2025.03.30 | Leif Ove Andsnes Program

Leif Ove Andsnes Sunday, March 30, 2025 3PM

Sponsored by Parnassus Society

Carl St.Clair, conductor Soka Performing Arts17, Center Sunday, November 2024 | 3PM at Soka University of America

Soka Performing Arts Center at Soka University of America

Leif Ove Ansdnes

PROGRAM GRIEG Piano Sonata in E Minor, Opus 7 Allegro moderato Andante molto Alla Menuetto, ma poco più lento Finale: Molto allegro

TVEITT Piano Sonata No. 29, Opus 129 “Sonata Etere” In Cerca Di: Moderato Tono Etereo in Variazioni: Tranquillo ma deciso Tempo di Pulsazione

INTERMISSION

Leif Ove Ansdnes

PROGRAM CHOPIN Preludes, Opus 28 No. 1 in C Major: Agitato No. 2 in A Minor: Lento No. 3 in G Major: Vivace No. 4 in E Minor: Largo No. 5 in D Major: Allegro molto No. 6 in B Minor: Lento assai No. 7 in A Major: Andantino No. 8 in F-sharp Minor: Molto agitato No. 9 in E Major: Largo No. 10 in C-sharp Minor: Allegro molto No. 11 in B Major: Vivace No. 12 in G-sharp Minor: Presto

Leif Ove Ansdnes

PROGRAM CHOPIN Preludes, Opus 28 No. 13 in F-sharp Major: Lento No. 14 in E-flat Minor: Allegro No. 15 in D-flat Major: Sostenuto No. 16 in B-flat Minor: Presto con fuoco No. 17 in A-flat Major: Allegretto No. 18 in F Minor: Allegro molto No. 19 in E-flat Major: Vivace No. 20 in C Minor: Largo No. 21 in B-flat Major: Cantabile No. 22 in G Minor: Molto agitato No. 23 in F Major: Moderato No. 24 in D Minor: Allegro appassionato

ABOUT THE PROGRAM Piano Sonata in E Minor, Opus 7 EDVARD GRIEG

Born June 15, 1843, Bergen Died September 4, 1907, Bergen We automatically think of Edvard Grieg as a “nationalist” composer.

Much of his greatest music was inspired by Norway, its history, its literature, its legends, its music: his incidental music to Peer Gynt and Sigurd Jorsalfar, his many dances and pieces for solo piano like Wedding Day in Troldhaugen, his ravishing songs (almost all of them in Norwegian), and even his use of native Norwegian instruments like the Hardinger fiddle.

But there was a completely different side to Grieg: he wished to succeed in the classical forms of German music, and he composed in those forms throughout his life. They did not come easily to a composer whose gift was primarily melodic, and he struggled to master them.

But he returned to them often: among his works are a string quartet, a piano concerto, three violin sonatas, a cello sonata, and even a youthful symphony.

The earliest of Grieg’s works in classical forms, though, was his Piano Sonata in E Minor, composed in 1865 when he was only 22, and revised two years later. The sonata is in four movements that conform to classical structure: a sonata-form first movement, a slow movement, a quick movement in ternary form, and a fast finale. Pay particular attention to the very beginning of the Allegro moderato. Like certain other composers, the young Grieg

was here experimenting with building themes based on his own initials. His full name was Edvard Hagerup Grieg. In musical notation, H represents B-natural, and so the musical representation of Grieg’s name is E-B-G. The sonata begins with those three notes in the pianist’s right hand, and Grieg quickly introduces a marchlike second theme; a very active development leads to a quiet close.

The Andante molto begins with a chaste melody in the right hand, and Grieg takes care to mark this cantabile on its first appearance, but that gentle melody will grow in breadth and grandeur as the movement proceeds. At this point in a sonata, we might expect a scherzo, but Grieg goes back to an earlier form and marks this movement Alla menuetto, ma poco più lento.

