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Brahms: Piano Quartet in G Minor
Friday, January 30, 2009 at 7:30 p.m.
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
More on Alison Chiang
| Laura Liu | Kevin
Nordstrom | Wyndham Tsai |
Brahms' Piano Quartet |
Johannes Brahms
Alison Chiang
Alison
Chiang was born in Rochester, New York on May 4th 1992, and began
playing piano at age 5. At 7, she won first prize in the 1999 St.
Charles Illinois State Music Competition. Alison moved with her family
in 2000 to Cleveland, Ohio, where she studied piano with Miss Olga
Radosavljevich and music theory with Ms. Adeline Huss, both at the
Cleveland Institute of Music. She played as a program opener for the
2000 season of the Urbana-Champaign Symphony Orchestra.
On February 17, 2002, Alison won first prize in the Northeast Ohio Piano
Competition for age group 9-12. She, at age 13, performed Mozart's Piano
Concerto in C, K467 No. 21 with the Lakeside Symphony, conducted by Mr.
Robert Cronquist, in August 2005. On May 6, 2007, Alison performed
Beethoven's Piano Concerto in B-flat, Op.19 No. 2 with the Cleveland
Women's Orchestra at Severance Hall, with a second performance on August
24, 2007 with the Lakeside Symphony, conducted by Mr. Cronquist.
Alison was a Grand Prize winner in the Lewisville
Lake Symphony's Vernell Gregg Young Artists' Competition and performed
the first movement of Saint-Saens G Minor Concerto with our orchestra in
February 2008.
She had been an honored recipient of the Olga Radosavljevich Scholarship
from the Cleveland Institute of Music from 2001 to 2007. In July 2007,
she moved with her family to Plano, Texas. She presently studies piano
with Dr. Pamela Mia Paul at University of North Texas. Now 15, she is a
10th grader at Shepton High School in Plano, Texas.
Laura Liu
Laura
Liu is 16 years old and attends Spring Creek Academy. She began her
study of violin at the age of 8, and currently studies with Jan Mark
Sloman. Laura was the Grand Prize winner in the junior concerto division
of the Dallas Symphonic Festival in 2006. She had her soloist debut at
the age of 13 with the Meadows Symphony.
She was broadcasted on the National Public Radio show
"From the Top" in the fall of 2006. Laura was also the 2nd place winner
of the Hubbard Chamber Music Young Artists Competition in 2007. She was
the 1st place winner in the junior sonata division of the Dallas
Symphonic Festival in 2007 as well.
She also won a distinguished award for the 2008
Juanita Miller Competition. Laura was a semi-finalist in the ASTA
(American String Teacher Association) in 2006 as well as the National
3rd Place winner at the MTNA Competition in 2008 (Music Teacher National
Association). Laura has recently won Grand Prize in the senior concerto
division of the Dallas Symphonic Festival in 2008.
She has regularly participated in TIFS (The Institute
for Strings), a summer program run by her violin teacher. Laura attended
the Heifetz International Music Institute in New Hampshire for 2 years,
another summer program for dedicated musicians. She has played in
a master class for Ida Kavafian and Ani Kavafian.
Laura won the National Soloist Award at the 2007
Texas Bluebonnet Festival. She was also invited to perform as the
"Rising Star" opening artist at the Basically Beethoven Festival in the
summer of 2007. Recently, she has performed with the Meadows Symphony
and also the Houston Civic Symphony, both in 2008. She was accepted into
the Meadowmount School of Music under the tutelage of Sally Thomas. She
plans on attending the Great Wall Academy in Beijing, China, this
summer, where she will also perform with the Beijing Symphony in the
Forbidden City.
Kevin Nordstrom

Wyndham Tsai
Wyndham
Tsai, at age 13, as the winner and the youngest entrant of the
Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra’s first Young Artist Competition,
was invited to perform with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra
under the baton of Miguel Harth-Bedoya at the opening
performance of the Garden Concert series in June 2006. According
to the Star-Telegram Review, the crowd of almost 2,000 gave him
a standing ovation after listening to him play Saint-Saëns Cello
Concerto.
In 2006,
Wyndham also won First Prize in Lewisville Lake Symphony Young
Artists’ Competition and Grand Prize of Collin County's Plano
Symphony Orchestra. The Plano concert, under the baton of Hector
Guzman was broadcast on WRR, Classical 101.1. In 2003, he won
the Grand Prize of the North Texas Youth Music Competition and
the First Prize of the Dallas Symphonic Festival in 2003.
Since 2005, Wyndham has served as Principal Cellist of the Youth
Orchestra of Greater Fort Worth and of The Oakridge School
Advanced String Program.
