An Afternoon of Music by
Johannes Brahms
Ami and Pascal Rogé, Pianos
Sara Murphy, Soprano
Jennifer Furst, Soprano
Douglas Purcell, Tenor
Matt Boehler, Bass
Suzanne Wagor, viola
Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 2:30pm
Programme
- Johannes Brahms
- Sonata for 2 Pianos in F minor, Op. 34b
- Zwei Gesänge
- Gestillte Sehnsucht
- Geistliches Wiegenlied
- Liebesliederwalzer
Bios
Ami Hakuno, Piano
"...aliveness, mercurial temperament, and uplifting...."‑New York Concert Review
Ami Hakuno is a versatile performer on both the piano and the harpsichord. She has appeared in music festivals such as the Roundtop Music Festival, Conservatoire Americain de Fontainebleau, Boston Early Music Festival, Amherst Early Music Festival, and Townsville Australian Festival of Chamber Music.
Born to a Japanese mother and Indonesian father, Ami began studying the piano as a small child in her native city of Tokyo. She moved with her family to Houston, then to New York where she received her training from the Juilliard School and Mannes College. Her piano teachers include Shu Hao Pao, Oxana Yablonskaya, Leon Pommers, and Sophia Rosoff. She also studied harpsichord with Arthur Haas, and chamber music with Martha McGaughey.
For several years now, Ami has partnered Pascal Rogé both on stage and in life. With him, she has performed four‑hand and two‑piano repertoire around the world, in New York, Hong Kong, Poland, Australia, France, Italy, Ireland, Great Britain, and Portugal. She has made orchestral appearance with him performing Poulenc Double Concerto with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Poznan Philharmonic, and Orchestra Metropolitan of Lisbon.
Pascal Rogé, Piano
"Like no other pianist alive or dead!"‑ Evening Standard
Pascal Rogé exemplifies the finest in French pianism; his playing of Poulenc, Satie, Fauré, Saint‑Saëns or Ravel in particular is characterised by its elegance, beauty and delicate phrasing ‑ his name is synonymous with the best playing of French repertory in the world today. Born in Paris, Pascal Rogé became an exclusive DECCA recording artist at the age of 17.
He has won many prestigious awards including two GRAMOPHONE AWARDS, a Grand Prix du Disque and an Edison award for his interpretations of the Ravel and Saint‑Saëns concertos. Other recordings feature a Debussy cycle, a Bartok cycle with the London Symphony Orchestra. For the Poulenc Edition 1999 Mr. Rogé recorded both piano concertos, the “Aubade“, the Concerto Champêtre for harpsichord and orchestra, all under Maestro Dutoit.
For Oehms Classics Mr Rogé recently recorded to unanimous acclaim, the Ravel G Major and Gershwin concertos with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under Bertrand De Billy and in 2007, a second volume with Ravel left hand concerto and Gerswhin Rhapsody in Blue will be released.
Pascal Rogé’s latest recording project is under his own label “Rogé Edition”, designed to show his own recording work going forward and distributed by the new Onyx label.
The first CD release in May 2005 inaugurates his first complete Debussy cycle with the complete Preludes. The second volume and two Mozart concertos with the Indianapolis Symphony orchestra under Raymond Leppard have been released in 2007.
Pascal Rogé has performed in almost every major concert hall in the world. Some of the orchestras he has appeared with include the Philadelphia Orchestra, Montreal Symphony, l’Orchestre de Paris, l’Orchestre National de Radio France, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande Geneva, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and all the major London orchestras.
He appears regularly in the United States, is a frequent guest artist in Latin America, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand and especially in Japan.
Sara Murphy
The New York Times has hailed Sara Murphy's voice as a “soprano [that] soared with a lovely musicality.” She was most recently featured as a soloist in the Szymanowski Stabat Mater at the Sacred Music in a Sacred Space concert series of the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in New York City. Other recent performances include the role of Madame Lidoine in Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites with the New York Opera Society. She has performed the soprano solos in Beethoven's Missa Solemnis and the beloved “Pie Jesu” from the DuruflÈ Requiem for Sacred Music in a Sacred Space, where she also premiered a setting of Jesu, Bambino and Sweet L'il Jesus Boy commissioned for her.
Her developing operatic repertoire includes the title role in Ariadne auf Naxos and Sieglinde in Die Walk¸re. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College and a master’s from Catholic University.
Well known to Washington, DC audiences, she has performed as a soloist in choral and symphonic engagements at the Kennedy Center, and with the Washington Bach Consort, the Master Chorale and Chamber Singers of Washington and the McLean Chorale. Sara may also be heard as a soloist on the Albany Records recording of A Holocaust Cantata, composed and conducted by Donald J. McCullough. She holds the distinction of having been one of the Washington Bach Consort’s youngest soloists under the baton of J. Reilly Lewis.