But this is a very firm minuet, based on powerful chordal writing; its trio section in 9/8 leads to a return of the opening material and a pesante coda. The Molto Allegro finale is big music, sonorous and bold, and it dances nimbly along its 6/8 meter. The chordal second subject dances just as vigorously, and the movement drives to a climax that Grieg marks triple forte and asks to have performed sempre grandioso.

NOTE: Those interested in this sonata should know that Grieg went into a very early recording studio in Paris in 1903, just four years before his death, and recorded the sonata’s final two movements.

There is inevitably a great deal of surface noise, but that early recording makes clear how fine a pianist Grieg was.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM Piano Sonata No. 29, Opus 139 (Sonata Etero) GEIRR TVEITT

Born October 19, 1908, Bergen Died February 1, 1981, Oslo As a boy, Geirr Tveitt spent summers at his family’s second home in Kamm, on the Hardangerfjord.

Hardanger is a region on the west coast of Norway, famed for the vistas of its magnificent fjord and also for weather warm enough to grow a variety of fruit, especially apples. The boy loved it there, and in particular he fell in love with the region’s rich heritage of folk music, some of it played on the Hardanger fiddle, a multi-stringed folk violin of that region. Tveitt learned to play the piano and the violin as a boy, and his parents encouraged his interest in music. At age 20, he went to Leipzig to study with demanding German teachers, and after four years there he went to Paris, where he studied briefly with Nadia Boulanger. After ten years on the continent, Tveitt returned to Norway and composed and worked as a music critic. He also made vast collections of the folk music of Hardanger. Tveitt was prolific as a composer, writing six piano concertos, a violin concerto, two concertos for Hardanger fiddle, ballet scores, and piano music.

And then came disaster. Tveitt had carefully catalogued his music and had saved all his manuscripts in wooden chests that he kept in a barn in Kamm. That barn burned to the ground in 1970, when Tveit was 62, and he lost 80% of his music. He was able to save some manuscripts, and it was possible to recreate

some of his scores from recordings and radio broadcasts, but it was a devastating loss, and Tveitt never fully recovered from it.

A further issue complicated Tveitt’s reputation in his own country.

He was an intense Norwegian nationalist, and as a young man he developed a passion for what has been called “neo-heathenism.”

This led him to reject Christianity in favor of a cosmology based on Norse mythology; he also came to feel that musical modes had been invented in Norway, and he renamed them after various Norse gods. Tveitt never formally joined any of the Norwegian nationalist groups that collaborated with the Nazis during World War II, but the taint of those sympathies stayed with him after the war and rendered him an outsider. His reputation is now being reconsidered, and his music–especially his six suites of orchestral music based on Hardanger folk melodies–has become very popular, and much of it has been recorded.

Tveitt composed his Piano Sonata No. 29 shortly after World War II, and gave the first performance in 1947 in Paris, where it was well received; the sonata was published in 1950. This is a big sonata (performances can run to nearly forty minutes), and the sonata and all three of its movements have titles. Tveitt gave the sonata the subtitle Sonata Etere (“Ethereal Sonata”), and its opening movement is titled In Cerca Di (“In Search Of”).

This movement, marked Moderato,

ABOUT THE PROGRAM opens with its principal theme arising from out of a progression of steady eighth-notes. Tveitt asks that this be played legato, but the second subject is much more animated and at moments requires great hammered chords. This is difficult music for the performer: long sections are written on three staves that require hand-crossings, the music can project a brittle dissonance, and it is full of rhythmic complexities. Tveitt develops his themes simply by repeating them and embellishing them rhythmically and harmonically as they proceed.

The movement drives to a huge climax and concludes on one resounding chord.

The second movement is titled Tono Etereo in Variazioni, and it is indeed in variation form. Tveitt creates a very unusual sound at the beginning by asking the pianist to put his or her forearms on the keyboard, silently at first and then rocking those arms back and forth gently on all the covered keys. The effect is very much like what one hears when the string section of an orchestra plays a quiet tremolo: a sort of background haze of sound that can fade in and out. The theme that will be varied is at first extremely simple, just a progression of short notes, which Tveitt asks to have played Molto staccato. There follow nineteen variations, but a curious feature of this set of variations is that along the way Tveitt introduces a second theme, and it too is varied.

