Opening concert of season focuses on the next-to-impossible

High Wire Performances on Violin, Cello, and Piano

The words are intricately related but diverge. Virtuosity: music that glorifies the possibilities of the instrument and the prowess of the performer—that titillates and stuns the audience in the Romantic tradition of Paganini. It’s the violinist tight-rope walking on the strings, performing impossible feats, stretching the capabilities of the instrument, creating pacts with the Devil.

Sarasate and Saint Saëns will dazzle (his gorgeous Rondo Capriccioso, a minefield for the violinist, will be performed on the cello, exponentially more challenging!). And introducing Russian/Ukrainian composer Nikolai Kapustin, whose Preludes offer a “Red and Hot” fusion of jazz and classical forms.

Pyrotechnics and acrobatics? Mastery of content and form? Craft plus magic as the ideal… According to Rodin, the greatest virtuosity is when you don’t notice it. The program touches on some of the most fundamental questions about the nature of art and culminates with the emotionally compelling and ineffably beautiful Brahms Piano Trio Op. 8.

Adam Golka, piano; Giora Schmidt, violin; Yehuda Hanani, cello; Philip Thompson, cello

About The Artists

Polish-American pianist Adam Golka (born 1987) first performed all of Beethoven's Piano Sonatas when he was 18 years-old, and in 2020-2021 he performed the cycle of Beethoven's 32 Sonatas at the Bach Festival Society of Winter Park (Florida) and at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue (NYC), in socially-distanced and live-stream formats. These were complemented by 32 short films he created, known as 32@32 (available on YouTube), documenting his preparation for climbing the Everest of piano literature and featuring an amalgam of distinguished guests, from an astrophysicist to Alfred Brendel. Golka's principal teachers have been José Feghali, with whom he studied at Texas Christian University, and Leon Fleisher, at the Peabody Conservatory. Since finishing his formal studies, he continued to develop his artistry through mentorship from Alfred Brendel, Richard Goode, Murray Perahia, Mitsuko Uchida, Evelyne Crochet, and Sir András Schiff, who invited him to give recitals at the Klavier-Festival Ruhr and Tonhalle Zürich for the "Sir András Schiff Selects" concert series. He has given solo recitals in Tokyo's Musashino Hall, New York's Alice Tully Hall (presented by the Musicians Emergency Fund), and Amsterdam's Kleine Zaal at the Concertgebouw. As a concerto soloist, he has appeared with dozens of orchestras, including the BBC Scottish Symphony, NACO (Ottawa), Warsaw Philharmonic, Shanghai Philharmonic, as well as the San Francisco, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, New Jersey, and San Diego symphonies in the US, enjoying collaborations with conductors Joseph Swensen, Donald Runnicles, Pinchas Zukerman, Mark Wigglesworth, and his brother, conductor Tomasz Golka. He made his Carnegie Stern Auditorium début in 2010 with the New York Youth Symphony. Chamber music is an integral part of Golka's life, and he has performed at the Beethoven Bonn festivals, as well as Konzerthaus Berlin, and at the Marlboro, Ravinia, Caramoor chamber music festivals in the US. Adam's professional life began when he was awarded the first prize and audience prize at the 2nd China Shanghai International Piano Competition.

Praised by the Cleveland Plain Dealer as "impossible to resist, captivating with lyricism, tonal warmth, and boundless enthusiasm," violinist Giora Schmidt has appeared as soloist with many prominent symphony orchestras around the globe including Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Canada’s National Arts Centre, Toronto, Vancouver and the Israel Philharmonic. In recital and chamber music, Giora has performed at Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, San Francisco Performances, the Louvre Museum in Paris, and Tokyo's Musashino Cultural Hall. Festival appearances include Ravinia Festival, Santa Fe and Montreal Chamber Music Festivals, Bard, and Music Academy of the West. He has collaborated with eminent musicians including Yefim Bronfman, Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Lynn Harrell, and Michael Tree. Born in Philadelphia to professional musicians from Israel, Schmidt began playing the violin at the age of four. A graduate of the Juilliard School, his teachers have included Dorothy DeLay and Itzhak Perlman. Committed to education and sharing his passion for music, he is currently on the artist faculty at New York University and Orford Musique Academy ( https://www.orford.mu/en/academy/faculty/giora-schmidt/) (Quebec) in the summer. Through technology and social media, he continues to find new ways of reaching young violinists and music lovers around the world. He is the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, The Classical Recording Foundation's Samuel Sanders award, and was a Starling Fellow at the Juilliard School. He plays an 1830 violin by Giuseppe Rocca.

