“Voyage de passion”

A phenomenal concert celebrating the riveting abandon of francophone passion. Featuring works by Maurice Ravel, Joseph Jongen, and Gabriel Fauré, the FCMKC Artistic Directors Dmitri Atapine and Hyeyeon Park will be joined on stage by violinist Martin Beaver (formerly the first violin of the famed Tokyo Quartet) and acclaimed violist Ettore Causa of Yale University.

Martin Beaver, violin
Ettore Causa, viola
Dmitri Atapine, cello
Hyeyeon Park, piano

THE PROGRAM

Joseph JONGEN (1873-1953): Suite for Viola and Piano, Op. 48
Maurice RAVEL (1875-1937): Sonata for Violin and Cello
Gabriel FAURÉ (1845-1924): Piano Quartet No. 2 in G minor, Op. 45

Concert Underwriters: Jonathan and Nancy Lee Kemper

MARTIN BEAVER

Mr. Beaver was first violin of the world-renowned Tokyo String Quartet from June 2002 until its final concert in July 2013. As such, he appeared to critical and public acclaim on the major stages of the world, including Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Berliner Philharmonie, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, and the Sydney Opera House.

As a member of the Tokyo String Quartet, Mr. Beaver was privileged to perform on the 1727 Stradivarius violin from the “Paganini Quartet” set of instruments, on generous loan to the quartet from the Nippon Music Foundation. Recordings of the Tokyo String Quartet during his tenure notably include the complete Beethoven quartets on the Harmonia Mundi label.

Mr. Beaver is a regular guest at prominent festivals in North America and abroad. Among these are the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, La Jolla SummerFest, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Edinburgh International Festival, and Pacific Music Festival in Japan.

Mr. Beaver’s discography includes concertos, sonatas, and chamber music on the Harmonia Mundi, Biddulph, Naim Audio, René Gailly, Musica Viva, SM5000, and Naxos labels. His recorded repertoire ranges from Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms to the music of living composers Alexina Louie and Joan Tower.

Following his early studies with Claude Letourneau and Carlisle Wilson, Mr. Beaver was a pupil of Victor Danchenko, Josef Gingold, and Henryk Szeryng. He is a laureate of the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Belgium, the 1990 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, and the 1991 Montreal International Music Competition. Subsequently, he has served on the juries of major international competitions, including the 2009 Queen Elisabeth and 2010 Montreal competitions, the 2014 Osaka International Chamber Music Competition, and the 2015 Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition.

Over the course of his career, Mr. Beaver has been the grateful recipient of generous support from the Canada Council for the Arts, including arts grants for his studies at Indiana University, career development grants, and the 1993 Virginia Parker Prize. In 1998, through the kindness of an anonymous donor, the Canada Council awarded Mr. Beaver the use of the 1729 “ex-Heath” Guarneri del Gesù violin for a four-year period.

A devoted educator, Mr. Beaver has conducted master classes throughout North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. He has held teaching positions at the Royal Conservatory of Music, the University of British Columbia, and the Peabody Conservatory. More recently, he served on the faculty of New York University and as artist-in-residence at the Yale School of Music, where he was awarded its highest honor, the Sanford Medal. He joined the faculty of the Colburn School Conservatory of Music in 2013 as Professor of Violin and served as Co-Director of String Chamber Music Studies from 2013–2018.

Mr. Beaver is proud to be a founding member of the Montrose Trio with pianist Jon Kimura Parker and cellist Clive Greensmith. Mr. Beaver plays a 1789 Nicola Bergonzi violin.

ETTORE CAUSA

Awarded both the “P. Schidlof Prize” and the “J. Barbirolli Prize” for “the most beautiful sound” at the prestigious Lionel Tertis International Viola competition in England in 2000, Italian-born violist Ettore Causa is praised for his exceptional artistry, passionate intelligence and complete musicianship.

