August 5, 2001
Sunday, 8 PM at Boswell Recital Hall
Faculty Recital
Program
Fantasy in F minor for Piano Four Hands KV 594 Mozart
Adagio
Allegro
Pi-Hsien Chen, piano
Hung-Kuan Chen, piano
The Stream Flows, for solo violin (1990) Bright Sheng
Lynn Chang, violin
Petrouchka
Stravinsky
Hung-Kuan Chen, piano
----- intermission ---
Trio No. 2 in E Major, Op. 67
Shostakovich
Andante
Allegro non troppo
Largo
Allegretto
Hung-Kuan Chen, piano
Lynn Chang, violin
Bion Tsang, cello
The Artists:
Lynn Chang, violin
The top prize winner of the 1975 International Paganini Competition in Genoa,
Italy, violinist Lynn Chang enjoys an active and versatile career as soloist,
ensemble performer and educator. Mr. Chang has appeared at Wolf Trap, the
Great Woods Festival, the Marlboro Music Festival, and Tanglewood. He is a
founding member of the Boston Chamber Music Society. He has performed as
soloist with numerous orchestras around the world, including those in
Atlanta, Miami, Salt Lake City, Oakland, Seattle, Honolulu, Beijing, Taipei,
and Hong Kong. Mr. Chang has appeared several times on the PBS television
series "Live from Lincoln Center."
Mr. Chang has recently returned from Moscow, where he recorded Ivan
Tcherepnin's Grawmeyer Award winning Double Concerto which was commissioned
for and premiered by Mr. Chang and cellist Yo-Yo Ma in 1995. The sold-out
performance was hailed as "world class." In 1994, Mr. Chang collaborated
with the Mark Morris Dance Company and Mikhail Baryshnikov in performances at
the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Mr. Chang has recorded with the Boston Chamber Music Society on Northeastern
label. His recording on New World Records of William Grant Still's "Suite"
has been highly acclaimed. He performed with Dawn Upshaw on her Grammy
Award-winning album, "The Girl with the Orange Lips." He is also heard with
Yo-Yo Ma in his CD, "Made in America," in music by Leon Kirchner.
Mr. Chang Began his musical studies at the age of 7 with Sarah Scriven and
Alfred Krips. He continued his studies at the Juilliard School under the
tutelage of Ivan Galamian. A native of Boston, Mr. Chang received his
Bachelor's degree in Music from Harvard University. He is currently a faculty
member of Boston University, the Boston Conservatory, MIT, and the New
England Conservatory of Music, and makes his home in Newton, Massachusetts.
Hung-Kuan Chen, Piano
"Back in the '80's, Apollo and Dionysus, Florestan and Eusebius, were at war
in Chen's pianistic personality. He could play with poetic insight, he could
also erupt into an almost terrifying overdrive. But now there is the repose
and the forces have been brought into complimentary harmony. ....This man
plays music with uncommon understanding and the instrument with uncommon
imagination!" Richard Dyer, Boston Globe. (January 1999)
Mr. Hung-Kuan Chen is probably the most decorated pianist in Boston. He won
the Gold Medals both in Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master
Competition in Israel and the Feruccio Busoni International Piano
Competitions in Italy. He gathered prizes in Geza Anda, the Queen Elisabeth
and the Chopin competitions and when the New York Times failed to cover
Chen's Alice Tully debut, after winning Young Concert Artists, Ruth Laredo in
another NY publication exclaimed, "rarely have I heard such eloquence and
musical understanding. Is anyone listening?"
A true recitalist, he has performed in major venues worldwide. In New York at
Carnegie and Merkin Halls, Davis Hall in San Francisco, Jordan, Symphony and
Sanders Theatres in Boston. In Europe Mr. Chen performed at the Hercules
Saal, Salla Verdi Milan. He has played in halls in Bejing, Tapei, Japan,
Warsaw, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Munich, Zurich, and in many cities in Canada. He
has performed the complete Beethoven Sonata cycle, the Chopin Preludes &
Etudes in recital and recorded under the BMG label. He has collaborated with
such conductors as Christoph Eschenbach, Andrew Parrett, George Cleve,
Becker, Yuav Talmi, Uri Segal, Silverstein, Sui Lan, and Hans Graf and Henry
Mazer, Mr. Chen has been a soloist with orchestras such as Pittsburgh,
Baltimore, Houston, Grant Park, Colorado, Montreal, Tonhalle, Jerusalem, and
the Israel Symphony.
Hung-Kuan Chen believes in making music with others and has collaborated with
Yo-Yo Ma, Jimmy Lin, Anthony Gigliotti, Lawrence Lesser, Pi-hsien Chen, Peter
Eotvos, Anthony diBonaventura. He formed a piano duo with pianist Tema
Blackstone and has worked with the Tokyo String Quartet, the Shanghai String
Quartet, and many others.
As a pedagogue, he has inspired a studio of international caliber. He taught
at Boston University since 1984, himself just 25 years old. A faculty member
of New England Conservatory and Walnut Hill since 1993, he is also very
involved with the Music Bridge program in China where he helps choose
brilliant young students to come study in Canada, where he is presently
based, as artist in residence at Mount Royal Conservatory and University of
Calgary with his partner.
Pi-Hsien Chen, Piano
Pi-Hsien Chen was born in Taiwan and went to Cologne when she was nine years
old. One year later, she was admitted in the class of Hans-Otto
Schmidt-Neuhaus. At the age of 21, she won the first prize at the ARD
International Piano Competition in Munich, later on the first prizes at the
Arnold Schonberg Competition in Rotterdam and at he J.S.Bach Competition in
Washington D.C.
She performed with important orchestras, such as the London Symphony
Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the
Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra and all German Radio Symphony Orchestras.