Conductors, composers and critics consistently note her innate musicality. The Washington Post reported, “A highlight was Murphy’s gently optimistic aria ¼ which made such a strong impression that it was repeated before going into the final chorale.”
Jennifer Furst, Soprano
Soprano Jennifer Furst was born in Washington, D.C. and received her degree in Vocal Performance at the Catholic University of America. After receiving her diploma she moved to New York, where she has sung such roles as Fiordiligi (Cosi Fan Tutte), Santuzza (Cavalleria Rusticana), Leonora (Il Trovatore), Vitellia (La Clemenza di Tito) and the title role in Suor Angelica. In the 2008-2009 season she participated in the New York Summer Opera Scenes in excerpts of Madama Butterfly in the title role, performed the Brahms Liebeslieder Waltzer with Pascal Rogé and debuted with the Chelsea Opera in Suor Angelica as La Conversa. Jennifer is also a New York State licensed massage therapist specializing in deep-tissue and medical massage. She maintains a practice on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and enjoys balancing her musical pursuits with her therapeutic massage career.
Douglas Purcell, Tenor
A native of Farmingdale, New York, Douglas Purcell has been critically acclaimed for the “strength, beauty and effortless top” of his lyric tenor instrument.
A versatile performer, Mr. Purcell enjoys singing a wide range of musical styles from early Baroque to 20th Century; from Broadway to Opera. This season he has performed with The Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera—where he has been a full-time member since 2004—and the New York City Ballet. Last July, he was featured with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Zubin Mehta (Bach Cantata 140) and in November crooned with Midge Woolsey (WXQR evening announcer and PBS Channel 13 host) for her acclaimed cabaret at the Neue Galerie. This past year Mr. Purcell has performed as soloist with Capella (An Evening at the Opera and Capella Light), Florilegium (Respigi Lauda per la Nativita), CantaLyrica (Bach Cantatas 78 & 140 and Jan×_?ek Ote nך), Light Opera of New York (G&S Trial by Jury), as well as a development workshop for the off-Broadway musical Villa Diodati.
Mr. Purcell is a frequent soloist with the Collegiate Chorale, most recently in Haydn Lord Nelson Mass, the highly acclaimed performance of Kurt Weill’s The Firebrand of Florence.He will return in July with the Chorale to the Verbier Festival in Switzerland to sing Weill’s Kiddush.Other Collegiate performances include Pong in Puccini’s Turandot at Carnegie Hall (broadcast nationwide on NPR), An Evening of American Operetta and An Evening of Kurt Weill, both at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. Mr. Purcell has performed with the EOS Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra, City Center Encores!, American Composers Orchestra, Mark Morris Dance Group, Westchester Symphony, Bard SummerScape, Bronx Opera, Ashlawn-Highland Festival, Sarasota Opera, Opera Northeast, and the Opera Festival of New Jersey.
Matt Boehler, Bass
Hailed by The Washington Post as “simply a marvel,” and as an “extraordinarily charismatic performer,” Mr. Boehler has been lauded for both his dramatic skill and his “supple, clarion bass.”
Equally at home on the operatic stage as well as the concert platform, he has been engaged by The Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Portland Baroque Orchestra, Minnesota Opera and Chicago Opera Theater. Some highlights include performances of The Mikado with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Sweeney Todd with Wolf Trap Opera, Bach's Magnificat with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and the world premieres of Bastianello and Lucrezia with New York Festival of Song.
His discography includes a Grammy-nominated recording of Bernstein’s Mass with Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra on the Naxos label, as well as Songs of Stefan Wolpe with pianist Ursula Oppens, and a recording of Bastianello and Lucrezia, both on the Bridge Records label. He holds degrees from The Juilliard School and Viterbo University.
Suzanne Wagor, viola
Violist Suzanne Wagor leads a full and varied performing and teaching career. An avid chamber musician, she has collaborated with numerous artists, including members of the Tokyo String Quartet, the Nash Ensemble of London, the Peabody Trio, and Red Cedar Chamber Music. She received her B.M. from the Oberlin Conservatory, her M.M. from The Juilliard School, and a Performance Diploma from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (London) with additional studies at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Suzanne studied viola with William Preucil, Sr., Jeffrey Irvine, Lynne Ramsey, Ian Swensen, Roger Chase, Heidi Castleman and Misha Amory. Suzanne is currently on the faculty of the Lucy Moses School, the Music Consevatory of Westchester, the New York Youth Symphony Chamber Music Program and the School for Strings (where she completed her Suzuki Violin Training under the tutelage of Louise Behrend). Suzanne is a former faculty member of Northern Arizona University and the Diller-Quaile School of Music. She is an active chamber musician, and is a founding member an Artistic Director of Five Seasons Chamber Music.
