November 2008

A lot has happened since my last entry! A few highlights: on August 28 I played the second Prokofiev Concerto on short notice with Miguel Harth-Bedoya and the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl - what an incredible experience! I've never played in front of so many people before (almost 10,000). I was very happy and got a nice review in the Los Angeles Times.

In October I spent 10 days in Japan in October, where I played two recitals and a performance of the first Paganini Violin Concerto. That was in one of the greatest halls I've ever played in (Tokyo Opera City); it sounds, looks and feels just magnificent. I enjoyed very much working with Maestro Akiyama there, and I also had a really nice collaboration with the pianist Ikuyo Nakamichi. I enjoyed this tour a lot - Tokyo is such an exciting city! I enjoyed meeting wonderful people, the food, the sights, shopping for clothes, taking the subway (which is a little more advanced than the one in New York City!)... I noticed that the subway often plays little jingles so you can recognize your stop by what melody it is (here is an example); this means that you can space out or doze off on the train and not miss your stop. I think that's a really neat idea - I actually still remembered some of the melodies from my first visit to Tokyo over ten years ago!

A few days after I got back from Japan I performed the Shostakovich concerto for the first time (review)! What a great concerto. And I'm very excited to go to Budapest at the end of next week (where I'm playing Haydn in C with the Liszt Chamber Orchestra). The land of Bartok! I can't wait...

August 21 2008

I just got back to New York from the Marlboro festival in Vermont, where I spent six weeks this summer. It was wonderful as usual, I got to work on very interesting and diverse repertoire this year (Mozart quartet G Major K 387, Faure piano trio, Shostakovitch string quartet no. 7, Schumann piano trio d minor, Enescu piano quintet). It's a very special place, and I feel inspired and motivated now as I prepare for my upcoming concerts (Tchaikovsky, Brahms, then in October Paganini #1 and Shostakovitch).

Before going to Marlboro I played my debut with the Houston Symphony (Mozart concerto no. 3). It was very exciting - I wrote a cadenza especially for the occasion, which I added to the pdf downloads.

I'm playing in Carnegie Hall again this year!!! On December 24th I'll play Mozart's Fifth Concerto there with Jaime Laredo conducting the New York String Orchestra. I'm also really excited about my tour to Japan in October; I can't wait to go - I was there only once before, when I was 13 years old - over ten years ago!

This spring is such an exciting time for me! I had my Carnegie Hall debut recital on March 28, which was incredibly exciting; it was an amazing feeling, during the Bartok solo sonata, to stand alone on that stage in front of the huge hall, in front of so many people. For the rest of the recital I was joined by the wonderful pianist Robert Kulek, and together we played some of the most beautiful works in the repertoire; It was definitely a night I will always remember!

Right after that I went to Boston to perform the first Paganini concerto for the first time; it's a tough piece to play, but I love the operatic melodies and the drama of the second movement and the humour of the last. I played the concerto with the Longwood Symphony, an orchestra based in Boston comprised mainly of medical professionals. The concert benefited The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship and the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers.

I wrote my own cadenza (which I then had to simplify because it was too hard initially :) It's not as long as the Sauret cadenza, and not as entirely focused on technique. I think a cadenza should be fun for the audience to listen to; I added it to the pdf downloads section.

When you write your own cadenza, you can pick out the themes, passage work, the moments in the piece that you find the most interesting, and explore them a little more; it's up to you what material from the piece you use. Your own cadenza inevitably reveals your thoughts and feelings about the piece. For example I brought back one of the themes I like from the opening tutti, because I had always been sad that he never repeated it later on in the movement. Well here you go :)

Last week I was very honored to be awarded the Arthur W. Foote Prize by the Harvard Musical association, and played a recital at the HMA's headquarters in Boston. It was a recital in a more intimate chamber setting (what a contrast in size to Carnegie Hall) and I played with my friend Ian Parker. On wednesday I travel to Mexico City, where I will peform the Dvorak concerto with the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico (Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional) and Carlos Miguel Prieto; and next week I play in Lincoln center's Rose Theater with Midori! We're playing the Ravel - Introduction and Allegro and the Schnittke - Concerto grosso no 1 together. Also on the program are two works of Toru Takemitsu and Bach's Brandenburg concerto no. 5. It's a very interesting program and a great honor for me to share the stage with Midori.
All of this in less than six weeks!