The movement’s tempo marking is Tranquillo ma deciso, and the tempo in most of the variations is slow.

The finale, marked Tempo di Pulsazione, opens darkly and slowly, then presses ahead and begins to dance. A characteristic sonority of this movement is its sharp strikes of sound, which penetrate the progress of the music at many points. Rather than rising to a triumphant close, this movement resolutely refuses to celebrate, and at the end those sharp strikes of sound return to drive this “Ethereal Sonata” to a most enigmatic conclusion.

Preludes, Opus 28 FREDERIC CHOPIN

Born February 22, 1810, Zelazowa Wola Died October 17, 1849, Paris As a small boy in Poland, Chopin fell in love with the keyboard music of Bach. Like Beethoven before him (and Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich after him), Chopin was particularly drawn to The WellTempered Clavier, Bach’s two sets of 24 preludes and fugues in all the major and minor keys of the chromatic scale. Haunted by Bach’s achievement, Chopin wished to try something similar, and in 1836, shortly after completing his Etudes, Opus 25, he began to compose a series of short preludes, but it would take him three years to complete the entire set of 24. In the fall of 1838, Chopin sailed with George Sand to Mallorca, taking with him a number of Bach scores. On the island, living in an abandoned monastery high in a mountain village that was alternately bathed in Mediterranean sunlight and

ABOUT THE PROGRAM torn by freezing rainstorms, he completed the Preludes in January 1839. They were published in Paris later that year.

While some have heard echoes of Bach in the Preludes, this is very much the music of Chopin. And while these preludes do proceed through all the major and minor keys, Chopin does not write accompanying fugues, as Bach did: these are not preludes to anything larger, but are complete works in themselves. The entire set of 24 preludes lasts about 45 minutes, so these are concise essays in all the keys, and they encompass an enormous variety of technique, ranging from very easy preludes (played by every amateur pianist on the planet) to numbingly difficult ones, playable by only the most gifted performers. One of the pleasures of a performance of the complete Preludes is not just to hear each individual prelude, some of which pass by in a matter of seconds, but to experience the totality of the world Chopin creates in this set. It is a world of the most dazzling variety, by turns cheerful, dark, lyric, dramatic, friendly, and terrifying, all superbly disciplined within the tight compass of the 24 keys. Bach would have found much of this music strange, but he would instantly have understood Chopin’s achievement in it.

No. 1 in C Major (Agitato) A surging figure in the right hand, only one measure long, repeats constantly, evolving as it goes. This miniature drama (only forty seconds long) begins mezzo forte, grows to

fortissimo, and falls back to a subdued pianissimo conclusion.

No. 2 in A Minor: Lento This prelude has been described as “a brief dirge” and “extremely morbid.” It may nominally be in A minor, but the harmony is uncertain throughout, and the prelude settles into the home key only in its final measure.

No. 3 in G Major: Vivace This prelude is very fast (Chopin’s marking is leggieramente: “lightly”), and the challenge for the pianist is to keep the left accompaniment (non-stop sixteenth-notes) moving steadily below the much slower melody in the right hand. After all this sparkling energy, the music vanishes on two quiet chords.

No. 4 in E Minor: Largo This music has become almost too familiar– everyone who has had at least a couple of years of piano lessons has played it. Yet this seemingly simple music (only 25 measures of melodic line above steady accompaniment) remains some of the most beautiful music ever written. It was played at Chopin’s funeral.

No. 5 in D Major: Allegro molto One of the shortest of the preludes, this is in a very fast 3/8, with the melodic line emerging from out of the rush of sixteenth-notes in both hands.

No. 6 in B Minor: Lento assai Here the melodic line is in the left hand, while the right provides a steadily pulsed accompaniment.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM No. 7 in A Major: Andantino This wellknown music has been described as a “tiny exquisite song in two sentences” and as “the essence of exotic poetry.” Chopin’s marking is dolce, and this prelude–only sixteen measures long–must be played most delicately.

