Sunday, June 19, 2016
Sebastián Forster, piano Sara Saint’Ambrogio, cello Galina Zhdanova, violin Program: First part: - Inverierno Porteño, Astor Piazzolla Solo piano, Sebastián Forster - Escualo, Astor Piazzolla. Trío Tangata - Calambre, Astore Piazzolla. Trío Tangata - Adiós Nonino, Astor Piazzolla. Trío Tangata - Oblivión, Astor Piazzolla. Trío Tangata - La muerte del ángel, Astor Piazzolla. Trío Tangata - Tangata, Astor Piazzolla. Trío Tangata - Verano Porteño, Astor Piazzolla. Solo piano, Sebastián Forster Intermission Second Part: solo works - Sebasitán Forster, piano - Franz Liszt, Funerailles - harmonies poétiques et religieuses n 7 - Frédéric Chopin, Ballade No. 1, in G minor, Op. 23 - Frédéric Chopin, Scherzo No. 2, in B- flat minor, Op. 31 - Ludwig Van Beethoven, Sonata No. 23, in F minor, Op. 57 “Appassionata” 1. Allegro assai 2. Andante con moto 3. Allegro ma non troppo - Presto
All Piazzolla’s adaptations for Trio ensemble were made by José Bragato.
Our Mission
Mayo Performing Arts Center, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, presents a wide range of programs that entertain, enrich, and educate the diverse population of the region and enhance the economic vitality of Northern New Jersey. The 2015-2016 season is made possible, in part, by a grant from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as support received from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, F.M. Kirby Foundation and other numerous foundations, corporations and individuals. As a courtesy to the artists and for the uninterrupted enjoyment of your fellow patrons, please turn off all cell phones, pagers, beepers and other electronic devices. Please unwrap any lozenges before the performance begins. No portion of this performance may be photographed, recorded, filmed, taped, broadcast or mechanically reproduced without the written consent of the Artist and/or the Presenter. Mayo Performing Arts Center is not responsible for lost or stolen items.
Sebastian Forster and Friends Present: Tangata Trio About the works, first part: The works we selected tonight catch that typically Piazzollan combination of the sweet and the seamy. The Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas, also known as the Estaciones Porteñas or The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, are a set of four tango compositions written by Ástor Piazzolla, which were originally conceived and treated as different compositions rather than one suite, although Piazzolla performed them together from time to time. The pieces were scored for his quintet of violin (viola), piano, electric guitar, double bass and bandoneón. By giving the adjective porteño, referring to those born in Buenos Aires, the Argentine capital city, Piazzolla gives an impression of the four seasons in Buenos Aires. Invierno, 1970- Verano, 1965. Named by Piazzolla himself, the composition of Escualo was based on the composer’s own experiences in catching a shark while fishing. Some of the works that in Piazzolla have the form of Suites or Series, have been gradually assembled and were not deliberately written all together. For example : Las Estaciones Porteñas (Verano Porteño, Invierno Porteño, Otoño Porteño y Primavera Porteña). In the case of La Muerte del Angel (or Muerte del Angel : it is the same), 1962; it seems to be an integral part of a series of themes such as: Milonga del Angel (1965), Tango del Angel (1957), Resurreción del Angel (1965), and Introduccion al Angel (1962). As we can see these themes were composed in different years, but it is only related as a composition to Introducción al Angel. These two titles were written for a theater play by Alberto Rodríguez Muñoz (argentine playwright), although the original theme (Muerte del Angel) which gave the title to this play was not used. Talking about Muerte del Angel, it is composed as a Fugue in 4 voices (Subject, Response, Countersubject, Episode, Estrecho y Pedal). Although Piazzolla didn’t worry about accomplishing the academic and rigorous steps of the Fugue, except in some movements of symphonic works, nevertheless it shows the ease with which he manages this musical form. Muerte del Angel has a style close to the first fugues developed by Piazzolla (In that time the most famous was Calambre, 1960). Anyway, farther on of the technical references and besides the exceptional and fascinating violence that Piazzolla gets in Muerte del Angel, it is necessary to point out the natural conciliation that Piazzolla obtains between the tango and that musical form typically baroque. In other works or as in the famous Fuga y Misterio, we can see once again, how naturally Piazzolla takes advantage of the european traditions and submit them to the pulse of his style. It is without doubt a common characteristic we can find in the works