Born and raised in NYC, seventeen-year-old Philip Thompson began studying music at a very young age as part of his homeschool curriculum. He studies cello with Yehuda Hanani and is currently a member of the New York Youth Symphony Orchestra. Previous chamber music experience includes the NYYS Chamber Program and the Chamber Music Center of New York. His piano studies are with Ronn Yedidia at the New York Piano Academy. He has won various competitions and has played on many stages, both as cellist and pianist. This past summer he was a participant in Close Encounters With Music’s Berkshire High Peaks Music Festival for the third consecutive year, with public performances in Tannersville, NY and at Chesterwood. He was also a participant in the String and Piano programs at Boston University Tanglewood Institute.

About CEWM Artistic Director

Named “one of the most polished performers of the post-Starker generation and a consistently expressive artist.” by The New York Times, Yehuda Hanani’s charismatic playing and profound interpretations bring him acclaim and reengagements across the globe. His concerto appearances have been with the Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony, San Antonio, New Orleans, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Berlin Radio Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, BBC Welsh Symphony, Irish National Symphony, Buenos Aires Philharmonic, Jerusalem Symphony, Honolulu Symphony, Taipei and Seoul symphonies among many other orchestras, and he has toured with I Solisti de Zagreb, conducting from the cello. A frequent guest at Aspen, Bowdoin, Chautauqua, Yale at Norfolk, Great Lakes, Casals Prades, Finland Festival, Ottawa, Oslo, Round Top Institute, Manchester, and the Australia Chamber Music festivals, he has collaborated in performances with preeminent fellow musicians, including Leon Fleisher, Aaron Copland, Christoph Eschenbach, David Robertson, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Itzhak Perlman, Vadim Repin, Julian Rachlin, Dawn Upshaw, Yefim Bronfman, Eliot Fisk, the Tokyo, Vermeer, Muir, Escher, Ariel, Colorado, and Manhattan quartets. His recording of the monumental Alkan Cello Sonata received a Grand Prix du Disque nomination, and on CD and in live performances, he has given premières of works of Nikolai Miaskovsky, Lukas Foss, Leo Ornstein, Paul Schoenfield, Thea Musgrave, Joan Tower, Eduard Franck, Osvaldo Golijov, Lera Auerbach, Tamar Muskal, Virgil Thomson, William Perry and Pulitzer Prize winners Bernard Rands and Zhou Long. In New York City, he has appeared as soloist at Carnegie Hall, the 92nd Street Y, Alice Tully, and the Metropolitan Museum. Among the early designers and proponents of thematic programming, his engaging chamber music with commentary series, Close Encounters With Music, has captivated audiences from Miami to Kansas City, Omaha, Detroit, Calgary, Scottsdale, the Berkshires, and at the Frick Collection in New York City. A three-time recipient of the Martha Baird Rockefeller grant, Mr. Hanani’s studies were with Leonard Rose at Juilliard and with Pablo Casals. He has inspired scores of cellists as Professor of Cello at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and previously served on the faculty of the Peabody Conservatory. Artistic director of Berkshire High Peaks Festival, he presents master classes internationally at conservatories and for orchestras. In recognition of his distinguished teaching, he was given the title of honorary professor of the Tianjin Conservatory, China. He now is a member of the faculty of the Mannes College of Music in New York City.

Date: November 5, 2023

Time: 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Venue:
Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center
14 Castle Street
Great Barrington, MA 01201

Tickets, $52 (Orchestra and Mezzanine), $28 (Balcony) and $15 for students, are available through Close Encounters with Music (https://cewm.org). Virtual tickets are also available. Close Encounters with Music is resuming its post-concert tradition of a reception with the artists. Catering provided by Chef Oleg of Authentic Eats. All audience members are invited!

For details https://cewm.org/event/virtue-and-virtuosity/.