Juilliard Presents a Chamber Music Recital With Catherine Cho, Hsin-Yun Huang, Natasha Brofsky, and Robert McDonald on Thursday, February 14, 2019, at 7:30pm in Juilliard's Paul Hall

Program Features Music by Fauré, Penderecki, and Brahms

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

NEW YORK –– Juilliard presents a chamber music recital with violinist Catherine Cho, violist Hsin-Yun Huang, cellist Natasha Brofsky, and pianist Robert McDonald on Thursday, February 14, 2019, at 7:30pm in Juilliard’s Paul Hall. The program features Gabriel Fauré’s Piano Trio in D Minor, Op. 120; Krzysztof Penderecki’s String Trio; and Johannes Brahms’ Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 25. The recital is presented as part of Juilliard’s Daniel Saidenberg Faculty Recital Series.

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

Meet the Artists

Cellist Natasha Brofsky (Pre-College ’83) enjoys a performing and teaching career that has taken her to China and Europe as well as to many cities in the U.S. As a member of the renowned Peabody Trio for 17 years, Brofsky performed in important chamber music series throughout the U.S., Canada, and the U.K and was heard on numerous radio broadcasts. Champions of new music as well as the classics, the trio recorded on the New World, CRI, and Artek labels. Brofsky has also enjoyed performing as a guest with the Borromeo, Jupiter, Norwegian, Parker, Pražák, Takács and Ying Quartets. Since 2016 she has been artistic director of Music for Food’s New York chapter, a musician-led initiative for local hunger relief.

Upon graduating from the Eastman School with a Performer’s Certificate award, Brofsky moved to the U.K. on a Fulbright scholarship. During nearly a decade in Europe, she won the Muriel Taylor cello prize and held principal positions in the Norwegian Radio Orchestra and the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra under Iona Brown. She was a member of the Serapion Ensemble and the string trio Opus 3 and a regular participant at IMS Open Chamber Music in Prussia Cove, England.

Her recording of the late Beethoven Cello Sonatas Opus 102 with pianist Seth Knopp was released in 2018. Previous solo recordings include the Fantasy Variations of Shulamit Ran and Olav Anton Thommessen's Concerto for Cello and Winds, The Phantom of Light. She also recorded John Heiss’s Four Lyric Pieces for flute and cello with the late Fenwick Smith.

A sought-after teacher, Brofsky serves on the cello faculty of Juilliard. Previously a member of the New England Conservatory cello faculty for 14 years, she also served on the faculty of Barratt-Due Musikk Institutt in Oslo, Norway. She spends her summers at the Yellow Barn Festival in Vermont and the Kneisel Hall Festival in Maine. Brofsky has given master classes at many colleges and conservatories in the U.S. and abroad, including for El Sistema in Venezuela as well as at Oberlin Conservatory, the Eastman School, Mannes College and the Shanghai Conservatory and Middle School as well as online at CelloBello.com. Her recent articles on string playing appeared in The Strad and on the Violin Channel.

Catherine Cho (BM ’92, MM ’94, violin) has appeared worldwide as soloist with the Detroit and National Symphony orchestras, the Virginia Symphony, Montreal, Edmonton, and National Arts Centre Orchestras in Canada, Korean Broadcasting Symphony, Daejon Philharmonic, and Seoul Philharmonic in Korea, Barcelona Symphony, orchestra of the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, and Aspen Chamber Symphony. She has toured Israel with the Haifa Symphony, and was the soloist on a concert tour in Japan and Korea with the Juilliard Orchestra and conductor Hugh Wolff. Her collaborations with distinguished conductors include Mstislav Rostropovich, Robert Spano, Sixten Ehrling, and Franz-Paul Decker. Cho's concert performance of Vivaldi's Four Seasons, with the Buffalo Philharmonic conducted by JoAnn Falletta, was broadcast nationwide on PBS in January 2002. Her live recording of the Four Seasons with the Korean Chamber Ensemble was released in June 2003. She has recorded works by Harbison, Lerdahl, and Moravec for Bridge Records.

