Timotheos Petrin, arx duo, Noah Geller & Jonny Allen
PROGRAM
Ten Variations on the theme ‘La stessa, la stesissima’ from the opera Falstaff by Salieri, WoO 73
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Sonetto 104 del Petrarca, S. 161, No. 5
Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
Etude-Tableaux op.33, No. 9 in C sharp minor
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)
Nocturne No. 20 in C sharp minor op. posth
Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
Danzas Argentinas, Three Pieces for Piano, Op.2
Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983)
1. Danza del Viejo boyero – “to Pedro Saenz” (Dance of the old cowherd)
2. Danza de la moza damosa – “to Emilia A. Stahlberg” (Dance of the sad maiden)
3. Danza del gaucho matrero – “to Antonio De Raco” (Dance of the clever cowboy)
***** INTERMISSION *****
Symphony No. 15 in A major, Op.141
Dimitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
(arranged by Victor Derevianko for piano trio and 13 percussion instruments)
1. Allegretto
2. Adagio – Largo – Adagio - Largo
3. Allegretto
4. Adagio – Allegretto – Adagio – Allegretto
Noah Geller (violin), Timotheos Petrin (cello), arx duo/Jonny Allen (percussions)
PLAMENA MANGOVA
Plamena Mangova won the second prize in the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 2007 and embarked on an international career. She made her studies with Marina Kapatsinskaya at the Pancho Vladigerov Sofia State Music Academy in Bulgaria, and then at the Queen Sofia Higher Music School, Madrid with the eminent teacher Dmitri Bashkirov and Claudio Martinez Mehner. She also worked with Abdel-Rahman El Bacha at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium and received the advice of renowned musicians such as Leon Fleisher, Rosalyn Tureck, Krystian Zimerman and Andras Schiff. She is a Laureate of various prestigious international piano and chamber music competitions, including “Paloma O’Shea” in Santander and “Vittorio Gui” in Florence, as well as the Juventus Festival in France.
Plamena performs with leading orchestras, such as the philharmonic orchestras of Rotterdam, Radio France, Luxembourg, Tokyo, National Orchestra of Belgium, European Union Chamber Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, RAI Torino Orchestra, Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia, Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, MDR Orchester Leipzig, RTVE Symphony Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic, Verbier Festival Orchestra and the symphony orchestras of Tatarstan, St. Petersburg, Trondheim, Taipei, New Zealand, Bulgarian Radio Orchestra…
Conductor collaborations include Sir Colin Davis, Myung-Whun Chung, Sir Andrew Davis, Emmanuel Krivine, Walter Weller, Maxim Vengerov, Emil Tabakov, Tadaaki Otaka, Jaap van Zweden, Dmitri Jurowski, Jean-Jacques Kantorow, Karl Heinz Steffens, Gilbert Varga, Jean-Claude Casadesus, Alexander Sladkovsky, Cristian Mandeal, Jean-Bernard Pommier, Howard Griffiths, Pinchas Steinberg and François-Xavier Roth.
A keen chamber music player, she has performed with Maria Joao Pires, Boris Berezovsky, Augustin Dumay, Kolja Blacher, Sergej Krylov, Mihaela Martin, Jian Wang, Pascal Moragues, Alexei Ogrintchouk, Alexander Kniazev, Frans Helmerson, Mihaela Martin and the Ysaye String Quartet among others.
Plamena performed at the Berlin Philharmonie, BOZAR Brussels, Suntory Hall Tokyo, Kennedy Center Washington, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Munich Herkulesaal, Bonn Beethovenhaus, Philharmonic Halls of Vilnius and Riga, South Bank Center London, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Moscow Conservatory concert hall, St Petersburg Philharmonic, Luxembourg Philharmonie, Arsenal de Metz, Théâtre du Châtelet, Théâtre des Champs Elysées and Auditorium du Louvre in Paris, and at major festivals such as Progetto Martha Argerich Lugano, Verbier Academy, La Folle Journée Nantes and Tokyo, La Roque d'Anthéron, Rostropovich Festival in Moscow and Baku, Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival, Santander, Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad, Montpellier Radio France Festival, Festival de Menton, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Bach Akademie Stuttgart.