No. 8 in F-sharp Minor: Molto agitato This is stormy, impulsive music, in constant motion throughout, with the driving theme in the left hand as the right accompanies with perpetual swirls of sound. After all this energy, the subdued conclusion is particularly effective.

No. 9 in E Major: Largo Some have heard echoes of the heroic manner of Beethoven in this twelvemeasure prelude, which proceeds powerfully to a ringing close in E major. But this music makes some surprising modulations on its way to that home key, harmonic changes that enrich and deepen its progress.

No. 10 in C-sharp Minor: Allegro molto This is the briefest of the preludes (27 seconds in one recording), and it whips past in a rippling, sparkling rush. Whatever thematic substance there is here, it has no time to develop, and the prelude is suddenly gone.

No. 11 in B Major: Vivace Another very short prelude. This one seems to be a perpetual motion in 6/8, but just as the ear has adapted to this, it’s over.

No. 12 in G-sharp Minor: Presto This is powerful music, loud, restless, and driving forward relentlessly.

The steady rush of eighths in the right proceeds above the steady march of quarters in the left hand.

Very difficult for the pianist.

No. 13 in F-sharp Major: Lento The poised opening melody gives way to a Più lento episode that sings gently and briefly; when the opening material returns, it has been elaborated with rolled chords.

Chopin rounds matters off with the faintest recall of the center section.

No. 14 in E-flat Minor: Allegro After the delicacy of the previous prelude, this one is dark, short, and aggressive–Chopin asks that it be played pesante. Both hands are set in bass clef, and the triplet rhythm is unbroken, right through the sudden, quiet close.

No. 15 in D-flat Major: Sostenuto This is the longest of the preludes, and it has become one of the best-known of all Chopin’s compositions. His companion George Sand felt that its constantly repeating A-flats were inspired by dripping rain during one of the storms in Mallorca, and she nicknamed it the “Raindrop” Prelude. Chopin hated such phony nicknames and wanted nothing to do with them, but that nickname has unfortunately stuck to this music.

The beautiful opening, marked cantabile, gives way to a central section in C-sharp minor, where the steady “drip” of eighths grows into music of incredible power.

The opening material makes the briefest of returns at the end.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM No. 16 in B-flat Minor: Presto con fuoco This is a real virtuoso piece.

Chopin marks it con fuoco (“with fire”), and it goes like a rocket, the right hand soaring repeatedly into the piano’s highest register, and suddenly the piece is done. It takes about one minute.

No. 17 in A-flat Major: Allegretto In 6/8, this prelude has been compared to a gondoliera, the song of the Venetian gondoliers, and it makes its way very gently. And then unexpected things begin to happen. This gentle melody suddenly explodes into a fortissimo restatement, and as the prelude begins to wind down, Chopin begins each measure with a strident A-flat deep in the pianist’s left hand. Those fierce A-flats have been compared to the sound of a tolling bell. Gradually they subside, and the prelude eases to a quiet conclusion.

No. 18 in F Minor: Allegro molto The mood changes sharply with the Prelude in F Minor. This one is angry, gruff, violent, with sudden pauses interspersed within its furious rush of notes. It ends with two chords marked triple forte.

No. 19 in E-flat Major: Vivace Set in 3/4, this quick-paced prelude is written in triplets throughout, and its delicate themes emerge from the rush of those triplets. After all this grace, the conclusion is surprisingly emphatic.

No. 20 in C Minor: Largo C minor was the key Beethoven reserved for his darkest and most dramatic music, and Chopin seems to partake of that

same spirit here. At least at first. This prelude is only thirteen measures long. Its first four measures, marked fortissimo, announce what seems to be a powerful funeral march.

But the second four measures are much quieter, and the final four are– wonderfully–even quieter. One final chord brings the march to a halt.

