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May 2018 Hot News
18 - 19 May 2018
VIP Wenzel Fuchs (Solo Klarinettist in the Berliner Philharmoniker) Master Class and concert at the Conservatorio Nikolini in
Piacenza, Italy
17 May 2018
Clarinet Summit Concert with Senior VIP Richard Nunemaker and Salvatore Andolina
Buffalo, New York USA
16 May 2018
Sunny Kang Performs Major Recital at 'The Cell' in unique Program
New York City USA
Last night, Seunghee Lee opened Charles R. Hale’s 2018 series “Thoroughly New York.” She was an unequivocal success.
Ms. Lee, a brilliant clarinetist, is a storyteller like Charles, who enhances story through musical performance. Effectively handled, there is a synergy in which the narrative and the music become greater than the sum of their parts. What made this show different is that Ms. Lee was both the musician and the storyteller, engaging the audience with her humor, life experiences and carefully selected musical scores to punctuate each story. It made for a richly rewarding experience.
Ms. Lee played her clarinet with ease and grace, but her performance went far beyond her immense musical skills. She shared an inspirational story of how she’d arrived at this time and place in her life and how she’d wrestled with her love for music and roles as a clarinetist, a mother and wife. At one point she described a moment in her life when in despair, she gave up her music, but turned it into a humorous moment by flashing a photo onto the screen of her clarinet, in her home, with a lampshade over it. Ms. Lee explained that even though she wasn’t actively using it at that point in her life she did not want to let it go. Clearly, the world is richer because Ms. Lee came back to her clarinet.
Ms. Lee opened her show with an Elgar piece that is very dear to her, Salut d’Amour Bravo, (Salute to Love) She explained how the piece was written for violin, but because of her love for the work, she became the first clarinetist to record it. It was a pattern that she would repeat often, which included producing a book containing sheet music for the clarinet called “Hidden Treasures.”
Ms. Lee also regaled us with tales of her love of golf even comparing it to music, noting that each discipline required, “practice, practice, practice…” as well as finding a good teacher, having fun and developing a good rhythm and tempo. To punctuate the story, she played Gabriel Faure’s 1893 piece, Sicilienne, which she stated gave her a sense of freedom and wonder while she played golf.
As the evening progressed, it was clear that little held back Ms. Lee. When it came to performing and her love of her instrument…anything was possible. Nothing underscored that more than her two Puccini arias “O Mio Bambino Cara” from Gianna Schicchi and “Nessun Dorma” from Turandot. I’m an opera fan, but hearing these well known arias performed as clarinet solos was a richly rewarding experience. While Sunny performed, accompanied by pianist Evan Solomon, it would have been impossible not to hear Kathleen Battle or the great Pavarotti, whose signature song was Nessun Dorma, singing these arias. Quite riveting.
The most moving moment of the evening was Ms Lee’s tribute to her father, who was taken from her in a most unfortunate and untimely manner. To honor his life, which included introducing her to the clarinet, as well as instructing her, Ms. Lee performed her father’s favorite song, “Danny Boy.” The soul and emotion she put into the song was a magnificent tribute. The audience was on the edge of their seats, the emotion palpable.
I’d never experienced a classically trained musician of Seunghee Lee’s talent, combine superior musicality and riveting storytelling. A novel concept, superbly crafted. It was an exceptional evening and if this is a portent of things to come, I await the next performance in this series, “Thoroughly New York,” with great anticipation
Photos by Mitch Traphagen
“Now here is a talent… who has as warm, silvery, and woody a tone as anyone could imagine with fast and keen finger work to match… amazing expressive capabilities… positively lovely” – Review by Allmusic.com
Seunghee Lee is a multi-faceted musician, international recording artist, and musical entrepreneur, Seunghee (Sunny) brings a vivacious energy, an exquisite elegance and extraordinary precision to all her endeavors. Ms. Lee has been recognized by the Clarinet Magazine as “an uncompromising soloist, destined to be an upcoming contender of top stature”.