Conductors, with whom she has worked, were Bernhard Haitink, Paul Sacher, Sir
Colin Davis, Charles Dutoit, Marek Janowsky, Hans Zendr, Peter Eötvös and
others. She was partner of Hermann Baumann, Pierre-Laurant Aimard, Augustin
Dumay, Alyssa Park, Wolfgang Meyer and Julius Berger.
Pi-Hsien Chen took part in numerous music festivals: she gave performances in
the Schwetzinger Festspiele, the London Prom's, the Osaka Festival, the Hong
Kong Arts Festival, the Festival d'Automne Paris, the Festival Wien Modern
and the Triennale Cologne 1994 and 1997.
Her increasing interest and engagement for contemporary music grew in the
cooperation with composers as John Cage, Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen
and Gyorgy Kurtag. In 1999, Pi-Hsien Chen was successfully touring in
mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Besides that she performed music by
contemporary German composers and pieces by John Cage and Elliott Carter on
different German
festivals. Celebrating the Millennium, she will play concerts in the
National Gallery in Berlin on New Year's Evening and Day. She will appear in
EXPO 2000 in Hannover solo and as a partner of Alfons Kontarsky to represent
the German Contemporary Music Institute from Darmstadt. Since 1983, Pi-Hsien
Chen has been a professor for the piano at the Musikhochschule, Koln.
Available on CD are:
J.S. Bach, "Goldberg Variations" (Naxox)
P.Boulez, "Notations"and "Structures II", with B. Wambach (CBS)
O. Messiaen, "Harawi" with S.V. Osten (ITM)
Jean Barraqué and Pierre Boulez: " Sonatas: (Telos)
York Höller, "Signals" (Largo)
Arnold Schönberg, Complete Piano Music for Two Hands (hat-now-art)
Xiaoyong Chen, "Invisible Landscapes" (Radio Bremen)
Bion Tsang, cello
The young American cellist Bion Tsang has captured the attention of critics
and the public alike with his ebullient charisma, unassuming virtuosity, and
ability to communicate. As recipient of a 1992 Avery Fisher Grant, a 1990
MEF Career Grant, and the Bronze Medal in the IX International Tchaikovsky
Competition, Mr. Tsang has been internationally recognized as one of the
outstanding instrumentalists of his generation. He has appeared with such
orchestras as the New York Philharmonic, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the
National Symphony Orchestra, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, the Moscow
Philharmonic, the Hong Kong Philharmonic and the Taiwan National Orchestra.
Mr. Tsang's career as a chamber musician has been equally distinguished,
marked by numerous collaborations with violinist Cho-Liang Lin and Pamela
Frank, frequent appearances as guest artist of the Boston Chamber Music
Society, and performances at festivals such as Marlboro Music, the Portland
and Seattle Chamber Music Festivals, and the Laurel Festival of the Arts,
where he serves as Artistic Director.
Highlights of Mr. Tsang's recent seasons include his solo debuts with the
American Symphony Orchestra at the Bard Festival, NY and the Pacific Symphony
Orchestra at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, CA and his recital
debuts at the Usdan Center for the Performing Arts, NY and the Irvine Barclay
Theatre, CA. Mr. Tsang also returned to Taiwan to perform the Brahms Double
Concerto with the Taiwan National Orchestra in two concerts for the President
of the Republic of China. This season, Mr. Tsang made his debut in
Orchestra Hall in Chicago with Zubin Mehta and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago
as well as his debut at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles with the Hollywood
Bowl Orchestra.
Mr. Tsang begins next season performing in a benefit concert for the Jake
Gittlen Cancer Research Institute in Harrisburg, PA. He then opens the
1997-98 Season of the Hudson Valley Philharmonic performing Dvorak's Concerto
in B Minor. The fall brings him back to the Far East, where he performs the
Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations and Beethoven Triple Concerto as well as
chamber music performances with Jaime Laredo, Cho-Liang Lin, Nigel Kennedy,
Michael Tree, Yo-Yo Ma and Gary Karr. Next season also marks Mr. Tsang's
first collaboration with violinist Chee-Yun performing Brahms' Double
Concerto as well as his solo debuts in Jacksonville, FL, Springfield, MO and
Bermuda.
Mr. Tsang made his professional debut at age eleven in two concerts with
Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic. That same year he returned to
perform two more concerts with Maestro Mehta and the Philharmonic. One of
these performances was broadcast worldwide on the CBS Festival of Lively Arts
television series. Following this, the young cellist distinguished his career
with numerous awards. While still in his teens, he became the youngest
cellist ever to receive a Gregor Piatigorsky Memorial Prize and the youngest
recipient ever of an Artists International Award. He was also chosen as a
Finalist of the NFAA's Arts Recognition and Talent Search and subsequently as
a Presidential Scholar in the Arts. At age nineteen, Mr. Tsang became the
youngest cellist to win a prize in the VIII International Tchaikovsky
Competition.
Born in Michigan of Chinese parents, Mr. Tsang began piano studies at age six
and cello at age seven. The following year, he entered the Juilliard School
to study cello with Ardyth Alton. His other cello teachers have included:
Luis Garcia-Renart, Aldo Parisot, William Pleeth, Channing Robbins, and
Leonard Rose. Mr. Tsang received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard
University and his Master of Musical Arts from Yale University where he is a
Doctor of Musical Arts candidate. He enjoys playing golf, surfing the net and
following the ups and downs of the Miami Dolphins.
For this concert, Mr. Tsang performs on a Carlo Giuseppe Testore cello made
in Milan, Italy in 1700 that is generously on loan from Brensson Stringed
Instruments in New York City.
* * * * *