Friday, May 14, 2010, 8 pm

Glenn Gould Studio, 250 Front Street West

 

Canadian cellist Soo Bae, winner of the 2005 Concert Artists Guild International Competition, has been praised by The New Yorker as “superb” and by The Strad for “crisp incisive technique.” Ms. Bae was selected by Musical America as “New Artist of the Month” (March 2009) on Musicalamerica.com. In September 2009, her passion and dedication in spreading the joy of music was recognized when The McGraw-Hill Companies honored her with the $10,000 Robert Sherman Award for Music Education and Community Outreach. In 2006, she became the first Canadian ever awarded a prize at the Adam International Cello Festival & Competition in New Zealand. Later that same year, the Canada Council of the Arts awarded her First Prize in its Instrument Bank Competition, resulting in a three-year loan of the ca. 1696 Bonjour Stradivari cello.

Current concerto engagements feature Soo Bae as guest soloist with the Tacoma Symphony and University of Chicago Symphony in the US and the Oakville Symphony, Kingston Symphony and Orchestra London in Canada. Recent solo orchestral concerts include the National Arts Center Orchestra of Canada, Christchurch Symphony in New Zealand, New Hampshire Music Festival Orchestra, Scottsdale Symphony, Wartburg Symphony (IA), Ohio Valley Symphony, and Toronto’s Canadian Youth Symphony and Korean Canadian Symphony. She was also featured soloist with the Asian Youth Orchestra for its summer 2007 tour, performing Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations under the baton of Okko Kamu. Commencing at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, this eight concert tour included performances in Shanghai, Beijing and Tokyo.

Featured recitals include Washington Performing Arts Society, Festival Place in Alberta, and Symphony Space’s Thalia Theatre as well as an appearance at Barbes Bar and Performance Space in Brooklyn. Recent touring highlights include recitals at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, Northeastern Illinois University’s “Jewel Box” Series and Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, the Telus Theatre in Alberta, Canada, the Asociación Nacional de Conciertos in Panama City and at Long Island’s Patchogue Theatre.

Soo Bae recently recorded her debut CD for the Naxos label featuring all twelve solo caprices of cellist-composer Alfredo Piatti, which were compared to the Bach Cello Suites by the great Yehudi Menuhin.

An avid chamber musician who thrives on innovative collaborations, Ms. Bae recently performed with jazz clarinetist Paquito D’Rivera and violinist/composer Mark O’Connor and has played with members of the Guarneri and Juilliard string quartets. In 2009-10, she also collaborates in duo recitals with violinist Jessica Lee. Ms. Bae tours regularly with “Music from Marlboro” throughout the US, and has appeared at numerous chamber music festivals including Marlboro, Yellow Barn, Sarasota, Orford and Verbier.

Born in Seoul, Korea, Soo Bae began her cello studies at the age of six and moved to Toronto two years later, where she enrolled at the Royal Conservatory of Music. She received her Bachelor of Music from The Curtis Institute of Music and her Master of Music degree and Artist Diploma from The Juilliard School. Ms. Bae currently teaches at the St. Thomas Choir School in New York City and the Angelos Mission Ensemble in New Jersey (of which she is founder and director), and she also teaches cello at The Juilliard School as assistant to Joel Krosnick.

PROGRAM NOTES

Crisantemi by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) 

This melancholy little gem was written in 1890, as Puccini was starting a much larger project, the opera Manon Lescaut. It was apparently inspired by the death on January 18 of Duke Amadeo di Savoia, a much-admired north Italian nobleman who had been--quite briefly--King of Spain. In a letter to his brother, Puccini said that he wrote the whole piece in a single night. Composed originally for string quartet Crisantemi is most often played by string orchestra. It lays out two quiet themes in a simple ABA form. The main theme, full of sighs and dramatic pauses, is highly chromatic and emotional. The contrasting idea has a more flowing accompaniment. Puccini valued these themes enough to recycle both of them at climactic moments in Manon. 

Soulmate for Cello and Strings by Chan Ka Nin (1949) 

Soulmate was originally the second movement of a piece for string orchestra, Poetry on Ice, in which the strings played the theme in unison. The composer then transcribed the piece for cello solo for the Canadian cellist Shauna Rolston. Then Rolston asked Chan Ka Nin to re-arrange this piece for cello and string orchestra, after which Soulmate took on a new dimension. It went from an intimate monologue to a musical dialogue between a passionate soloist and sympathetic strings.  

Chan Ka Nin was born in Hong Kong and moved to Vancouver in 1965. He studied composition with composer Jean Coulthard at the University of British Columbia. On graduation Chan went on to study with Bernard Heiden at Indiana University where he obtained his Masters and Doctoral degrees in music. Since 1982 he has been teaching theory and composition at the University of Toronto. His numerous awards include twice winner of Juno Awards, the Jean Chalmers Award and winner of the Béla Bartók International Composer’s competition.

Sextet in G Major, op. 36 by Johannes Brahms (1803-1869) Orchestral version by Nurhan Arman 

Brahms actually composed two works for string Sextet, an ensemble comprised of a pair each of violins, violas and celli. The Op. 36 Sextet, subtitled Agathe, uses both rhythm and musical notation, the notes A-G-A-H-E (forget the T, the "H" is B natural in German notation), to evoke the name of Brahms beloved, Agathe von Siebold (from whom he fled when marriage seemed expected and imminent.) "I love you! I must see you again, but I cannot wear fetters! Write me whether I may come back to fold you in my arms, to kiss you, to tell you that I love you!" She refused to see him and so ended the relationship. For his part, Brahms felt remorseful. "I have played the scoundrel toward Agathe," he wrote. However the composition of the Sextet proved cathartic for him. Referring to this composition he said, "I have emancipated myself from my last love." Work on the Sextet started some four years before his involvement with Agathe and was completed five years after their breakup.

The first movement, which opens in a hushed mysterious mood, contains the Agathe motto as well as a rhythmic motif at the end of the opening theme that suggests the syllabic stress of the name when spoken. This rhythmic motif can also be found in the second movement scherzo, as well as a lively stomping Landler-like Trio section. The third movement was described by the famous (make that infamous to Wagnerites) Viennese critic, friend and supporter of Brahms, Edward Hanslick as "variations on no theme." However careful listening will reveal this non-theme's resemblance to the opening theme of the first movement. The final movement alternates lively and relaxed episodes, fugal passages and long-lined songs. The work was published in 1865 and dedicated to Princess Anna of Hesse.                                           

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