of Piazzolla. Adiós Nonino (Farewell, Nonino in Spanish) is a composition by tango Argentine composer Ástor Piazzolla, written in October 1959 while in New York, in memory of his father, Vicente “Nonino” Piazzolla, a few days after his father’s death. In 1959, Piazzolla was on a tour of Central America when, during a presentation in Puerto Rico with Juan Carlos Copes and Maria Nieves Rego, he received news of the death of his father, Vicente Piazzolla, nicknamed Nonino, due to a bicycle accident in his hometown of Mar del Plata. This news, coupled with the tour’s failure, economic problems and homesickness, led Piazzolla to depression. After returning to his family’s temporary residence in New York on October 1959 he composed this wonderful work in tribute to his father, based on “Nonino”, another tango Astor had composed five years earlier in Paris, also dedicated to Vicente Piazzolla. Dad asked us to leave him alone for a few hours. We went into the kitchen. First there was absolute silence. After a while, we heard dad playing the bandoneon. It was a very sad, terribly sad melody. He was composing “Adiós Nonino”. — Daniel Piazzolla, his son. Astor, Diana Piazzolla, 1986. Forged a distinctive style that came to be known as nuevo tango. His music nearly always began with the seductive rhythm of the dance, but incorporated elements of jazz, rock, and modernist art music. Oblivion was composed in 1982. The melancholy principal melody is heard above a simple bell-like background. There is a lush middle section before the main idea returns. Second part: Funérailles is subtitled “October 1849”. This has often been interpreted as a sort of funeral speech for Liszt’s friend Frédéric Chopin, who died on 17 October 1849, and also due to fact that the piece’s left-hand octaves are closely related to the central section of Chopin’s Heroic Polonaise in A-flat major, Op. 53, written seven years earlier. However, Liszt said that it was not written with Chopin in mind, but was instead meant as a tribute to three of his friends who died in the failed Hungarian uprising against Habsburg rule in 1848. They were Prince Felix Lichnowsky, Count László Telekiand the Hungarian Prime Minister, Count Lajos Batthyány. Batthyány was executed on 6 October 1849 for his part in the uprising. Chopin’s Ballade in G minor, Op. 23, composed in 1831 during the composer’s early years in Vienna, was a reflection of his loneliness in the city far away from his home in Poland, where the November Uprising, a war against the Russian Empire’s oppression of his people, was
happening. Once finished, it wasn’t published until his move to Paris, where he dedicated it to Baron Nathaniel von Stockhausen, the Hanoverian ambassador to France. The Scherzo No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 31 is a scherzo by Frédéric Chopin. The work was composed and published in 1837, and was dedicated to Countess Adèle Fürstenstein. Schumann compared this scherzo to a Byronic poem, “so overflowing with tenderness, boldness, love and contempt.” According to Wilhelm von Lenz, a pupil of Chopin, the composer said that the renowned sotto voce opening was a question and the second phrase the answer: Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Op. 57 (colloquially known as the Appassionata, meaning “passionate” in Italian) is among the three famous piano sonatas of his middle period (the others being the Waldstein, Op. 53and Les Adieux, Op. 81a); it was composed during 1804 and 1805, and perhaps 1806, and was dedicated to Count Franz von Brunswick. The first edition was published in February 1807 in Vienna. Unlike the early Sonata No. 8, Pathétique, the Appassionata was not named during the composer’s lifetime, but was so labeled in 1838 by the publisher of a four-hand arrangement of the work. One of his greatest and most technically challenging piano sonatas, the Appassionata was considered by Beethoven to be his most tempestuous piano sonata until the twenty-ninth piano sonata (known as the Hammerklavier). 