Sonata Series Event #2: Live Stream (enhanced audio)

Welcome to the Sonata Series Event #2 Live Stream, now with enhanced audio!

This event brings together compositional voices from opposite sides of the globe. CMW Resident Musicians Kimberly Fang (violin) and Adrienne Taylor (cello) are joined by guest pianist Andrei Baumann for this special evening of music featuring Chinese composers Sicong Ma and Yau-Tai Hwang and Samuel Barber, one of the most celebrated American composers of the 20th century.

Community MusicWorks is grateful to Melanie and Stephen Coon for their sponsorship of the live stream for the Sonata Series in Season 26.

ABOUT OUR PERFORMERS: Guest pianist Andrei Baumann has performed extensively in the USA, Europe, Canada, and Venezuela. Andrei has a Masters of Music in Piano Performance from New England Conservatory, a Künstlerischer Ausbildung Diploma from the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Stuttgart, Germany, and a Bachelor of Music degree at the Glenn Gould School of The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. Currently living in Providence, Andrei teaches at the Rhode Island Philharmonic Music School.

Read our program book to learn more about CMW Resident Musicians Kimberly Fang and Adrienne Taylor: https://communitymusicworks.org/calendar/season-26-program-book/

ABOUT THE COMPOSERS: While composer Hwang Yau-Tai also appreciated and taught the traditional Western works in the violin canon, he began to realize that his audiences preferred to hear music from their own land. He then turned his focus towards composing for Chinese folk melodies and developed his own unique compositional method of combining the modal harmonies from these folk tunes with the major/minor harmonies of Western music. Rustic Dance features 2 folk songs, both sung during Lunar New Year. The first one chases away the winter chill and welcomes the spring warmth, and the second is a song and dance used to celebrate a war victory during the Ming Dynasty.

Composer Sicong Ma is known in China as “The King of Violinists”, being the first Chinese student admitted to the Paris Conservatory in 1928. He studied both violin performance and composition while in Paris, and throughout his eventful life, he performed, composed, and even founded two conservatories in China. Due to persecution during the Cultural Revolution, Sicong eventually fled with his family where they relocated to Philadelphia. This sonata was composed towards the end of his life and is the only remaining violin sonata of the three that he composed. While Ma was never able to return to his homeland, that longing and love for China can be heard in many of his compositions, where he seamlessly blends Western European techniques with the Chinese melodies of his youth.

American composer Samuel Barber is one of the most prominent composers of the 20th century. His compositions are some of the most widely used in the world of classical music, and he was successful at combining older classical styles with more modern elements of composition. Barber also composed vocal music, including operas. Barber was the recipient of numerous awards and prizes including the American Prix de Rome, two Pulitzers, and election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His intensely lyrical Adagio for Strings has become one of the most recognizable and beloved compositions, both in concerts and films.

THE PROGRAM:

Rustic Dance Yau-Tai Hwang (1912-2010)

Kimberly Fang, violin

Violin Sonata No. 3 Sicong Ma (1912-1987)
I. Moderato
II. Allegro vivace

Kimberly Fang, violin
Andrei Baumann, piano

Sonata for Cello and Piano in C minor, Op. 6 Samuel Barber (1910-1981)
I. Allegro ma non troppo
II. Adagio – Presto
III. Allegro appassionato

Adrienne Taylor, cello
Andrei Baumann, piano

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Live streaming by Atomic Clock and audio by James Moses

Learn more about Community MusicWorks’ programs and events: https://communitymusicworks.org.