Piano Quartet
Sunday February 20, 2011 at 2:30pm
Michelle Stuart, Violin
George Tsontakis, Viola
Ling Kwan, Cello
Hiroko Sakurazawa, Piano
Programme
- Bach - Sonata in A Major for Violin and Piano
- Schumann - Fantasiestücke op.73 (cello and piano)
- Mozart - Piano Quartet no. 1 in G minor K 478
Bios
Michelle Stewart, Violin
Violinist Michelle Stewart studied in NYC at the Performing Arts High School (FAME School) ; at Mannes College of Music and at the Manhattan School of Music where she earned her BFA. Michelle was the winner of the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society competition and has performed at Alice Tully Hall,Carnegie Hall and Merkin Hall.Michelle is not only a classically trained violinist,but has also performed in concerts with such artists as James Taylor,Ray Charles,Dionne Warwick,and Richie Havens,to mention just a few. She is currently a member of the Hudson Valley Philharmonic and the Ridgefield Symphony Orchestra.
George Tsontakis, Viola
George Tsontakis studied violin with Felix Galimir and switched to viola when he started to compose. He performed on viola with Woodstock’s Esopus Musicalia in its first season. As a composer, he has been the recipient of the two richest prizes awarded in all of classical music; the international Grawemeyer Award for his Violin Concerto and the Ives Living, from the American Academy. He studied with Roger Sessions at Juilliard, where he received his DMA and at L’Accedemia Santa Cecilia in Rome, with Franco Donatoni. Born in Astoria, NY into Cretan heritage, he has become an important figure in the music of Greece and his music is increasingly performed abroad. Most of his music has been recorded by Hyperion and Koch, leading to two Grammy Nominations for Best Classical Composition.
He is Distinguished Composer-in-Residence at the Bard Conservatory and at the Aspen Music Festival, where he was founding director-conductor of the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble. He served as Composer-in-Residence with the Oxford (England) Philomusica, is continuing a six-year Music Alive residency with the Albany Symphony and was the Featured Composer with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center last year. He lives in Shokan, NY.
Hiroko Sakurazawa, Piano
Hiroko Sakurazawa studied piano with Mariko Yamamoto and Henriette Puig-Roget at Kunitachi College of Music in Tokyo. She continued her studies with Aki Takahashi, one of Japan’s leading pianists. She gave her debut in Tokyo in 1996, performing pieces by Toru Takemitsu and other contemporary Japanese composers, as well as works from the classical repertoire.
Since then, she has performed regularly throughout Japan both as soloist and in collaboration with various musicians. She has performed in the United States since 2000 when she played the world premiere of Concertino for piano and chamber orchestra by Richard Teitelbaum with the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra and more recently premiered his Piano Tree for piano and computer at Merce Cunningham Dance Company new music series and San Francisco Electronic Music Festival.
In 2005 she gave the world premiere performance of two unpublished piano works by Henry Cowell at the Bard Music Festival.
She has also collaborated extensively with Ondes Martenot virtuoso and composer Takashi Harada at such venues as the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, the Sendai Classic Music Festival in Japan and the Other Minds Festival in San Francisco, where her performance was hailed as “superb” by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Ling Kwan, Cellist
Ling Kwan, cellist, attended the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and Bard College. After earning her master’s degree in performance from Ithaca College, Ms. Kwan decided to come back to the Hudson Valley and started an active teaching career. She has performed as a soloist with the American Symphony, Woodstock Chamber Orchestra among others.
