHER, cello DESMOND HOEBIG, cello VIRGINIA WECKSTROM, piano Wednesday, January 22, 2014 8:00 p.m. Lillian H. Duncan Recital Hall PROGRAM Wild Ambrosia for Violin and Piano Pierre Jalbert (2010) (b. 1967) Paul Kantor, violin Virginia Weckstrom, piano Duo for Violin and Violoncello Irwin Schulhoff (1925) (1894-1942) Moderato Zingaresca – Allegro giocoso Andantino Moderato Paul Kantor, violin Desmond Hoebig, cello INTERMISSION Quintet for Piano and Strings, BB33 Béla Bartók (1903-04) (1881-1945) Andante Vivace (scherzando) Adagio molto Vivace Paul Kantor, violin Ling-Ling Huang, violin James Dunham, viola Norman Fischer, cello Virginia Weckstrom, piano The reverberative acoustics of Duncan Recital Hall magnify the slightest sound made by the audience. Your care and courtesy will be appreciated. The taking of photographs and use of recording equipment are prohibited. PROGRAM NOTE Wild Ambrosia for Violin and Piano . Pierre Jalbert Wild Ambrosia was written on a commission from the Lane Series in Vermont. The word “ambrosia” comes from ancient Greek mythology and was the term for the food and drink of the gods. It is represented by the more lyrical aspects of the piece, while the “wild” part refers to the more virtuosic aspects. Though in one continuous movement, the piece contains these two dif- ferent kinds of music, one slow and lyrical, and the other fast and furious. I wanted to give the musicians chances to “sing” through their instruments as well as present them with some challenging and exciting music. The opening section is an introduction for solo violin and is very free, almost like a cadenza. The piano eventually enters and solo becomes duo, with the violin “singing” high above the reverberations of the piano. Both instruments accelerate together into a faster, more aggressive section characterized by highly energetic rhythms and syncopations as the music moves breathlessly to its conclusion. BIOGRAPHIES Violist JAMES DUNHAM is active as a recitalist, guest artist and teacher. He has collaborated with such renowned artists as Emanuel Ax, Joshua Bell, Lynn Harrell, Cho-Liang Lin and members of the American, Cassatt, Guarneri, Juilliard, Takács, Tokyo and Ying Quartets. An advocate of new music, he recently premiered and recorded two works by Libby Larsen: her Viola Sonata (2001) and “Sifting Through the Ruins” (2005) for viola, mez- zo soprano (Susanne Mentzer) and piano, due for release by Naxos. Summers are spent at festivals including Sarasota, Amelia Island (FL), Aspen and le Domaine Forget (Quebec), with past participation in the La Jolla Chamber Music Festival, Festival der Zukunft (Ernen, Switzerland), the San Diego Mainly Mozart Festival and three summers at the Marlboro Music Festival. This season features concerts and classes throughout the U.S. with a special appearance at the Lübeck Hochschule für Musik in Germany and the Smithsonian Institute performing quartets on a set of Nicolò Amati instruments. Highlights of recent seasons included a pair of concerts with the Takács Quartet in Carnegie Hall, concerts in Reykjavik, Iceland, returns to San Diego, San Francisco, New York, Vermont and regular engagements with Houston Friends of Chamber Music and Da Camera Society of Hous- ton. Other recording projects have included Glyph by Judith Shatin for solo viola with string quartet and piano, the Bach Sonatas for Viola da Gamba with harpsichordist John Gibbons and the 2008 Grammy nominated Telarc recording of Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence with the Ying Quartet and cellist Paul Katz. Violist of the 1996 Grammy Award winning Cleveland Quartet for eight years, he performed throughout North America, Europe, the Far East and the Soviet Union. Founding violist of the Naumburg Award winning Sequoia String Quar- tet, Mr. Dunham formerly taught at California Institute of the Arts, the East- man School of Music and the New England Conservatory, where he also chaired the String Department and received the Louis & Adrienne Krasner Teaching Excellence Award. Mr. Dunham is Professor of Viola and Chamber Music at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music where he directs the Mas- ter of Music in String Quartet program. His recordings can be found on labels including Telarc, Nonesuch, Delos, Naxos and Crystal. Mr. Dunham performs on a Gaspar da Salo viola, ca. 1585. NORMAN FISCHER first graced the international concert stage as cellist with the Concord String Quartet, a group that won the Naumburg Chamber Music Award, an Emmy and several Grammy nominations, and recorded over 40 works on RCA Red Seal, Vox, Nonesuch, Turnabout and CRI. The New York Times recently said, “During its 16 years, the super virtuosic Concord String Quartet championed contemporary work while staying rooted in the Western tradition.” He has performed in 49 of the 50 United States and on five continents. In addition to performing the major concerti, Mr. Fischer has premiered and recorded many new scores for cello and orchestra including two recorded with the Cleveland Chamber Symphony by Augusta Read Thomas and Ross Lee Finney. Recitals of unaccompanied