He has made solo and recital appearances in major venues around the world, such as Carnegie Hall, Zurich Tonhalle, Madrid National Auditorium, Salle Cortot, Tokyo Symphony Hall, Teatro Colon, etc., and has performed at numerous international festivals, such as the Menuhin, Salzburg, Tivoli, Prussia Cove, Savonlinna, Launadire and Norfolk Festivals.

Also a devoted chamber musician, Mr. Causa has collaborated extensively with internationally renowned musicians such as the Tokyo, Artis, Brentano, Cremona and Elias String Quartets, Pascal Rogé, Boris Berman, Peter Frankl, Thomas Ades, Natalie Clein, Ana Chumachenco, Ani Kavafian, Alberto and Antonio Lysy, Liviu Prunaru, Thomas Demenga, Ulf Wallin, William Bennett and others.

His highly praised recordings include several Claves CDs, among those his transcription of romantic pieces, which was awarded a prestigious “5 Diapasons” by the French magazine.

Recently he was one of the honor guest at the 43rd International Viola Congress where he performed with enormous success his own arrangement of the Schumann cello concerto

Mr. Causa performs on a viola made for him by Frederic Chaudiere in 2003

DMITRI ATAPINE
Described as "splendid, elegant cellist, with a gorgeous sound" (MundoClasico), DMITRI ATAPINE has been hailed as a performer with “brilliant technical chops” (Gramophone), whose playing is “highly impressive throughout” (The Strad). As an avid soloist and recitalist, he has appeared on some of the world’s foremost stages, including Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, the Zankel and Weill halls at Carnegie Hall, the National Auditorium of Spain, to cite but a few. His performances have been broadcast on radio and TV in the USA, Spain, Mexico, and South Korea.

Highly in demand as a chamber musician, Mr. Atapine regularly performs with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and is an alum of The Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two). His multiple festival festival appearances have included Music@Menlo (California), Chamber Music Northwest (Oregon), La Musica Festival (Florida), Nevada Chamber Music Festival, Cactus Pear Music Festival (Texas), Banff (Canada), Great Mountains Music Festival (South Korea), Malaga Clasica (Spain), Miguel Bernal Jimenez Festival (Mexico), the French Academy in Rome (Italy), Aldeburgh (England), Aix-en-Provence (France), and Pacific Music Festival (Japan). He collaborated with such eminent artists as the Tokyo String Quartet, St. Lawrence String Quartet, Wu Han, Ani and Ida Kavafian, David Finckel, David Shifrin, Cho-Liang Lin, Paul Neubauer, Bruno Giuranna and Peter Wiley, among many others.

As a soloist Mr. Atapine has performed as a soloist with the Taipei Symphony Orchestra, Asturias Symphony Orchestra, the Leon Symphony Orchestra, the Gijon Chamber Orchestra, the 'Arche' Chamber Orchestra, the Yale Philharmonia Orchestra, as well as with Michigan State University Symphony and Philharmonic Orchestras.

Mr. Atapine's many prizes and awards include the First Prize at the Carlos Prieto International Cello Competition and the Second Prize at the Vittorio Gui Chamber Music Competition. Other accolades include Top Prize and Yamaha Special Prize at the Florian Ocampo Spanish National Cello Competition, First and Second Prizes at the 2008 New England International Chamber Competition, the Grand Prize at the 2007 Plowman Competition, the 2005 Presser Foundation Award, the First Prize and Asturias Symphony Special Prize at the 2003 Llanes International String Competition (Spain), the Yale Woolsey Hall Competition, and the First Prize at the Sahagun International Music Competition at age 13.

Mr. Atapine's keen interest in contemporary music produced fruitful collaborations with several distinguished composers, among them Ezra Laderman, Jennifer Higdon, and Martin Bresnick. In collaboration with pianist Hyeyeon Park Mr. Atapine recently released a critically acclaimed world-premiere recording of Lowell Liebermann’s complete works for cello and piano on BlueGriffin label, leading to their presentation in Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall. Other recordings can be found on Naxos, Albany, Urtext Digital, and Music@Menlo LIVE labels.

