Conductor Stefan Sanderling leads the Juilliard Orchestra in works by Liadov and Penderecki and Stravinsky's complete "Firebird" on Thursday, April 17 at 8 PM in Avery Fisher Hall
Wei-Yang Andy Lin is the soloist in Penderecki's Viola Concerto
German-born conductor Stefan Sanderling leads the Juilliard Orchestra in Anatol Liadov’s Kikimora, Penderecki’s Viola Concerto (1983) with Juilliard violist Wei-Yang Andy Lin, and Stravinsky’s Firebird (complete) on Thursday, April 17 at 8 PM in Avery Fisher Hall.
Tickets are $20 and $10 are available at the Avery Fisher Hall Box Office and through CenterCharge: (212) 721-6500. Free tickets for students and seniors are available only at the Box Office.
Russian composer, teacher, and conductor Anatol Liadov’s Kikimora is one of three descriptive orchestral pieces based on Russian fairy tales. (The other two works are Baba-Yaga and Volshebnoye ozero or The Enchanted Lake.) Liadov was asked by Sergei Diaghilev of the Ballets Russes to write a ballet score based on The Firebird. He was slow in starting the work, and the commission went to Igor Stravinsky. The complete Firebird will be heard on this program.
Polish composer and conductor Krzysztof Penderecki’s Viola Concerto was commissioned by the Venezuelan government in 1983 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Simon Bolivar’s birth. The concerto, which is in a single, twenty-minute movement, is a romantic work with sonic detail. Penderecki studied at Krakow University and the Academy of Music in Krakow. He graduated in 1958 and assumed a teaching post at the Academy. He gained international attention for his works, St. Luke Passion and Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima. These works included demanding techniques: glissandi, tonal clusters, unpitched sounds, spoken interjections, and shouting. Following the success of those works, Penderecki received a succession of commissions. He began to conduct his own pieces. His music can be heard in two films: Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and William Friedkin’s The Exorcist. Penderecki holds honorary memberships in many of the world’s most prestigious conservatories, awards from competitions, honorary doctorates, and has been recognized with national orders from Germany, Austria, and his native Poland.
Igor Stravinsky’s Firebird is a 50-minute ballet score written in 1909-10. The ballet is based on Russian folk tales and was premiered by Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in Paris on June 25, 1910, conducted by Gabriel Pierne. Diaghilev and Stravinsky collaborated on two other ballets, Petrushka and The Rite of Spring.
The next appearance of the Juilliard Orchestra takes place on Thursday, May 1 at 8 PM in The Peter Jay Sharp Theater (155 West 65th Street) with conductor Jeffrey Milarsky in a program of new works by student composers Jakub Ciupinski, Nicholas Csicsko, Michael Gilbertson, Reinaldo Moya, and Armand Ranjbaran. FREE tickets are available beginning April 17 at the Juilliard Box Office located at 60 Lincoln Center Plaza. Box Office hours are Monday through Friday from 11 AM to 6 PM. To get to the Box Office, walk west on 65th Street towards Amsterdam Avenue and take the escalator/elevator to the plaza level. For more information, call (212) 769-7406 or go to www.juilliard.edu.
Born in Kao-Hsiung Taiwan, violist Wei-Yang Andy Lin is currently a full-scholarship, second-year master of music degree student at Juilliard, studying with Hsin-Yun Huang. He came to the U.S. in 1997 to attend Idyllwild Arts Academy and studied with Donald McInnes. He has won numerous competitions including the Tainan County and City competitions, Taiwanese National Viola Competition, and the Idyllwild Concerto Competition. Mr. Lin has been a member of the LDX String Quartet, appearing on NPR’s From the Top radio broadcast; the Kafka Piano Quintet, appearing at New York’s Taiwan Center and New Chinese Television; the Rimbaud String Quartet, with whom he was awarded a fellowship to attend the Aspen Music Festival; the Asiana Ensemble, and currently has appeared on the Columbia University broadcast, Sound of China. Mr. Lin has served as a principle violist in the Idyllwild Arts Chamber Orchestra, Ureuk Symphony, and the Juilliard Orchestra. He also had the privilege of performing for President Bill Clinton and the President of Taiwan, Ten-Hui Lee. He has been invited to play and perform chamber music with Itzhak Perlman at Princeton University, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Mr. Lin has performed in Carnegie, Avery Fisher, Alice Tully, and Merkin halls, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., at the Los Angeles Music Center, and Tainan Cultural Center in Taiwan. He has been a part of several music festivals, including Bowdoin International Music Festival, Aspen Summer Music Festival, Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, Music at Menlo, and the Chamber Music Workshop at the Perlman Music Program. He has studied chamber music with Earl Carlyss, Warren Jones, Cathleen Winkler, Timothy Eddy, Jerome Lowenthal, Joel Sachs, Itzhak Perlman, Donald Weilerstein, Merry Peckham, Andre Emelianoff, Seymour Lipkin, the Juilliard String Quartet, the Guarneri String Quartet, and the Emerson String Quartet. He also has studied with Roger Myers, Victoria Chang, John Graham, Michael Tree, and Toby Appel.
German-born conductor Stefan Sanderling is currently Music Director of the Florida Orchestra and Principal Conductor of the Toledo Symphony Orchestra. Since his North American debut at the 1989 Tanglewood Summer Festival, he has risen to the top of the young generation of German conductors and has led such prestigious North American orchestra as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony, the Montreal Symphony, the Toronto Symphony, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Houston Symphony, and the orchestras of Indianapolis, Vancouver, Ottawa, and Buffalo.
Mr. Sanderling studied at the Leipzig Conservatory with Kurt Masur. He moved to the United States to continue his studies at the University of Southern California. While in the U.S., he also attended the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute, winning several awards. At Tanglewood, he worked with Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, Leonard Slatkin, and Yuri Termikanov.