Sunny’s 2017-2018 season included a tour of northern Italy performing the Mozart Clarinet Concerto, visiting professorship at Yale School of Music, and a Sold-Out debut recital at Carnegie Hall. An advocate for exploring new ideas, embracing all musical genres, one of the greatest highlights was her collaboration with DEEPAK CHOPRA on his new album & book: HOME: Where Everyone is Welcome, a collection of thirty-four original poems and twelve songs inspired by a diverse group of immigrants.
Click here to listen to Sunny performing “Gabriel’s Oboe” with composer Andrea Morricone, who is also the composer of the “Love Theme” from Cinema Paradiso, which you can hear Sunny perform here.
13 and 16 May 2018
VIP Chad Burrow (Professor at the University of Michigan) Master Classes
Soochow and Shenzehn, China
11 May 2018
Paquito D’Rivera received an Honorary Doctorate of Musical Arts from the Manhattan School of Music. The presentation was made during the school’s Commencement Ceremony by MSM President James Gandre and Interim Provost Joan Gordon
New York City USA
11 May 2018
Major Chamber concert with Clarinetist Ruzaliia Kasimova and Friends - State Institute for Art Sciences
Moscow, Russia
A remarkable chamber concert with two masterworks, the Brahms Trio Op 114 and the Reger Sonata was performed with multiple prize winning Clarinetist Ruzaliia Kasimova and Friends. Below is her biography:
Ruzaliia Kasimova was born in Vyatskie Polyany. She started to learn music when
she was 8 years old. In 2010, Ruzaliia entered to Special Music School (college)
in Kazan and graduated with honors in 2011. Since 2013, she is a student of the
Moscow Conservatoire (clarinet class – Honored Artist of Russia, Prof. Evgeniy
Petrov, chamber music class – People Artist of Russia Prof. Alexander
Bonduryansky, Honored Artist of Russia, Assoc. Prof. Natalia Rubinstein).
Ensemble performances make a primary part of the concert activity of Ruzaliia.
As ensemblist, Ruzaliia Kasimova gives recitals in both cities of Russia and
abroad. Ruzaliia is engaged in the promotion of chamber music and the
performance of both masterpieces and rare works for various ensembles with the
clarinet. In 2014 she founded “Weber-Duo”, which have a large concert geography
and extensive repertoire.
In 2017, she organized “Clarinet History of Russian Chamber Music”, the series
of concerts where she performed forgotten and rare works by Russian and Soviet
composers like Paul Yuon, Alexander Grechaninov, Ella Adaevskaya, Mieczyslav
Weinberg, Ester Magi, Vasily Lobanov.
In 2018 Ruzaliia Kasimova established a series of five chamber music concerts
"Clarinet-Marathon", where clarinet works by for
the most part European composers like A.
Hoffmaister, W.A. Mozart, F. Ries, C.G. Reissiger, G. Meyerbeer, C.M. von Weber,
L. van Beethoven, J. Brahms, M. Reger, A. Berg, L. Weiner, P. Hindemith, B.
Martinu, F. Poulenc, E. von Dohnányi, T. Takemitsu were performed.
Ruzaliia Kasimova is Prize-winner of the International Competition named after
Maria Yudina, 1st prize, Saint-Petersburg, Russia, 2017; International
Competition named after Dmitry Kabalevsky, 1st prize, Moscow, Russia, 2017;
International chamber music competition and festival in Jurmala, 1st prize,
Latvia, 2017; European chamber music competition named after Max Reger in
Karlsruhe, 2nd prize, Germany, 2017.
4 May 2018
New York Woodwind Quintet 'Celebrating Winds' Concert with the WA Concert Series at the Tenri Cultural Center - VIP Charles Neidich, Director
New York City USA
One of the great delights of the New York concert season has been my discovery of the Wa series, now concluding its first year. This is truly the “caviar” of chamber music series, with its carefully curated repertoire, emphasizing unusual or neglected composers and pieces, not to mention the lavish hand-crafted menus served before, during, and after the performances, created by artistic director Charles Neidich’s wife, Ayako Oshima.