cello works have received rave reviews such as “Inspiring” [New York Times] for his New York debut recital of the complete Bach Suites in one evening and “Coruscating” [Boston Globe] for his performance of Osvaldo Golijov’s Omaramor at the opening of the 1998 Tanglewood festival. During the 1994 Broadway season, Mr. Fischer’s recording of William Bolcom’s score was used for the premiere of Arthur Miller’s Broken Glass. His chamber music expertise has led to guest appearances with the American, Audubon, Blair, Cavani, Chester, Chiara, Ciompi, Cleveland, Dover, Enso, Emerson, Jasper, Juilliard, Mendelssohn and Schoenberg string quartets, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Banff, Chamber Music Interna- tional, CONTEXT, and Houston’s Da Camera Society. Mr. Fischer joins pianist Jeanne Kierman and violinist Andrew Jennings as the Concord Trio, a group that has been performing together for over 30 years. For the last 10 years, Mr. Fischer also joined Ms. Kierman and violinist Curtis Macomber as co-artistic directors of the autumn chamber music extravaganza Musica Viva Festival headquartered in Norwich, VT. A devoted teacher and mentor to young players, Mr. Fischer has been on the faculty of Dartmouth College and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and is currently Herbert S. Autrey Professor of Violoncello and Coordinator of Cham- ber Music at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. Since 1985, he has taught at the Tanglewood Music Center (summer home of the Boston Symphony), in Lenox, MA where he holds the Charles E. Culpepper Foundation Master Teacher chair and is also Coordinator of Chamber Music. Mr. Fischer is also on the board of Chamber Music America. DESMOND HOEBIG, Professor of Cello at The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, has had a distinguished career as a soloist, orchestral and chamber musician. Desmond was born in 1961 and raised in Vancouver, Canada. He studied with James Hunter, Jack Mendelsohn and Ian Hampton. In 1978 he moved to Philadelphia to study with David Soyer at the Curtis Institute of Music. He received his BM and MM at the Juilliard School with Leonard Rose and Channing Robbins, and participated in master classes with Janos Starker and Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi at the Banff Centre. Mr. Hoebig won the First Prize at the Munich International Competition (1984), the Grand Prize of the CBC Talent Competition (1981) and the Canadi- an Music Competition (1980). He was also an award winner at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow (1982). Mr. Hoebig has been a soloist with many prominent orchestras in North America, including Cincinnati, Cleveland, Houston, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. His international orchestral engagements have been in Germany, Spain, Portugal, Japan, Mexico and Colombia. As a chamber musician, Desmond was the cellist with the Orford String Quartet when they won a Juno award for the best classical music album in 1990. He has also performed for 30 years with the Hoebig-Moroz Trio and in a duo with Andrew Tunis. Mr. Hoebig has taught and performed at festivals throughout North America, including Aspen, Banff, La Jolla, Marlboro, Music Bridge, Orcas Island, Sarasota and Steamboat Springs. Before joining the faculty of The Shepherd School, Mr. Hoebig had been Principal Cellist of the Cleveland, Houston, and Cincinnati Symphony Orches- tras. LING LING HUANG started violin at the tender age of 4 under the tutelage of her mother, Lilan Z. Huang. She had her first performance that same year beginning what would be a long career as a Houston Young Artist. She won the Greater Houston Youth Orchestra Concerto Competition three years in succession, the Woodlands Symphony Concerto Competition, and the Clear Lake Symphony Concerto Competition, first soloing with an orchestra when she was 8 years old. She began studying with Fredell Lack at the age of 10 and continued those studies until her admission into the Undergraduate Program at the Cleveland Institute of Music at the age of 15. Ling Ling has performed with the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra after winning the Cleveland Institute of Music Concerto Competition and also captured the Milhaud Prize with her trio. She currently has the priviledge of studying with Paul Kantor at the Shepherd School of Music and has enjoyed going to music festivals such as the Encore School for Strings in Hudson, Ohio, the Bowdoin International Mu- sic Festival in Brunswick, Maine, and the Aspen Music Festival and School in Aspen, Colorado where she has studied with David and Linda Cerone, Victor Danchenko, and Paul Kantor. PAUL KANTOR was appointed in 2012 as the Sallie Shepherd Perkins Professor of Violin following ten years at the Cleveland Institute of Music. His impressive musical career includes serving as chair of the String Depart- ment at the University of Michigan for 13 years and, prior to that, concurrent appointments at the Juilliard School, the New England Conservatory and Yale University.

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