Her first solo CD recording (Shostakovich) was awarded a “Diapason d'Or of the year 2007”. A chamber music disc by the same composer followed with soprano Tatiana Melnychenko, violinist Natalia Prischepenko and cellist Sebastian Klinger which was awarded the Superfonic Prize in Pizzicato magazine. Her Beethoven disc (sponsored by the Belgian Bank Fortis), was highly praised by France Musique and Diapason, as were her exceptional recordings of Strauss' Burleske (2008) and Brahms Piano Concerto No.1 (2010) with the Belgium National Orchestra and Walter Weller (Fuga Libera label). The latter was highly praised by Bryce Morrison in Gramophone magazine. The last CD, highly praised too, was recorded with the cellist Alexander Kniazev and dedicated to Franck and Ysaÿ.
Recent and future highlights performances of 2017-18 season include: her debut with the Staatskapelle Berlin Orchestra (in the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin); a performance with the Hamburger Symphoniker at the Elbphilharmony in Hamburg; concerts with the National Polish Orchestra, the Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra, Latvian National Orchestra, Sofia Philharmonic and Bulgarian National Radio Orchestra; in collaboration with the conductors Lawrence Foster, Gilbert Varga, Howard Griffith, Pablo Heras-Casado, Jun Markl, Yaron Traub, Andris Poga, and Mark Kadin. She will also perform in recital at the Maison de la Radio in Paris and will participate at several festivals such as La Roque d’Anthéron International Piano Festival, Folle Journée in Nantes, the Dubrovnik Festival and the Chamber Music Festival in Jerusalem. Moreover, she is invited to give a masterclass at the Park University, Kansas City - USA.
TIMOTHEOS PETRIN
Praised by the press for creating a sonority that "elicits the audience's most visceral reaction", Greek-Russian cellist Timotheos Stanislav Petrin has performed as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician across Europe, Asia and North America.
He is the winner of the 2015 Astral Artists Competition.
In 2016, Mr. Petrin made his debut performance with the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Robert Spano. He has also appeared as a soloist with the Athens Sumphony Orchestra, the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra, the Kenneth Square Symphony Orchestra, the Greek-Turkish Youth Orchestra.
In 2017 he was named Young Artist in Residence at the Performance Today radio program of the American Public Media, the most listened-to classical music program in the US. Several of his recordings were broadcast and received with great success throughout 2017.
As part of the Curtis on Tour initiative, Mr.Petrin has appeared as chamber musician and recitalist in major concert halls in Taiwan, Korea, Hong-Kong, Germany, Greece. Especially important was his return to the musical scene in his native Greece as part of the Curtis on Tour in 2015. An avid chamber musician, he often collaborates with important musical figures such as Noah-Bendix Balgley, Yura Lee, Frank Cohen, Roberto Diaz, Ignat Solzhenitsyn, Alexey Goribol, Meng-Chieh Liu, Miri Yampolsky.
He was recently accepted to the Marlboro Music Festival and is expected to make his first appearance there in summer 2019. Other festivals he frequently participates in include, the Chamberfest Cleveland, the Ravinia Festival Steans Music Institute, the Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth, the Moritzburg Festival, the Dimitria Festival. He was also a chamber music collaborator at the Lake Como Piano Summer School in 2016.
In addition to his concert appearances, Mr.Petrin is an advocate for charity and philanthropic causes. In spring 2016, in collaboration with the non-profit organization Podari.Life and the renowned Russian actress Chulpan Khamatova, he appeared in performances aiming to raise funds for children diagnosed with oncological and hematological diseases.
Born in Thessaloniki, Greece, into a family of musicians, Mr.Petrin entered the Curtis Institute of Music in 2012 where he studied with Carter Brey and Peter Wiley, and received his Bachelor of Music degree in 2017. He has also worked with musicians such as Leonidas Kavakos, Gary Hoffman, Frans Helmerson, Paul Katz, Colin Carr and Dimitris Patras.
Mr.Petrin is a scholarship recipient and fellow of the Onassis Foundation and currently studies at the New England Conservatory under the tutelage of cellist Laurence Lesser.
