Celebrity Series of Boston
Gary Dunning, President and Executive Director
Presents
David Finckel, cello
Wu Han, piano
David Shifrin, clarinet
Friday, January 15, 2016, 8pm — NEC’s Jordan Hall
(Boston) Celebrity Series of Boston will present cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han with clarinetist David Shifrin on Friday, January 15, 2016 at 8pm at NEC’s Jordan Hall, 30 Gainsborough Street, Boston, MA. The program will include pieces by Beethoven, Brahms, and Max Bruch. This performance is sponsored by Sally Seaver. Media partner is 99.5 WCRB.
Tickets start at $35, and are available online at www.celebrityseries.org, by calling Celebrity Charge at (617) 482-6661 Monday-Friday 10:00 a.m.- 4:00 p.m., or at the Jordan Hall Box Office.
This performance marks David Finckel, Wu Han, and David Shifrin’s Celebrity Series recital debut as a trio; Mr. Finckel and Ms. Han last appeared with the Celebrity Series as a duo in October 2013. Mr. Shifrin last appeared with the Celebrity Series with the Orion String Quartet in December 2011.
David Finckel and Wu Han are among the most esteemed and influential classical musicians in the world today. In 2012, they were the recipients of Musical America’s 2012 Musicians of the Year award, one of the highest honors granted by the music industry. The talent, energy, imagination, and dedication they bring to their multifaceted endeavors as concert performers, recording artists, educators, artistic administrators, and cultural entrepreneurs go unmatched.
The duo’s repertoire spans virtually the entire literature for cello and piano, with an equal emphasis on the classics and the contemporaries. Their modern repertoire includes all the significant works, from Prokofiev and Britten to Alfred Schnittke and André Previn. Their commitment to new music has brought commissioned works by Bruce Adolphe, Lera Auerbach, Gabriela Lena Frank, Pierre Jalbert, Augusta Read Thomas, and George Tsontakis to audiences around the world. In 2010, the duo released “For David and Wu Han” (ArtistLed), an album of four contemporary works for cello and piano expressly composed for them. In 2011, Summit Records released a recording of the duo performing Gabriela Lena Frank’s concerto, Compadrazgo, with the ProMusica Columbus Chamber Orchestra.
In 1997, they launched ArtistLed, classical music’s first musician-directed and Internet-based recording company, which has served as a model for numerous independent labels. All seventeen ArtistLed recordings, including Wu Han LIVE, Wu Han’s recent release in collaboration with the Music@Menlo LIVE label, have met with critical acclaim. The label’s “Russian Classics,” release, featuring works by Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich, received BBC Music Magazine’s coveted “Editor’s Choice” award.
Now in their third term as Artistic Directors of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, David Finckel and Wu Han hold the longest tenure since Charles Wadsworth, the founding Artistic Director. During the 2014-2015 season, David Finckel and Wu Han will oversee several major international CMS tours. In this capacity, they have overseen the establishment and design of The Chamber Music Society’s CMS Studio Recordings label, as well as a recording partnership with Deutsche Grammophon. David and Wu Han are also the founders and Artistic Directors of Music@Menlo, a chamber music festival and institute in Silicon Valley that has garnered international acclaim, soon to celebrate its thirteenth season. David and Wu Han oversee Music@Menlo LIVE, Music@Menlo’s exclusive recording label.
David Finckel and Wu Han also serve as Artistic Directors of Chamber Music Today, an annual festival held in Seoul, Korea. The festival, now celebrating its fifth anniversary, is at the forefront of expanding the presence of chamber music in the Far East. In 2012, David Finckel was named honoree and Artistic Director of the Mendelssohn Fellowship, a program established to identify young Korean musicians and promote chamber music in South Korea.
David Finckel and Wu Han have achieved universal renown for their passionate commitment to nurturing the careers of young artists through a wide array of education initiatives. For many years, the duo taught alongside the late Isaac Stern at Carnegie Hall and the Jerusalem Music Center. They appeared annually on the Aspen Music Festival’s Distinguished Artist Master Class series, and in 2013 established a chamber music studio at the festival. The duo participates in various educational programs across the country in addition to overseeing the LG Chamber Music School in South Korea under the auspice of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. David serves as Professor of Cello at The Juilliard School, and as artist-in-residence at Stony Brook University.