Born into a family of musicians, Mr. Atapine began his musical education with his parents at the age of five and soon thereafter entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory School of Music. After his family moved to Spain, Mr. Atapine graduated with honors from the Asturias Conservatory under Alexander Fedortchenko. He came to the US and after receiving his bachelor's and master's degrees with high honors from Michigan State University under the tutelage of Suren Bagratuni, Mr. Atapine continued his studies with the legendary cellist Aldo Parisot at Yale University School of Music, where he completed the Master of Musical Arts degree, obtained the Artist Diploma, and since 2010 holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree.

Currently Mr. Atapine is the cello professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. Since 2007 he serves as the Artistic Director of Ribadesella International Music Festival (Spain), since 2010 he is the founder and Artistic Co-Director of Apex Concerts, is the Co-Director of Music@Menlo Chamber Music Institute, and in 2022 he was appointed as Artistic Co-Director of Friends of Chamber Music Kansas City.

HYEYEON PARK

Described as "a pianist with power, precision, and tremendous glee" (Gramophone Magazine) and praised for her "very sensitive" (Washington Post) and "highly nuanced" (Lucid Culture) playing, Hyeyeon Park has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician on major concert stages throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, Japan and her native Korea.

Since making her debut at the age of ten performing Beethoven's First Piano Concerto with Seoul Symphony Orchestra, Park soloed with Seoul Philharmonic, Seoul Symphony, KNUA Chamber Orchestra, Gangnam Symphony Orchestra, Seoul Arts Center Festival Orchestra and Incheon Philharmonic, to name but a few. Her recent concerts have been presented at the Dame Myra Hess Recital Series in Chicago, the Trinity Wall Street Series in New York City, Philips Collection in Washington, D.C., as well as such distinguished venues as Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, Merkin Recital Hall, Kennedy Center and Seoul Art Center, among others.

A Seoul Arts Center "Artist of the Year 2012," Park is prizewinner of numerous international competitions, including Oberlin International Piano Competition (U.S.), Ettlingen International Piano Competition (Germany), Hugo Kauder International Piano Competition (U.S.), Maria Canals International Piano Competition (Spain), Prix Amadeo International Piano Competition (Germany) and Corpus Christi International Music Competition (U.S.). Her performances have been broadcast on KBS and EBS television in Korea, RAI3 (Italy), WQXR (New York), WFMT (Chicago), WBJC (Baltimore), WETA (Washington, D.C.), radio and channel LOOP in the States.

An avid chamber musician, Park has collaborated with such musicians as David Shifrin, Ani Kavafian, Ida Kavafian, Paul Neubauer and many others appearing frequently at Yellow Barn Festival (Vermont), Santander Music Festival (Spain), Great Mountains Festival (Korea), Music@Menlo Festival (California),and Chamber Music Northwest (Oregon). She is the founding member of Atapine-Park duo and Atria Ensemble, groups that respectively won the prizes at Premio Vittorio Gui International Chamber Music Competition (Italy) and Plowman Chamber Music Competition (Missouri). Her duo recordings for cello and piano with cellist Dmitri Atapine were distributed by Naxos to a great critical acclaim. The duo's recent world-premiere recording of Lowell Liebermann's complete works for cello and piano was reviewed as "a valuable disc for the collector" by American Record Guide. Her solo CD "Klavier 1853" was released in 2017 under Blue Griffin label. An advocate for new music as a passionate musician who pursued career as a composer as well, Park enjoys working closely with contemporary composers.

Park holds a bachelor's of music degree at Korea National University with Professor Daejin Kim, master of music degree and artist diploma from Yale School of Music with Professor Peter Frankl, where she was a post-graduate artist associate following her graduation. She holds the doctor of musical arts degree from Peabody Conservatory with Professor Yong Hi Moon. Park has been recently appointed as co-director of Friends of Chamber Music Kansas City, and already serves as the co-director of Young Performers Program at Music@Menlo Chamber Music Festival and Institute. She is the associate professor of piano at the University of Nevada, Reno, where she also is the artistic director of the Apex Concerts, and the Artistic Co-Director of the Friends of Chamber Music Kansas City.