Lewisville Lake International

Chamber Series

Featuring emerging artists from around the world.

Free concerts in an intimate setting

Sponsored by the Lewisville Lake Symphony in cooperation with the University of North Texas

Four Hands, One Piano

Sponsored by Rahna Raney

Anton Mordasov

 Violetta Zharkova

Friday, December 28, 2007, 7:30pm

Trinity Presbyterian Church  (Map)
5500 Morriss Road, Flower Mound TX 75028
(Just south of Marcus HS, on the other side of the road.)

Concert is free  - a donation to the Symphony is welcomed

Chopin:  Andante Spinato and Grand Polonaise in E flat Major

Barber: Souvenirs

    I.    Waltz (The Lobby)
    II.   Schottische (Third Floor Hallway)
    III.  Pas de Deux (A Corner of the Ballroom)
    IV.  Two-Step (Tea in the Palm Court)
    V.   Hesitation-Tango (A Bedroom Affair)
    VI.  Gallop (The Next Afternoon)

Intermission

Brahms:  Five Hungarian Dances

Gavrilin:  Sketches for Four-hands

Anton Mordasov

 Anton Mordasov was born in Novosibirsk, the largest city in the Siberian region of Russia.  He began his musical studies at the age of five and, at eleven, appeared with the Novosibirsk Symphony Orchestra.  After studying at the Novosibirsk State Conservatory he was accepted by the Moscow Conservatory of Music.

In 1990, Mordasov was awarded the first prize at the Sergei Rachmaninov International Piano Competition in Moscow.  Following the award, he gave a solo performance in Switzerland under the auspices of Alexander Conus Rachmaninov, grandson of the composer.

In the same year he won the bronze in the Tchaikovsky International competition.  The competition, held once every four years , regularly attracts more than 600 applications from around the world.

Later Anton was one of 35 participants invited to participate in the Tenth and Eleventh Van Cliburn International Piano Competitions.

In 1996, he entered the ‘Artist Diploma’ program at TCU in Fort Worth. In the same year, he made his New York debut at Carnegie Hall with the New Moscow Symphony Orchestra.

Anton Mordasov has given concerts in his native Russia, as well as in Germany, England, Croatia, Switzerland, Italy and Japan.  In the United States, he has also given recitals in Houston and other cities across Texas, Palm Beach (broadcast by PBS), Augusta and New Orleans.  His 1998 performance at the Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center was highly acclaimed by the New York Times.   (The New York Times reviews Anton Modasov)  He won the second prize in the 2001 New Orleans International Piano Competition.

Violetta Zharkova

Violetta was born and raised in the Siberian region of Russia where she received a comprehensive music education that included seven years of studies at a music school and four years at a music college where she received a bachelor degree.  The next five years were spent at the Novosibirsk State Conservatory where she was awarded a master's degree.

She was fortunate to be taught by Mary Lebenzon, one of Russia’s leading piano professors.  She also completed a two-year course of postgraduate studies, known in Russia as the 'aspirantura,' at the same institution with the same professor.

At an early age, Violetta had a chance to perform in different cities throughout Russia and became a prize winner of several regional competitions.  The performances with the Novosibirsk Symphony Orchestra lead her to the highly regarded Novosibirsk State Conservatory.

 After graduating from the Conservatory, she was invited to join the piano faculty of Novosibirsk Music School for Specially Gifted children. Violetta greatly enjoyed working with her students at the Music School several of whom became prize winners in numerous International Piano Competitions in Italy, Andorra, Germany, and the Ukraine.

While teaching, she also continued her performance activity with concerts in Novosibirsk and other cities of the Siberian region. In 2002-2003 she took master classes with renowned pianists Lev Naumov and Naum Shtarkman.  As a result, she was invited to perform in a very successful series of concerts in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Now Violetta is continuing her education at the University of North Texas in order to broaden her musical outlook and better understand some modern trends in classical and contemporary music -- something Russian students are not taught. 

Violetta hopes that in the United States she will have a chance to communicate with other musicians, learn more about music, taking her to a new professional level.

Samuel Barber's 'Souvenirs'

'Souvenirs' was written in 1952 as a four-hand piece played by Barber for and his friend Charles Turner to amuse their acquaintances. Barber had his gather-round-the-piano side. It eventually became a scintillating New York City Ballet score.

The composition weds nostalgia to gentle humor as he captures the plush age of Edith Wharton’s old New York. Barber reveled in the ambiance of the color and lifestyle of the luxury hotels of Europe and America — particularly the Plaza.

When he was in New York he often went there for afternoon tea just to hear the continental trio perform the sugary music that embodied the aura of an earlier America he loved.

The Plaza is still stands where 5th Avenue meets Central Park and has regularly plays a backdrop role on TV, for example, in 'Sex in the City' and 'The Sopranos' and movies from 'Barefoot in the Park' to 'Crocodile Dundee.'  It made its debut in 'North by Northwest.'

Right now it's closed for a massive overhaul that will turn it into a combination of hotel and condos. One condo has reportedly sold for $50 million.

Those of us not in that price range can visit through 'Souvenirs.'  Anton and Violetta provide the musical story of a meeting at the hotel with an outcome that's left to speculation.  As it happens, the Plaza is scheduled to reopen three days after this concert.

The Plaza

Samuel Osborne Barber

Born on March 9, 1910 in West Chester, Pennsylvania

Died on January 23, 1981 in New York City

Samuel Barber began to play the piano at age six, composed music at age seven, and at age fourteen he became one of the first charter students at the Curtis Institute, studying both composition and singing.  In 1935  his cello sonata won a Pulitzer scholarship and in 1936 the American Academy’s Prix de Rome.

 The following year he wrote his String Quartet in B minor, the second movement of which he then arranged for string orchestra as his Adagio for Strings.  The popularity of the Adagio has somewhat overshadowed the rest of Barber’s output.  However, he is seen as one of the most talented American composers of the 20th Century.

Barber’s music is in the European traditional line rather than specifically American.  He avoided the experimentalism of some other American composers of his generation, preferring relatively traditional harmonies and forms.  His work is lushly melodic and has often been described as neo-romantic.  Although never a prolific composer, Barber wrote much less after the flop of his opera “Anthony and Cleopatra” in 1966.  He died in New York City in 1981.