Violist Roger Tapping Is Joined by Violinist Laurie Smukler and Guest Pianist Qing Jiang for a Recital of Chamber Music on Friday, March 16, 2018, at 7:30pm in Paul Hall

Program Includes Works by Brahms, Berg, and Shostakovich

NEW YORK –– Roger Tapping, violist with the Juilliard String Quartet and a faculty member, is joined by violinist and faculty member and alumna Laurie Smukler, and guest pianist and alumna Qing Jiang for a chamber music recital on Friday, March 16, 2018, at 7:30pm in Paul Hall. The program features Brahms’ Scherzo in C Minor, Op. 4 from F-A-E- Sonata for Viola and Piano; Berg’s Four Pieces for Viola and Piano, Op 5 (1913) (transcribed by Roger Tapping); Brahms’ Horn Trio in E-flat Major, Op. 40 (transcription for violin, viola, and piano approved by Brahms); and Shostakovich’s Sonata for Viola and Piano, Op. 147 (1975). The recital is presented as part of Juilliard’s Daniel Saidenberg Faculty Recital Series.

Gavin Plumley writes in the program note, “A personal, confessional quality runs through the music on this program. Both of the works by Brahms were inspired by connections with his friends and family. With Alban Berg, of course, everything was emotionally intense, as can be heard in his four aphoristic pieces for clarinet and piano. Although their language is different, they were doubtless inspired by the late Romantic sonatas of composers such as Brahms. And it was Berg who became one of the most important figures in Dmitri Shostakovich’s apprenticeship, before the Soviet authorities suppressed what they deemed Western, ‘bourgeois’ music. In his Sonata for viola and piano, however, we found Shostakovich at the very end of his life, no longer pondering the state of the nation but his own mortality.”

Tickets at $20 ($10 for full-time students) are available at juilliard.edu/calendar.

Mr. Tapping’s next appearance at Juilliard will be on Thursday, April 12, 2018, with the Juilliard String Quartet in Alice Tully Hall in a program featuring Beethoven String Quartets, Op. 18, No. 5 and Op. 127, and James MacMillan’s Quartet No. 2, “Why Is This Night Different?”.

Meet the Artists

Violist Roger Tapping joined the Juilliard String Quartet and the Juilliard School viola faculty in 2013. The quartet recently recorded a CD of music by Beethoven, Davidovsky, and Bartók to be released on SONY. Mr. Tapping was a member of the Takács Quartet for a decade and their Decca/London recordings won three Gramophone Awards, a Grammy Award, and three additional Grammy nominations. He has been on the faculties of the New England Conservatory (where he directed the Chamber Music program), Boston Conservatory, and Longy School of Music. His faculty activities also include summers with the Perlman Chamber Music Workshop, Tanglewood String Quartet Seminar, Yellow Barn, and Kneisel Hall. Mr. Tapping played in a number of London’s leading chamber ensembles, making several highly-acclaimed CDs before joining Britain’s Allegri Quartet. He taught at the Royal Academy of Music in London, was principal viola of the London Mozart Players, a member of the English Chamber Orchestra, and a founding member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. He has performed frequently as a guest with many distinguished quartets from the U.S. and Europe, and was a member of the Boston Chamber Music Society. Mr. Tapping is a member of the Order of the Knight Cross of the Hungarian Republic, holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Nottingham, and is a fellow of the Guildhall School of Music in London.

Violinist Laurie Smukler grew up in Cleveland and began her studies with Margaret Randall. She started performing early, winning local competitions, and playing as a soloist with the Cleveland Orchestra at the age of 14. She graduated from Juilliard where she studied with Ivan Galamian. As a soloist, she has performed with many regional and national orchestras, and as a recitalist, plays regularly in New York, and in other centers including Tokyo and Seoul. She frequently presents master classes at conservatories across the country, such as the Shepherd School of Rice University, Peabody Conservatory, the University of Michigan, University of Tennessee at Memphis, and Oberlin College. As an original member and founding first violinist of the Mendelssohn String Quartet, she toured with them internationally for eight years. She has performed and toured with Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society and Music From Marlboro. With her husband, violist Ira Weller, she directed and performed in the series the Collection in Concert, at the Pierpont Morgan Library for 10 years. She joined the Juilliard faculty in 2014 and also teaches at the Manhattan School of music and Bard College Conservatory of Music. On the faculty of the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival for over 20 years, she is its artistic director. Ms. Smukler has premiered works by contemporary composers including Ned Rorem, Morton Subotnik, Steven Paulus, Shulamit Ran, and Bruce Adolphe.

Chinese-born pianist Qing Jiang enjoys a diverse career in solo, chamber, and contemporary music. She has appeared in Alice Tully Hall, Weill Recital Hall, and Jordan Hall, as well as the U.K.’s Snape Maltings Hall, and China’s Shenzhen Poly Theater. In 2015–16, she received glowing reviews for her concerto performances with the Chattanooga Symphony, Adrian Symphony, and Britten-Pears Orchestra in England under Oliver Knussen. Recent engagements include a six-city concert tour in China, a concerto performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the Bucknell University Orchestra, and her debut with the Shanghai Quartet at Music Mountain. A dynamic chamber musician, she has performed with Itzhak Perlman, Donald Weilerstein, Laurie Smukler, Anthony Marwood, and Gil Kalish, as well as with members of the Peabody Trio and the Emerson, Juilliard, Shanghai, Kronos, and Parker string quartets. Festivals she has appeared with include Ravinia, Aspen, Yellow Barn, Music@Menlo, Kneisel Hall, Aldeburgh Music, Changjiang International Festival, MasterWorks, and the Perlman Music Program. Equally experienced with contemporary music, Qing Jiang has worked closely with composers Brett Dean, Jennifer Higdon, Jörg Widmann, and Daniel Temkin. One of the first Chinese recipients of a Jack Kent Cooke Arts Scholarship, she holds degrees from Arizona State University, Juilliard, and New England Conservatory. Principal teachers include Caio Pagano, Robert McDonald, Wha Kyung Byun, and the late Patricia Zander. She is an assistant professor of piano at Bucknell University and is on the faculty at the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music School and Festival. (qingjiangpiano.com)

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Program Listing:

Friday, March 16, 2018, 7:30pm, Paul Hall

Chamber Music Recital

Roger Tapping, viola

Laurie Smukler, violin

Qing Jiang, piano

 

Presented as part of Juilliard’s Daniel Saidenberg Faculty Recital Series

 

Johannes BRAHMS Scherzo in C Minor, Op. 4 from F-A-E- Sonata for Viola and Piano

Alban BERG Four Pieces for Viola and Piano, Op. 5 (1913) (transcribed by Roger Tapping)

BRAHMS Horn Trio in E-flat Major, Op. 40 (transcription for violin, viola, and piano approved by Brahms)

Dmitri SHOSTAKOVICH Sonata for Viola and Piano, Op. 147 (1975)

 

Tickets at $20 ($10 for full-time students) are available at juilliard.edu/calendar.