Classical Jam with guest pianist Jonathan Yates
Sunday, October 19, 2008 at 2:30pm
Programme
JENNIFER CHOI, Violin
AMADI HUMMINGS, Viola,
WENDY LAW, Cello
with guest pianist JONATHAN YATES
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - E major Trio k. 542
- Ludwig van Beethoven - Eye Glass Duo for Viola and Cello
- Claude Debussy- Sonata for Violin and Piano
- Gabriel Faure - Piano Quartet No. 1 in C minor
Bios
Jennifer Choi, violin
“Pure pyrotechnics" -Times Herald‑Record, Newburgh
The New York Times has described her as a player with,"brilliance and command," and the Seattle Weekly applauded her performance with the words "intense, spectacularly virtuosic play." As a soloist, she has performed with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra, the Oregon Symphony, the Oberlin Virtuoso Strings, among others and has been recently engaged to perform with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. As a recitalist and chamber musician, she has performed in venues worldwide such as the Library of Congress in Washington D.C., Alice Tully Hall in New York, the Mozartsalle in Vienna, and the RAI National Radio in Rome. In 2000, she was ‘Winner’ of the Artist International Award, leading to a debut recital in Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall.
Recent chamber music appearances have included the Ravinia Festival, the Caramoor Festival, and Barge Music. She has also performed at the Santa Fe and La Jolla Chamber Music Festivals, Banff Centre for the Arts, the Aspen Music Festival, and has collaborated with artists such as Fred Sherry, Ruth Laredo, and Stephen Drury. As a former member of the Miro String Quartet, Jennifer Choi won the 1996 Grand Prize at the Fischoff Competition and the Coleman‑Barstow Award at the Coleman Chamber Music Competition.
A graduate of the Juilliard School and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, her major teachers were Roland and Almita Vamos, Gregory Fulkerson, Dorothy DeLay, and Naoko Tanaka. Also a veteran Teaching Artist under the auspices of the New York Philharmonic and the 92nd St. Y, Jennifer offers the richness of classical music to over 300 inner city school children every year. Miss Choi performs on a 1770 Lorenzo Storioni featured in "The Late Cremonese Makers,” by Dmitri Sindin.
Amadi Hummings, viola
"Delicious warm tones, ardent phrasing and stunning fingerwork.” - The News and Observer,Raleigh, NC
Amadi Hummings, violist, has been heard in recital in major cities throughout the United States, such as New York, Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, San-Diego, Houston, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. He has also performed throughout Israel, Canada, South & Central America, India, Japan, Hong Kong and the Caribbean. Recently Mr. Hummings has been a guest of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York, and at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. He has collaborated with such artists as Awadagin Pratt, Mitsuko Uchida, Andras Schiff, Nobuko Imai, David Soyer, and Felix Galimir.
As a concerto soloist, Mr. Hummings has appeared with the Virginia Synphony, North Carolina Symphony, Roanoke Symphony, Winston‑Salem Symphony, the City Island Baroque Ensemble of New York & the National Symphony of Ecuador.
He has also performed at the Marlboro, Sarasota, Tanglewood, Aspen, Norfolk, Spoleto, San Juan Islands, El Paso, Salt Bay and Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festivals.
Mr. Hummings has been heard on National Public Radio, WNYC in New York, WGBH in Boston, WFMT in Chicago, and the BBC. Among Mr. Hummings' prizes and awards are those from the New York Philharmonic, Concert Artists Guild, the North Carolina Symphony, the National Society of Arts and Letters, and the Epstein Young Artists Award from the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, with whom he still maintains a strong artistic and mentoring association.
Mr. Hummings serves on the faculty of James Madison University in Virginia and has given master classes throughout the USA and in Hong Kong. In addition to an active performing schedule he is the Director of Program Development for the Gateways Music Festival and the founder/conductor of the Harlem Symphony Orchestra.
Born in 1969 in New York City, Mr. Hummings began his early studies with his mother,
pianist Armenta Adams-Hummings. He obtained his music degrees from the North Carolina School of the Arts, the New England Conservatory in Boston and the Indiana University. His teachers included Sally Peck, Marcus Thompson and Atar Arad.
Wendy Law, cello
"Powerful" -The New York Times
Cellist Wendy Law has appeared as a soloist with renowned orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Singapore Symphony, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Russian Philharmonic, and Juilliard Orchestra. Ms. Law has performed throughout North America, appearing in such venues as Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C. and Jordan Hall, Boston. Internationally she performed throughout Asia, South America and Europe. An active chamber musician, she has collaborated with the Borromeo String Quartet, Yo-Yo Ma and Pamela Frank, and performed at the Caramoor and Marlboro Festivals.
A proponent of the interdisciplinary arts, Ms. Law collaborates with artists from other genres, as the Juilliard Dance Ensemble, Mark Morris Dance Group & VisionIntoArt. In 2002 she created her own interdisciplinary series _Voyage To The Exotics_.
In 2003, Ms. Law was featured on Japan's NHK TV documentary series _New York Streets,_ which was broadcast nationwide. She has also appeared on PBS TV's documentary broadcast on the New England Conservatory Youth Philharmonic Orchestra's tour of Chile and Argentina, of which Ms. Law was the featured soloist.
A recipient of numerous awards, Ms. Law has received the Juilliard InterArts Award, first prizes in the Juilliard Cello Concerto Competition, National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, the Harvard Musical Association Achievement Award and the Boston Symphony Orchestra Young Artist Competition.
Ms. Law began her cello studies with Ge Wu at the Hong Kong Academy of the Arts. At the age of 12, she moved to the US to study with Mark Churchill at Boston’s New England Conservatory Preparatory School. Ms. Law received her Bachelor of Music with Distinction from the New England Conservatory with Laurence Lesser, and both her Master of Music and Artist Diploma from The Juilliard School, where she studied with Joel Krosnick and Timothy Eddy.
Jonathan Yates, Piano
Highly regarded as a pianist and conductor, Jonathan Yates made his professional orchestral conducting debut at 23, leading the National Symphony Orchestra in a Millennium Stages Concert. The following year he made his Carnegie Hall debut as a participant in the Isaac Stern Chamber Music Workshop. He has been heard as a pianist at many major New York City venues, including Weill Hall, the 92nd Street Y, Miller Theater, Bargemusic and Merkin Hall, as well as at the Caramoor Festival, Music Mountain, and on the Ravinia Festival Rising Stars Series. He serves as founding music director of Camerata Notturna, one of the New York City’s most exciting young chamber orchestras, and as conductor of the Sarah Lawrence College Orchestra.
His work as an opera conductor includes the world premiere of Michael Webster’s Hell at Performance Space 122 and Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice and Paride ed Elena at the California Music Festival. He is also Sarah Lawrence College’s diction coach, and worked for two years as an accompanist at the Lyric Opera Center for American Artists. As an ardent devotee of new music, he has been involved in the premieres of such composers as Chen Yi, Augusta Read Thomas and Joan Tower, was the recipient of an ASCAP award for adventurous programming, and participated as a pianist and conductor in Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble Tanglewood Workshops. He can be heard in chamber music of Hindemith on Cedille Records. He holds degrees from Harvard University, SUNY Stony Brook and The Juilliard School.
