About the Music

John Morris Russell, Music Director and Conductor

Robert and Margaret Gallagher Memorial Chair

2021-2022 40th Season Sunday, January 9, 2022 • 4:00 pm Monday, January 10, 2022 • 7:30 pm John Morris Russell, Conductor Kevin Chen, Piano, 2020 Hilton Head International Piano Competition Winner

PROGRAM

MARY WATKINS Soul of Remembrance from Five Movements in Color

CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 22 Andante sostenuto Allegro scherzando Presto

Kevin Chen, Piano

INTERMISSION

PIOTR I. TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64 Andante - Allegro con anima Andante cantabile con alcuna licenza Valse: Allegro moderato Finale: Andante maestoso - Allegro vivace

KEVIN CHEN

KEVIN CHEN

PIANO

Tchaikovsky’s Fifth January 9 & 10, 2022

“Kevin is also an avid composer of over 100 works including four full symphonies for orchestra and a piano concerto.” From his earliest years in the musical world, as both pianist and composer, Kevin Chen has received national recognition. At the age of eight, he received first place in the Canadian Music Competition. That same year, he was awarded First Class Honours with Distinction in his ARCT Performer’s Royal Conservatory of Music examination, the youngest ever in Canada to achieve this award. Also in 2013, Kevin was listed in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s “Top 30 Hot Canadian Classical Musicians Under 30.” In 2016, he was featured in Maclean’s magazine, in the issue dedicated to the achievements of “100 Remarkable Canadians.”

Kevin continues to achieve recognition internationally as well, winning multiple international competitions worldwide. In May 2019, he was a Laureate in the Astana Piano Passion Competition in Kazakhstan. In July 2019, Kevin won first place in the International Piano-e-Competition (Minneapolis, Minnesota) as well as two additional prizes for the best performance of a Schubert and a Russian work. In March 2020, Kevin was awarded first place in the Hilton Head International Piano Competition. In August 2020, he won first place in the Mozart International Piano Competition (Lugano, Switzerland) with the highest mark in both junior and senior categories. In September 2021, Kevin was awarded first prize in the prestigious Liszt International Piano Competition. At age 16, he is the youngest winner in history to receive this prize. Kevin is also an avid composer of over 100 works including four full symphonies for orchestra and a piano concerto. Many were commissioned and performed in concerts and five of his works have been published. Since his orchestral debut with the Abbotsford Youth Orchestra (British Columbia) at the age of seven, Kevin has performed concerts with many symphonies in various parts of Canada, including the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vancouver Island Symphony Orchestra, and the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra. Many of these performances featured Kevin’s own orchestral works. He also performed with the Astana Opera Symphony Orchestra (Kazakhstan), the Minnesota Orchestra, and the Hilton Head (South Carolina) Symphony Orchestra.

He has participated in numerous master classes with acclaimed pianists including Emanuel Ax, Alessio Bax, Katherine Chi, John Perry, Minsoo Sohn, and Roman Rabinovich.

Kevin is currently studying with Professor Marilyn Engle. In his spare time, he enjoys playing violin with his siblings, computer programming, and solving Rubik’s cubes.

ABOUT THE MUSIC

by Jonathan Aceto

“Soul of Remembrance” from Five Movements in Color

Mary D. Watkins (b. 1939)

Composer, arranger, producer and pianist, Mary Watkins has immersed herself in just about every aspect of the music world. Raised in Denver, she took piano lessons and won second prize in a local competition, which earned her a season ticket to the Pueblo Civic Symphony. All those concerts convinced Watkins that she wanted to be a composer and subsequently, she received her Bachelor of Music degree from Howard University in 1972. Later, she moved to Los Angeles and began working for the Olivia Records Collective, a business completely owned and operated by women. Her extensive background in jazz piano led her to adapt Tchaikovsky into The Nutcracker Sweetie for the San Francisco-based Dance Brigade. Watkins has even delved into opera, composing Queen Clara, about the founder of the American Red Cross; Dark River, about Fanny Lou Hamer, a civil rights leader who was one of the first African-Americans to register to vote in Mississippi, and most recently, Emmett Till: the Opera. Mary Watkins composed Five Movements in Color for the Camellia Orchestra in Sacramento in 1993. The work, written for Black History Month, is, in her own words, “a statement about the AfricanAmerican experience.” Speaking specifically about “Soul of Remembrance,” she said “I saw my own people in their long march to fully express themselves as fully human. It’s bittersweet and nostalgic, a song of sorrow and a song of hope.” It is a magnificent mix of a New Orleans funeral march and a soaring spiritual-like melody, moving inexorably to an unresolved ending.