No. 21 in B-flat Major: Cantabile Chopin stresses that this prelude should sing, and it has a lovely melody in the right hand over a complex accompaniment in the left.

Both melody and accompaniment grow more ornate as the prelude proceeds, and then–surprisingly–it concludes with a coda that seems to have little to do what has gone before.

No. 22 in G Minor: Molto agitato This is music of unremitting fury (Chopin’s marking Molto agitato is exactly right). The left hand has thunderous octaves throughout, and this brief and violent prelude almost hurls itself to the three concluding chords.

No. 23 in F Major: Moderato Chopin marks this prelude delicatissimo, and a singing melody (delicate indeed) emerges from the rippling filigree of sixteenths in the right hand. After all this gossamer swirling, the piece ends with a combination of just two quiet notes, both F’s, but four octaves apart.

No. 24 in D Minor: Allegro appassionato The twenty-four Preludes conclude with the most violent of them all. The left hand has the same powerful accompaniment

ABOUT THE PROGRAM figure virtually throughout, and above this the right hand has impassioned music full of octave writing, trills, and spirals of long runs.

A particularly brilliant descending passage in thirds leads to the climax and a fierce conclusion on three deep D’s that ring out like the crack of doom.

Program notes by Eric Bromberger © 2025.

ABOUT THE ARTIST LEIF OVE ANDSNES PIANO The New York Times calls Leif Ove Andsnes “a pianist of magisterial elegance, power, and insight,” and the Wall Street Journal names him “one of the most gifted musicians of his generation.” With his commanding technique and searching interpretations, the celebrated Norwegian pianist has won acclaim worldwide, playing concertos and recitals in the world’s leading concert halls and with its foremost orchestras, while building an esteemed and extensive discography. An avid chamber musician, he is the founding director of the Rosendal Chamber Music Festival, was coartistic director of the Risør Festival of Chamber Music for nearly two decades, and served as music director of California’s Ojai Music Festival in 2012. He was inducted into the Gramophone Hall of Fame in July 2013, and has received honorary doctorates from Norway’s Universities of Bergen and Oslo and New York’s Juilliard School.

Two concertos figure prominently in Andsnes’s 2024-25 season.

After recent performances of Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto with ensembles including the New York Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestra, he reprises the work with Washington’s National Symphony Orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Rome’s Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and on tour with the Oslo Philharmonic.

Similarly, after recent accounts of Rachmaninov’s Third with

ensembles including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, and Orchestre de Paris, he performs it at BadenBaden’s Easter Festival with the Berlin Philharmonic, on a North European tour with Italy’s Grandhôtel Orchestra Toblach, and with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Stuttgart Radio Symphony, and London Philharmonic Orchestras.

To complete the concert season, he joins the Czech Philharmonic for Grieg’s Concerto, the Barcelona Symphony for a pairing of Haydn and Franck, and the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra for Debussy’s Fantaisie at the Hamburg International Festival.

With a solo program combining Chopin’s 24 Preludes with sonatas

by Norwegians Grieg and Geirr Tveitt, he embarks on an extensive transatlantic recital tour, featuring dates at New York’s Carnegie Hall and London’s Wigmore Hall. The latter forms part of a season-long residency at the British venue, to which he returns for chamber collaborations with fellow pianist Bertrand Chamayou and with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (MCO), as the culmination of their European tour.

As the MCO’s first Artistic Partner, Andsnes has already led the ensemble from the keyboard in two major, multi-season projects.