As an active chamber music player, Wyndham has joined since
2003, the playing and performances at TIFS (The Institute For
Strings) Summer Music Camp conducted by Violinist Jan Mark
Sloman (SMU, Dallas) He played in the master classes to Yuri
Anshelevich (a direct pupil of Mstistlav Rostropovich), at TIFS,
2004, 2006, and 2008. He
also performed at the Cello Fest directed by Jesus Castro-Balbi
the master classes to Aldo Parisot and Bion Tsang; For the
chamber music, he played in the master classes to Jan Mark
Sloman, Barbara Sudweeks, Pamela Mia Paul, Eugene Osadchy, and
Ani Kavafian.
In
February, 2008, he played the Schubert Cello Quintet and the
Schumann Piano Quintet at Shreveport, Louisiana, and in the
Lewisville Lake International Chamber Series sponsored by
Lewisville Lake Symphony and the University of North Texas
School of Music.
Wyndham was invited in March 2008 to play for Cellists Jérôme
Pernoo, Michel Strauss, Eric-Maria Couturier in Paris, and play
for Richard Aaron at Northeast of USA in early June, 2008.
In the summer of 2008, he is going to the Meadowmount School of
Music in New York and study with Hans Jørgen Jensen.
Wyndham now is 15 and has been studying cello since 2007 with Mr. Michael Coren, cellist of
the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and adjunct
professor at SMU. His previous teacher of year 2002 ~ 2007, was
Mrs. Jungshin Lim Lewis, Artist of Chamber Music International
at Dallas and Principal Cellist of Richardson Symphony
Orchestra. Wyndham began his first cello lesson at the age of 6
with Myrna Trent at TCU Suzuki Program in Fort Worth, Texas.

Quartet in G Minor for Piano and Strings,
Opus 25
Johannes Brahms
I. Allegro
II. Intermezzo
III. Andante con moto
IV. Rondo alla Zingarese
The Piano Quartet in G minor, written for violin,
viola, cello and piano, was completed in 1861 and first performed by
Clara Schumann. This was a period of intense study for Brahms. When
many of his contemporaries were exploring the possibilities of programme
music, Brahms gave much study to the music of his forbearers and was
devoted to the idea of absolute music. His harmony and the use of
displaced rhythms made him one of the most important composers of his
era.
The first movement of the work opens with the
statement of a simple melody by the three string players and piano in
unison. This, along with the second, more lyrical theme are developed
and expanded in a variety of ways. In this, Brahms owes much to the
music of Beethoven. They both had the ability to vary a simple idea
brilliantly to create some memorable melodies, not to mention the
countermelodies and harmony to go with them.
In the second movement muted strings, a rippling
piano part and the use of duple and triple time, so characteristic of
Brahms, are used to great effect. Then a more animated trio follows.
The third movement begins with a broad melody which eventually evolves
into a martial mid-section reminiscent of Beethoven (such as the Turkish
march from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony). The wild gypsy Rondo alla
Zingarese with its three bar rhythms, virtuoso parts and a very
orchestral ending make for a very lively finale. Brahms biographer Ivor
Keys wrote of it, “It was obviously designed to bring down the house,
and it did.”
Johannes Brahms
Born: May 7, 1833 in Hamburg,
Germany
Died: April 3, 1897 in Vienna, Austria
Brahms
was born in Hamburg, the son of a double bass player. He received an
early grounding in the classics - especially Bach - from his teacher,
Eduard Marxsen, who was the dedicatee of his second piano concerto.
Another formative aspect of his youth was playing in dives and bordellos
in order to bring in extra money for the family. Brahms later
acknowledged that this early contact with the opposite sex from such a
strange vantage point contributed to his ultimately remaining a lifelong
bachelor.
The
great love of his life was what was most probably a platonic friendship
with Clara Schumann, although there have certainly been speculations to
the contrary. Brahms became close to the Schumanns when Robert
championed his work, and Brahms consoled Clara during the anguish of
Robert's disease. A lasting love ultimately developed for the great
artist who was fourteen years her junior. Although their complex
relationship had its difficulties, especially when Brahms at one point
developed an interest in one of Clara's daughters, they stayed lifelong
friends and it was often Clara to whom the tremendously self critical
Brahms first sent his works.
Brahms was intensely aware of the weight of the tradition he was trying
to uphold. It is estimated the chamber music we have is only one quarter
of what he actually wrote. He ruthlessly destroyed anything that he
considered unworthy, and thus, we have nothing comparable to Beethoven's
sketch books to understand him by. He was certainly a slow and
meticulous worker and did not complete his First Symphony until he was
forty-three and after eleven years of work, not to mention two
orchestral serenades and the First Piano Concerto in preparation for the
act.
"You have
no idea what it is to hear the tromp of a genius over your shoulder," he
said referring to the daunting legacy of Beethoven's symphonies. When
the similarity of the great last movement theme to Beethoven's Ninth was
pointed out, Brahms response was, "any fool can see that."
Brahms was famously brusque and prickly on the surface, although friends
knew this was to guard a very sensitive and vulnerable soul. This might
be said to describe the music itself. Much of the power and attraction
of Brahms' music is the great warmth and generosity of a romantic spirit
held in check by the most rigorous intellect. |