1803 was the year Beethoven came to grips with the irreversibility of his progressively deteriorating hearing. Sebastián Forster, piano Born in Buenos Aires in 1975, Sebastián Forster has touched audiences and reached the souls of those lucky to hear him play live, lifting the musical experience to new levels of emotional engagement. “I have had several most welcome opportunities to hear Mr. Foster play, and these experiences have been almost rhapsodic - I have seldom been as deeply moved and impressed by a young musical artist’s passion and skill - He is a true genius whose musical talent is matched by an energizing charisma that I’m convinced will make him increasingly popular and influential among audiences”. - Harold Holzer (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC) Sebastián made his international professional debut on April 28th, 1997, in Amsterdam, with the Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra performing Mozart’s piano Concerto #23, which was recorded live on BMG’s prestige Victor Red Seal label. Since then, his international career includes tours as a soloist and recordings performing with the:
Delaware Symphony Orchestra; Stuttgart Philharmonic; Netherlands Symphony Orchestra; Berlin Symphonic Orchestra; Budapest Concert Orchestra (MAV); Linz Brucker Orchestra; Philharmonic Orchestra of Buenos Aires; Radio State Ukrainian Orchestra; National Symphony Orchestra of Argentina, etc. Between others, touring the U.S.A., Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Hungary, Ukraine, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and the Czezh Republic, among other countries. “His mastery of technique is first rate. His knowledge of the major works of the classics, and his professional repertoire is of the highest caliber. What puts him head and shoulders above many other pianists, however, is his expressiveness and originality of emotion with which he performs piano pieces of the classical vein. His performances of certain concertos by Mozart and Beethoven are some of the finest of these works that have ever been recorded. His ability to convey the most subtle of nuances in these pieces is what separates him from the merely good pianist performing today. The originality of his interpretation put him in an internationally select class” - Mr. Tamal Gal, Music Director and Conductor of MAV Symphony Orchestra, and Professor at Liszt Music Academy. Performing publicly since the age of ten, Sebastián studied with Maestro Aldo Antognazzi, a former pupil of Arturo Benedetti Michelangelli, who was a descendant of Franz Liszt. He regularly performed at the world-famous Concertgebouw Hall. At “Sala Verdi” in Milan (Italy), he gave a solo recital which included the works of Liszt, Mozart and Prokofiev. Antonio Mormone, President and Artistic Director of the “Fondazione La Società Di Concerti” and organizer of the event, said: “he is one of a handful of truly great pianists today. His touch is commanding but subtle at the same time. He can express the most adventuresome and bold statements, but he is also capable of performing the most intricate and delicate passages in classical music. For example, in a concert he gave here at our hall, his work ranged from the jagged and wild rhythms of Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz, to the staid, stately and majestic tones of Prokofiev Sonata n.7. He played flawlessly.”. His extraordinary emotional intelligence and “highest level of musicianship” ... not only make him “flawless in technique, sense of rhythm and tempo, but most significantly, his originality in interpretation is absolutely wonderful” - (S.Spreng, Miami Herald) but has allowed him as well to shine high with many different genres, and specially when performing and breathing the music of his beloved Godfather, with whom he spent summer holidays in Punta del Este, the
extraordinary and revolutionary Astor Piazzolla. Sebastián is the founding member of the “Astor Piazzolla Foundation Trio”, with which he toured Belgium, The Netherlands, U.S.A. and Argentina, and recorded the “Nácar Concerto” with the Argentinian Mayo Chamber Orchestra. Astor was of great influence in his career and beginnings, from helping him choosing his first piano at a very early age, to empowering his talents with guidance and nurturing. Tonight, he presents his new “Tangata” trio, blessed by Laura E. Piazzolla, widow of the composer. Beethoven and Piazzolla live inside Sebastián with grand mastery and passion, as well as his extraordinary educational activity with the goal of bringing the musical universe of children out, teaching them, at an early age, the unlimited possibilities of self-expression through music. He is Faculty at the