As a recitalist and chamber musician, Cho has performed on the stages of Alice Tully Hall with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Mozarteum in Salzburg, Casals Hall in Tokyo as a member of the Casals Hall Ensemble, Kennedy Center, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and 92nd Street Y, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and in Ravinia's Rising Stars series. Cho was a participant in the Marlboro Music Festival from 1993 to 2001, and she has taken part in 11 Musicians From Marlboro national tours. She has performed at festivals such as Chamber Music Northwest, Bridgehampton, Eastern Shore, Rockport, Santa Fe, and Skaneateles, and has performed with the Boston Chamber Players. A founding member of the chamber ensemble, La Fenice, she was a member of the Johannes String Quartet from 2003 to 2006.

A winner of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, Cho won top prizes at the Montreal, Hanover, and Queen Elizabeth International Violin Competitions. She is a member of the violin and chamber music faculty at Juilliard, and has taught at the Starling-DeLay Symposium, New York String Seminar, Heifetz Institute, Great Mountains Music School and Festival, and Perlman Music Program.

Devoted to the cause of promoting peace through music, Cho was vice president of the Board of Musicians for Harmony for several years, and she is currently an artist member for Music for Food, a musician-led initiative for fighting hunger in local communities.

Violist Hsin-Yun Huang has forged a career performing on international concert stages, commissioning and recording new works, and nurturing young musicians. Her upcoming appearances include concerts with Musicians From Marlboro on March 18 at Weill Recital Hall and March 24 at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s Sunday Afternoon series, among other chamber music concerts. The 2017-18 season included performances as soloist under the batons of David Robertson, Osmo Vänskä, Xian Zhang, and Max Valdés in Beijing, Taipei, and Bogotá; she is also the first solo violist to be presented in the National Performance Center of the Arts in Beijing. In the 2016-17 season, she had performances for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, 92nd Street Y, Chamber Music Columbus, and Seoul Spring Festival. She has commissioned compositions from Steven Mackey, Shih-Hui Chen, and Poul Ruders. Her 2012 Bridge Records recording, titled Viola Viola, won accolades from Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine. Her latest recording features the complete unaccompanied sonatas and partitas of J.S. Bach, in partnership her husband, violist Misha Amory, released by Bridge Records.

Huang first came to international attention as the gold medalist in the 1988 Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition. In 1993 she was the top prize winner in the ARD International Competition in Munich, and was awarded the highly prestigious Bunkamura Orchard Hall Award. A native of Taiwan and an alumna of Young Concert Artists, she received degrees from the Yehudi Menuhin School, Juilliard, and Curtis Institute of Music; she now serves on the faculties of Juilliard and Curtis.

Pianist Robert McDonald has toured extensively as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia, and South America. He has performed with major orchestras in the U.S. and was a recital partner of violinist Isaac Stern for many years. He has participated in the Marlboro, Casals, and Lucerne festivals, performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and for BBC Television broadcasts. He has also appeared with the Takács, Vermeer, Juilliard, Brentano, Borromeo, American, Shanghai, and St. Lawrence string quartets as well as with Musicians From Marlboro. McDonald’s prizes include the gold medal at the Busoni International Piano Competition, the top prize at the William Kapell International Competition, and the Deutsche Schallplatten Critics Award. His teachers include Theodore Rehl, Seymour Lipkin, Rudolf Serkin, MieczysŁaw Horszowski, Beveridge Webster, and Gary Graffman. He holds degrees from Lawrence University, Curtis Institute of Music, Juilliard, and Manhattan School of Music. A member of the piano faculty at Juilliard since 1999, McDonald has taught at the Curtis Institute since 2007, where he holds the Penelope P. Watkins Chair in piano studies. During the summer, he is the artistic director of New Mexico’s Taos School of Music and Chamber Music Festival.

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Program Listing:

Thursday, February 14, 2019, 7:30pm, Paul Hall

Chamber Music Recital

Catherine Cho, violin

Hsin-Yun Huang, viola

Natasha Brofsky, cello

Robert McDonald, piano

 

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

 

Gabriel FAURÉ Piano Trio, Op. 120

Krzysztof PENDERECKI String Trio

Johannes BRAHMS Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 25

 

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