In “Mozart Momentum 1785/86,” they explored one of the most creative and seminal periods of the composer’s career with live accounts of Mozart’s Piano Concertos Nos. 20–24 at London’s BBC Proms and other key European

ABOUT THE ARTIST venues, as well as recorded ones for Sony Classical. The project’s first album, MM/1785, was nominated for a 2022 International Classical Music Award, and recognized with France’s prestigious Diapason d’or de l’année for Best Concerto Album of 2021. The second album, MM/1786, was named one of the “Best Classical Albums of 2022”

by Gramophone, while the twovolume series won the magazine’s 2022 “Special Achievement” Award. This followed the success of “The Beethoven Journey.” An epic four-season focus on the composer’s music for piano and orchestra, this took the pianist to 108 cities in 27 countries for more than 230 live performances. He led the MCO in complete Beethoven concerto cycles at high-profile residencies in Bonn, Hamburg, Lucerne, Vienna, Paris, New York, Shanghai, Tokyo, Bodø, and London, besides collaborating with such leading international ensembles as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, London Philharmonic, and Munich Philharmonic. The project was chronicled in the documentary Concerto – A Beethoven Journey (2016), and Andsnes’s partnership with the MCO was captured on the hit Sony Classical three-volume series The Beethoven Journey.

The first volume was named iTunes’ Best Instrumental Album of 2012 and awarded Belgium’s Prix Caecilia, the second recognized with BBC Music’s coveted “2015 Recording of the Year Award,” and the complete series chosen as one of the “Best of 2014” by the New York Times.

Andsnes’s discography comprises more than 50 titles – solo, chamber, and concerto releases, many of them bestsellers – spanning repertoire from the Baroque to the present day. He has been nominated for eleven Grammys and his many international prizes include seven Gramophone Awards. His EMI Classics recordings of the music of his compatriot Edvard Grieg have been especially celebrated: the New York Times named Andsnes’s 2004 recording of Grieg’s Piano Concerto with Mariss Jansons and the Berlin Philharmonic a “Best CD of the Year,” the Penguin Guide awarded it a coveted “Rosette,” and both that album and his disc of Grieg’s Lyric Pieces won Gramophone Awards. His recording of Mozart’s Piano Concertos Nos. 9 and 18 was another New York Times “Best of the Year” and Penguin Guide “Rosette” honoree. He won yet another Gramophone Award for Rachmaninov’s Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 with Antonio Pappano and the Berlin Philharmonic. A series of recordings of Schubert’s late sonatas, paired with lieder sung

by Ian Bostridge, inspired lavish praise, as did the pianist’s worldpremiere recordings of Marc-André Dalbavie’s Piano Concerto and Bent Sørensen’s The Shadows of Silence, both of which were written for him.

Leif Ove Andsnes: The Complete Warner Classics Edition 1990-2010, a 36-CD retrospective of his EMI and Virgin recordings, was released to acclaim in 2023. In addition to The Beethoven Journey and MM 1785/86, his recent Sony Classical releases include Dvořák’s unjustly neglected piano cycle

ABOUT THE ARTIST Poetic Tone Pictures, Chopin: Ballades & Nocturnes, and the Billboard best-selling Sibelius, all recorded for Sony; Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring & other works for two pianos four hands, recorded with Marc-André Hamelin for Hyperion; and Schumann: Liederkreis & Kernerlieder, recorded with Matthias Goerne for Harmonia Mundi. Both the Hamelin and Goerne collaborations were nominated for Grammy Awards.

Andsnes has received Norway’s distinguished honor, Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav, and in 2007, he received the prestigious Peer Gynt Prize, awarded by members of parliament to honor prominent Norwegians for their achievements in politics, sports, and culture. In 2004-05, he became the youngest musician (and first Scandinavian) to curate Carnegie Hall’s “Perspectives” series, and in 2015-16 he was the subject of the London Symphony Orchestra’s Artist Portrait Series. Having been 2010-11 Pianist-in-Residence of the Berlin Philharmonic, he went on to serve as 2017-18 Artist-in-Residence of the New York Philharmonic and 2019-20 Artist-in-Residence of Sweden’s Gothenburg Symphony. The recipient of both the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Instrumentalist Award and the Gilmore Artist Award, Andsnes was named one of the “Best of the Best”

by Vanity Fair in 2005.

Leif Ove Andsnes was born in Karmøy, Norway in 1970, and studied at the Bergen Music Conservatory under the renowned

Czech professor Jirí Hlinka. He has also received invaluable advice from the Belgian piano teacher Jacques de Tiège, who, like Hlinka, greatly influenced his style and philosophy of playing. Today Andsnes lives with his wife and their three children in Bergen. He is an Artistic Adviser at the city’s Prof.