There was so much wind-superstar power in one room that it took my breath away! Better mine than theirs, however, for they would need every ounce of it to play this difficult program. In the case of musicians on this level, there was never even a hint of strain or difficulty.
The evening began with a selection of Elizabethan lutenist John Dowland’s secular dances, transcribed by hornist William Purvis, who is passionate about this period of music. He deftly and simply explained the concept of “broken consort” to the audience. The music emerged in all its eloquence, with Lachrimae Antiquae a particular highlight.
Richard Wernick’s name and music were new to me on this occasion. He was in attendance, and explained that at “his age” (Mr. Wernick is 84) he decided to compose only what he wished (not to deadlines) and only for friends, preferring to envision “faces instead of clefs” at the beginning of each stave. Thus, his friends the New York Woodwind Quintet gave the world premiere of his Quintet No. 2, a work that makes use of the color palette of the winds to differentiate the strands of counterpoint. They played the work brilliantly, clarifying every texture. Mr. Wernick’s use of klangfarbenmelodie (sound-colors melody), in which the same pitch is repeated by (or traded to) another instrument was remarkable for the way in which the transfers were subtle: one could hardly tell where one instrument began and the other left off.
Then came Elliott Carter’s second wind quintet, Nine by Five, a work completed on his 101st birthday (!). The title refers to the nine instruments played by the five members, each one doubling on another instrument (except the horn). The scenario is one of conversation/argument/ignoring/togetherness, as of actors on a stage, and again these players dramatized every moment of this raucous mini-play.
After intermission came a curio, about which I was initially anxious. How can a string quartet, essentially an intimate form for four players, be transferred to a more “public” type of ensemble, and expanded to five players, without betraying some of its substance? My fears were unfounded, as somehow I expected they would be. Once again, Mr. Purvis displayed his perfect taste-level in his rendering of the Mendelssohn String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 13. This work, begun in July 1827, has a motto that quotes from a June 1827 song Frage (Question), the question being “Ist es wahr?” (Is it true: that a secret admirer asks the moon and stars about him?) This is due to the eighteen-year-old Mendelssohn’s crush on Betty Pistor, a member of the Singakademie for whom Mendelssohn was the accompanist. Mr. Purvis explained how Mendelssohn fuses the motto technique inspired by Beethoven’s last quartet with the contrapuntal wizardry inspired by Bach. There are numerous references to various late works by Beethoven in each of the cyclic movements, which Mendelssohn wrote about: “the relation of all 4 or 3 or 2 or 1 movements of a sonata to each other and their respective parts, so that one already knows the mystery that must be in music.”
The performance was transcendent, with transparency preserved and the lightning fast “elfin” Mendelssohn interchanges among the instruments every bit as light as when heard on strings. Naturally, the work gained a bit of heft, particularly in the lower lines, but it became its own work of art, as Mr. Purvis said “because it’s so darn fun to play.” Carol Wincenc inhabits another universe of flute playing, inaccessible to mere mortals, but she was not alone in this regard. Mr. Purvis’ muted horn pronunciation of the fugue subject in the second movement was a paragon of subtlety, with the sighing affect ever so poignantly shown. As always, Mr. Neidich was in that alternative universe of perfection too, as were Stephen Taylor and Marc Goldberg.
As an encore, they offered another Purvis transcription, of a Gesualdo madrigal, another of Mr. Purvis’ passions: Moro, lasso, al mio duolo (I die, alas, in my suffering), the chromaticism of which would not be encountered again until Wagner in the nineteenth century.
Mr. Neidich stated that the concert series for next year will be made known very soon. A word to the wise music lover: Run, don’t walk, to this series.
4 May 2018
VIP Wenzel Fuchs Soloist (Mozart Clarinet Concerto) with the Mozarteum Orchestra from Salzburg, Austria (where he is Professor)
Karazawa, Japan
2 May 2018
VIP Gregory Raden (Solo Clarinetist in Dallas Symphony) Master Class at RDG Woodwinds
Los Angeles, California USA