Carnegie Hall Debut - January 30 2008

Last saturday I made my debut in Carnegie Hall playing Brahms' wonderful double concerto with my friend Alban Gerhardt and the Fort Worth Symphony with their music director, the great Miguel Harth-Bedoya (a repeat of a performance we did in september in Fort Worth). I was very excited to play in that incredible hall, and enjoyed every moment of it. The concert was almost sold out! On the program was also a piece for cello and orchestra by Golijov, which Alban played very beautifully, and an exciting performance of Tchaikovsky's fifth symphony. The concert got a great review in the New York Times: What an exciting weekend. I can't wait now for my Carnegie recital in March!

It's been a long time since the last update, I know; I'm having a fantastic year, and I feel very privileged to play these great works in front of so many wonderful audiences. Some of the highlights so far were the Brahms double concerto with the fabulous Alban Gerhardt and Miguel Harth-Bedoya (a performance that will be repeated in Carnegie on January 26), returning to play with the Indianapolis Symphony and Mario Venzago (obviously Indianapolis is a special place for me), and playing the Beethoven concerto in New Orleans with Klauspeter Seibel; I also played two Mozart concertos in Köln with the 'Kölner Kammerorchester'. I had previously recorded the Haydn violin concertos with them for the for Naxos label, a CD that is already out in Germany and will be released internationally later this season (I'll post more information about this later). They are really gorgeous pieces, and I'm actually playing the C Major concerto a week from now in Grand Rapids, which I'm already looking foward to.

Of course it can be stressful to be on the road this much; the airlines make our lives difficult sometimes, plus there's jetlag and so much preparation involved in the whole thing. But it's all worth it, and I've had a great time everywhere I went this fall.

I finished my second summer at the Marlboro Music Festival yesterday, and it was every bit as much fun as last year. I also met a lot of very nice people and great players. I got to play the Brahms piano quintet with Richard Goode and Samuel Rhodes, which was a wonderfully inspiring experience. Richard Goode is one of my favourite pianists, and it was fascinating to watch him rehearse and play and to learn from him as we all searched for and found a collective interpretation of the piece. I also performed the fourth Bartok string quartet (also with Sam Rhodes) and the Mendelssohn A Major string quintet (a wonderful piece that I got to play with Marcy Rosen) as well as the Kodaly serenade for two violins and viola with Michael Tree.

It’s sad that the festival is over, but after so much chamber music it will be nice to return to the solo rep. I’ll be very busy the next few months, so I can’t really take a break now; I’m currently brushing up on the 12 Telemann Fantasias for solo violin (that I will do a recording of very soon), and getting ready for the Brahms double concerto that I’ll play in concert for the first time about a month from now.

Pure Gold Tour - May 1 2007

I just returned from the two-week-long „Pure Gold“ recital tour with Yingdi Sun, which started off in Indianapolis, and eventually led us to Chicago, one of my favourite cities in the US. We also played in some smaller places in Indiana, with a concerto appearance in the middle of the tour in Erie. In total, we played seven concerts in fourteen days! I was amazed at the turnout for the concerts, not just in Indianapolis (where our recital was completely sold out), but especially in the smaller places, like Winona Lake, IN, where about 450 people showed up.

There was an interview with me on NPR recently which was made in Boston right before the Longwood symphony concert, and includes a few comments by conductor Jonathan McPhee, whom I enjoyed playing with again there, and Boston Symphony concertmaster Malcom Lowe: more info

Now I’m off to Indianapolis to start the second part of the Pure Gold tour. Never a dull moment!