Clarinetist David Shifrin is in constant demand as an orchestral soloist, recitalist and chamber music collaborator, and is one of only two wind players to have been awarded the Avery Fisher Prize since the award’s inception in 1974.
An artist member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 1989, David Shifrin served as its artistic director from 1992 to 2004. He has toured extensively throughout the US with CMSLC and appeared in several national television broadcasts on Live From Lincoln Center. He has also been the artistic director of Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon since 1981. David Shifrin joined the faculty at the Yale School of Music in 1987 and was appointed Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society of Yale and Yale’s annual concert series at Carnegie Hall in September 2008. In 2007 he was awarded an honorary professorship at China’s Central Conservatory in Beijing.
Mr. Shifrin’s has received three Grammy nominations – for a collaborative recording with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center of the collected chamber music of Claude Debussy (Delos), the Copland Clarinet Concerto (Angel/EMI) and Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro with Nancy Allen, Ransom Wilson, and the Tokyo String Quartet (Angel/EMI). His recording of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, performed in its original version on a specially built basset clarinet, was named Record of the Year by Stereo Review.
Mr. Shifrin continues to broaden the repertoire for clarinet and orchestra by commissioning and championing the works of 20th and 21st century American composers. In addition to the Avery Fisher Prize, David Shifrin is the recipient of a Solo Recitalists’ Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and the 1998 Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Music Academy of the West. At the outset of his career, he won the top prize at both the Munich and the Geneva International Competitions.
Program:
BEETHOVEN: Trio in B-Flat Major, Opus 11
MAX BRUCH: From Eight Pieces, Opus 83
BRAHMS: Clarinet Trio in a minor, Opus 114
About Celebrity Series of Boston
Celebrity Series of Boston was founded in 1938 by pianist and impresario Aaron Richmond. Over the course of its 77-year history, Celebrity Series has presented an array of the world’s greatest performing artists, including Sergei Rachmaninoff, Arturo Toscanini, Ignace Paderewski, Artur Rubenstein, Vladimir Horowitz, Glenn Gould, Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifetz, Isaac Stern, Andrés Segovia, Kirsten Flagstad, Marian Anderson, Luciano Pavarotti, Béla Bartók, Igor Stravinsky, Martha Graham, Ballet Russe De Monte Carlo, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Mstislav Rostropovich, and the New York City Opera Company.
The Celebrity Series has been bringing the very best performers–from orchestras and chamber ensembles, vocal and piano music, to dance companies, jazz, and more–to Boston’s major concert halls for 77 years. The Celebrity Series of Boston believes in the power of excellence and innovation in the performing arts to enrich life experiences, transform lives and build better communities. Through its education initiatives, the Celebrity Series seeks to build a community of Greater Boston where the performing arts are a valued, lifelong, shared experience–on stages, in schools, at home– everywhere. For more information on Celebrity Series of Boston, call (617) 482-2595 or visit us online at www.celebrityseries.org.
The Celebrity Series of Boston, Inc. receives generous support from Amy & Joshua Boger, Leslie & Howard Appleby, The Garbis & Arminé Barsoumian Charitable Foundation, the Boston Cultural Council, the Stephanie L. Brown Foundation, Charlesbank Capital Partners LLC, the Susanne Marcus Collins Foundation, Deloitte LLP, Donna & Mike Egan, EMC, Foley & Lardner LLP, Gabor Garai & Susan Pravda, David & Harriet Griesinger, the Charles and Cerise Jacobs Charitable Foundation, Paul L. King, The Royal Little Family Foundation, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Joseph McNay, Stewart Myers, the National Endowment for the Arts, Eleanor & Frank Pao, The Peabody Foundation, PTC, The John S. and Cynthia Reed Foundation, The D.L. Saunders Real Estate Corp., the Stifler Family Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Henri A. Termeer, Michael and Susan Thonis, Tufts Health Plan, Sanjay & Sangeeta Verma, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Nancy Richmond Winsten, Anonymous, and many others.
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