In this season, as part of his second residency at the Performance Today radio program, he will make a recital tour in Normandy, France, starting in Paris and ending in the city of Rouen. Other future performances include an appearance with the Thessaloniki Symphony Orchestra in Fall, and his debut recital at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia in April 2019.
arx duo
Aspiring to expand the genre of percussion chamber music through performing and creative collaboration, arx duo has been blazing a trail in the realm of contemporary music since their inception at the Yale School of Music in 2014. Since then, the duo has performed and given educational clinics across three continents.
Their 2017-18 season includes the premier of Dominic Murcott’s Harmonic Canon at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in UK, Ensemble in Residence at Artosphere Music Festival, along with recitals and collaborative concerts in varying parts of the country. As members of The Percussion Collective Robert van Sice in its opening season, they will premiere Garth Neustadter’s Seaborne and present concerts and masterclasses at universities.
With a repertoire ranging from established masters to today’s newest compositional voices, arx duohas worked closely with composers such as Alejandro Vinao, James Wood, and Ted Hearne. Always seeking opportunities to bring percussion to a wide variety of audiences, the group has given concerts, workshops, and master classes at universities and conservatories in the United States, Europe, and Asia. arx duo has served as artists in residence at Michigan State University, Lake George Music Festival, and currently are Faculty at the Young Artist Summer Program at Curtis Summerfest.
The name "arx duo" comes from their desire to forge new connections and artistic pathways - or "arcs"- within the genre, expanding the opportunities for bringing their music to audiences.
Mari and Garrett both proudly endorse Adams Instruments, Pearl Drums, and Vic Firth Sticks and Mallets.
NOAH GELLER
Violinist Noah Geller has performed extensively throughout the United States and abroad. At the invitation of Music Director Michael Stern, Geller became the Kansas City Symphony concertmaster in 2012. He has since appeared frequently as soloist with the Symphony. He made his solo recording debut on the Kansas City Symphony’s most recent release with Reference Recordings featuring music by Saint-Säens. In addition to his activities at the Symphony, Geller is an enthusiastic music educator. Upon his arrival in Kansas City, he was appointed to the position of adjunct associate professor of violin at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance. Geller began his professional career in the first violin section of the Philadelphia Orchestra in 2007 while still pursuing his master’s degree. He served as acting assistant concertmaster of the
Philadelphia Orchestra for the 2010 and 2011 seasons. Geller also has performed as guest
concertmaster with the Symphony Orchestras of Pittsburgh, Houston, and Beijing (China
National Symphony). In addition to his large scale orchestral activities, Geller appears regularly with the dynamic and spirited conductor-less group, East Coast Chamber Orchestra (ECCO). An active chamber musician, Geller has performed at the Marlboro, Kingston, Saratoga, Heartland and Skaneateles festivals, and he has appeared on the Lyon and Healy (Chicago), Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Lyric Chamber Music Society (New York) series, among others. He is an original member of Shir Ami, an ensemble dedicated to the music of composers whose lives were adversely affected by the Holocaust. Geller has organized and presented concerts by Shir Ami for the Kansas City community, garnering remarkable support and enthusiasm.
Geller grew up in the Chicago area, studying privately with Jennifer Cappelli. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from The Juilliard School where he studied with Hyo Kang, Donald Weilerstein and Cho-Liang Lin. Geller currently lives in Kansas City with his wife, percussionist Mari Yoshinaga, and their dog, Monkey. He performs on a violin made by Andreas Postacchini c. 1840.
JONNY ALLEN
Described by the Washington Post as “revitalizing the world of contemporary music” with “jaw-dropping virtuosity”, Jonny Allen is a Brooklyn based percussionist whose passion for music is contagious. He has won prizes at both the International Chamber Music Competition and the International Marimba Competition in Salzburg, giving respective performances at Carnegie Hall and Schloss Hoch in Flachau, Austria. Jonny has also performed as a drum set soloist with Ghana's National Symphony Orchestra at the National Theatre in Accra. He performs across the united states and internationally with his percussion quartet, Sandbox, and his jazz trio, Triplepoint, and is the percussion director at Choate Rosemary Hall. Jonny is sponsored by Remo drumheads and by the stick and mallet company, Vic Firth. He holds a Bachelor's degree from the Eastman School of Music, as well as a Masters degree and Artist Diploma from the Yale School of Music where he performed with the world class Yale Percussion Group.