Jirí Hlinka Piano Academy, where he gives a masterclass to participating students each year.

© Helge Hansen Sony Music Entertainment

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CONCESSIONS

Concessions A wide variety of wine, beer, soft drinks and freshly prepared snacks will be available before the concert and during intermission.

Artist Drink Pick

Champagne We asked the artist for their favorite drink pick to feature at concessions!

Champagne was selected by Leif Ove Andsnes and will be available for purchase before the performance and during intermission.

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SOKA UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA BOARD OF TRUSTEES Soka Performing Arts Center resides on the beautiful campus of Soka University of America.

We thank the SUA Board of Trustees and the SUA Leadership Council for all of their support.

SUA BOARD OF TRUSTEES Stephen S. Dunham, JD | CHAIR Vice President and General Counsel Emeritus, Pennsylvania State University | Baltimore, Maryland Tariq Hasan, PhD | VICE CHAIR Chief Executive Officer, SGI-USA | New York, New York Andrea Bartoli, PhD President, Sant’Egidio Foundation for Peace and Dialogue | New York, New York Matilda Buck Benefactor | Los Angeles, California Lawrence E. Carter, Sr, PhD, DD, DH, DRS Dean, Professor of Religion, College Archivist and Curator, Morehouse College | Atlanta, Georgia Andy Firoved CEO, HOTB Software | Irvine, California Jason Goulah, PhD Professor of Bilingual-Bicultural Education and Director, Institute for Daisaku Ikeda Studies in Education, Director of Programs in Bilingual-Bicultural Education, World Language Education, and Value-Creating Education for Global Citizenship, College of Education, DePaul University | Chicago, Illinois Clothilde V. Hewlett, JD Commissioner of Department of Financial Protection and Innovation, State of California | San Francisco, California

Karen Lewis, PhD Sondheimer Professor of International Finance and Co-Director, Weiss Center for International Financial Research, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Luis Nieves Founder, Chairman Emeritus AUL Corp, Benefactor | Napa, California Isabel Nuñez, PhD, MPhil, JD Professor of Educational Studies, Dean of School of Education, Purdue University Fort Wayne | Fort Wayne, Indiana Gene Marie O’Connell, RN, MS Health Care Consultant, Associate Clinical Professor, University of California, San Francisco School of Nursing | Corte Madera, California Adin Strauss General Director, Soka Gakkai International-USA | Santa Monica, California Yoshiki Tanigawa Benefactor, Soka Gakkai | Tokyo, Japan Gregg S. Wolpert Co-president, The Stahl Organization | New York, New York Edward M. Feasel, PhD President, Soka University of America (ex-officio member) | Aliso Viejo, California

SUA LEADERSHIP COUNCIL Edward M. Feasel, PhD President Chief Academic Officer Professor of Economics

M. Robert Hamersley, PhD Dean of Faculty Professor of Environmental Biogeochemistry

Archibald E. Asawa Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration Chief Financial Officer Chief Investment Officer

Hyon J. Moon, EdD Dean of Students Title IX and Section 504 Deputy Coordinator for Students

Katherine M. King, PHR Executive Vice President of University Community Chief Human Resources Officer Title IX and Section 504 Coordinator for Faculty, Staff and Others Michael Weiner, PhD Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Professor of East Asian History & International Studies Bryan E. Penprase, PhD Vice President for Sponsored Research and External Academic Relations Professor of Physics and Astronomy Tomoko Takahashi, PhD, EdD, LHD Vice President for Institutional Research and Assessment Dean of the Graduate School Professor of Linguistics and Education David Welch, JD Vice President University Counsel

Michelle Hobby-Mears, MBA Associate Dean of Students Director of Student Activities Andrew Woolsey, EdD Dean of Enrollment Services Martin Beck, MA Executive Director of Strategic Marketing and Communications