Piano School of New York City since 2005. In 2009 Sebastián Forster ventured into accomplishing a lifetime-legacy major project of immense proportions: the recording of The 32 Complete Beethoven Piano sonatas, completed by 2012. Sebastián is a true musician, he breathes and experiences every single emotion, of true love, drama, passion, desperation, beauty and darkness. Living music with every key stroke is an experience of monumental inner impact, only at reach for the daring soul and the truly talented soloist. This is a great opportunity to hear him, getting lost in the world of invigorating ideas and emotional virtuosity that has made Sebastián Forster one of the outstanding interpreters of the classical repertoire currently working on the world stage today. Mr. Forster lives in Morristown, New Jersey, since 2012. He is married to Jennifer Hauser and they raise 3 children together. About the artists, Trio Tangata, the officlal Trio from the Astor Piazzolla Foundation: Sara Saint’Ambrogio, Cello is an American cellist best known as a member of the Eroica Trio. She was born in Boston and began her studies with her father, John Sant’Ambrogio, principal cellist with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra. She was invited to study with David Soyer at the Curtis Institute of Music at the age of 16. Three years later, Leonard Rose invited her to study at the Juilliard School of Music. She immediately won the Juilliard SchumannConcerto competition and was featured in a Lincoln Center concert. Her career began when she won the bronze medal at the 1986 International Tchaikovsky Violoncello Competition in Moscowand was invited to play at Carnegie Hall. This recital aired nationally on CBS.
Since then she has appeared as a soloist with the Atlanta, Boston Pops, Chicago, Dallas, Moscow State Philharmonic, Century Orchestra Osaka, St. Louis, San Francisco,Vienna Symphony, Royal Philharmonic and Seattle orchestras, in addition to touring and recording 9 CDs with the Eroica Trio on EMI and 4 solo CDs for Sebastian Records. She has performed at many festivals including Aspen, Marlboro, Ravinia, Great Mountain, Mostly Mozart and Hollywood Bowl and was featured in 7 sold out concerts of the Bach Cello Suites with the New York City Ballet. She has performed with singers STING, Rufus Wainwright and Angela McCluskey and has recorded with rock group VAST. Tracks from her solo CD Dreaming were featured on the soundtracks for the documentary “Jones Beach Boys”, the HBO documentary “A Matter of Taste,” and “Kiss The Water.” She won a Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance for Bernstein Arias and Barcarolles on Koch Records. The Eroica Trio’s first CD won NPR’s Best Debut Recording and their second CD was nominated for 2 Grammy Awards. The Eroica Trio won the Naumburg Competition in 1991. She has premiered works by several contemporary composers, including the double concerto Romeo and Juliet by Daron Hagen, with flutist Jeffrey Khaner and the Albany Symphony Orchestra. She has premiered new triple concertos by American composers Kevin Kaska and Jay Greenberg.Trios by Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Kevin Puts and Zhou Tian. Galina Zhdanova, violin A native of Russia, violinist Galina Zhdanova began studying the violin at the age of five. At the age of fifteen she won the First Prize at the International Violin Competition in Tokyo, Japan. Since then she has participated in numerous music festivals and concerts all around the world. In 2004 Ms. Zhdanova was appointed Assistant Concertmaster of the Bayreuth Festival Youth Symphony Orchestra under conductors Peter Gulke and Joseph Schwab. A graduate of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where she studied with a renowned violinist Mikhail Gantvarg, she has also studied with Daniel and Todd Phillips (of the Orion Quartet) and Grigory Kalinovsky. Ms. Zhdanova is a versatile musician, at home in worlds of classical, contemporary, and popular music. Her performances have taken her from Bargemusic and Carnegie Hall to Madison Square Garden, the Boardwalk Theater in Atlantic City, the IZOD Arena, and television appearances on Good Morning America, The View, and the Rachel Ray Show. Ms. Zhdanova has played with Josh Groban, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, Sarah Brightman, David Byrne (Talking Heads), and The Trans-Siberian Orchestra. She frequently performs with the Key West Symphony and Symphony in C. Ms. Zhdanova plays on an 18th century Italian violin.